Aretha Franklin’s Son Already Hates Her Biopic, And It’s Not Even Out Yet

Jennifer Hudson is starring in the upcoming Aretha Franklin biopic due out later this year. Let me tell you, Aretha went out in a blaze of glory–and also questionable tax situation–and all that gloriousness will be included in her biopic, Respect. …Potentially. I’m not sure what the storyline will be in the movie from the teaser they released, and it seems the Franklin family do not either. Aretha’s youngest son, Kecalf Franklin, is slamming the movie on Facebook for going on without any input from the family. R-E-S-P-E-C-T? It seems that there is none!

The Detroit Free Press says that Kecalf is speaking out against Respect. In what I would call an angry Facebook post, he let the world know that the whole Franklin family–the “real” Franklin family, whatever that means–do not want this movie going on. It seems they were not consulted and have not been consulted.

This is apparently all a part of the battle over, you guessed it: money. Aretha’s niece, Sabrina Owens, is the current executor of Aretha’s estate and controls everything–such as biopic rights and raytaytay. So David Bennet, Aretha’s long-time attorney, says that:

“This is all about his attempts to become the personal representative of the estate.”

Aretha really messed that family up by writing conflicting wills, didn’t she? Back in August a judge got handwriting experts to start looking into the validity of the wills, and ordered Sabrina and Aretha’s four sons to start mediation to decide distribution of assets.

It  looks like things have gone really well in that judge-ordered negotiating, since this all-caps rant really reads: “Mediated”. Kecalf wrote:

At least they can take comfort in knowing that Aretha would have been cool with Jennifer Hudson hot off her acclaimed performance in Cats. Truth be told, this could have gone all the way south–at least they didn’t cast Julia Roberts.

Pic: YouTube