Iconic actress Ruby Dee is the narrator, hip-hop artist Mary J. Blige boldly takes on the role of Betty Shabazz and Angela Bassett takes on the role of Coretta Scott King in the made for tv film.
While the daughters of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King have spoken out against the biopic, stating that the portrayals of their mother’s weren’t quite accurate, it still makes for an entertaining movie.
Watch the full video of LifetimeTV’s ‘Betty & Coretta’ + read the family’s take on the movie below…
VIDEO: Betty & Coretta – Lifetime Movie
Betty Shabazz and Coretta Scott King?s daughters have spoken out against the film Betty & Coretta.
In a recent Washington Post article, Ilyasah Shabazz and Rev. Bernice King expressed frustrations over the Lifetime-produced film, mentioning that it?s full of inaccuracies and fabrications.
?My mother was not a weak, timid, insecure woman as portrayed,? Shabazz said.
?She was regal, compassionate, strong, loving, beautiful, resilient and highly educated. That is why the Delta Sigma Theta sororities named academies all across this country after her, so others could be inspired how to turn triumph into tragedy.
If only Lifetime had consulted us, the sisters, maybe this would be more than fiction. I am not pointing my finger solely at them, but it must be our responsibility to ensure history is properly documented.”
The King family is quoted in the same article as being deeply hurt by the film:
One of the basic objections was how the film suggested that Coretta Scott King accepted the accusations that her husband was unfaithful to her based on what was supposedly heard on a tape sent by the FBI to the King home. This was not the case, as the King family has said for years.
Betty & Coretta is based on the relationship between Betty Shabazz and Coretta Scott King after their husbands were murdered. The story centers how they moved on as single mothers united by a commitment to social justice.
Did Mary J. Blige & Angela Bassett play their roles accurately?