As if the Lifetime-lent Aaliyah biopic that aired Saturday night didn’t ruffle enough feathers by itself, producer Wendy Williams’ response to the backlash didn’t exactly help.
Taking to her top-rated talk show this morning to scoff at naysayers who slammed the film’s casting and overall production, Williams was quoted saying:
“Everybody’s got an opinion. Whether you loved or hated it, you watched [because] it was the second highest rated movie on all of cable this year so far.”
At the time Wendy made the statements, no receipts had surfaced to substantiate her claim. This has since changed. Tuck in below to see how the movie not only a win for Wendy, but for Lifetime as well as it dominated television, but Nielsen Twitter ratings as well:
“Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B raked in an average 3.2 million viewers during its premiere telecast. That puts it as the No. 2 cable telepic of 2014, behind fellow Lifetime effort Flowers in the Attic.
The film was also a hit online. Nielsen Media’s mutable Twitter ratings put the pic at the top of its weekly chart, 997,000 tweets and a unique audience of 3.4 million.”
Bonus: Read our interview with the film’s star Alexandra Shipp by clicking here.