There’s anger and heartbreak in Patti LaBelle’s camp after she was painted as “a villain” in a movie about one of her dearest friends, we hear.
LaBelle and Luther Vandross had been friends for decades and the “Lady Marmalade” singer was even close with his family, and helped to take care of Vandross “’til the end.”
But when CNN doc “Luther: Never Too Much” — which aired on New Year’s Day — was completed, LaBelle insiders were horrified to find that she’d been solely framed as one of the people who gossiped publicly about his sexuality, which he was notoriously private about.
LaBelle invited the documentary producers into her home and sat for an hour-long interview to share stories about her late friend, insiders tell Page Six.
But they edited out her interview because she refused to sign release forms when producers denied her request to see the final cut.
But sources told us it feels like they set the vocal legend up and “painted her as a villain” by including a 2017 clip of LaBelle confirming years-long rumors about Vandross’s sexuality during an appearance on “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.”
To add more insult to injury, the film sets up the clip with an itnerview from Vandross’ songwriting partner, Richard Marx, who says, “One of the things that really pissed me off is there are people who have talked about his personal life, people who he considered friends.”
In the clip, Cohen asks LaBelle if Vandross struggled with coming out publicly. “We talked about it… He did not want his mother to be [upset] — although she might have known — but, he wasn’t going to come out and say this to the world,” LaBelle replied.
They also included touching footage in the film of LaBelle performing with her peers at Vandross’ 2005 funeral.
The doc closed the romantic chapter on his life with an interview of Vandross in his own words. “Questions about my sexuality, well I suppose, will just always be questions,” he said.
“Let me tell you who I owe answers to: What I owe you is my music, my talent, my best effort… that’s all,” he continued. “I will neither deny or confirm that any such rumors about personal things like that are true or untrue. I won’t give the satisfaction of a denial because that is a submission of sort. I won’t even address it. I’ll just say, ‘Mind your f–king business.’ That’s my response to that.”
During a screening of the doc at the Tribeca Film Festival last year, the “WWHL” clip solicited boos from the crowd. Sources believes they set LaBelle up and “used her as a villain when she supported him up to the very end,” they said.
We’re told that even production insiders felt that LaBelle had been given a rough ride by the producers. “Some of the producers felt like it was reasonable for her to see [the final edit], but they were overruled,” we’re told, “And some of the producers were not comfortable including that [“WWHL”] clip of Patti.”
“They were very close. She would hire people to tend to him, take him food and look after his mother and aunt,” they added about the time she spent with him after he suffered a stroke.
Futhermore, said the first insider, producers left “her impact on his career out of the film.”
(Vandross founded the first Patti LaBelle fan club while he was in high school, and would often see her perform at the Apollo Theater).
We’re told LaBelle, who has been busy touring at 80, hasn’t seen the documentary yet.
Meanwhile, CNN, which announced in November they would be airing the doc on New Year’s Day, got backlash after going through with their planned programming amid a terrorist attack in New Orleans. Tom Sileo, a former copy editor at the network, blasted the cable news outlet’s decision as “insane.”
“So disrespectful to the victims & their families. Can’t believe I used to work there, but when I did, at least we cared about news,” he wrote on X, adding “no disrespect to [Vandross].”
CNN declined to comment. Reps for LaBelle and the Vandross estate did not get back to us about the documentary.
Read the full article here
