Wendy was the executive producer of this movie, along with her husband, and has talked about it MANY times during the first few years of her talk show and even discussed it before her radio show ended.
Wendy was the executive producer of this movie, along with her husband, and has talked about it MANY times during the first few years of her talk show and even discussed it before her radio show ended.
You executive produced the Aaliyah biopic for Lifetime, but years ago your story was supposed to come to screen. What happened?
My autobiography [2003's "Wendy's Got the Heat"] was the first book I wrote. My husband and I made the decision that we were going to turn it into a movie. Robin Givens played me. We funded it ourselves, which I would never wish on my worst enemy. We shot around Manhattan and told the story of a girl from Jersey, me, with a pretty big radio career and a lot of potholes. Being married, having a child, going through infidelity and miscarriage, heartache and drug abuse. A month after the movie wrapped in 2007 the phone rings and it was Debmar-Mercury. They had been streaming my radio show and were looking for the next big thing in daytime. Less than a year later I was on TV doing a six-week sneak peek in four cities.
So you paused the film for the show?
I was doing radio and TV at the same time. I made the decision to leave radio and take a chance. Our executive decision was to put [the biopic] on the shelf because if we passed that test then we're going to get a first season. And then when we got the first season we thought to keep it there because the bigger the show gets, the bigger the budget we'd have to make the film better.
Your profile has changed considerably, I imagine the film is a stronger sell now.
Yes. The way it ended was I got out of a Bentley and walked into a radio station with my headphones and my little swagger. Maybe the way it ends now is I get out of car service and I walk to a TV studio. Same girl, same story though.