*Patti LaBelle’s team has expressed outrage over her portrayal in CNN’s documentary “Luther: Never Too Much,” which aired on New Year’s Day.
LaBelle, a close friend of the late the late singer, cared for him until his passing. For the CNN film, she provided an hour-long interview, however, her contribution was excluded after she declined to sign release forms when her request to review the final cut was denied. Instead, the documentary used a 2017 clip from Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, where LaBelle addressed rumors about Vandross’s sexuality.
Page Six reports that this, paired with comments from Vandross’s collaborator Richard Marx criticizing those who spoke about the singer’s private life, led to LaBelle being portrayed as someone who gossiped about her friend. Her camp reportedly feels this depiction is misleading.
When Pattie appeared on WWHL, Cohen asked 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,” she replied.
In CNN’s Luther film, Marx 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.”
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CNN’s “Luther: Never Too Much” documentary “chronicles the story of Vandross from his formative years in Harlem, appearing in the Apollo Theater house band and the first episodes of Sesame Street, through his ascendance to become the indisputable master of the love song,” per Deadline.
The documentary is told through archival clips of Vandross’ voice, alongside interviews with Mariah Carey, Dionne Warwick, Valerie Simpson, and Roberta Flack.
“Using a wealth of rarely seen archives, Luther tells his own story with assistance from his closest friends and musical collaborators including Mariah Carey, Dionne Warwick, Valerie Simpson and Roberta Flack,” the trailer’s description states. “The film relives the many stunning moments of Luther’s musical career while exploring his personal life, health struggles, and a lifelong battle to earn the respect his music deserved.”
“Questions about my sexuality, well I suppose, will just always be questions,” Vandross said in the doc.
“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.”
According to Page Six, insiders believes the film’s producers set LaBelle up and “used her as a villain when she supported him up to the very end,” they said. The outlet writes: 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,” said insiders about the time Patti spent with Luther after he suffered a stroke.
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