Ezra Edelman, director of a scrapped Netflix documentary focused on Prince, has shared his disappointment about the project being discarded.

In early-February, it was revealed that the late musician’s estate and Netflix have decided to shelve the project, to be replaced by “a new documentary featuring exclusive content from Prince’s archive.” As reported by The New York Times last November, the planned 9-hour documentary was set to make allegations of physical and emotional abuse inflicted by Prince. Edelman is perhaps best known for his 2016 documentary, “OJ: Made In America.”

Expressing his frustration on a new episode of podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out” was Edelman, as seen around the 14-minute mark of the video below. The filmmaker was approached by Netflix in 2019 to create the documentary. 

“It’s a joke. The estate, here’s the one thing they were allowed to do: Check the film for factual inaccuracies,” Edelman said. “Guess what? They came back with a 17-page document full of editorial issues — not factual issues. You think I have any interest in putting out a film that is factually inaccurate?”

When host Pablo S. Torre posed the question of “Who has the truth on their side?” Edelman suggested that the circumstances were more about “control.” 

“Again, this is reflective of Prince himself, who was notoriously one of the most famous control freaks in the history of artists,” Edelman continued. “The irony being that Prince was somebody who fought for artistic freedom, who didn’t want to be held down by Warner Bros., who he believed was stifling his output. And now, in this case — by the way, I’m not Prince, but I worked really hard making something, and now my art’s being stifled and thrown away.”

The director went on to accuse Netflix of being “afraid” to reveal Prince’s “humanity,” calling it “galling” to observe “the short-sightedness of a group of people whose interest is their own bottom line.”

As Sasha Weiss shared in her NYT report, the documentary, which included interviews with more than 70 people, included troubling alleged information about Prince, who died in 2016 at 57 years old from an accidental fentanyl overdose. Among the interviews were two women, one being the musician’s ex-girlfriend, Jill Jones, both claiming that they were physically assaulted by Prince.

“The lawyer who runs the estate essentially said he believed that this would do generational harm to Prince,” Edelman continued. “In essence, that the portrayal of Prince in this film — what people learn about him — would deter younger viewers and fans, potentially, from loving Prince. They would be turned off.”