As Page Six has revealed, Oprah Winfrey has paid the bosses of Apple TV+ a fortune to buy back the rights to a documentary about her life.
Apple announced with great fanfare in 2021 that Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald would direct the documentary about the talk show host turned media mogul.
However, sources told Page Six that conflicts arose between Macdonald, who worked with Winfrey’s longtime producer Lisa Erspamer on the project, and the 70-year-old billionaire after the film was completed and the movie has been on hold ever since.
“Kevin made the film, but Oprah didn’t like it and refused to make any changes. Oprah paid her fee back to Apple,” a well-informed Hollywood source tells us.
A spokesperson for Winfrey, who ended her content deal with Apple in September 2022, confirmed to Page Six: “When the Apple TV+ deal ended, Ms. Winfrey bought back the rights to her documentary series and has since decided to put the documentary’s release on hold.
“Ms. Winfrey believes that Lisa Erspamer and Kevin MacDonald are incredibly talented filmmakers and is grateful for the time and energy they put into the project.”
A source close to Winfrey’s camp insists that Macdonald did not refuse to make changes. Winfrey simply decided “it was not the right time to make a documentary” before taking the unusual step of buying back the film.
Representatives for MacDonald did not respond to a request for comment.
While industry sources speculate that Winfrey would have to pay millions to get the rights to the documentary back, a source close to the matter denies that the sum was in the seven figures.
Macdonald met Erspamer while they were working on the Whitney Houston biography “Whitney.”
Erspamer produced “The Oprah Winfrey Show” between 1999 and 2009 and is a longtime friend of the presenter.
A representative for Apple TV+ was not available for comment.
Broadcasting icon Winfrey directed “The Oprah Conversations” and teamed up with Prince Harry for the mental health special “The Me You Can’t See” for Apple TV+, as well as “Oprah’s Book Club,” available through Apple Books.
But none of it came anywhere close to the magnitude of her sensational CBS interview with Harry and his wife Meghan Markle in March 2020, in which the two spoke publicly for the first time just weeks after leaving the royal family.
Winfrey also shot “Adele One Night Only” and interviewed the British pop star for CBS. Both projects were produced by her company Harpo.
Deadline first revealed that Macdonald Winfrey herself would be filmed as a biographical documentary in a two-part series.
The Scotsman is known for his Oscar-winning film “One Day in September,” which deals with the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics.
He is also known for his hit films, including The Last King of Scotland and State of Play.
However, a quick look at his online projects shows that there is no Winfrey film on his list. Instead, he recently premiered his latest documentary, “One to One: John & Yoko,” about John Lennon and Yoko Ono, at the Venice Film Festival.
Winfrey’s last project with Apple was “Sidney,” a collaboration between Winfrey and Apple TV+ that focuses on the life of Sidney Poitier.
She was also set to collaborate with the streamer on “On the Record,” a documentary about a former music executive who accused Russell Simmons of sexual misconduct. Simmons was never charged with a crime and denied the sexual abuse allegations made against him.
Just 15 days before the film’s scheduled premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival in Utah, Winfrey dropped the documentary without much explanation, surprising filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering.
Winfrey’s documentary is not the first high-profile release to be put on hold. Netflix’s years-in-the-making Prince documentary is being “held hostage” over objections from the seven-time Grammy winner’s estate.
“Made in America” director Ezra Edelman spent four years working on the nine-hour series. But Puck reported that members of Prince’s estate were unhappy with the portrayal of the reclusive deceased musician and the documentary remained on hold.
Meanwhile, Winfrey announced this week that she had traveled to Graceland to record an interview with actress Riley Keough for a CBS special called “An Oprah Special: The Presleys – Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley” to promote the release of Keough’s book about her late mother, who tragically died last year.
