Zendaya Stars As Aaliyah, As Lifetime Chases Tragic R&B Star Biopics
And three makes a trend: Lifetime announced today that Disney star Zendaya will play the late R&B star Aaliyah in a biopic about the singer, who died in a plane crash at age 22. Based on the bestseller Aaliyah: More Than A Woman by former Time magazine music editor Christopher Farley, Aaliyah: Princess Of R&B (wt), will be filmed this summer and premiere in the fall.
Related: Lifetime Sets Whitney Houston Biopic Directed By Angela Bassett
Three weeks ago, the network announced it had greenlighted a biopic on Whitney Houston, who died in 2012, at age 48, while prepping in the Beverly Hills Hilton hotel for a pre-Grammy party. Both Lifetime biopics about female R&B/pop singers who died young follow VH1’s October premiere of its gone-too-soon movie CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story, detailing the fatal blow to TLC caused by the sudden death of Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes at 30. That one clocked a hefty 4.5 million viewers in its unveiling.