A new TV biopic will focus on an allegedly abusive relationship between Dr Dre and the singer Michel’le.
Next month, Lifetime will premiere Surviving Compton: Dre, Suge and Me, which follows the story of Michel’le, who sang on 1980s R&B hits such as No More Lies, and is the mother of one of Dr Dre’s sons. Michel’le is played by Lincoln Heights actor Rhyon Nicole Brown.
The biopic follows the 2015 NWA film Straight Outta Compton, which was criticised by the singer for ignoring “several of NWA’s own harsh realities”. Michel’le has claimed that the producer was physically abusive to her. The journalist Dee Barnes has also criticised the NWA biopic. “I was just a quiet girlfriend who got beat on and told to sit down and shut up,” Michel’le told VladTV last year.
This new film is told from Michel’le’s perspective and follows her career and relationship with Dr Dre, from their early studio sessions to the alleged physical abuse and dealing with motherhood. At one point, she is pictured with a black eye, while in another scene, the actor portraying Dre chokes her in front of collaborators in the studio.
While Dr Dre has never fully admitted to or addressed allegations of abuse that the film has raised, speaking with Rolling Stone in 2015 he described his regrets about his behaviour when younger: “I made some fucking horrible mistakes in my life. I was young, fucking stupid. I would say all the allegations aren’t true – some of them are. Those are some of the things that I would like to take back. It was really fucked up. But I paid for those mistakes, and there’s no way in hell that I will ever make another mistake like that again.”
