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Nina Simone’s Daughter Sticks Up For Zoe Saldana After Vicious Attacks

By Niki Cruz
Published on: 06:26 PST, Mar 4, 2016

In a surprising turn of events, Nina Simone’s daughter, Simone Kelly, is stepping up to defend actress Zoe Saldana amid vicious attacks people have directed at Saldana with the impending release of the film Nina. Although Simone was originally against Zoe embodying the role of her mother, she’s now taken a stance in the light of these attacks against Saldana’s character.

This is interesting because Nina Simone’s estate has egged on the hate against Zoe Saldana via Twitter by retweeting negative comments about Saldana’s portrayal. That said, it’s been discovered that Simone Kelly doesn’t run her mother’s official Twitter so she’s not in control of what the estate has tweeted at Zoe.

Instead, the 53-year-old singer has decided to keep the peace. In an interview with Time magazine, she said the following.

“It’s unfortunate that Zoe Saldana is being attacked so viciously when she is someone who is part of a larger picture,. It’s clear she brought her best to this project, but unfortunately she’s being attacked when she’s not responsible for any of the writing or the lies.”

According to Nina Simone’s daughter, the film, which is directed by Cynthia Mort, is still up for criticism. The film’s plot revolves around Nina’s relationship with her manager Clifton Henderson. Nina’s daughter insists that it’s a complete fabrication.

“The movie is about a relationship between my mother and Clifton that never took place. They never had an amorous relationship.”

Simone continued, “The project has been tainted from the very beginning. Clearly, it is not the truth about my mother’s life and everyone now knows that. This is not how you want your loved ones remembered.”

The controversy ramped up when Zoe Saldana posted a quote by Nina Simone in celebration of the trailer and poster dropping. Then, Nina Simone’s estate tweeted back with a rather cut throat response to the actress, who was trying to pay homage.

The estate continued to send tweets out about the Dominican actress embodying the late Nina Simone.

Many believe that since Saldana has European features, and is significantly lighter than the late singer, that she shouldn’t have been picked to play her, especially considering Simone often sang about the racism she experienced due to her dominant African American features. To add insult to injury, Saldana was seen on set in what appeared to be black face, and wearing prosthetics to capture Simone’s distinct look.

Saldana has received criticism about the role since it was announced she was set to play the famed Jazz singer in 2012. While she has remained relatively quiet about the hurtful backlash, the Avatar actress did open up to HipHollywood about the comments.

“I guess what kept me from being hurt by the negative comments was that I’m doing it for my sistas and my brothas and I don’t care who tells me I’m not this or I’m not that, I know who I am and I know what Nina Simone means to me.”

The last time fans heard from Nina Simone’s daughter she said she had actress Kimberly Elise in mind to play her mother, even though she wasn’t involved with the production. How to Get Away With Murder’s Viola Davis was also thrown into the mix of actresses people wanted to see portray the late singer.

Tell us! Do you think Zoe Saldana is receiving unnecessary treatment for taking on the role of Nina Simone?

[Photo by Monty Fresco/Evening Standard/Getty Images] & [Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images]

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