Alanis Morissette thinks viewers oughta know where she stands regarding HBO’s upcoming documentary Jagged. Despite previously cooperating with the film, which details her rise and celebrates the 25th anniversary of her seminal album Jagged Little Pill, the artist has now denounced it.
In a statement provided to multiple outlets, Morissette said that she had agreed to participate in the doc and was interviewed for it “during a very vulnerable time,” while experiencing both postpartum depression and the pandemic. “I was lulled into a false sense of security and their salacious agenda became apparent immediately upon my seeing the first cut of the film,” Morissette said. “This is when I knew our visions were in fact painfully diverged. This was not the story I agreed to tell.”
Morissette’s misgivings about Jagged emerged around the time of its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this week. As reported by The Washington Post, Morissette was “unhappy with the movie for allegedly misrepresenting the truth” and said she would skip its premiere. Prior to Morissette’s Tuesday statement, Jagged director Alison Klayman told the Post, “Hopefully there will be other opportunities in the future for her to come to film events.”
However, Morissette made it clear in her statement that she has “chosen not to attend any event around this movie.” The Grammy winner then asserted that Jagged “includes implications and facts that are simply not true.” Morissette concluded, “While there is beauty and some elements of accuracy in this/my story to be sure—I ultimately won’t be supporting someone else’s reductive take on a story much too nuanced for them to ever grasp or tell.”
In an interview with Deadline, the director acknowledged her subject’s vulnerability in the filmmaking process. “It’s a really hard thing, I think, to see a movie made about yourself,” Klayman said. “I think she’s incredibly brave and the reaction when she saw it was that it was a really–she could feel all the work, all the nuance that went into it. And again, she gave so much of her time and so much of her effort into making this and I think that the movie really speaks for itself.” (Vanity Fair has reached out to reps for HBO and Klayman for comment.)
While it’s unclear which specific elements Morissette takes issue with, the doc reportedly delves into painful territory for the singer. According to The Washington Post, Morissette discloses her personal experience of statutory rape at age 15. She reportedly says during the film, “It took me years in therapy to even admit there had been any kind of victimization on my part…. I would always say I was consenting, and then I’d be reminded like ‘Hey, you were 15, you’re not consenting at 15.’ Now I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, they’re all pedophiles. It’s all statutory rape.” (As noted by the Post, the age of consent in Canada when Morissette was a teenager was 14 years old. As of 2008, Canada’s age of consent is 16.)
Morissette is currently performing on the Jagged Little Pill 25th anniversary tour and her stage show of the same name is set to return to Broadway on October 21. HBO’s Jagged documentary has yet to receive a release date.
— Unhappy Little Trees: The Dark Legacy of Bob Ross
— The True Story of a Hollywood Partnership Built and Destroyed by Money, Sex, and Celebrity
— Ted Lasso’s Roy Kent on Why the Show Isn’t “Warm and Fuzzy”
— Caftans, Goyard, and Elvis: Inside The White Lotus’s Costumes
— The Chair Is Like an Academic Game of Thrones
— The Best Movies and Shows Streaming on Netflix This Month
— Rachael Leigh Cook on Reclaiming She’s All That
— Watch Kristen Stewart Channel Princess Di in Spencer’s Official Trailer
— From the Archive: Jeffrey Epstein and Hollywood’s Omnipresent Publicist
— Sign up for the “HWD Daily” newsletter for must-read industry and awards coverage—plus a special weekly edition of “Awards Insider.”
