over the rainbow

Liza Minnelli Doesn’t Approve of Renée Zellweger’s Judy Garland Movie

“I do not approve nor sanction the upcoming film about Judy Garland in any way,” the star wrote on her official Facebook page—despite earlier reports that she was on board with the project.
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By Peter Kramer/NBC/NBC NewsWire/Getty Images.

Liza Minnelli, national treasure, would like to debunk a few things. First, she has never met Oscar-winning actress Renée Zellweger, who will be playing Judy Garland, Minnelli’s mother, in the upcoming biopic Judy. Second, she does’t approve of the aforementioned biopic in the least. Minnelli addressed these rumors in a Facebook post on Thursday, responding to a gossip story posted on Radar Online that claimed Minnelli has bonded with Zellweger over the movie. The post appears to have been taken down.

“I have never met nor spoken to Renee Zellweger . . .” Minnelli wrote on Facebook, linking to the article. “I don’t know how these stories get started, but I do not approve nor sanction the upcoming film about Judy Garland in any way. Any reports to the contrary are 100% Fiction.”

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Judy will be the first biopic to bring Garland’s life to the big screen. The film will focus mainly on the last year of the icon’s life, as Garland prepared for a series of sold-out shows in London in 1968. In the backdrop, she was battling with her management, sorting out a divorce, and coping with her longtime drug addiction. She fatally overdosed one year later in a rented home in London. Judy is being helmed by Rupert Goold, written by Tom Edge (The Crown), and will also star Jessie Buckley, Finn Wittrock, and Michael Gambon.

Though Minnelli collaborated with her mother, appearing on her namesake series The Judy Garland Show, she has yet to seek involvement in a biopic about Garland’s life. Her half sister, Lorna Luft, meanwhile, wrote the memoir Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir, which was adapted into the 2001 Emmy-winning miniseries Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, starring Tammy Blanchard as a Wizard of Oz-era Judy, and Judy Davis in her later life. Minnelli was portrayed by Marie Ward.

Representatives for Zellweger have not yet responded to Vanity Fair’s request for comment about Minnelli’s remarks.