‘Straight Outta Compton’ has been in theaters nationwide for a week now and with the spotlight on Dr. Dre’s physical abuse towards Michel’le and journalist Dee Barnes, a few are wondering if these moments in Dre’s past were ever intended to be spoken of in the film.
Director F. Gary Gray has already spoken out on the reason Dee Barnes and Michel’le’s abuse wasn’t highlighted in the movie and the short version of his statement was, it wasn’t part of the NWA narrative and none of the characters’ personal lives were included.
According to screenwriter Jonathan Herman, the assault on Dee Barnes was included in the initial draft for the NWA film. Here’s a copy of that draft as reported by The LA Times.
In the scene, the fictional Dre, “eyes glazed, drunk, with an edge of nastiness, contempt” (per noted from the script) spots Barnes at the party and approaches her.
“Saw that [expletive] you did with Cube. Really had you under his spell, huh? Ate up everything he said. Let him diss us. Sell us out.”
“I just let him tell his story,” Barnes’ character retorts, “That’s what I do. It’s my job.”
“I thought we were cool, you and me,” Dre fires back. “But you don’t give a [expletive]. You just wanna laugh at N.W.A, make us all look like fools.”
The conversation escalates, Barnes throws her drink in Dre’s face before he attacks her “flinging her around like a rag-doll, while she screams, cries, begs for him to stop.”
This obviously didn’t make the film and according to F. Gary Gray, there will be a longer director’s cut of the film for DVD, but no word if this will be included either. What we do know is that Barnes has admitted that it shouldn’t be in the movie and she’s okay with that. Dre has also apologized for his actions in past interviews saying, “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.”
