Alanis Morissette Blasts ‘Salacious Agenda’ of HBO Doc Featuring Her Account of Alleged Statutory Rape: ‘I Was Lulled into a False Sense of Security’

Rich Fury/Getty Images

Alanis Morissette has spoken out against the HBO’s new documentary about her life, criticizing the film as “reductive” and “salacious.”

Although Morissette sat down for interviews included in the documentary, titled Jagged, the Canadian singer announced Tuesday that she will not support the film because of how displeased she is with the final product.

“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,” she said of Alison Klayman’s documentary, which premiered Tuesday at the Toronto International Film Festival. “This is when I knew our visions were in fact painfully diverged. This was not the story I agreed to tell.”

Morissette said that she agreed to participate in the film because it was described as a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the release of her iconic album “Jagged Little Pill,” adding that she was interviewed “during a very vulnerable time” amid her “third postpartum depression during lockdown.”

“I sit here now experiencing the full impact of having trusted someone who did not warrant being trusted,” she continued. “Not unlike many ‘stories’ and unauthorized biographies out there over the years, this one includes implications and facts that are simply not true. 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.”

Although Morissette did not elaborate on which aspect of the film she took issue with, the Washington Post had previously reported that the singer opened up about being sexually exploited by others in the music industry.

While the Grammy winner did not name anyone in particular, she addressed past relationships she had with multiple men when she was just a teenager.

“It took me years in therapy to even admit there had been any kind of Victimization on my part,” Morissette reportedly says in the film. “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.”

“I did tell a few people and it kind of fell on deaf ears,” she adds. “It would usually be a stand-up, walk-out-of-the-room moment.”

While Klayman did not release a statement following Morissette’s Tuesday comments, she had previously lamented that the singer would be skipping the premiere.

“It’s a really hard thing, I think, to see a movie made about yourself,” Klayman said during an interview with Deadline. “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.”