Exclusive | Oprah Winfrey buys back rights to her documentary made by Apple to prevent its release: Sources

Oprah Winfrey has paid the heads of Apple TV+ a hefty sum to buy back the rights to a documentary about her life, Page Six has revealed.

Apple announced with much fanfare that Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald would direct a 2021 documentary about the talk show host turned media mogul.

However, sources told Page Six that Macdonald, who worked closely with Winfrey’s longtime producer Lisa Erspamer on the project, had a confrontation with the 70-year-old billionaire after the film was completed, and it has since been put on hold.

A well-placed Hollywood source told us, “Kevin made the film, but Oprah didn’t like it and refused to make changes to it, and Oprah has returned her fee to Apple.”

A spokesperson for Winfrey — who ends her content deal with Apple in September 2022 — confirmed to Page Six, “As the Apple TV+ deal was expiring, Ms. Winfrey bought back the rights to her docu-series and has since decided to put the doc on hold.

“Ms. Winfrey believes that Lisa Erspamer and Kevin Macdonald are incredibly talented filmmakers and is grateful for the time and energy they have put into this project.”

A source in Winfrey’s camp insisted that Macdonald had not refused to make edits and that Winfrey had simply decided “it wasn’t the right time to make the documentary”, and then took the unusual step of buying it back.

Representatives for McDonald’s did not respond to a request for comment.

While industry sources estimated that Winfrey would have to pay millions of dollars to get the rights to the documentary back, a knowledgeable source denied that the amount was in seven figures.

Macdonald met Erspamer when they previously worked on the Whitney Houston biographical documentary “Whitney.”

Erspamer produced “The Oprah Winfrey Show” between 1999 and 2009 and is a longtime friend of the host.

A representative for Apple TV+ was unavailable for comment.

Broadcast icon Winfrey created “The Oprah Conversations” and teamed up with Prince Harry to create the mental health special “The Me You Can’t See” for Apple TV+, as well as “Oprah’s Book Club,” available through Apple Books.

But nothing was remotely on the level of the bombshell interview she did on CBS with Harry and his wife Meghan Markle in March 2020, when they spoke publicly for the first time just weeks after leaving the royal family.

Winfrey also produced “Adele One Night Only” and interviewed the British pop star for CBS. Both projects were produced through her company Harpo.

Deadline first revealed that Winfrey was getting a biographical documentary on Macdonald alongside a two-part series.

The Scotsman gained fame for making ‘One Day in September’, the story of the killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympic Games, which won an Academy Award.

He is also known for hits such as “The Last King of Scotland” and “State of Play.”

However, a quick look at her projects online shows that there are no Winfrey films listed on her list. Instead, she recently screened her latest documentary about John Lennon and Yoko Ono, “One to One: John & Yoko,” at the Venice Film Festival.

Winfrey’s last project with Apple was “Sidney,” a collaboration between Winfrey and Apple TV+ centered on the life of Sidney Poitier.

She was also set to collaborate with the streamer for “On the Record,” a documentary that focused on a former music executive who accused Russell Simmons of sexual misconduct. Simmons has never been charged with any crime and has denied the sexual abuse allegations leveled against him.

Just 15 days before the film was set to premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival in Utah, Winfrey released the documentary with very little explanation, leaving filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering perplexed.

Winfrey’s documentary is not the first high-profile release to be halted. Netflix’s years-in-the-making Prince documentary has been “held hostage” due to objections from the estate of the seven-time Grammy winner.

“Made in America” director Ezra Edelman worked on the nine-hour series for four years. But Puck reports that members of the Prince estate are unhappy with how the late musician has been portrayed and the documentary is still in limbo.

Meanwhile, Winfrey announced this week that she had visited Graceland to record an interview with actress Riley Keogh ahead of a CBS special called “An Oprah Special: The Presleys – Elvis, Lisa Marie & Riley,” where she was going to promote the release of a book Keogh wrote about her late mother, who tragically died last year.