TV Article Lifetime's Aaliyah movie was a hit despite backlash By James Hibberd James Hibberd James Hibberd is the former editor at large at Entertainment Weekly. He left EW in 2021. EW's editorial guidelines Published on November 17, 2014 08:05PM EST You might not have liked it very much. But Lifetime’s Aaliyah biopic delivered a pretty big audience, especially for a Saturday night. Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B had 3.2 million viewers and 1.7 million adults 18-49. That makes it the No. 2 TV movie of the year in the adult demo behind Lifetime’s own Flowers in the Attic, which aired back in January. (And it means Aaliyah out-delivered the Flowers sequel, Petals in the Wind, though not among total viewers.) Executive producer Wendy Williams reportedly responded to the scorn on her show: “I see my Aaliyah movie broke the Internet this weekend! Errbody got an opinion. Well, I must tell you, whether you loved or hate, you watched. It was the second-highest rated movie on all of cable this year so far.” The post-film documentary Beyond the Headlines: Aaliyah was also strong with 2.7 million viewers. Lifetime will repeat Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B tonight at 8 p.m., but lower your expectations: EW gave it a “C” grade, and Twitter users were rather harsh.