Alanis Morissette denounces HBO documentary Jagged

According to The Los Angeles Times, Alanis Morissette has decided to distance herself from the upcoming HBO documentary Jagged (which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival today), explaining that she was “lulled into a false sense of security” by the filmmakers and that their “salacious agenda” became clear when she saw an early cut of the documentary. Morissette says the film was made “during a very vulnerable time” in her life while she was dealing with postpartum depression and the COVID-19 lockdown, and it contains “implications and facts that are simply not true.” She says there is “beauty and some elements of accuracy” in Jagged, but she “ultimately won’t be supporting someone else’s reductive take on a story much too nuanced for them to ever grasp or tell.”

Jagged is directed by Alison Klayman (who previously made The Brink, the documentary about Steve Bannon), and while The LA Times doesn’t know what Morissette is specifically objecting to in the film, it does point out that The Washington Post recently reported that Jagged contains allegations from Morissette about sexual abuse she suffered as a teenager. The Post story says that Morissette doesn’t go into detail, but she says it took her “years in therapy” to realize she had been a victim. She also says that she tried telling “a few people” in the music industry but that it “fell on deaf ears” and would “usually be a stand-up, walk-out-of-the-room moment.” The implication seems to be that, perhaps, Jagged emphasizes that more than it does the 25th anniversary of Jagged Little Pill, but without a specific comment from Morissette or a rebuttal from Klayman or HBO, it’s impossible to say. Either way, Morissette will not be helping to promote the documentary and no longer feels that it’s a truthful reflection of her life or her story.