Lifetime’s “Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B” Premieres Saturday

Photo credit: Christos Kalohoridis/Lifetime(NEW YORK) — Alexandra Shipp has the title role in the new Lifetime movie Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B, a project that does not have the support of the late R&B singer’s family.

Shipp says she understands their position. “They’ve had a lot of loss in their lives and I don’t blame them for not wanting to be a part of it,” she tells ABC News. “I think it can open up some wounds and stuff like that. I just hope that they get a chance to see it one day and they can see that this is a movie celebrating Aaliyah’s life.”

Shipp says she tried to reach out to them “but when people don’t wanna be found, they don’t want to be found.”

The film covers Aaliyah’s life from age 10 to her untimely death at 22 in a 2001 plane crash, and also touches on the singer’s controversial relationship with R. Kelly, who executive produced her debut album, Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number. “R. Kelly was such a huge pivotal role in her career. You know, he helped launch it,” says Shipp.

But the biopic, which is executive produced by Wendy Williams, also touches on their eyebrow-raising marriage in 1994 when Aaliyah was 15 and R. Kelly was 27.

“When it comes to her relationship with him, as any adult knows, you never know what goes on behind closed doors. So we don’t necessarily show that,” Shipp teases. “What we show is what we know. We know that they loved each other enough to get married. We know that he helped her career and that’s it.”

Because the family openly disapproved of the film, they didn’t release the rights to Aaliyah’s music. Still, Shipp rises to the challenge and sings all of the music in the biopic.

“I try and be as technical as I possibly can,” Shipp says of recreating Aaliyah’s hits. “So we would listen to the line over and over and over again and then I’d sing it. So even though it does sound like me because I’ll never sound like Aaliyah — I mean, Aaliyah is the only one who can sound like Aaliyah — I tried really hard to kind of match her tone…”

Shipp, who was only 10 years old when Aaliyah died, says she learned a lot about the singer while working on the film.

“I learned about Aaliyah’s ring that her grandmother gave her. It was her great-grandmother’s and her grandmother had it resized and gave it to her so that she could always have a piece of her with her and then she died a few years later,” she explains. “When I was filming that scene it was really emotional because my grandmother’s been sick and I love her so very much and I pray for her all the time. And so when I was doing that scene it just brought up emotion for me.”

Lifetime’s Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B, based on Christopher Farley’s bestselling biography Aaliyah: More Than a Woman, premieres Saturday at 8 p.m. Eastern time.

Follow @ABCNewsRadio
Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio