Alanis Morissette Says New Documentary Jagged “Includes Implications and Facts That Are Simply Not True”

Jagged, a new documentary from Alison Klayman about Alanis Morissette, premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival this week. As first reported by The Washington Post, Morissette “appears to be unhappy with the movie for unspecified reasons” and will not be attending the film’s premiere.

Klayman told The Post: “Of course I wish Alanis could be there. It was a privilege to make this film and I’m really proud of it. Hopefully there will be other opportunities in the future for her to come to film events.”

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

When reached by Pitchfork, Alanis Morissette’s representative shared the following statement:

I agreed to participate in a piece about the celebration of Jagged Little Pill’s 25th anniversary, and was interviewed during a very vulnerable time (while in the midst of my third postpartum depression during lockdown). 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. This is when I knew our visions were in fact painfully diverged. This was not the story I agreed to tell. I sit here now experiencing the full impact of having trusted someone who did not warrant being trusted. I have chosen not to attend any event around this movie for two reasons: one is that I am on tour right now. The other is that, 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.

According to The Washington Post, in Jagged, Alanis Morissette says that she was statutorily raped at the age of 15. She reportedly says during the film, “It took me years in therapy to even admit there had been any kind of victimization on my part…. 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.”

As The Washington Post notes, the age of consent in Canada when Morissette was a teenager was 14 years old. As of 2008, the age of consent in Canada is 16.

Morissette has previously addressed statutory rape on her 2002 song “Hands Clean.” A 2002 article from The New York Times includes the following passage:

Though it has not ignited any noticeable controversy or attention, “Hands Clean” may be one of the most provocative singles on the radio. Some listeners, in fact, are interpreting it as a song about statutory rape or sexual exploitation.

“It could be categorized as that,” Ms. Morissette said, speaking by telephone on Monday. “But at the same time, I’m not one to really categorize. I’m the kind of person that will say ‘a person that I’ve been spending time with in a romantic way’ rather than saying ‘my boyfriend.’ So I’ll say ‘someone that I was romantically linked to at a time when I was emotionally not necessarily prepared for it,’ as opposed to qualifying it as like ‘statutory rape.’”

And, speaking with Self in 2019, Morissette said, “I was just talking about ‘Hands Clean’ yesterday and how some people know what that song’s about and other people just don’t know? Just singing along and I’m like… that’s the story of rape, basically.” Morissette repeated her assertion that “Hands Clean” is “a song about statutory rape” in a 2020 video interview with Pitchfork.

In addition, Morissette told The Times last year, “Almost every woman in the music industry has been assaulted, harassed, raped. It’s ubiquitous—more in music, even, than film. It’s just so normalized.”

If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual assault, we encourage you to reach out for support:

RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline
http://www.rainn.org 
1 800 656 HOPE (4673)

Crisis Text Line
http://www.facebook.com/crisistextline (chat support)
SMS: Text “HERE” to 741-741