This photo collage captures Cindy Breakspeare with reggae legend Bob Marley and son Damian Marley.
When Bob Marley’s biopic One Love was released last year, the film sparked questions about whether the story accurately reflected the late reggae icon’s life. The questions mostly stemmed from the absence of the Cindy Breakspeare storyline, which was a feature heavily spotlighted during the singer’s life.
More than a year after the film’s release, Breakspeare has broken her silence on the film’s representation of her (or the lack thereof) by stating she believes she became a “nameless, voiceless ghost” in the film.
“I think I ended up being a nameless, voiceless ghost. I’m not sure that Bob’s single-mindedness of purpose and his edginess, that sharp edge that his character had, was captured,” she shared in a television interview over the weekend. “I think all you really had to do was tell the truth. That’s all you really had to do, and you would have had a great movie, and sadly, it was not critically acclaimed as everybody knows. Anuh me say so, it was not critically acclaimed.”
Reflecting on the space she occupied in the film as opposed to that which she occupied in the singer’s life, the former Miss World said she felt the film was a disservice to her and the role she played in Marley’s life story.
“I was in a relationship with Bob for six years at the end of his life,” she said, also indicating that the movie also failed to adequately acknowledge several key players in the singer’s life. “I wasn’t the only one, I think, who felt hard done by it (the film). There were other people in the story who were cut out at the last minute, Peter Tosh being one of them. I don’t think we saw much of Skill (Alan Cole), who we just lost, so it kind of was condensed to a particular product, and I think there were many others who felt hard done by at the end of it.”
“Perhaps they (the movie’s creative directors) felt that of all the women who had outside children with Bob, I actually should probably be grateful that I got a look in any at all,” she continued, saying she was represented about three times during the movie. “But the representation was nothing compared to the actual relationship that we shared…Bob’s legacy has been part of the fabric of my life.”
Breakspeare’s relationship with the late reggae legend is no secret. In fact, the former beauty queen has been the subject of harsh criticism over the years for becoming involved with a married man. But as Breakspeare tells it, she has no regrets.
“I did not pursue Bob Marley, he pursued,” she shared, outlining that Marley himself revealed in interviews that he was not married and did not subscribe to the “western ways of life”.
“I did come to know that he was, in fact, legally married. I think it was his mom that probably told me, but by then there was Damian and there was no turning back,” Breakspeare continued in her candid TV interview. “I couldn’t send him (her son) back, so what are you going to do? Maybe I was just more comfortable ignoring the truth, deluding myself, you know how it is. Sometimes we ignore what we don’t want to face, what we don’t want to deal with.”
She then admitted that the story of her and Bob and the dynamics of their relationship is “ancient history”. Still, she would be more satisfied if said history were not altered.
“In my world, I don’t want anybody trying to change history; it was what it was…I don’t have fingers, toes or hair on my head to count the number of interviews and films that I have been in about Bob and who he was and what he was all about,” she shared. “And I have never, ever, not once in all these years, solicited any of those journalists or filmmakers they always found me, sought me out and insisted that they want to speak with me, and so I know it’s not my imagination that I had a valid role to play (in Marley’s story).”
Breakspeare went on to share that as a beauty queen from society’s upper class, she has been the subject of backlash for much of her life. She shared that from the moment her relationship with a Rastaman became public, she has been the subject of harsh criticism. But having a front row seat to the megastar her son Damian Marley has turned out to be, Breakspeare is adamant that when all is said and done, she wouldn’t change a thing.
“The rest of the world? I don’t think they were horrified; here was a rockstar and a beauty queen, what else is new,” she questioned. “When I look at the artiste my son has become today, I wouldn’t change anything.”