Lifetime is wading into the guardianship debate by greenlighting a fictional movie with the working title The Bad Guardian.
Following the headlines and debate surrounding the guardianships of Wendy Williams and Britney Spears, the network has ordered a movie about a court-appointed guardianship gone wrong.
The Bad Guardian will star Melissa Joan Hart (Sabrina the Teenage Witch) and La La Anthony (La La’s Full Court Life) and “is inspired by countless true stories of individuals who have been put in the care of a guardian by the courts and raises the question — are these caretakers helpful or harmful?”
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The official (and a bit spoiler-filled) description: The Bad Guardian is “about one woman’s fight to save her father from the clutches of a corrupt and greedy court-appointed guardian. When Leigh’s (Melissa Joan Hart) father Jason (Eric Pierpoint) suffers a fall while she’s out of town, the courts assign Jason a guardian, Janet (La La Anthony). At first Janet seems to be a big help to Jason, but things quickly take a terrible turn. Janet is legally in charge of every aspect of Jason’s life, and doesn’t waste any time placing him in a nursing home, auctioning off his house, all worldly possessions, and using the excuse that the proceeds are needed for his care. As Leigh continues to challenge Janet’s efforts, the guardian ultimately uses her power to prevent the family from visiting. In Janet’s care, Jason’s health deteriorates, to the point that he needs a life saving treatment which Janet decides is too expensive. As the whistleblowers around Jason meet untimely ends, Leigh finds the strength to take down the guardian and the corrupt system that supports her.”
Lifetime also cited Diane Dimond, journalist and author We’re Here to Help – When Guardianship Goes Wrong, to point out that more than 2 million Americans are currently living under a guardian or conservatorship and its estimated that state courts confiscate over $50 billion from their wards each year and that 98 percent of people placed into state care, never get out. “There are zero federal laws to regulate the guardianship/conservatorship system,” she said.
Dimond recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter to explain the process of court-ordered guardianships following Lifetime’s release of the four-part documentary Where is Wendy Williams?, which centered around the former talk show host amid her health and alcoholism struggles. Two days before the series released, Williams’ team shared that in 2023, she was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
The eOne and Creature Films project filmed with Williams over roughly seven months, beginning after the June 2022 cancellation of her hit daytime talk show. They stopped filming Williams in April 2023, when she checked into an undisclosed facility where she supposedly remains today, largely cut off from the public and her family. Williams was placed under a court-appointed guardianship in May 2022, which the family cited in the documentary as a turning point to their access to her. The producers recently told THR, “If we had known that Wendy had dementia going into it, no one would’ve rolled a camera.”
The doc pulled in strong ratings for Lifetime, bringing in more viewers than the network’s recent docuseries The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard.
The Bad Guardian will air later this year and is written by Ashley Gable and directed by Claudia Myers and produced by Allegheny Image Factory with Jeffrey Tinnell and Robert Tinnell serving as producers; Elizabeth Stephen as executive producer.
