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We know Mona Scott-Young for being the brains behind Love and Hip Hop and all the entertainment, and foolishness, that comes with the media franchise. But the TV producer who has her production company Monami, is branching out from following the lives of established and aspiring individuals in the music industry to document people with more serious, headline-making storylines.
In an interview with Deadline, Scott-Young shared that she has a docuseries in the works with prominent activist Tamika Mallory, is planning to remake, of all things, the film Shaka Zulu, and surprisingly, has a scripted drama in development that she’s doing with late NFL player and convicted murderer Aaron Hernandez’s fianceé, Shayanna Jenkins. The show will be based on Jenkins’s experiences.
“Everyone is familiar with Aaron and knows that horrific story of what happened with him, but for me as a woman I look at Shayanna, his significant other, the mother of his children, and I wonder what her life was like. Sleeping next to this man, her childhood sweetheart, and watching this change with him. How did that impact her and her family? That’s a very relatable perspective,” she said.
“We’re at the early stages of putting the project together but it’s one that we’re passionate and excited to tell because we just think it’s fascinating,” Scott-Young added. “She’s been open about sharing all the elements and details that you don’t know and that you haven’t seen in all of the documentaries and news pieces that have been done. So, there is a very special, unique, personal perspective that she can bring to this that no one else can.”
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According to the producer, the project will follow Jenkins’s perspective as her long-time love went from NFL star to convicted murderer, and the spiral their lives went down as that happened.
Hernandez was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2015 for the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd. He was a friend of the NFL star’s, and was notably dating Jenkins’s sister, Shaneah. He was sentenced to life in prison, but took his life in 2017. A study of his brain found that he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
In a recent Netflix documentary on Hernandez, Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez, a high school football teammate claimed they had a homosexual relationship. On top of that, it was alleged by family, including his mother, that the star had come out as gay to her. However, Jenkins, who has a daughter from that relationship, maintained that he never made any such admissions to her.
“I wish I had known how he felt, just so we could have talked about it,” she said the claims about his sexuality. “I wouldn’t have disowned him. I would have been supportive.”
Jenkins moved on, having a child in 2018 with fiancé Dino Guilmette (it’s unclear if she has since married him).
As far as the show with Scott-Young, if Jenkins is sharing some exclusive details, it just might be a must-watch. We would definitely be interested in learning more about what Jenkins dealt with and was part of as Hernandez became more violent years before the murder, since they were childhood sweethearts. We certainly would also be interested in knowing how her relationship with sister Shaneah fell apart soon after Lloyd’s death and her feelings about that now. Jenkins definitely has a captivating story, and Scott-Young knows how to tell one. Stay tuned.
