Bet You Didn’t Know: Secrets Behind The Making Of “Crooklyn”

Falling out with Poppa Lee

In the same interview, the LA Times spoke with both Spike and his father, Bill Lee. Just four years after Spike had his father score Mo’ Better Blues, neither man would speak about the other. Unsurprisingly, Spike wasn’t too quick to air out his family business for the media. But from the details in the story it seemed as if the riff could have stemmed from a couple of things. 1.) Bill Lee’s drug use and subsequently asking Spike for money, which he denied. Or 2.) Bill’s second marriage, to a white woman which occurred, as Spike said before “my mother [was] even cold in her grave.” The relationship was so strained that Spike’s dad didn’t know what the movie was about and his new wife claimed she “wasn’t a Spike Lee fan,” though she was wearing a Do The Right Thing sweatshirt, when she said it. Fortunately, judging from the picture above it would seem that the two reconciled or are at least on speaking terms these days.