Dee Barnes' recent op-ed in Gawker revisited her 1991 assault at the hands of Dr. Dre and raised questions about the incident's omission from "Straight Outta Compton." It was a reminder that, however popularly and critically acclaimed, the film is a subjective history and does not present a comprehensive account of N.W.A.'s rise to stardom.
The LA Times obtained a copy of the original script that included the assault scene in its pages. Here is their description:
In the scene, the fictional Dre, “eyes glazed, drunk, with an edge of nastiness, contempt” (per noted from the script) spots Barnes at the party and approaches her.
“Saw that [expletive] you did with Cube. Really had you under his spell, huh? Ate up everything he said. Let him diss us. Sell us out.”
“I just let him tell his story,” Barnes’ character retorts, “That’s what I do. It’s my job.”
“I thought we were cool, you and me,” Dre fires back. “But you don’t give a [expletive]. You just wanna laugh at N.W.A, make us all look like fools.”
The conversation escalates, Barnes throws her drink in Dre’s face before he attacks her “flinging her around like a rag-doll, while she screams, cries, begs for him to stop.”
Director F. Gary Gray addressed the omission in an interview last week. He emphasized that, with an 150-page script and an original editor's cut running three and half hours long, there was no room for "side stories" that didn't serve the film's central narrative.
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