ONE WOMAN, THREE MURDERS

What happens ‘When Love Kills’

A

CTRESS Tasha Smith (“Empire,” “Jumping the Broom”) is donning her director’s cap for “When Love Kills: The Falicia Blakely Story.”

The TV One movie recounts how, in 2002, 19-year-old stripper Falicia Blakely — caught in a web of drugs, sex and violence — killed three men in two days along with accomplice Ameshia Ervin. (Her name is changed to Pumpkin in the movie; she’s played by Tiffany Black.]

Blakely, 33, is now serving life without parole in a Georgia prison — but Smith says “When Love Kills” isn’t just another true-crime story.

“There are women in our industry who are in politics, and in the corporate world, who are vulnerable,” she says. “They may not necessarily commit crimes against others, but they may commit crimes against themselves, because they have allowed themselves to get caught up in very abusive relationships out of their need to be loved. And that makes them prey for predators.”

“When Love Kills” tells how Blakely (hip hop star Niatia “Lil Mama” Kirkland) was a teen mom with an unstable upbringing who, at the age of 16, became a dancer at a strip club — where she fell under the spell of a local pimp named Dino (Lance Gross) and eventually turned to a life of crime.

“Let’s look at the humanity of this person,” says Smith. “Yes, she committed a crime based on her love for Dino. But this is also about a woman who was really vulnerable — and really in love.”

On Aug. 15, 2002, Blakely and Ervin robbed and killed two men — Claudell Christmas and Raymond Goodwin — and, the next day, killed Lemetrius Twitty, 29, after picking him up in a club. They confessed to all three murders. Ervin is serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole.

Smith says she was drawn to making the movie in order to examine how a woman could commit crimes, not only against other people, but against herself.

“Art is important because sometimes you have to see the state of a culture or an experience,” she says. “Through filmmaking we get to deliver a message ... Some people may watch [the movie] and say, ‘Wow I never want to be a Falicia. Let me be careful to take care of myself and be as healthy as I can so that I can acknowledge the kind of love I’m allowed to have.”

She says, “Lil Mama” Kirkland was not her first choice to star as Blakely.

“Lil Mama asked me, ‘Would you have cast me?’ and I told her, ‘Never.’ But she made me a believer,” she says. “I’m grateful because she kills it. If I was in power to make the decision [to hire Kirkland] ... I would have fought it. But ... she was perfect for the role.”

Smith does say, however, that she hired the clean-cut Gross (“Sleepy

Hollow”) to play Dino. “Lance was my pick. I sent him the script at the last minute,” she says. “I told him to do one thing when you come to set: ‘Just do whatever-the- hell I say when you come to work.’ ”

“When Love Kills: The Falicia Blakely Story” 9 p.m. Aug. 28 on TV One