CELEBRITY TRAGEDIES
Series focuses on stars whose lives were forever changed by murders
Geraldo Rivera has navigated the world of true crime reporting.
In fact, he was one of the early navigators of the genre.
“I’ve been fascinated with it my whole life,” he says.
Rivera is back on the air with his latest series, “Murder in the Family With Geraldo Rivera.”
The series will premiere at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3, on Albuquerquebased network REELZ.
The series has Rivera diving into some of the darkest hours in a celebrity’s life when they lose a family member to murder or had a family member commit the ultimate crime.
The hourlong episodes show the real stories behind the tragedies that befell Dylan McDermott, Kelsey Grammer, Donatella Versace, Woody Harrelson and Dave Navarro with a look at the shocking crime, the investigation, the trials and the aftermath that resulted from the life changing loss.
The series premiere tells the tragic tale of Academy-Award-winning actress and Grammy Awardwinning singer Jennifer Hudson.
In 2008, Hudson is stunned to learn that her mother, Darnell, and brother, Jason have been fatally shot in her family home. Her 7-year-old nephew, Julian, has been abducted.
Hudson rushes to her sister Julia’s side in Chicago. Both women think they know who may have committed these crimes, and it’s someone very close to the family.
“The fact that she may be celebrated and a big star doesn’t make her immune to this harsh reality,” Rivera says. “It happened to her, and she dealt with it with great strength and dignity.”
Rivera worked on each of the six episodes for months at a time.
He says the advantages to the stories he told is that the cases were resolved.
“I think people can watch with great confidence that we tell the entire story,” he says. “We spent many weeks working on each one. We had an excellent team. We had people on the ground on locations and going through court records and clips. There was rewriting and fact checking. These specials really tell the story of these people enduring the crimes.”
Rivera hopes the series will capture an audience and the series will run many seasons.
“I’m a battle-scarred veteran journalist that has seen it all,” he says. “I think there’s an expertise that I can lend to telling these types of stories.”
Rivera hopes to get back to New Mexico for either vacation or a project.
“I’ve enjoyed skiing in Taos many times,” he says. “It’s a beautiful area.”
Geraldo Rivera is the host of the new REELZ series “Murder in the Family With Geraldo Rivera.”