Despite being dead for over fifty years, Marilyn Monroe is still an iconic figure in American culture – so much so that she even made an appearance at the 2022 Met Gala.
This year, Kim Kardashian took to the red-carpet wearing Monroe’s iconic “Happy Birthday, Mr President” dress that the actress wore to serenade John F Kennedy all the way back in 1962, playing into a trend that has seen interest in the tragic star reach new highs.
With that in mind, now is the perfect time to get stuck into the new Netflix documentary, The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes.
The show, which dropped on April 27, takes a fresh look at the actress and model through previously-unheard interviews with those who knew her, and archival footage and photographs of Monroe herself.
It also delves into the mystery surrounding her infamous death via overdose in her Beverly Hills house in 1962. Though conspiracy theories have suggested that everybody from the CIA to Bobby Kennedy were responsible for it, the documentary ultimately debunks these.
The tapes themselves were collected by Anthony Summers, an Irish investigative journalist who spent years investigating Monroe’s death and interviewing people from her circle about when it happened – and indeed, the documentary promises to unearth new information about the star.
Fans have already been sharing their views on it. Pop star Boy George tweeted that he had “Just watched the Marilyn Monroe doc on @netflix and wow she was very special. Something about Monroe reminds me of Princess Diana!”
Other users also chimed in, with one writing: “This documentary about #MarilynMonroe on @netflix has left me feeling so sad and empty. A lost soul and misunderstood person used and abused by the powerful. She deserved better.”
The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe is available to watch now via Netflix – and if you’re not done finding out more about the life and times of this fascinating woman, then there’s always the upcoming biopic Blonde.
Starring Cuban actress Ana de Armas as Monroe, the biopic promises to tell “the story of how a childhood trauma shapes an adult who’s split between a public and a private self” and is out later this year.
