One can easily view from this film that Billie Holiday's life was nothing of glamor. Raped as a teen and her mother working as what appears to be a slave, Holiday moves to New York to be closer to her mother and works and lives cleaning at a whore house. As she ages, she becomes one of the nymphos herself. Tired of the lifestyle she leaves and lands a job across the street as a singer. Her career explodes and she takes off on the road with a band where she is exposed to various forms of racism and drugs. Once home after being awaken by the death of her mother, Holiday begins rehab where she is picked up by investigators and held for the illegal use of drugs. She cleans up from drugs, starts new only to land herself right back into it, ultimately causing her death at just 44.
While the life of Billie Holiday is sad, I land no sympathy for her after the days she left the whore house. From then on, everything was her decision. She chose to selfishly deal with the addiction of drugs and physically threatened to kill her eventual husband over the addiction. Apparent to the many loved ones surrounding her, Holiday suffered tremendously from this addiction and took for granted the ones supporting her. After being sober, she lands back into drugs only to bring her pianist, a close friend of hers which got her a spot singing to begin with, down with her and ultimately causing his death as well. Throughout the movie, she fell in her own self-pity only to take for granted the ones who lifted her up.
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