Beautiful Lie is a feature-length documentary that was used to pitch a scripted series to Amazon Studios about the life of Anthony/Michele Bettencourt:

"Despite the sensitive nature of some of the raw material, Anthony’s instructions to Director Joe Loverro and myself were not to hold back, don’t spare anything, make the best movie possible!  I took the instructions seriously and we worked hard to craft a film that might shock, certainly be controverisal, but also succeed at festivals and the marketplace. 

I’m proud of the movie we made, including the scene shown here.

But when we finally screened the first cut for Anthony, who by that time had lost her CEO position and become Michele, she got cold feet. Her lawyer was at that initial screening, and immediately insisted that several scenes be removed to avoid legal trouble for Michele. From there the movie continued to be watered down.

I didn’t take that real well unfortunately, which made the process tough for Joe. But in the end, Joe was right - I had to accept that Michele had paid for her film and what happened to it was up to her. Beautiful Lie had almost no exposure at film festivals and would not be released. At first Michele screened it only at occasional speaking engagements to raise corporate awareness of trans issues.

But later, when the culture changed and being a strategic sales genius who was also trans become an asset rather than a liability, Michele used Beautiful Lie as a calling card. Although her pitch to Amazon for a series was unsuccessful, she has earned several lucrative corporate board seats since the movie was completed. It has probably paid for itself and then some."