Billy, the NZ On Air funded tele­vi­sion drama­ti­sa­tion of the life of Billy T James, has been crit­i­cised for dis­tort­ing the facts.

The drama – not to be con­fused with the hit fea­ture film doc­u­men­tary Billy T: Te Movie – screened last Sun­day on TV One, attract­ing over 730,000 viewers.

How­ever, friends and fam­ily close to Billy T James, includ­ing actor Peter Row­ley and James’ daugh­ter Cherie James com­mented this week on Face­book, say­ing that the pro­duc­tion was poorly researched and inaccurate.

“Sorry to have to say this but last nights movie on TV 1 was FULL of inac­cu­ra­cies!!!!!,” wrote Row­ley. “When we wrote the TV show I stayed at Billy’s house (1985–1987) and most of what I saw last night on “Billy” just did not hap­pen!!!! If the tax payer has to front up with 2.4mil to make a movie full of lies then I object… This was based on the book which I have read and it to was not researched enough…”

Cherie James called the drama “an absolute dis­grace to the mana of my intel­li­gent, witty, coura­geous and strong, com­pli­cated, hum­ble, tal­ented, gen­tle and beau­ti­ful father.”

Of the scene where the fam­ily home was shot at and Billy’s friend revealed a gun, she wrote: “He was not even at our house when we were shot at and he was NOT a crook.”

She went on to say: “Telling a web of lies and prof­it­ing from them is one thing, but to orches­trate the mas­sive deceit and ridicu­lous por­trayal of this truly spe­cial man to the coun­try is deplorable, offen­sive and unholy. I feel out­raged, embar­rassed and very sad­dened by this.”