Michael biopic: Jaafar Jackson says film covers abuse claims

Jaafar Jackson has indicated that a follow-up to Michael will present the late singer's side of the story, after the first film drew criticism for omitting sexual abuse allegations. The authorised biopic, directed by Antoine Fuqua and released earlier this year, was repeatedly faulted for leaving out the accusations against Michael Jackson. A legal clause, discovered only late in production, barred the depiction of one of the men who accused Jackson of abusing him as a boy in any fictionalised account of that period. A police raid sequence at the Neverland ranch was removed, the Jackson family financed $50m (£37m) of reshoots, and the story was cut short. Yet the film's huge box office performance — it recently surpassed Oppenheimer as the highest-grossing biopic ever — has made a sequel certain.

Star downplays production troubles

Jaafar Jackson, the singer's nephew, told Variety that the first film's difficulties were unremarkable, saying: “I’ve heard many stories from other actors about how much you shoot on a project that doesn’t make it into the final picture. “In the editing room, you go through scenes looking for specific performances or takes and things change constantly. So going in, I knew not everything we shot would make it into the final picture.” In an interview with GQ Middle East, the actor — who made his screen debut in Michael — hinted that the sequel would tackle the allegations, though from the accused man's perspective. “I think the second film will give even more insight from [Michael Jackson’s] point of view, because at the end of the day, [the allegations] are always from someone else’s [point of view],” he said. “It’s someone else’s story. It’s someone else’s idea of what it is …” “And that’s really the issue we’ve been having as a family – not having Michael’s voice being heard. I think that’s very, very important, especially in [his later] years.” The actor added that he saw a strong continuity in his uncle's character across the periods the films cover. “He never changed that purity, that sense of always wanting to find the good in other people. And no matter all the stuff he went through, how he was treated, what things were said about him, he never stopped treating people with kindness. He never stopped believing in and wanting to look for the good in people … even though he was broken, his heart still stayed the same.”

Fuqua pledges no sensationalism

Fuqua said earlier this year that the sequel would not “sensationalise” details of Jackson's life. “I think the key is, like, who was he as a human being? Stay on that path and then we’ll be OK, because that’s what it’s about. It’s a biopic, it’s about a human being, he’s a real person.” Jackson, one of the bestselling music artists of all time, sold more than 500m solo records. He was first accused of sexually assaulting a child in 1993 and settled out of court the following year. In 2005 he was tried and acquitted on other child sexual abuse charges. He died in 2009, aged 50, from an accidental propofol overdose. The 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland set out further child sexual abuse allegations against Jackson. Its director, Dan Reed, criticised the biopic when it came out, saying it contained “zero insight into what makes Jackson tick”. He said: “He’s this asexual plastic action doll of a figure in the film. And of course, the issue of his relationship with children is completely distorted by the fact that they portray him as an eccentric, overgrown child, which we know is not the full story.” Reed added: “The film just flips the truth on its head – black is white, white is black, and two and two make five … it’s a movie that’s impossible to take seriously. “He’s become part of the collective imagination, and the collective imagination can never include the fact that he’s a paedophile.”