The highly anticipated big-budget Michael Jackson biopic, *Michael*, is set to hit cinemas worldwide this week, bringing the story of the King of Pop’s iconic rise to the big screen — but the tightly curated narrative has sparked intense backlash over its deliberate exclusion of the child sexual abuse allegations that shadowed the singer’s final decades.
Produced by Graham King, the creative force behind the record-breaking Queen biopic *Bohemian Rhapsody*, the film tracks Jackson’s journey from his working-class childhood in Gary, Indiana, as part of the Jackson 5, through his evolution into a global pop phenomenon, culminating in showstopping performance footage from his legendary 1987 Bad World Tour. The $200 million production is backed by Lionsgate, which has set ambitious box office targets, hoping the film can approach the $910 million global haul of *Bohemian Rhapsody* — the current highest-grossing musical biopic of all time — and hit $700 million in worldwide ticket sales.
In a surprising casting choice, the lead role is filled by Jaafar Jackson, Michael Jackson’s 29-year-old nephew who had never appeared on screen before taking the part. Speaking to *The Tonight Show* host Jimmy Fallon earlier this month, Jaafar described the daunting experience of stepping into his uncle’s shoes: “They threw me right in the deep end.” He added that he trained closely with Jackson’s original choreographers to master the singer’s iconic moves, calling the role “a surreal, spiritual moment.” Early reviews praise Jaafar’s convincing performance, noting that the high-energy concert sequences are crafted to delight diehard fans of Jackson’s landmark albums *Thriller* and *Bad*.
The film’s close ties to the Jackson family have become its most contentious point. All of Jackson’s surviving siblings serve as executive producers, granting them full approval over the final cut ahead of the global release. Jackson’s sons Prince and Bigi, alongside brothers Jackie, Jermaine, and Marlon Jackson, turned out for the film’s red carpet premiere in Berlin on April 10, but one prominent family member has publicly disavowed the project: Jackson’s daughter Paris, who had no involvement in the production. Writing on Instagram last September, she argued that the narrative caters only to fans who refuse to confront the allegations against her father, saying: “The narrative is being controlled and there’s a lot of inaccuracy and there’s a lot of just full-blown lies.”
According to entertainment industry outlet *Variety*, the omissions are not just a creative choice driven by the family. A full third of the original cut that explored the abuse allegations had to be cut and reshot after lawyers for the Jackson estate discovered a legal clause in a 1990s settlement with accuser Jordan Chandler that prohibits any mention of Chandler in the film. While Jackson was never convicted in any criminal or civil trial related to the allegations, multiple new lawsuits from alleged victims have been filed since his 2009 death from an accidental overdose at age 50, and several of those cases remain active.
The production faced multiple delays, pushing its original 2025 release date forward by a full year to 2024. Critics of the film, including Duke University African and African American Studies professor Mark Anthony Neal, say the choice to whitewash the allegations fits a longstanding Hollywood pattern of sanitizing celebrity biographies to maximize commercial appeal. “I would love that the film would tell the most human story about Michael Jackson possible,” Neal told AFP. “But I also realise that we’re in a period of time where Hollywood does not deal with celebrities in that way.”
Regardless of the controversy, industry analysts expect *Michael* to be a major commercial success, and it will almost certainly add to the lucrative Jackson family entertainment franchise. The Broadway production *MJ: The Musical* opened in 2022 and has since launched international tours, while Cirque du Soleil’s *Michael Jackson ONE* has been a staple Las Vegas attraction since 2013, generating steady revenue for the estate for more than a decade.