The star of the billion-dollar Michael Jackson biopic told GQ Middle East the planned sequel will tackle the abuse accusations head-on, a subject the first film avoided entirely by ending its story in 1987.
Jaafar Jackson, Michael Jackson's nephew and the lead of the two-part biopic "Michael," said in a recent interview that the second film will give audiences "more insight" into the child abuse allegations that shadowed his uncle's later career. The first installment, which Variety reported surpassed $1 billion in global ticket sales this summer, closes with the 1987 release of the album "Bad", six years before Michael Jackson faced his first accusation in 1993.
That timeline was no accident. By ending the story before the allegations surfaced, the first movie sidestepped the most contested chapter of the pop star's life. Now, with the sequel moving closer to production, Jaafar Jackson is signaling the family wants the second film to present Michael Jackson's own perspective on those accusations.
In his interview with GQ Middle East, Jaafar Jackson cast the abuse claims as a narrative imposed from outside, and said the family's frustration has always centered on Michael Jackson's inability to answer for himself.
He told the outlet:
"It's someone else's story. It's someone else's idea of what it is, and it's mainly driven by an agenda. 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 the late years."
Jackson did not specify whose "agenda" he meant, and the interview did not press the point further. He also acknowledged he does not have much say in how the sequel's screenplay is written, a detail that raises an obvious question about how much the family's preferred framing will actually shape the finished product.
The first film's commercial success is hard to argue with. Crossing $1 billion at the global box office puts "Michael" in rare company, and it did so by telling the least controversial portion of the story: the young prodigy from Gary, Indiana, rising through the Jackson 5 to solo superstardom.
Jaafar Jackson described that approach as deliberate, a way to establish who Michael Jackson was before fame and scandal reshaped public perception of him.
"This first film focuses on Michael from his roots. So you get that idea of who he was before he had all the success and became the icon that people are familiar with, you understand who he was as a human being first, because at the end of the day, that's who he was in the '90s until he passed. He never changed that purity, that sense of always wanting to find the good in other people."
He continued: "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... I hope that this is felt in the second movie."
Those are a nephew's words about his uncle, heartfelt, but hardly disinterested. The Jackson family has long maintained Michael Jackson's innocence, and Jaafar Jackson's framing follows that line without deviation.
Several basic questions remain unanswered. No director, screenwriter, or production start date for the sequel has been publicly confirmed in the available reporting. Lionsgate, credited in connection with the first film's imagery, has not outlined its role in the follow-up. And Jaafar Jackson himself said he lacks significant creative control over the script, which means the family's desire to "let his voice be heard" depends on decisions other people will make.
The commercial stakes are enormous. A billion-dollar first film creates pressure to greenlight a sequel quickly, but the subject matter of the second installment is far more volatile. Audiences who turned out for a feel-good origin story may respond very differently to a film that wades into allegations of child abuse, particularly one produced with the cooperation of the accused's family.
Whether the sequel treats the accusations as a serious reckoning or as a platform for exoneration will determine how the public receives it. Jaafar Jackson's interview suggests the family sees it as the latter. That is their right, but audiences and critics will judge the finished product on whether it engages honestly with the full record, not just the parts the family prefers.
A family's loyalty is understandable. Letting that loyalty write the screenplay is something else entirely.
