Jaafar Jackson says he hopes a sequel to Michael, the biopic in which he plays his uncle, will dig deeper into the more difficult chapters of Michael Jackson’s life, including the child sexual abuse allegations that shadowed his later career.
The first film, which covers Jackson’s life up through 1988, drew significant criticism for omitting any mention of the allegations altogether, a decision reportedly driven in part by a legal settlement clause tied to accuser Jordan Chandler that barred any film from depicting him.
Co-star Colman Domingo addressed the backlash on Today, describing the first film as covering “the making of Michael” and suggesting a sequel could pick up the story from there.
Jaafar, whose casting as his uncle received public backing from Michael’s mother, Katherine Jackson, and the Jackson estate, acknowledged that the sequel’s screenplay is still in development and that he doesn’t have final say over its scope.
Still, he made clear where his own preference lies, he wants Michael’s perspective to be central to how the later years are portrayed, rather than avoiding the controversy altogether.
He described the first film as a story about Michael’s roots, showing “who he was as a human being first,” and said he hopes a second film carries that same humanising lens into the more complicated years that followed.
The debate over how the biopic handles Jackson’s legacy has followed the project since before its release.
Michael was made with the cooperation of the Jackson estate, which has consistently denied the abuse allegations, Jackson was acquitted on all counts in a 2005 criminal trial after being charged with multiple counts of child molestation.
Dan Reed, director of the 2019 HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, which featured extensive interviews with two men alleging they were abused by Jackson as children, said after reviewing an early draft of the biopic’s script that it amounted to a “complete whitewash” of Jackson’s history.
