Jaafar Jackson will reprise his role as Michael Jackson in the sequel to the Michael biopic, and he says the new film will confront the child abuse allegations that shadowed his uncle’s final decades. In a new interview, Jaafar said he wants the second movie to give a fuller sense of the late singer’s own perspective.
“I think the second film will give even more insight from his point of view, because at the end of the day, the allegations are always from someone else’s,” Jaafar Jackson told GQ Middle East.
“I think the second film will give even more insight from his point of view, because at the end of the day, the allegations are always from someone else’s.”
He added that the family has long felt Michael’s voice went unheard. “It’s someone else’s story. It’s someone else’s idea of what it is, and it’s mainly driven by an agenda,” he said. “And that’s really the issue we’ve been having as a family, not having Michael’s voice being heard.”
The Story So Far
The allegations against Jackson began in the early 1990s, but they weren’t addressed in the first film. The Antoine Fuqua-directed biopic ends in 1987 with the release of the Bad music video, and Fuqua has said scenes covering the allegations were cut to focus on Jackson’s rise to stardom. Jaafar defended that choice, saying the first movie aimed to show who Jackson was before the fame.
“He never changed that purity, that sense of always wanting to find the good in other people,” Jaafar said. “Even though he was broken, his heart still stayed the same.”
The sequel is in the works at Lionsgate with the late singer’s estate. Lionsgate’s Adam Fogelson previously told Deadline the studio is “targeting a production start towards the end of this year or early next.”
Why It Matters
The Michael biopic was one of the most commercially successful music films in years, and how a sequel handles the abuse allegations will be closely watched on both sides of a long-running debate. For fans and the Jackson estate, it’s a chance to push back on the narrative; for critics, a sensitive test of how far a Hollywood biopic will go. With production expected to start soon, the story of one of music’s most complicated figures is far from over.
