The new biopic about the King of Pop bills itself as an “honest portrayal,” but avoids addressing the more controversial aspects of Jackson’s life and career.

Why doesn’t Michael address Michael Jackson’s controversies?

The new biopic about the King of Pop bills itself as an “honest portrayal,” but avoids addressing the more controversial aspects of Jackson’s life and career.

April 25, 2026 8:00 a.m. ET

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Michael Jackson appears at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse with defense attorney Thomas Mesereau, Jr. on March 24, 2005. Credit:

Gwyneth Roberts/Polaris

Michael Jackson is back in the spotlight as a long-developing biopic about the late pop icon is finally hitting theaters. Directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Jackson’s nephew, Jaafar Jackson, *Michael* explores the life and career of the King of Pop, who died in 2009.

Billed as an “honest portrayal of the brilliant and complicated” artist, the film depicts the childhood abuse Jackson endured at the hands of his father, Joe Jackson, as well as the 1984 Pepsi commercial shoot that left the pop star with burns on his scalp, precipitating an addiction to painkillers.

However, the biopic, which ends in 1988, notably avoids other controversial aspects of Jackson’s life — specifically, multiple allegations of child abuse that resulted in lawsuits and highly publicized court hearings.

This avoidance of Jackson's controversies has courted criticism, including from Dan Reed, the director of 2019's *Leaving Neverland*, a documentary about two men who allege that Jackson sexually abused them as children. "How can you tell an authentic story about Michael Jackson without ever mentioning the fact that he was seriously accused of being a child molester?" Reed asked in an April 2026 interview with *The Hollywood Reporter*.

According to numerous reports, an earlier version of the film *did *address the allegations from Jackson’s perspective, but the filmmakers were ultimately forced to cut those scenes and reshoot most of the third act.

Below, we unpack the allegations against Michael Jackson and how the film was originally meant to address them.**

What are the allegations against Michael Jackson?

Michael Jackson in a California courtroom in November 2002.

In 1993, Evan Chandler accused Jackson of molesting his 13-year-old son, Jordan Chandler. Jackson became friendly with Jordan when he rented a vehicle from the boy’s stepfather, and often invited the family to spend weekends at the pop star’s home on Neverland Ranch.

Jordan told a psychiatrist that Jackson sexually abused him, prompting the Los Angeles Police Department to open an investigation, during which they were unable to find any evidence of abuse.

By September, when Jordan’s family formally filed a lawsuit against Jackson, news of the allegations had already been widely publicized.

Jackson, who strongly denied the allegations, canceled the remaining dates on his *Dangerous* world tour, and ultimately settled with the Chandler family in January 1994 for a reported $25 million. The District Attorneys for Los Angeles and Santa Barbara Counties closed the investigation into Jackson in September 1994 when the Chandlers stopped cooperating with law enforcement.

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The investigation was reopened in 2003 when 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo claimed he'd been having sleepovers with Jackson in the documentary *Living With Michael Jackson*. Jackson was charged with multiple accounts of child abuse, resulting in a highly-publicized 2005 trial that spanned four months. He was ultimately acquitted on all counts.

Wade Robson, who testified for Jackson’s defense during that trial, filed his own lawsuit against the singer’s estate in 2013, four years after Jackson’s death.

Robson was five years old when he first met Jackson, who befriended and began spending time with Robson and his family. He claimed that Jackson molested him on two occasions, between the ages of seven and 14, but the statute of limitations expired and the lawsuit was dismissed in 2017.

Robson revisited the allegations along with another accuser, James Safechuck, in *Leaving Neverland*.

Jackson’s estate has continued to deny the allegations, which they’ve described as “absolutely false.”

Why doesn’t Michael address the controversies?

Michael Jackson exiting the Santa Barbara County Courthouse on April 12, 2005.

AARON LAMBERT/AFP/Getty

*Variety* reported that *Michael* originally explored the LAPD’s 1993 investigation into Jackson. The first two acts of this early version are said to have traced the singer’s early life, with the third act largely devoted to the allegations and how they impacted Jackson and his career.

Late in the production, Jackson’s estate realized that the film was legally prohibited from including the 1993 allegations due to a clause in the settlement with Chandler’s family.

*Michael* producer Graham King confirmed to *WSJ* that the film's third act had to be rewritten and reshot. “I’ve never experienced that where you finish a film and then find out you didn’t have the legal rights to tell that story,” said King, who also produced the Oscar-winning Queen biopic *Bohemian Rhapsody*.

Per *WSJ*’s reporting, Jackson’s estate “paid tens of millions of dollars for the additional photography, which delayed the film’s release by a year.”

King worked with director Fuqua and screenwriter John Logan on a new third act, which focuses on Jackson “escaping the professional and psychological influence of his father.”

Spokespersons for Lionsgate, King, and the attorney representing the Jackson estate did not respond to **'s request for comment.

What have the cast and crew of Michael said about Jackson’s controversies?

Jaafar Jackson as Michael Jackson in 'Michael'.

King began developing *Michael* in 2019, around the time that HBO released *Leaving Neverland*. The producer called the documentary “very one-sided” and said that his goal with *Michael* was “to let the audience decide how they feel about him.”

A recent *New Yorker* profile of Fuqua described the filmmaker as “skeptical of some of the accusers’ parents.” Fuqua, a veteran director whose credits include *Training Day* and *The Equalizer* films, said, “When I hear things about us — Black people in particular, especially in a certain position — there’s always pause.” He added that "sometimes people do some nasty things for some money.”

During an appearance on the *Today *show, stars Colman Domingo and Nia Long, who play Jackson’s parents Joe and Katherine, were asked how they would respond to critics claiming that *Michael* “whitewashed” the allegations. “The film takes place from the '60s to 1988, so it does not go into the first allegations in, what, 2005,” said Domingo, erroneously referring to the 2005 trial, which concerned Jackson’s second accuser.

“And there's a possibility of a part two that may deal with some other things that happened afterwards,” the actor added. “This is about the making of Michael, how he was raised and then how he was trying to find his voice as an artist and be a solo artist."

Jaafar Jackson, who portrays Michael in the film, has so far sidestepped questions about the allegations. At the *Michael* premiere, when *Extra* asked the younger Jackson what he thinks is the biggest “misconception” about his uncle, he replied, “That he wanted to be white.”

Screenwriter John Logan, meanwhile, told *The Hollywood Reporter*, “Michael is a complicated person, people have complicated opinions, and that’s fine. We chose to tell the uplifting story of his triumph in the movie, and that’s what we did.”

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