Actor Jaafar Jackson, who portrayed his late uncle, singer Michael Jackson in the biopic Michael, has said he hopes the sequel will provide greater insight into the child sexual abuse allegations against the King of Pop from his point of view.
Speaking in an interview, Jaafar, 30, said he does not have a say in which aspects of Michael’s later life will be portrayed in the sequel, but expressed hope that the film would allow his uncle’s voice to be heard. “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 told GQ Middle East.
“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,” he added.
Michael Jackson, who died in 2009 at the age of 50, faced child sexual abuse allegations beginning in the 1990s. The first Michael film, released this year, ends its story in 1988, although director Antoine Fuqua had earlier confirmed that the original version included scenes dealing with the allegations.
Reflecting on the first film, Jaafar said, “This first film focuses on Michael from his roots. 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. 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.”
Jaafar further described his uncle as “broken” but said that his compassion remained unchanged. “He was broken,” he said. “His heart still stayed the same... I hope that this is felt in the second movie.”
The sequel to Michael is already in development. The makers revealed earlier this month that the studio behind the film was targeting a production start for the sequel towards the end of this year or early next year.