Jaafar Jackson Says 'Michael' Sequel Will Address Abuse Allegations From the Singer's Perspective
Jaafar Jackson, the nephew of Michael Jackson who plays the late pop star in the biopic Michael, has said the film's planned sequel will offer "even more insight from his point of view" on the child sexual abuse allegations that shadowed the singer's career.
Speaking to GQ Middle East, Jaafar Jackson said the allegations have always been told from someone else's perspective. "It's always from someone else's," he said, calling them "someone else's story" and "someone else's idea of what it is," driven mainly by an agenda. The Jackson family's issue, he said, has been "not having Michael's voice being heard." His comments were reported by Variety on 20 August 2026 and surfaced again in a Rolling Stone piece published 21 August 2026.
The first Michael film, directed by Antoine Fuqua and released by Lionsgate, became the highest-grossing biopic ever at the box office, according to Rolling Stone. But the production navigated a significant legal constraint: a binding clause in a $20 million settlement with one accuser, Jordan Chandler, legally prohibited the filmmakers from portraying the abuse allegations he made against Jackson. Rolling Stone reported that the clause forced producers to scrap the third act, rewrite the script, reshoot, and end the first film in 1987, at the release of the album Bad.
The film had initially touched on the 1993 allegations — the Chandler case — before the legal restriction took effect. It ends with a strong hint that a sequel is coming, as Rolling Stone noted in an April 2026 fact-checking feature. Lionsgate confirmed in May 2025 that Fuqua's biopic might be split into two films due to its length.
What the sequel will actually cover remains unresolved. Rolling Stone reports that it is unclear whether the follow-up will sidestep the 1993 accusations and tackle other allegations, including those detailed in the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, or ignore the abuse claims entirely and focus on the latter third of Michael Jackson's musical career.
For audiences, the sequel's approach to the allegations will be its defining choice. The first film's box-office performance — the highest for any biopic — signals broad audience interest in Michael Jackson's story. How the second instalment handles the most contested part of that story, and from whose perspective, is the question that will shape it.
