Jaafar Jackson says upcoming ‘Michael’ sequel will tackle the King of Pop’s abuse allegations ‘from his perspective’

The first film became a historic box-office smash, the first biopic to gross more than $1 billion.

One of the biggest critiques about the blockbuster Michael Jackson biopic “Michael” was that it didn’t acknowledge the star’s numerous sexual abuse allegations. According to star Jaafar Jackson, the upcoming sequel will address the allegations by focusing on the pop icon’s perspective.

In an interview with GQ Middle East, Jaafar said the second installment of the Antoine Fuqua-directed biopic will explore the allegations through what he described as Michael Jackson’s own point of view.

“[The allegations] are always from someone else’s,” Jaafar said, arguing that the film will give audiences a chance to hear Michael Jackson’s side of the 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.”

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The actor said the sequel aims to examine the later years of Jackson’s life and the various accounts that have shaped public perception of him, hence the two-film format.

“This first film focuses on Michael from his roots,” Jaafar said. “So you get that idea of who he was before he had all the success and became the icon that people are familiar with, 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. He never stopped believing in and wanting to look for the good in people… even though he was broken, his heart still stayed the same… I hope that this is felt in the second movie.”

When it was released in April, the first “Michael” film opened to record-breaking numbers at the box office, but concluded in 1988 during the star’s “Bad World Tour,” and did not address the sexual abuse allegations that slowly began emerging about the King of Pop in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The sequel reportedly will address those events, although the second film remains in development.

The first film also languished in development after multiple script rewrites. Filmmakers previously had scenes in the film involving Jackson’s 1993 settlement with the family of Jordan Chandler, who accused him of sexual abuse when he was 13. Due to legal concerns surrounding the depiction of the family, the scenes were ultimately removed.

Despite the backlash and heavy critique of the film, it went on to become the highest-grossing biopic of all time, surpassing $1 billion in ticket sales. The sequel is reportedly set to arrive in late 2027 or 2028.