Michael Jackson Biopic Reportedly Spent $21 Million…

Michael Jackson Biopic Reportedly Spent $21 Million Removing All Child Sexual Abuse Allegations

CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses child sexual abuse.

The upcoming Michael Jackson biopic was reportedly forced to spend millions on rewrites and reshoots after it learned it could not cover the child abuse allegations levelled against him.

The film, titled Michael, will premiere in Australia later this month, and dramatises Jackson’s meteoric rise to pop stardom in the ‘90s with his nephew, Jaafar Jackson, in the lead role

According to a Variety report, much of the movie’s third act — which originally detailed Jordan Chandler’s 1993 sexual abuse allegations against Jackson — was reworked to remove all mentions of the singer’s accusers at the request of attorneys for the Jackson estate, which co-produced the film.

*The singer is portrayed by his nephew in the biopic. (Image: YouTube)*

Production reportedly learned of the estate’s request late into production of the movie, with a clause in the settlement reached between Chandler and Jackson preventing the filmmakers from portraying the accuser as a character in the movie.

The discovery reportedly forced a massive 22-day reshoot of Michael’s third act which removed references to Chandler’s allegations and cost more than $21 million (AUD) to execute. The Jackson estate covered those costs since it was their oversight that forced the reshoot, per Variety.

The report claims that as a result of the rework, which also pushed back the film’s release date, Michael will now end with the singer at height of his success in the lead up to his Bad world tour, without any coverage of the child sexual abuse allegations originally intended to be shown from Jackson’s point of view.

*All mentions of Jackson’s accusers were reportedly removed from the biopic. (Image: Lionsgate)*

The dramatic tension of Michael now revolves around the singer’s relationship with his father, Joe Jackson (played by Coleman Domingo), as well as his use of painkillers after a pyrotechnics accident during the filming of his 1984 Pepsi commercial.

While Chandler’s allegations were the only ones levelled within the movie’s timeline, many more accusers have come forward with claims of sexual abuse and molestation in the years since, including after his death in 2013.

Two of those claims, levelled by Wade Robson and James Safechuck, were the subject of the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, which Jackson’s estate slammed as the kind of “tabloid character assassination [he] endured in life, and now in death”.

Jackson’s estate has consistently denied all allegations of child sexual abuse against him. Michael hits Australian cinemas on April 24.