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This evening, Jaafar Jackson, nephew of the legendary Michael Jackson, is set to grace the red carpet in Berlin for the premiere of the biopic “Michael,” where he portrays his iconic uncle. Accompanying him will be his father, Jermaine Jackson.
The occasion is being promoted as a ‘global fan celebration,’ complete with a pop-up exhibit, opportunities to hear from the film’s cast and crew, and exclusive behind-the-scenes insights, sure to captivate loyal fans.
Anticipation is high as enthusiasts are expected to turn out in droves to support the film, which boasts a hefty $150 million production budget, upon its release on April 22.
Spanning 130 minutes, this cinematic portrayal concludes with Michael Jackson’s release of “Thriller,” marking the zenith of his solo career. The film is poised to become a significant cultural moment, potentially earning billions at the box office, fueled by the enduring and passionate global fanbase.
However, not highlighted in the official ‘making of’ narratives are the serious allegations surrounding Michael Jackson, which have led to his 28-year-old daughter, Paris, opting not to attend the premiere in Berlin or the U.S. premiere in Los Angeles on April 20, despite residing in the city.
For the film, meant to secure Jackson’s legacy as one of the greatest talents in modern music, has instead become subsumed by the most serious allegations over his private life and finances and is in danger of being overshadowed by a growing number of lawsuits – some of which are horrifying.
Last year it emerged that at least a third of the film had to be junked after it depicted as false the allegations of sexual abuse levelled by the family of Jordy Chandler in 1993.
Lawyers for the Jackson estate – which funded and produced the film – were reminded that they had signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) regarding those allegations and that it explicitly lasted even after Jackson’s death.
Paris Jackson, the singer’s 28-year-old daughter, is guaranteed not to show up in Berlin or at the US premiere in Los Angeles of the new biopic Michael
Michael Jackson’s nephew Jaafar is portraying the late pop icon in a new biopic called Michael
Costly chaos followed. Millions were spent in reshoots – reports suggest $50million though the producers claim only $15million – and the film was completely rewritten. The entire final third – which reportedly saw Jackson being ‘targeted’ by ‘lies’ over sexual abuse was removed. All scenes filmed at Jackson’s Californian home Neverland were also junked and release was put back by a year.
It’s possible that some of that later-period material will be resurrected for a second film – which Lionsgate wants to make – even though it will have to exclude allegations of the abuse of young boys which shaped Jackson’s final years of exile and retreat.
Meanwhile, there are renewed allegations of predatory paedophile abuse by the singer, most notably from the Cascio family who say he sexually abused four of their five children, calling them the Applehead Gang.
Those allegations bubbled to the surface after the now adult children watched the documentary Leaving Neverland in 2019.
In it, Wade Robson and James Safechuck told the story of how they were groomed and abused by Jackson as children, and how they and their families travelled the globe with the pop star at the height of his fame.
The Cascio children – who had met Jackson through their father Frank, an employee at a hotel in New York where the singer had stayed – then realised they had each been subjected to the same abuse, including rapes, but had kept it a secret from each other, allegedly under Jackson’s orders.
They have now filed a complaint in California against Jackson’s estate and against all of the adults working for him, whom they said complicitly enabled him to carry out this abuse. The complaint said he would ply them with wine and spirits and use code words for extreme sexual abuse such as ‘going to Disneyland’.
A sickening cache of photos showing Jackson cuddling two of the Cascio children – Dominic and Aldo – was released this week.
Another piece of evidence can also be revealed in the shape of a handwritten note from Jackson to the family, telling them not to believe the ‘garbage’ being circulated about him in the Press. Lawyers for Jackson’s estate deny all claims of wrongdoing and say the action is a financial shakedown.
The estate is at the centre of further legal action brought by Jackson’s daughter Paris. She has received around $65million from the estate but believes its lawyers may have been overcharging and helping themselves to unwarranted gratuities during their 16 years in charge. She also questions why they are still involved, so many years after Jackson died. That may not be the worst of the difficulties between Paris and her father’s estate. Many will remember her as the sweet girl who spontaneously paid tribute to her father as ‘the best Daddy ever’ at his funeral in July 2009.
‘I just wanted to say, ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine – and I just wanted to say I love him so much,’ she said. She then collapsed crying in the arms of her aunt, Janet Jackson.
However that adulation has apparently given way to something more ‘complicated’.
Previously Paris has said she doesn’t believe her ‘kind-hearted’ father could have sexually abused anyone and denounced those suggestions as ‘lies’.
Recently however, she appears to be in retreat from that position. It can be revealed for the first time here that those close to the Cascios say Paris has – devastatingly – come to believe that the stories about her father being a paedophile are likely true.
Michael Jackson with Dominic Cascio in photos that emerged this week of the late singer cuddling children
An image of Jackson with Aldo Cascio was also released this week in the recent tranche
A source said they understand Paris will ‘go public’ when she feels ready. ‘Paris has stayed in touch with the Cascio family and she is especially close with their mother, Connie. There have been some very candid conversations over the years between Paris and the Cascio family and, based upon those, Paris knows exactly what her father did,’ says the source.
The insider adds: ‘This will come out officially from Paris in time but it’s going to come out when Paris wants it to come out.’
She is said to be sympathetic to the Cascios, whom she got to know well as a child, even though, should their claim succeed, it will cause her significant financial loss. Sources close to Paris say this is an overstatement and oversimplification of a very complex situation. They say that if she now believes her father might have been a paedophile, it is not something which she shares with them, or intends to share with the world. We’re told her feelings about her father and his legacy are ‘complicated and private’.
Notably, she has recently erased some tattoos on her body which reference Jackson, including a logo based on his initials which she had on her finger in 2016. It’s now obscured by an overlaid pattern. A large tattoo of Jackson’s face on her arm, also inked in 2016 – taken from the cover of his 1991 Dangerous album – now has a fat, ridged scar, apparently from self-harming, running across it.
And in 2019, after the release of the Leaving Neverland documentary, Paris said: ‘There’s nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said in regards to defence.’ That is some way away from proclaiming her father’s innocence.
And last summer, Paris took some by surprise when she distanced herself from the forthcoming Michael biopic.
She posted on social media: ‘I read one of the first drafts of the script and gave my notes about what was dishonest/didn’t sit right with me, and when they didn’t address it, I moved on with my life. Not my monkeys, not my circus. God bless and God speed.’
She expanded her comments on Instagram, saying: ‘So I just butted out and left it alone because it’s not my project. They’re going to make whatever they’re going to make. A big reason why I haven’t said anything up until this point is because I know a lot of you guys (the fans) are gonna be happy with it.
‘A big section of the film panders to a very specific section of my dad’s fandom that still lives in the fantasy and they’re gonna be happy with it.’
That implied that what she’d seen of the film presented a version of events, presumably around the alleged abuse of Chandler, with which she didn’t agree.
She went on: ‘The narrative is being controlled and there’s a lot of inaccuracy and there’s a lot of just full-blown lies. At the end of the day, that doesn’t really fly with me. Go enjoy it. Do whatever. Leave me out of it.’
Born in 1998, Paris is the middle of Jackson’s three children. He had a financial arrangement with nurse Debbie Rowe – the birth mother of oldest child Prince as well as Paris – which gave him full custody of both children.
He and Rowe were legally married for two years. It is not known who acted as the surrogate for the youngest child, Blanket, also known as Bigi.
During her childhood, Paris and her siblings often wore masks in public to hide their faces.
After Jackson died of acute intoxication with the surgical anaesthetic propofol, having been given the drugs by Dr Conrad Murray, the Jackson children were taken into the care of their grandmother Katherine and Michael Jackson’s brother Tito.
Paris was enrolled at the exclusive Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California, but she later attended a residential school. In an interview in 2017 with Rolling Stone magazine, Paris said she had been sexually assaulted by a stranger when she was 14 and had attempted suicide multiple times due to ‘self hatred’. She added that she continued to idolise her father at that time, saying: ‘He’s brought me nothing but joy.’
However, in October 2020, she claimed that while at therapeutic boarding school in Utah, she and other students had been subjected to extensive abuse, in response to similar allegations in Paris Hilton’s documentary This Is Paris.
Jackson posted to her Instagram account: ‘As a girl who also went to a behavior modification ‘boarding school’ for almost two years as a teenager, and has since been diagnosed with PTSD because of it, and continue to have nightmares and trust issues, I stand with @ParisHilton and the other survivors.
‘The other girls I’m still friends with to this day that went to the boarding school with me all have the same symptoms of PTSD and nightmares and trust issues. This is child abuse… Let’s start with Provo [Hilton’s school] and keep going from there.’
More recently she has been open about her past drug abuse which led to her developing a hole in the septum of her nose, large enough to pass a spaghetti strand through. She said in January last year that she was grateful to have been clean of heroin and alcohol for five years.
‘Hi, I’m pk (Paris Katherine) and I’m an alcoholic and a heroin addict. Today marks 5 years clean & sober from all drugs and alcohol. To say that I’m thankful would be a poor euphemism. Gratitude hardly scratches the surface.’
She added: ‘It’s because I’m sober that I get to smile today. I get to make music. I get to experience the joy of loving my dogs and cat. I get to feel heartbreak in all its glory. I get to grieve. I get to laugh. I get to dance. I get to trust. I feel the sun on my skin and it’s warm. I’ve found that life keeps happening regardless of whether I’m sober or not, but today I get to show up for it.’
She works as a model and musician and was engaged to music producer Justin Long before they broke up in July 2025. In that same month, she launched a legal action against the lawyers controlling her late father’s estate, raising concerns about ‘irregular payments’ including so‑called ‘premium payments’ for unrecorded attorney time.
Earlier this month executors John Branca and John McClain said that Paris had torpedoed a deal which they had agreed with Prince, 29, and Bigi, 24.
Paris and Prince Jackson attend the Michael Jackson diamond birthday celebration in 2018 – but the siblings now live largely separate lives
The executors said this week that they ‘believed they had reached an agreement spearheaded by the efforts of counsel for Bigi Jackson, who stated in email communications that he spoke for all three siblings and their counsel on the issues.’
However lawyers for Paris then said the agreement was not acceptable. They have now presented demands which the estate says is ‘radically different from what the parties had seemingly agreed to just a week prior.’
A source close to Paris said that ‘from the moment she filed an objection, Paris Jackson has been the victim of a disgusting, outrageous smear campaign by the executors and their attorneys.
‘These lawyers are using Jackson family resources to mock, belittle and attack her for demanding transparency and accountability from the people who control every aspect of her family’s finances.’
The source added: ‘To be clear, there was never any deal on the table from any party that would have settled all issues between Paris and the executors,’ because of the addition of exceptions and ‘loopholes’ which would have made it ‘unworkable’. Their demands would have allowed executors and those same attorneys to continue operating without any accountability.’
The three siblings live largely separate lives. At times their lawyers have submitted common filings from them in the legal action, at others they act separately.
They were last seen together on the red carpet for the opening of MJ The Musical in London in March 2024. Before that they were last together in 2022, to support the musical when it opened in New York.
Given the circumstances, nobody is expecting an encore.