{"id":394933,"date":"2026-04-24T05:23:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T05:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/394933\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T05:23:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T05:23:18","slug":"6-michael-jackson-biopic-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/394933\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Michael Jackson Biopic Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

From timeline issues to missing family members, here’s some of the factual problems in the movie’s presentation of Jackson’s storied career. <\/p>\n

\t4\/23\/2026\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Jaafar<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJaafar Jackson attends Lionsgate’s “Michael” Los Angeles premiere at Dolby Theatre on April 20, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Savion Washington\/Getty Images for Lionsgate)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty Images for Lionsgate<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite the frequency at which they seem to be made, making a music biopic is no easy task. How do you condense a musician\u2019s lifespan into two hours? What truths inevitably end up getting dropped or fudged for the sake of crafting a compelling narrative?<\/p>\n

\n\tMichael Jackson<\/a> fans will be asking themselves such questions when Michael, the new film<\/a> about the King of Pop, moonwalks into theaters this Friday, April 24. The long-anticipated movie, starring Michael\u2019s nephew Jaafar Jackson in the title role, promises a look at how Jackson ascended to untold heights as a singer, dancer and overall superstar, from his breakthrough as the leader of the sibling troupe The Jackson 5 in the \u201970s until his first tour as a solo artist in 1988. Along the way, viewers see how Michael made the transition to a legendary solo career, culminating with the 1982 release of Thriller, the best-selling album in pop music history.<\/p>\n

\n\tNo feature film is going to get everything right, and the film has already courted controversy over some of the details it won\u2019t show<\/a>. But Jackson was of course one of the most famous people on the planet in his lifetime, and getting dates wrong or crafting not-entirely-accurate situations will certainly galvanize the people who have their vision of what Michael could or should have been. <\/p>\n

\n\tFor curious new fans or fastidious fact-checkers alike, we\u2019ve put together a guide of some of the most glaring errors in Michael\u2018s narrative. (This list, of course, contains spoilers.)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\tFamily Headcount<\/p>\n

\n\tAudiences were already abuzz after Michael premiered, when it came out that Janet, the youngest member of the Jackson family, does not appear as a character in the film. (Sister LaToya Jackson said Janet \u201ckindly declined\u201d<\/a> to be depicted.) But a careful headcount only reveals six siblings: brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael (the core of The Jackson 5) and LaToya \u2014 meaning that, beyond Janet, neither eldest daughter Rebbie (one of several solo Jacksons to make the Billboard Hot 100, with Michael\u2019s help<\/a>) nor youngest son Randy are featured. (Randy\u2019s absence causes several major omissions later on.)<\/p>\n

\tHumble Beginnings<\/p>\n

\n\tMichael begins with The Jackson 5 rehearsing in their Gary, Indiana home in 1966 while patriarch and manager Joseph (played with mustache-twirling vigor by Colman Domingo) barks orders, eventually taking his belt to whip young Michael (Juliano Valdi). Though Joseph\u2019s abuse is well-documented, hardcore listeners may scratch their heads at the group singing \u201cBig Boy,\u201d<\/a> a song first recorded by the group in 1967 and released on the local Steeltown label in early 1968.<\/p>\n

\tMotown Madness<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of Michael\u2018s most egregious inaccuracies is so glaring, there\u2019s even a note about it in the end credits. The story of the group\u2019s signing to Motown Records was obfuscated from the beginning: for promotional purposes, they were marketed as a discovery of The Supremes frontwoman Diana Ross. (Actress\/singer Kat Graham<\/a> was cast as Miss Ross, but noted in an Instagram story on April 23 that \u201ccertain legal considerations affected a few scenes\u201d in the film, including the ones she shot.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat the film shows is a hybrid of the two accepted truths: on screen, The Jackson 5 play a set at Chicago\u2019s Regal Theatre in 1968 \u2014 with Gladys Knight & The Pips performing first \u2014 and Joseph is engaged backstage by Suzanne de Passe, creative assistant to Motown founder Berry Gordy. In fact, the Regal gig saw the quintet open for another Motown act, Bobby Taylor<\/a> and The Vancouvers, who arranged for them to cut an electrifying videotaped audition<\/a> for Gordy. (Knight, for her part, saw The Jackson 5 at an earlier gig, but attempts to engage Motown<\/a> were fruitless.)<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s strangest about the scene is de Passe being won over by a performance of the Clifton Davis<\/a>-penned \u201cNever Can Say Goodbye,\u201d<\/a> which the group wouldn\u2019t record until 1970, taking the track to No. 2 <\/a>on the Billboard Hot 100 the following year. This discrepancy is seemingly notable enough to warrant its own disclaimer in the credits, attempting to square the song\u2019s place on the timeline.<\/p>\n

\tFlying Solo<\/p>\n

\n\tNot long after Michael establishes The Jackson 5 as a commercial act, the film abruptly jumps to 1978, when Michael plans to record the solo album Off the Wall with producer Quincy Jones (whom he\u2019d met on the set of the film version of the musical The Wiz), much to the chagrin of Joseph, who sees the family as \u201cthe brand\u201d that needs constant attention. This narrative obfuscates that Michael was already no stranger to solo material, having released four LPs concurrent with his work in The Jackson 5 for Motown and yielding three top five Hot 100 hits, including 1972 chart-topper \u201cBen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd with Randy absent, The Jackson 5 becomes The Jackson 4, with Jermaine having \u201cmade his choice,\u201d per a dismissive Joseph. The \u201cchoice\u201d was staying at Motown when his brothers decided to sign with Epic Records in 1976, a move no doubt inspired by having married Berry Gordy\u2019s daughter Hazel three years before. In reality, Randy would serve as his older brother\u2019s replacement on four Jacksons albums, before Jermaine returned to the fold, making the group a sextet for their much-hyped Victory Tour in 1984.<\/p>\n

\tGoing Ape<\/p>\n

\n\tJackson\u2019s pre-Thriller year of 1981 is shown as an eventful one in the film. He adopts Bubbles, his chimpanzee companion; he also undergoes his first rhinoplasty, during which his surgeon asks him about his recent diagnosis of vitiligo, the pigment-destroying disorder that changed Jackson\u2019s skin tone. While Michael sports a somewhat smaller nose on the album cover of 1980\u2019s Triumph, The Jacksons\u2019 fourth album for Epic Records, neither of these other events occurred so early: Bubbles wasn\u2019t even born until 1983<\/a>, the same year Jackson\u2019s dermatologist Arnold Klein first diagnosed Michael\u2019s skin condition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\tTwisted Thriller<\/p>\n

\n\tMaking the world\u2019s bestselling album is sure to take up a lot of one\u2019s time \u2014 but Michael\u2019s biggest exploits in the year after Thriller\u2018s release in 1982 are almost entirely out of order in the film. Jackson is shown rehearsing with gang members (including one dressed exactly like choreographer Vincent Patterson) for the \u201cBeat It\u201d video, fine-tuning camera angles on the \u201cThriller\u201d short film, earning blockbuster sales and an armful of Grammy Awards for the album, asking CBS Records CEO Walter Yetnikoff<\/a> (portrayed in an odd cameo by comedian Mike Myers) to convince MTV to play the video to \u201cBillie Jean,\u201d and finally performing \u201cBillie Jean\u201d in 1983 for the Motown 25 TV special<\/a>, where he popularized his signature dance step, the moonwalk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn reality, the \u201cBillie Jean\u201d video<\/a> arrived to MTV in March of 1983, just as the track topped the Billboard Hot 100<\/a>; Jackson performed it on Motown 25 later that month in a performance broadcast on TV in May, by which point the \u201cBeat It\u201d video<\/a> was in heavy rotation on the video station. The \u201cThriller\u201d short film<\/a> didn\u2019t premiere until December of 1983, helping build a second wave of success for its parent album that crested in February 1984, when Jackson (only a month out from shooting a Pepsi commercial where his hair caught fire) took home a record-setting eight Grammy Awards in one night.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSurely more than a few people will be confused by the purported chronology of such an epochal sequence in pop history. If the creative team gets to fashion the sequel seemingly teased<\/a> at the film\u2019s abrupt ending, hopefully more attention is paid to keeping the major events of Michael Jackson\u2019s career in order.<\/p>\n

\t


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