{"id":542179,"date":"2026-04-21T03:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T03:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/542179\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T03:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T03:31:08","slug":"michael-director-antoine-fuqua-defends-michael-jackson-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/542179\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Michael’ Director Antoine Fuqua Defends Michael Jackson Allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cMichael<\/a>\u201d director Antoine Fuqua<\/a> opened up for the first time about the movie\u2019s dramatic reshoots in a new interview with The New Yorker<\/a>. As Variety reported<\/a> ahead of the biopic\u2019s theatrical release, \u201cMichael\u201d was forced to spend up to $15 million on additional photography in order to overhaul the film\u2019s structure. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe original movie started in 1993 with police raiding Michael Jackson<\/a>\u2018s Neverland Ranch after he\u2019s accused of sexually abusing 13-year-old Jordan Chandler. The film then flashed back to recount the superstar\u2019s life story and build back up to the allegation and the Chandler family\u2019s lawsuit, which Jackson ultimately settled for $23 million before the investigation was closed when the Chandler family stopped cooperating with prosecutors.<\/p>\n

\n\tNothing involving Jordan Chandler or his family\u2019s allegations remain in the final movie. These scenes had to be removed after attorneys for the Jackson estate realized there was a clause in the settlement that blocked the depiction or mention of Chandler in any movie. Gone was the original opening depicting the police raid on Neverland Ranch, which Fuqua teased to The New Yorker by saying: \u201cI shot [Michael] being stripped naked, treated like an animal, a monster.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPer The New Yorker:\u00a0\u201cFuqua is not convinced that Jackson did what he is accused of doing, despite the number of accusers (five) and the fact that Jackson publicly talked about sharing his bed with boys.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tJackson faced 10 charges in 2005 related to the alleged abuse of another 13-year-old but was later acquitted on all counts. The 2019 documentary \u201cLeaving Neverland\u201d then chronicled new allegations from two more of Jackson\u2019s alleged victims.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I hear things about us \u2014 Black people in particular, especially in a certain position \u2014 there\u2019s always pause,\u201d Fuqua said, with The New Yorker noting the filmmaker \u201cwas skeptical of some of the accusers\u2019 parents, particularly Chandler\u2019s father, who was recorded threatening to insure that Jackson was \u2018humiliated beyond belief.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Fuqua stressed he didn\u2019t know the truth behind the allegations made against Jackson over the years, he noted that \u201csometimes people do some nasty things for some money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFuqua and his \u201cMichael\u201d cast and crew assembled last June to overhaul the movie over 22 days of reshoots, as Variety reported.<\/a> Sources said the Jackson estate shouldered the bill of up to $15 million because its error necessitated the changes. The new version of \u201cMichael\u201d ends with the icon at the height of his career and centers the family tension between Jackson and his domineering father Joe as the dramatic throughline of the story.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMichael\u201d opens in theaters Friday from Lionsgate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMichael\u201d director Antoine Fuqua opened up for the first time about the movie\u2019s dramatic reshoots in a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[103518,6491,96,29683,15741,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-542179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-antoine-fuqua","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-michael","12":"tag-michael-jackson","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}