Michael, the brand new Michael Jackson biopic from Lionsgate, signed on a director final week in Training Day’s Antoine Fuqua. Today the movie’s star has been revealed. Jaafar Jackson, son of Michael’s brother and Jackson 5 bandmate Jermaine, will play the pop mega-star, Deadline stories.
Jaafar, pictured above along with his aunt La Toya Jackson, is an aspiring pop artist himself. The film has been within the works since 2019, when Jackson’s property offered the rights to his story to Bohemian Rhapsody producer Graham King. King’s GK Films is producing Michael alongside the co-executors of Jackson’s property, John Branca and John McClain. According to Deadline, “the film will not shy away from the controversies of Jackson’s life, the pedophile accusations that haunted his latest years up to his death in 2009 at age 50, from cardiac arrest caused by a cocktail of sedatives.”
Below, try Jaafar’s singing and dancing abilities in his “Got Me Dancing” video.