Filmmaker Dan Reed slams Michael for whitewashing MJ's alleged child abuse

Emmy-winning filmmaker Dan Reed has criticised Antoine Fuqua's biopic, Michael, for presenting a sanitised account of Michael Jackson's relationship with children. He slammed the film for not showing any of the alleged abuse of children.

In Short

• Filmmaker Dan Reed has criticised the Michael Jackson biopic, Michael
• He objected to scenes framing Jackson’s contact with children as purely charitable
• Dan said the hospital sequence felt troubling because it ignored darker allegations

Emmy-winning filmmaker Dan Reed criticised the Michael Jackson biopic for pushing a false narrative around the late pop icon. Dan slammed the film for not showing any of the alleged abuse of children in director Antoine Fuqua's biopic, Michael.

While reflecting on the biopic, which shows the King of Pop visiting sick children in the cancer ward of a hospital, Dan, in an interview with Variety, said, "That made me feel really icky. It suggests that Jackson’s engagement with children was entirely benign and motivated by nothing but philanthropy. Jeffrey Epstein was a great philanthropist, and Harvey Weinstein was a great filmmaker, but there’s unfortunately another dimension to their stories. In Jackson’s case, he’s such a cultural phenomenon that there’s nothing you can do to eclipse that."

The filmmaker, however, clarified that he doesn't want the late singer to be "cancelled."

"I want to clarify that I’m not calling for Jackson to be canceled and for nobody to listen to his music, but Wade and James’ story needs to be respected as well, and what the movie does is creates a version of events that essentially portrays Wade, James, and others who’ve accused Jackson of child sexual abuse as liars without actually articulating it. They’re saying that the reason Jackson liked children is because he’s an angel and just wanted to be nice to children, not that he wanted to have sex with them," he added.

Dan observed that the biopic portrays security guard Bill Bray as a heroic figure and a steadfast protector of Michael Jackson. However, he pointed out a sharp contrast with the accounts in the Leaving Neverland films, where both Wade Robson and James Safechuck claim that the security staff were actually complicit. According to their allegations, guards would sometimes wait right outside the door while the purported abuse took place.

While highlighting on the Jacksons shielding Michael's legacy, Dan said, "Why are they dancing around this? It’s well-known that Jackson spent a long time with small-boy companions, including taking them into his bed at night and locking the door, which is undisputed — and that alone, if someone made a claim, is probably enough to convict him in a court of child sexual abuse — but with Jackson, none of this stuff seems to matter. And neither the estate nor the writer of the film nor anyone else has provided an alternative narrative apart from, oh, he didn’t have a childhood, so he needed to spend the night alone with kids, which makes no sense."

About Leaving Neverland

In the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, filmmaker Dan Reed provided a platform for Wade Robson and James Safechuck to share their allegations of child sexual abuse against Michael Jackson. The film sparked global debate by focusing on the long-term psychological impact on the survivors and their families rather than the singer's celebrity status.

Michael, follows the life of the King of Pop as he grows from a gifted child star in the Jackson family's pop band, Jackson 5, into a global icon who redefined pop music forever.

Apart from Jaafar Jackson as Michael Jackson, the film also features Miles Teller as attorney John Branca, Colman Domingo as patriarch Joe Jackson, Kat Graham as Diana Ross, and Nia Long as Katherine Jackson. The cast also includes Laura Harrier, Kendrick Sampson, and Juliano Krue Valdi, who portrays a young Michael.

Michael was theatrically released on April 24.

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