What ‘Michael’ Gets Right and Wrong About Michael Jackson

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What ‘Michael’ Gets Right and Wrong About Michael Jackson

Here’s how the new biopic about the pop star handles everything from major moments like the “Beat It” video to details like a pet giraffe.

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Jaafar Jackson as Michael Jackson and KeiLyn Durrel Jones as his head of security and friend, Bill Bray, in “Michael.”

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Glen Wilson/Lionsgate

By

Steve Knopper

April 25, 2026,

5:02 a.m. ET

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“Michael,” the new biopic about Michael Jackson’s triumphant but traumatized life, underwent costly reshoots when Jackson’s estate discovered a legal agreement from the ’90s preventing the film from depicting a child who had alleged the star sexually abused him at the time. Instead, the movie’s central conflict is between the Jackson 5 patriarch, Joseph Jackson, and the family group he drove to superstardom, particularly Michael, its dynamic frontman.

In this version of the

story, what does the film fictionalize and what does it get right? Here is the fact check, based in part on research for my book “MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson”:

Did Joseph Jackson beat Michael with a belt when he was a little boy — and call him “Big Nose”?

Yes, the beatings did occur, according to both of the Jacksons. Michael accused his father (played by Colman Domingo) of abuse from belts and “iron cords.” Joseph told the BBC, “I whipped him with a switch and a belt. I never beat him — you beat somebody with a stick.” In the film, Michael’s mother, Katherine, confronts Joseph: “What are you going to do, beat him? You gonna whup him?” But in a 2013 CNN interview, Katherine Jackson defended her husband: “I didn’t think he was too tough,” and added, “If you did something wrong, you got a scolding for it, and you also got a licking for it.”

As for “Big Nose,” it was Michael’s brothers who gave him this cruel childhood nickname, according to J. Randy Taraborrelli’s book “Michael Jackson: The Magic, the Madness, The Whole Story 1958-2009.” Although The Guardian and other publications suggested Joseph Jackson called him this name, too, Michael’s father denied it.

Did Michael Jackson broker a truce between Los Angeles gangs?

Yes, in a way. He wanted a “West Side Story” dance concept for his “Beat It” short film, and instructed his manager at the time, Ron Weisner, to meet in downtown Los Angeles with Crips and Bloods — with security present. The gangs agreed to participate, then arrived at the rehearsal warehouse in two buses. The dancer Popin Pete has recalled, “These people switched to the nicest people ever.”

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A scene from “Beat It,” which Jackson filmed after gangs agreed to participate.

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Did Walter Yetnikoff, head of Jackson’s label, CBS Records, make a threatening phone call to MTV that resulted in the artist’s videos being played on the channel within hours?

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