{"id":748133,"date":"2026-04-23T18:17:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/748133\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T18:17:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:17:21","slug":"la-toya-jackson-explains-why-janet-jackson-isnt-in-the-michael-biopic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/748133\/","title":{"rendered":"La Toya Jackson explains why Janet Jackson isn’t in the ‘Michael’ biopic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sorry, fans of Ms. Janet Jackson:\u00a0The singer will not be featured in the new biopic about her late brother Michael Jackson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Director Antoine Fuqua\u2019s film Michael, about the controversial King of Pop\u2019s rise to fame, hits theaters on April 24. It stars 29-year-old Jaafar Jackson, the son of Michael\u2019s older brother Jermaine Jackson, in the titular role.<\/p>\n

The film explores Michael\u2019s personal and professional life, beginning with his childhood, when he was in the Jackson 5. It features most of his family, including his mother, Katherine; his father and manager, Joe; his sister La Toya; and the other original members of the Jackson 5, his brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon.<\/p>\n

Janet, however, who shot to fame in the 1980s, will not be portrayed in Michael despite having a close relationship with the pop star. At the Los Angeles premiere on Monday, the real La Toya explained why.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish everybody was in the movie,\u201d La Toya told Variety<\/a>. \u201cShe was asked and she kindly declined so you have to respect her wishes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fuqua also spoke to the outlet about Janet\u2019s absence, saying, \u201cI have so much respect and love for Janet, but you know it\u2019s OK. She\u2019s supportive of Jaafar and that\u2019s what matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March Page Six reported<\/a> that Janet had numerous criticisms of the film after a private screening with other members of the Jackson family.<\/p>\n

The biopic received support from Michael\u2019s estate and many members of the Jackson family, including Michael\u2019s 29-year-old son, Prince, who was reportedly on set every day<\/a> during production. Bigi, Michael\u2019s 24-year-old son, also showed his support by appearing at an earlier Berlin premiere.<\/p>\n

The week of the film\u2019s release, Michael\u2019s nephew Taj Jackson, the son of Tito Jackson, took to X to praise the film and his uncle\u2019s legacy. \u201cSorry media, u don\u2019t get to control the narrative anymore of who Michael Jackson truly was,\u201d Taj wrote<\/a>. \u201cThe public gets to watch this movie\u2026they will decide for themselves. And you can\u2019t handle that.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Michael\u2019s daughter, Paris, 28, said she had \u201c0% involvement<\/a>\u201d with the production and criticized it, saying in an Instagram story last year that she \u201cread one of the first drafts of the script and gave my thoughts on what was dishonest [and] didn\u2019t sit right with me and when they didn\u2019t address it I moved on with my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jaafar<\/p>\n

Jaafar Jackson as Michael Jackson in the biopic Michael.<\/p>\n

(Kevin Mazur\/Lionsgate\/Everett Collection)<\/p>\n

\u201cA big section of the film panders to a very specific section of my dad\u2019s fandom that still lives in the fantasy,\u201d she added in a subsequent post, \u201cand they\u2019re gonna be happy with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sorry, fans of Ms. Janet Jackson:\u00a0The singer will not be featured in the new biopic about her late…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":748134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,274757,38288,274814,2961,308032,224,5337,1018,308034,308033],"class_list":["post-748133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-jaafar-jackson","tag-janet-jackson","tag-jermaine-jackson","tag-la","tag-la-toya","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-michael-jackson","tag-taj-jackson","tag-tito"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116455398794346024","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}