There was a moment on a film set that no one expected to break Michael Jackson’s own son. Prince Jackson had seen actors play his father before. He thought he was ready. He wasn’t. The second he saw his cousin Jaafar standing there in the hair, the makeup, the posture, something in him cracked. What Prince said next is something he’s never said publicly before this film.
I would love to have kids and you know, take notes on what he did as a father, but he was always on our level in a way, but I don’t feel that he and he made it a point that it was he didn’t want people to speak to us as children. He wanted them to speak to us as an adult. When he played with us, he played with us.
You know, he got down and he was playing with the toys and making up stories or we’d play board games. He just had a a very childlike nature that was so much fun. Always playing pranks on people and stuff. Yeah. Prince later described it as an emotional shock. Not because Jaafar looked similar, because for a few seconds, his father was standing in front of him again.
He said he had to step outside and get air before he could even speak to him. But Prince wasn’t the only Jackson who reacted that way. I uh I never got to see my dad perform live. The closest I ever got was the Madison Square Garden uh right before 9/11 and I was very young. And so for me to be on set every day and there for the performances, I saw them in person and it was Katherine Jackson, Michael’s mother, had already given her blessing years earlier, back when Jaafar was first cast in 2023. She said he embodies her son.
At the time, it read like a grandmother’s kind words. Once filming started, it became something closer to prophecy. Then LaToya saw the final footage and her reaction went further than anyone expected. I want to meet your son. Jaafar. Wow. LaToya Jackson said watching Jafar on screen made her forget who she was actually looking at.
Her exact words, she’d catch herself thinking, “I forgot this is Jafar.” Decades of memory colliding with a few feet of film. But not every member of the family felt that same comfort. This beautiful story. I think what really and truly honestly impressed me was the fact that Jafar made you believe and think that it was Mike.
And you look at him and you forget that it’s Jafar and you think it’s your brother. So Paris Jackson, Michael’s daughter, wasn’t involved in the production at all. She’d read an early draft of the script and said parts of it didn’t sit right with her. When the issues weren’t addressed, she walked away from the project entirely.
That absence said almost as much as the reactions that came from the family members who stayed. This film does not accurately portray my father’s life. I shared my thoughts and opinions on the early script, yet they were completely ignored. From start to finish, I never truly took part in this project.
Because the family members who did stay close to the production, Prince as executive producer, onset nearly every day, were watching something almost unprecedented unfold. A blood relative playing a global icon. Not an impersonator. Family. And that closeness is exactly what made the hardest scenes so difficult to film.
The doors are about to open for our second This Is Thriller. We are here downtown LA, iconic Palace Theater. We’re going to check in with some people right now. HOW WE FEELING EVERYBODY? OKAY. JAAFAR HAS said the hardest part wasn’t the choreography or the voice. It was disappearing into himself so completely that he stopped performing and started just feeling the music the way his uncle once described it, a flow state.
No thinking, just instinct. It’s the same thing Michael himself used to say about his own performances. I mean, this is your very first acting role as as Willie mentioned and I know this kind of happened serendipitously, but you worked really hard for this part. Yeah, it was it was a process that I really had to to earn and to really prove to the filmmakers and and myself and and my family that I I can get to that point where I can pull it off and When asked what he thought Michael himself would say watching the
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performance back, Jaafar didn’t hesitate. He said he hoped his uncle would see the love poured into every frame and be proud. He called him a perfectionist. He knew there was nowhere to hide. That pressure built for years before a single camera ever rolled. Most importantly, I just hope my uncle Michael’s smiling from up above.
Jaafar grew up the son of Jermaine Jackson, raised inside the same family, the same history, the same music. He wasn’t cast because a studio searched the globe for a look-alike. He was already there. Has been there his whole life. Which made the decision to play his uncle far more complicated than it looked from the outside.
Said this is He wasn’t just stepping into a role. He was stepping into grief, expectation, and a legacy that the entire world feels ownership over. Every fan who grew up on Michael’s music would be watching, judging every move against a memory they’ve held for decades. And that’s exactly the moment when the family support became the only thing holding it together.
[singing] [singing] Prince said it plainly. The family was confident Jaafar would perform well. What they weren’t prepared for was how much he’d exceeded. “I’m blown away with what he has done.” Prince said, the same man who’d had to step outside just to compose himself. That’s the moment the family’s private reaction became something the whole world would eventually see for themselves.
Did you want to always do a movie about your father or be a part of it? I think that my father deserves a project at this scale and size. He is one of the most important people in modern history, if not in history, and it’s such an important story, especially now. And I just I’m so happy with the way the team brought it all together and finally got it out there.
How many Because once Michael reached theaters, audiences felt the same disorientation the family had felt on set watching someone who wasn’t Michael Jackson yet somehow was standing right in front of them again. And that’s the strange gift this film gave to people who never thought they’d feel that again.
A nephew became an uncle for 2 hours. A son got to feel his father’s presence again even knowing it wasn’t really him. And a family that spent years being picked apart in public found one moment they could agree on completely. That, more than any box office number, is the real story behind this film.
When the world is sad and dreary [music and singing] Michael Jackson has been gone since 2009. But for a few seconds on a film set in hair and makeup that weren’t even his his family saw him again and it broke them open in the best way grief ever can. If this story moved you, subscribe because some legacies refuse to stay untold.
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Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
