Michael Jackson biopic left son Prince in tears as he says ‘it was daddy to me’
Jackson’s estate oversaw the project with Prince as an Executive Producer meaning he worked alongside Oscar winning English writer Graham King who wrote We Will Rock You
Prince Jackson has admitted that the upcoming movie biopic about his dad Michael left him in tears as he was so moved by The King Of Pop’s astonishing success.
Prince broke down while reading the script from award winning English writer Graham King. The first trailer of Michael, which is directed by Antoine Fuqua, has already become the most-watched music biopic preview ever.
More than 116m fans watched the trailer, with the King of Pop’s real-life nephew Jaafar Jackson in the title role, in its first 24 hours of release.
MJ grew up in near poverty in Gary, Indiana, in the 1960s and within two decades became the biggest entertainer to have ever walked the planet.
Jackson’s estate oversaw the project, appointing Prince as an Executive Producer meaning he worked alongside Oscar winner King, who crafted We Will Rock You’s success.
Prince admitted: ‘“It was very exciting. I spent a lot of time speaking with Graham about the man that I knew as my father, which is not the King of Pop, was not the Michael Jackson. It was daddy to me.
“And he went and he met with all these other people from my family members, his brothers, my uncles, to people who toured with him, travelled with him, worked for him.
“And after I read the first draft of the script, I called him, because I was crying afterwards. I told him that he had the most authentic picture of my father.
“It was all the iconic moments, which is very difficult to do. There’s so much history there. So the person that I knew, it kind of was like a light bulb for me in the sense that it put into effect how the man that I knew was the way he was because of his whole life story.
“Billie Jean and Motown 25, doing the Moonwalk for the first time, everybody knows that story. I was told that story. I’ve seen the video.
“But when you have the A to B to C to D, and then you get to the end of the movie. That was my dad, and that’s exactly who he is.
“So being involved on this journey of getting all these awesome stories about my father and then putting them together into a cinematic story for the general audience to really understand who he was as a human is just amazing.”
Prince didn’t address speculation about the film not including content on Jackson’s legal battles over sex abuse claims.
But he found working with King to have been an eye opener.
He told US radio station Sirius XM: ‘“His approach to this storytelling – he goes and he spends time with people getting their full story and where they came from, how they met my dad, how they knew him, and what their relationship was like.
“And he does all this information gathering and research to put together the most authentic story and the character of who my father was.”
Michael will be released in cinemas in April.
