This newsletter won’t stop til you get enough: John Podhoretz reviews the new Michael Jackson biopic, Michael. “Michael was designed to exculpate Jackson and thereby fulfill the purpose that the Jackson estate wants it to fulfill—to wash away the controversies surrounding him even now, 17 years after his death, and elevate the most talented and successful pop performer of his generation to the historical pantheon of great-souled and flawless human beings. To that end, the original cut featured harsh portrayals of his accusers and their families as money-grubbing charlatans and Jackson himself as entirely innocent of the charges. “Belloni discovered that, in the enthusiasm for getting the project off the ground, someone on the production team forgot to do due diligence. It turned out that a key element of the gigantic cash settlement between Jackson and one of his accusers was that Jackson (or his estate) was enjoined from making any effort to offer any kind of portrayal of the case whatsoever—otherwise the agreement would be considered breached and the case opened anew. So they had to rejigger the ending. “And lucky for them—for producer Graham King, for screenwriter John Logan, and for director Antoine Fuqua—that they did so. Had they made the original version, people under the age of 30 largely unaware of Jackson’s almost unimaginably repugnant behavior would have had to confront some aspect, any aspect, of Jackson’s life that might have discomfited them.” Happy Sunday. Vic Matus Arts & Culture Editor Washington Free Beacon Thanks for reading the Washington Free Beacon! Subscribe for free to receive new posts. Subscribed Like Comment Restack © 2026 Washington Free Beacon Unsubscribe Get the appStart writing