Is Michael Jackson's image being cleaned up?

"There is nothing natural about the making of child stars. They are little archaeological sites, carrying layers of show-business history inside them. Fragments of history and tradition," explained US writer Margo Jefferson in her celebrated 2006 essay On Michael Jackson.

When a famous life story is told, invariably elements may be cut to fit the page, stage, or screen. When the life story is that of Michael Jackson – prodigious child star; King of Pop; showbiz eccentric; self-styled Peter Pan or alleged serial predator – the omissions feel far more onerous.

Fifteen years after his sudden death in 2009 (recorded as an overdose of sedatives and propofol anaesthetic), Jackson's status remains legendary, intensely familiar, and infamous. Even his initials are instantly recognisable: MJ The Musical is a jukebox show, which opened in London's West End this week, to add to its hugely successful Tony-winning, Grammy-nominated run on Broadway. A biopic entitled Michael, directed by Antoine Fuqua and produced by Oscar-winning producer Graham King, and starring Jackson's nephew Jaafar Jackson in the title role, is also in production for release next year.

Both projects feature big-hitting talents and the involvement of the Jackson family estate; the musical does not address the horrific allegations – forcefully denied by the singer and never proven in court – that he was a child abuser, while entertainment journalist Matthew Belloni recently alleged in a piece for new media platform Puck News that an early script for Michael he has read "wants very much to convince you Michael is innocent" of them.

These allegations plagued Jackson from 1993, when he was accused of child molestation by 13-year-old Jordan Chandler and his father Evan Chandler. In his Puck News article, Belloni specifically alleges that the script he has seen goes to "great lengths to minimise and downplay" the Chandlers' allegation. Further accusations continued to surface, during and after Jackson's life; the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland centres two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who graphically claim that they were childhood victims of sexual abuse by Jackson. The Jackson family estate issued firm rebuttals, including a statement condemning Leaving Neverland as "a public lynching"; they also sued broadcaster/producer HBO for violating a 1992 agreement never to disparage Jackson's image.

In a recent interview, Leaving Neverland director Dan Reed told The Times that he had been informed of the draft script for the upcoming Michael biopic, and branded it "a complete whitewash". Reed, who is planning a follow-up to his doc, added: "It's an out-and-out attempt to completely rewrite the allegations and dismiss them out of hand, and contains complete lies. You never even see him alone with any boys, when it is a matter of fact that he shared his bed with small children for many years." 

A spokesperson for the film Michael told the BBC in a statement: "From the beginning the Michael Jackson estate put their trust in Graham King, stepping out of the creative process." Meanwhile King himself said in a statement: "I went into this project with an open mind and spent years researching Michael Jackson's life and work – from his artistry to his public and private struggles, to his humanitarian efforts.

"Michael's life was complicated. As a filmmaker, I look to humanise but not sanitise and present the most compelling, unbiased story I can capture in a single feature film and let the audience decide how they feel after watching it. Michael clearly remains an impactful, culturally relevant artist with a life and legacy worth exploring."

The BBC has also contacted the Michael Jackson estate for comment, but they have not responded.

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Without doubt, the abuse allegations deeply corroded Jackson's reputation; in 2021 a US tax court judge stated that Jackson had "earned not a penny from his image and likeness in 2006, 2007 or 2008", showing "the effect those allegations had, and continued to have, until his death". What's intriguing, though, is that Jackson's popularity appears to be steadily rising again in the digital era. As Billboard recently noted, between 2021 and 2023, global consumption of his music grew from 4.7 billion to 6.5 billion on-demand streams (an increase of 38.3%); meanwhile, in February, Sony Music Group confirmed it would acquire half of Jackson's catalogue, in a deal that values his music assets at more than $1.2bn.

However this turn of fortunes has not entirely swept the troubles away, with the allegations continuing to cast a shadow over his legacy and representations of his story. Covering MJ The Musical, The New York Times praised certain elements such as the choreography but observed in the headline that "No-one's looking at the man in the mirror", while the San Francisco Chronicle opined that "MJ is pop perfection. It also has an allegation-shaped hole".

The clean-up of his image – via bombastic display or damage-limitation – has arguably been ongoing for decades. British journalist Laura Lee Davies was the music editor at Time Out London when she covered the surreal publicity stunt around the release of Jackson's HIStory album (1995), including a megalithic sculpture of MJ floated down the River Thames.

"The thing was: he [Jackson] was the biggest artist on the planet, he needed to rehabilitate a bit because while there wasn't anything proven, there were definitely allegations that hadn't gone away," recalls Davies. "There was already the 'Wacko Jacko' idea because of his strange behaviour and his looks increasingly not chiming with the young guy on the cover of his earlier albums. We were used to pop spectacle at that time – and then this thing appeared which actually looked tiny and insignificant and kind of funny… because you saw this 30ft statue next to Tower Bridge, which is 200ft (61m) high.

"But still, this was to launch the most remarkable greatest hits album of all time, because it had all these amazing hits on it, but also another 15 songs that were presented as history, even if they hadn't been released yet. There was that enormous statement of belief, and – I think this is the key thing – it was almost like: 'love my hits, love me'."

That encouragement to his fans of unconditional devotion has perhaps led to the sanitisation of Jackson's legacy, as seen in long-running tributes (such as the Thriller – Live stage revue, which ran across international venues between 2009 and 2020) and the latest musical among other things. Alongside the exquisite catalogue of signature music and moves, audiences are repeatedly reminded of Jackson's sacrifices, his altruism, his vision to heal the world. Even those who don't regard themselves as "superfans" might still be startled by the emotional hooks of his work, and the stories of the years of childhood abuse he suffered, as well as callous media intrusion.

In 2018, I visited a major exhibition of Michael Jackson-inspired art at London's National Portrait Gallery, including iconic works by Keith Haring, Andy Warhol and Faith Ringgold. The only exhibit with a seamy feel was Jordan Wolfson's Neverland (2001), which used footage of Jackson's 1993 abuse denial, and erased everything in the video apart from Jackson's piercing eyes.

The exhibition's assistant curator Lucy Dahlsen told me at the time: "We are trying to be objective. A lot of the works are celebratory; others consider the more difficult sides of what Jackson represented. It's more an exploration of what he meant."

Countless publications, exposes and hagiographies (besides his own blockbuster 1988 autobiography, Moonwalk) have excavated what Jackson means. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Jefferson's excellent On Michael Jackson notes that "Michael Jackson became world-famous because he was a world-class talent". Given his genuinely extraordinary music/performance, I wonder if it was inevitable that Jackson's legacy would endure even serious scandals and allegations?

"Not inevitable, but likely," Jefferson tells the BBC. "I'd say there are at least two legacies, though – one for fans who know the worth of his talent despite and amidst the horrors of his life [and] one for fans whose worship still depends on their vision of him as a martyr and innocent victim. Obviously, I'm in the first camp."

Jefferson's book was published in 2006; how might its perspective have shifted, if she'd begun writing it with present-day knowledge?

"Jackson's music and dance have lasted, and influenced all kinds of artists," Jefferson replies. "Critics and scholars have done interesting interpretations of Jackson in terms of non-binary cultural styles and affects; in terms of his drive, his quest for an 'otherness' that went beyond black v white identities. I would have had to reckon with the documentary Leaving Neverland and its explicit charges of child abuse."

For all the discussion of so-called "cancel culture", we arguably exist in an age of rehabilitation, where high-profile pop culture or political figures stage lucrative comebacks even after serious controversy. Jefferson, however, is not convinced that Jackson's brand would have been sanitised were he still alive. "The public would be responding to and judging every word and action of his, every image of him, every response from his siblings and his children," she says.

Perhaps it's not so much Jackson's "cleaned-up" reputation as his hazy mythology that continues to command audiences. As an artist, there remains nobody who sounds or looks quite like him; even in life, he seemed to exist not just in the spotlight but some fantastical stratosphere – he defied gravity, he transformed reality.

As Davies says: "There were many people who said they could never listen to another Michael Jackson record in their life. Some of those people may have gone back to these songs because they really loved his music. Perhaps they will choose to see everything else in his life and put that into context – but what you'd hope is that they will also look more wisely, and have compassion and understanding for any victims."

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