Jacksons

A new estate-backed film, Michael, tells the story of Michael Jackson’s rise from Gary, Indiana to global fame, highlighting hits like Thriller and his record-breaking success. But it ends before major scandals, and it leaves out the US musician’s race and politics, including his solidarity with Palestine. What story is being told, and what is being erased?

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Episode credits:

This episode was produced by David Enders and Sarí el-Khalili, with Spencer Cline, Catherine Nouhan and our host, Malika Bilal. It was edited by Noor Wazwaz and Tamara Khandaker. 

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. 

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A FORMER bodyguard and close pal of Michael Jackson has claimed the new biopic about the star whitewashes his life by not delving further into the sex abuse claims made against him.

In an exclusive interview, Matt Fiddes claimed Jackson would have wanted any movie to include the allegations and their impact on his life.

Fiddes also revealed he received a “delirious” call from Jackson two days before he died with the star allegedly pumped full of ephedrine and desperately reaching out for his dad.

Speaking ahead of the release of a new biopic on Friday, Fiddes said the star also claimed on the call that bosses were “making him rehearse too much” and that he “never agreed to 50 shows.”

Giving a unique insight into the moments leading up to Jackson’s death, Matt claimed Jackson was forgetting his lyrics and acting erratically – but it was still a complete shock to everyone who knew him as they were convinced he would just pull out of the tour.

The new movie based on the life of the “King of Pop’ is set to hit the big screen later this month with Jackson’s own nephew Jaafar in the title role.

An earlier trailer became the most watched of all time – amassing 150million views when it was released.

Jackson was first accused of abuse in 1993 by 13-year-old Jordan Chandler and his father Evan, who reached a $23million civil settlement with the star a year later.

He was never ultimately charged in connection with these allegeations after a 18-month criminal investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department and Santa Barbara Sherriff’s Department found they could not prove the case without Jordan’s testimony.

The movie was forced to undergo expensive reshoots last year after lawyers found an overlooked clause in the settlement with Jordan that barred him from being depicted or mentioned in any movie, according to Variety.

The movie was reportedly supposed to originally open with Jackson in 1993 surrounded by cop cars and its entire third act was dedicated to the allegations before the rewrite.

But Fiddes, 46, claimed the impact of the sex abuse claims played a direct role in Jackson’s death and accused filmmakers of whitewashing the allegations.

Fiddes, who was one of Jacko’s closest confidants for many years, claimed although all the allegations made against him were “proven untrue,” to cut them out of the movie wouldn’t do justice to the impact they had on him.

Jackson was still plagued by further allegations from 1993 on.

He underwent a high-profile criminal trial in 2005 after being hit with felony charges of abuse against 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo – but was found not guilty on all counts.

After his death the FBI confirmed they had found no evidence of criminal conduct to warrant federal charges against Jackson by releasing 300 pages of their decade-long investigation.

And over a decade after his death, Jackson’s estate is still facing lawsuits about his alleged behavior.

Accusers Wade Robson and James Safechuck are seeking $400million in a civil lawsuit that will go to a jury trial in November.

Fiddes said the release of the Michael Jackson movie would be “extremely controversial” and although he hasn’t yet seen it, he’s been told what will be in and out of it.

He added: “I’ve heard accounts from people who’ve seen the film. And from my understanding, it doesn’t cover the child abuse allegations and a lot of the struggles that Michael had behind the scenes, which are well publicised and what eventually led to his death.

“I know the fans are disappointed in this. They been contacting me. They want to see the real Michael. They want to see behind the scenes Michael, how he created his genius and how he suffered, how lonely
the man was.

“But I understand how business works. I’m a businessman, and if you’re running the Michael Jackson estate, you are going to want to have it all about the music, which is what Michael would have wanted.

“But Michael, as I knew him, would have wanted his fans and the public to see what it was like to be Michael Jackson. It was not all glitz and glamour. It was anything but.

“We could not go out. He couldn’t do anything. We had to go through the kitchen entrance to go into the hotels. He was manipulated by people he couldn’t trust. Many people. He was paranoid. He struggled to eat sometimes due to being nervous and anxious.”

Matt also said he believes allegations that Jackson was a child abuser were untrue but should still be referenced in the biopic.

He added: “It fascinates me to see still now in 2026 that there’s TV shows and documentaries being made about my friend Michael Jackson, that he’s a child molester, that he’s into young boys.

“Because having known the man personally, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“He wanted to keep his life a mystery and would always remind me wanted his life to be the greatest show on earth.

“I said to him, I think you should show how you talk about girls from the back of the car. He had a nickname for a girl he fancied or always attracted to. He’d call them fish.

“He always said, that’s a nice fish there. Well, Matt, try and get that fish to my room.

“I told him ‘Michael, you should show this side to the public. But he always refused and said one thing Motown taught him when he was a young boy, in the Jackson Five, is that he mustn’t ever show that he was straight, that he was gay, or that he was married in a relationship. As this was going to cut off his fan base and it’ll be the end of the Jacksons.

“So all the fans feel that they got a chance to marry him, whether they’re gay, straight or whatsoever.

“I understand there are contracts signed from his girlfriends that can’t be talked about. But from what I’m hearing, there’s going to be a Michael movie part two of this franchise.

“What I will say is that everything Michael Jackson touches turns to gold. And I predict that Michael the movie will be the biggest movie ever of all time, not only the biggest biopic. I think it will be the biggest movie of all time. And we’ll go past a billion dollars turnover in no time whatsoever.”

Fiddes, who now runs the largest martial arts and dance chain in the world, worked with Jackson for a decade and recalls meeting him through a friend.

He added: “He called me up in the middle of the night and said, you have to come to my house now. If you don’t, you’ll regret it. It took me a good three hours to get there, but he would not tell me who I was going to meet.

“I walked in the living room and this man walks up to me. He bows to me due to the fact that we’re both martial artists. And he said, nice to meet you, Matt. For this. My name is Michael Jackson. I’m thinking, I know who you are.”

Fiddes said they quickly became friends and hang out and do normal stuff together.

He added: “He was a very shrewd character. I always say you got two sides to Michael. You got the very shy, quiet, humble person of his mother, Mrs. Jackson. Katherine, who’s a lovely lady. And then you’ve got the toughness, brutal, ruthless businessman of his father, Joe Jackson.

“And Michael had both sides of them. But aside from that being around him, he was the the most gentle soul and would do anything for anybody. And he was just extremely clever. He loved being Michael Jackson, but he was the nicest guy in the world, most misunderstood man in the world.”

Fiddes also gave a unique insight into the state of mind of the star when he died and revealed he had desperately tried to reach out to his dad Joseph Jackson to help, but could only reach his voicemail.

Fiddes, who believes the movie would become the most watched of all time, said: “You can’t talk about Michael Jackson without talking about the bad times and the negative times and none of us were expecting that he was going to die.

“I didn’t think he was going to do the 50 show concerts. We were getting reports all the time that he was not well, that he was underweight.

“He was not remembering his lyrics. I spoke to him two nights before he passed away, and I remember that conversation vividly.

“My ex-wife answered the phone and handed me the phone and said, It’s Michael, you need to speak to him urgently. He was unhappy. He said, Matt, I need to speak to Joe, meaning his father, Joseph Jackson.

“Do you know where he is? I thought, if he’s asking for his dad, then there must be something wrong. He said ‘I need him to come and sort this situation out here. Only Joseph can do it.

“He said ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. They’re making me rehearse too much. And I never agreed to 50 shows.’”

Fiddes, who runs a martial arts business and lives in England, said Jackson sounded erratic and he asked if he had taken anything.

He added: “He said ‘I’ve just taken something called ephedrine, which is like a, an upper, like next level up from caffeine.’

“It’s a drug that a lot of dancers and performers and bodybuilders use. And he said he got given to him by a doctor, which kind of reassured me, but he was begging for me to come to Los Angeles.

“Then he asked for his best friend’s number, Mark Lester, who he called straight away. He played the original Oliver Twist from Oliver the movie and had a similar conversation with him.

“It turns out he did call Joe Jackson asking for help, but he got Joe’s answerphone and Joe went on a TV show.

“Not long after Michael passed away, he said sadly, ‘I got a message from Michael, but it was too late.’ Michael had already passed away.

“So Michael’s death was a shock to all of us. We thought he was going to call the concerts off and not do them.

“Or maybe do one or two, but not die on us. We didn’t think that was going to happen. That is something that will stick with me forever.”

Here are some excerpts from Jesse Jackson’s recent campaign speeches:

PHILOSOPHY:

When we turn to each other, and not on each other, that’s victory. When we build each other, and not destroy each other, that’s victory.

Red, yellow, brown, black and white–we’re all precious in God’s sight. Everybody is somebody.

Where do we find common ground? It’s at the plant gate that locks workers out . . . . It’s at the farm auction, when farmers are driven from their land with no place to go. When someone is sick and dying in the admitting office because they don’t have a green or yellow card.

We the people must come together, demand health insurance. We the people must demand better pay for our teachers, demand jobs and security. We the people must say: drive drugs out, drive jobs in.

No one has earned the right to do less than your best.

Our children need strong men and strong women. But you’re not a man just because you make a baby.

It’s just not right to bring a child in this world and abandon that child. It’s just not right . . . . We must rebuild people–that’s a first step to rebuilding the cities.

THE UNDERCLASS:

When you look at Jesse Jackson, you look at the American dream of hope and possibility unfolding before your very eyes. In a real sense, I was born in the underclass . . . born to a teen-age mother who was born to a teen-age mother.

I went to school where teachers received less pay than their white counterparts, by law . . . .

We lived in a three-room house, bathroom on the back porch, slop jar by the bed for the family. Wallpaper used not for decoration, but for a wind breaker.

As your President, I will open up the door of opportunity, but you must walk through those doors . . . . I have faith in you. I want you to have faith in yourself . . . . If you rise above your circumstances, you can make it.

POVERTY:

People aren’t fighting for welfare. They’re fighting for fair-share.

Most poor people are not black or brown. Most poor people are white, female and young. Color it pain, color it hurt.

Most poor people aren’t on welfare. They work every day. They change the beds in hotels. They raise other people’s children.

They work every day. They drive cabs. They’re orderlies in hospitals. They’re not lazy. They work every day. They bathe the bodies sick with fever. They empty their bedpans. They clean out the commodes. No job is beneath them.

And yet, when they get sick, they cannot afford health insurance, and they cannot lie in the beds they’ve made up every day.

We can do better than that. There are 38 million people in America without health insurance. We need to sit down and devise a national health insurance plan. Because it’s right.

I choose to invest in Headstart, and day care, and prenatal care on the front side of life, rather than jail care and welfare on the backside of life.

THE ECONOMY:

Every generation has a challenge. Our challenge today is to end economic violence.

You know something has gone awry when profits go up and wages go down, and 600,000 farms are foreclosed, and plants are closed and workers are abandoned.

It’s called reverse Robin Hood. It’s taking from the poor and giving to the rich. And that is not fair.

Now the top 1% of wage earners 10 years later pay 20% less in taxes, instead of paying 20% more. Government (has been) used as a lever to take from working people and the poor and to give to the rich.

DRUGS:

The No. 1 threat to this nation is drugs–cocaine, crack, heroin, PCP. We’re consuming $150-billion worth of drugs a year. The No. 1 tax-free industry in America is drugs.

Drugs are corrupting leaders, killing our children. But don’t just focus on children and ballplayers. Children do not buy $150-billion worth of drugs a year. And ballplayers do not launder $150 billion in drug money through banks.

We must get serious about ending the war of drugs in this country. Stop the cocaine, the crack, the heroin. Ban the drugs. Ban the handguns. Make our streets secure and safe again.

In 1986 the Coast Guard interdicted 10,000 pounds of cocaine. In 1987, the Coast Guard interdicted 26,000 pounds of cocaine. Then, the Administration cut the Coast Guard budget by $100 million. They busted the Coast Guard and gave the drug smugglers the green light.

I want to cut the supply of drugs. I want you to join me and cut the demand.

TRADE:

The No. 1 exporter from Taiwan is not Taiwan. It’s General Electric. Which owns RCA. Which owns NBC. Which says, “Buy American,” while NBC workers are forced to strike and make concessions.

The first four years of the Reagan Administration, GE made $10 billion. That’s all right. But as profits went up, wages and jobs went down. They paid zero taxes. That’s not all. They got a $100-million tax rebate, while workers on unemployment compensation had to pay taxes. That is economic violence.

FOREIGN POLICY:

The Russian bear is in check because we have the mental preparedness and the military preparedness. But the drug war is hitting us where we have no defense, in our character, in our lives, in our dreams.

In Latin America, our fight is not with 3 million Sandinistas. They do not threaten us. If they did, 15,000 Contras could not save us from them.