It was a record-breaking opening weekend for Michael, the new biopic about the tortured King of Pop, Michael Jackson. After the success of the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, which detailed Jackson’s alleged sexual abuse of multiple children, it was tempting to think that there was a permanent asterisk next to his name. Advertisers stopped using his music, and The Simpsons pulled his episode from syndication. Now, however, Leaving Neverland has been wiped from HBO after legal finagling from Jackson’s estate, and Michael is an enormous hit. We have clear proof that audiences are ready to put that unpleasantness behind them and instead embrace Jackson’s inarguable musical genius. Some audience members have doubtless made the calculation that with Jackson long dead, the accusations against him are distant, too, leaving them with no particular ethical reasons to deprive themselves of the pleasure of seeing a Michael Jackson concert recreation on the big screen. Other Jackson defenders have decided that Jackson was innocent. is full of videos laying out the basics of the case and asking “Guilty or innocent?”, with the majority of commenters saying “innocent.” “The world owes Michael an apology” is a sentiment that pops up a lot. Then there’s a variation on that defense, rooted in the long, ugly history of racism in the criminal justice system in America. Some of his defenders — including Michael director Antoine Fuqua — believe that Jackson was unfairly smeared by a system looking to bring down a successful Black man, in the same way that so many other Black men have been wrongly accused and maligned before. Read more at the link in our bio. 📸: Leon Bennett/Getty Images for Lionsgate #michaeljackson #Michael #michaelmovie #MJ