Will Smith couldn’t speak for a few minutes after watching the movie. Stevie Wonder held a young man’s face in his hands and started to cry. La Toya Jackson, Michael’s own sister, said she forgot she was watching her nephew. Katherine Jackson, Michael’s mother, watched her grandson become her son. Paris Jackson, who lost her father when she was 11 years old, sat through a film that recreated his entire life.
>> Um my first thought was who are they going to get to play Michael? And honestly, I didn’t think of myself. I was I was like, this is going to be really interesting. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, cuz I didn’t know. So, fast forward a couple of months, I get a call from Graham King. He wants to have a Zoom, and uh I can tell just by that call what this was going to lead to in in some way.
And then one thing led to the to the other, we had lunch. >> The Michael biopic had one job, one impossible, terrifying job. Bring back the most iconic entertainer who ever lived and make audiences believe it. When the lights went down and the film began, nobody was fully prepared for what they were about to feel.
Will Smith knew Michael Jackson personally. He grew up idolizing him. And when he watched Jaafar on that screen, something broke open inside him. He couldn’t even wait to get out of the theater and posted this story with two words, I am speechless. Will Smith is one of the biggest movie stars on the planet.
He’s been in blockbusters, dramas, and award-winning films. He knows what great acting looks like because he’s spent his entire career doing it. >> Couldn’t get to him in the crowd. And I’m like, the day is going by and I’m like, yo, I’m about to go this whole award show and I’m not going to meet my idol. I was like, I got to meet Mike.
Then they call me and they take me back and I’m about to present my award and I see him and he’s across the room and I was like, a path. I was like, oh, I’m about to meet Mike. I’m about to meet Mike. And then all of a sudden you see the crowd start to go into a little bit of a frenzy and my security comes over and they grab me like, [music] “You got to move. We got to move.
” And I’m like, “No, but I got to meet Mike.” And they were like, “Sir, we got to move now.” >> So when Will walked into a screening of Michael, he wasn’t just watching a movie. He was watching someone play his idol. Snoop Dogg has been in entertainment for over 30 years. He’s worked with legends and seen the music industry from every possible angle.
>> Me and Mike was family. Um his family and my family love each other. We have a record that never came [music] out together. Um we never had issues. >> He grew up in Long Beach, California during the height of Michael Jackson’s dominance. Michael wasn’t just an artist to Snoop’s generation. He was a standard.
Proof of what black excellence could look like on the world stage. After watching the film, Snoop said Jaafar didn’t just look like Michael. He moved like him. He breathed like him. >> When I seen the Michael Jackson movie, that was inspiring. >> Yeah. >> It was very inspiring because it was great storytelling, the cinematics, the acting, the believability and you know, nephew becoming Mike and just the performances and all of that that just was exciting to see.
It was It was a spark. It put a spark in me. >> That word, spark, coming from Snoop Dogg, that is not a small thing. This is someone who has worked with the greatest artists alive. And watching a young man become his idol on screen gave him a spark. That tells you everything about what Jaafar did in that theater.
>> You have absolutely no [music] idea. I mean, Michael was one of the most loved people in the world. >> Yes. >> And >> Yes. >> [cheering] >> LaToya Jackson is Michael’s older sister. She grew up in the same house. She watched him rehearse in the living room as a child. She knows every gesture, every smile, every way he carried pain in his body.
She admitted she was scared to watch the biopic. She knew it would be emotional. She wasn’t sure if she was ready, but then Jaafar appeared on screen. >> Jaafar’s absolutely [music] excellent in this movie. He did a fabulous job. And what’s so just amazing to me is that I forgot I was watching Jaafar.
I actually thought I was watching my brother. So, that showed he delivered on his part. >> So, what does your mother think of the movie? Has she had a chance to see it? >> Mother has seen it and mother’s here tonight. She’s not doing the carpet, but she’s here tonight. She loves it. She she felt and really thought Jaafar did an excellent job.
>> She said she actually thought she was watching her brother. Then she added that Michael is somewhere smiling. That’s not a film review. That’s a sister’s heart speaking out loud. Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson were genuine friends. Both child prodigies grew up inside the Motown machine. Both men understood from a young age what it meant to carry extraordinary talent as a burden and a gift.
>> Someone very, very special to the world, to his family, and to his friends, we’ve lost as a and Michael Jackson. >> After a private screening of the film, Stevie asked to meet Jaafar. No official cameras were scheduled, but people present there saw the reactions. When people saw Stevie Wonder seated in that theater, the comments went crazy.
He cannot see. He has never been able to see, but he was there, front and center. And honestly, that alone tells you how much Michael Jackson meant to the people who truly knew him. It was reported that Stevie walked slowly toward him. He reached out and touched Jaafar’s face with both hands, then pulled him into a hug that lasted nearly 20 seconds.
He leaned in close and whispered something in Jaafar’s ear. Jaafar started crying. Nobody heard what Stevie said, but whatever it was, it broke Jaafar open in the best possible way. A man who knew Michael, holding Michael’s nephew, passing something forward that can’t be named but can absolutely be felt.
Then we have Michael’s best friend, Chris Tucker. In 2001, Tucker appeared alongside Michael in the music video for You Rock My World, one of Michael’s final major creative projects. He was there in Michael’s world. He saw the man up close. >> OW! >> YOU GOT TO GO SEE THE MICHAEL MOVIE, MAN. I DONE saw it twice.
I’m going back to see it again. It’s the best movie I ever saw. I have to rush out. I mean, it’s a great movie. Go see the Michael movie, my boy MJ, Michael Jackson movie. Off the chain. Great movie. >> When someone who knew Michael personally calls the biopic one of the best films he has ever seen, that carries real weight.
>> They see they getting ready to see Michael second time. That was my second time. This her first time. Y’all going to enjoy Did you enjoy it? >> I enjoyed >> It was off the chain, man. >> It was great. >> It was like it kept me kept me wanting to watch. How did you How did you like the Michael movie? >> I loved it.
>> Wasn’t it good? >> I loved it from start to finish. >> Me too. >> I’m not going to say nothing cuz she hasn’t seen it yet, but >> Yeah, you got to I want to go see it again with a bigger audience so I can be dancing in there and I can talk the way I want to talk in there. >> All right. >> Nice to meet y’all, man.
>> He saw the film twice, then went back a third time. He told his followers to go see this movie. No hesitation, just pure enthusiasm from a man who had every reason to be critical and chose to be moved instead. Usher Raymond grew up watching Michael Jackson and has always credited him as one of the main reasons he came to understand what it truly means to be a performer.
Not just to sing, but to create moments. To tell stories through movement. To give every detail of yourself to the stage. >> Oh, it was nerve-racking to actually dance for and with Michael. Uh, I can remember on [music] rehearsals. And I mean, I don’t normally go all out in rehearsals, [music] dude. I was going all out, singing at the top of my lungs, dancing harder than I’ve ever danced, sweating, flying all over the room.
He was like, “Man, you really have a talent.” That was one of the greatest compliments that I could ever get. >> Wow. >> He performed at Michael’s legendary 30th anniversary concert in 2001. He shared a stage with the man. Director Antoine Fuqua, who directed one of Usher’s early music videos, personally invited him to the premiere.
Usher said you could feel the care and respect for Michael in every single frame of the film. He called it a beautiful reminder of why Michael will always be unforgettable. From one generational performer to another, that’s the kind of tribute that lands differently. Jackie Jackson is one of Michael’s older brothers and an original member of the Jackson 5.
>> I couldn’t believe it out here. I got so emotional cuz he became Michael on that screen. It brought tears to my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. He’s He’s incredible. >> Jackie was there from the very first performance. He stood on stage next to Michael as a child. He watched his little brother grow from a boy in Gary, Indiana, into the most famous entertainer the world had ever seen.
>> I’m so proud of him. >> I’m really proud tonight. >> To know that the legacy the Jackson family legacy continues on. >> I’m going to cry. >> Cuz I did I did when I saw it. I couldn’t believe it. >> Really? Really? What What was the What was the part of the film that made you so emotional? >> Just watching Just watching Jaafar do his thing, and you think you’re I’m thinking I’m watching my brother up there, you know? But I’m watching my nephew.
>> And now, he watched his nephew step into that role on screen. Whatever Jackie felt watching Jaafar, it came from a place that goes all the way back to a living room in Gary, where they rehearsed until their feet hurt. The most important reaction came from Katherine Jackson, Michael’s mother. >> I discovered that Michael was very talented when he was just about two or three years old.
Michael had a lot of rhythm and he loved to dance. I think he was born dancing. >> She raised nine children and watched one of them change the entire world. She was the first person who ever heard him sing, the first person who ever watched him dance. She lost him in 2009. Watching her grandson Jaafar step into the role of her son, getting the movements right, the voice right, the spirit right, is something that exists completely outside the normal conversation about movies and performances.
>> Has she had a chance to see it? >> Mother has seen it and mother’s here tonight. She’s not doing the carpet, but she’s here tonight. She loves it. She’s she felt and really thought Jaafar did an excellent job. >> This was a mother watching her son come back to life through her grandson’s body. >> The film was phenomenal.
I said, “Really?” >> Grandma, like you really think so? Said, “You were so good.” >> Aw, thank you. Thank you. >> Whatever she felt inside that theater, it was one of the most profound experiences this film could have produced for any single human being. Paris Jackson is Michael’s daughter. She was 11 years old when her father died.
She has spent her entire adult life figuring out how to exist in the world as the child of the most famous person who ever lived. She has built her own career, her own identity, her own voice, while always carrying the weight of who her father was and how quickly he was taken. >> So, I just like butt it out and I just like I’ve left it alone cuz it’s not it’s not my project.
So, you know, they’re going to make whatever they’re going to make. A big reason why I haven’t said anything up until this point is because I know a lot of you guys are going to be happy with it. Like a big section. The film panders to a very specific section of my dad’s fandom that still lives in the >> Paris publicly distanced herself from the project, making it clear she had no real involvement.
She later revealed that after reading parts of the script, she felt the film left out uncomfortable truths and painted an overly polished version of her father’s life. And then there were the fans. Not celebrities, not industry insiders, not people with publicists or red carpet invitations. Just people who loved Michael Jackson their entire lives, who had his albums on repeat as kids, who learned the Thriller dance in their bedroom, who cried when they heard the news in 2009, and who walked into a dark movie theater hoping, maybe just a little, to feel
something they thought they had lost forever. They posted from parking lots, from their phones propped up on dashboards, from bathroom mirrors at home with the light still on. Some of them could barely speak. Some of them laughed through tears. Some of them just sat quietly, staring at nothing, trying to process what had just HAPPENED TO THEM.
>> I GET IT. >> IS IT MY BROTHER? >> THERE’S NOT enough people told him he was great. And that’s why he’s gone. When you think about it, >> [laughter] [laughter] >> These reactions don’t get covered in trade publications. They don’t show up on entertainment news shows. But in a lot of ways, they are the most honest reactions in this entire video.
They just loved Michael Jackson, and for a few hours inside that theater, they felt like he was back. Now I want to hear from you. Drop a comment below. What was your reaction when you saw Jafar become Michael? And if you haven’t seen it yet, which of these reactions finally convinced you?
Top Celebrities Saw Jaafar Jackson As Michael… They Were Left Speechless
Will Smith couldn’t speak for a few minutes after watching the movie. Stevie Wonder held a young man’s face in his hands and started to cry. La Toya Jackson, Michael’s own sister, said she forgot she was watching her nephew. Katherine Jackson, Michael’s mother, watched her grandson become her son. Paris Jackson, who lost her father when she was 11 years old, sat through a film that recreated his entire life.
>> Um my first thought was who are they going to get to play Michael? And honestly, I didn’t think of myself. I was I was like, this is going to be really interesting. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, cuz I didn’t know. So, fast forward a couple of months, I get a call from Graham King. He wants to have a Zoom, and uh I can tell just by that call what this was going to lead to in in some way.
And then one thing led to the to the other, we had lunch. >> The Michael biopic had one job, one impossible, terrifying job. Bring back the most iconic entertainer who ever lived and make audiences believe it. When the lights went down and the film began, nobody was fully prepared for what they were about to feel.
Will Smith knew Michael Jackson personally. He grew up idolizing him. And when he watched Jaafar on that screen, something broke open inside him. He couldn’t even wait to get out of the theater and posted this story with two words, I am speechless. Will Smith is one of the biggest movie stars on the planet.
He’s been in blockbusters, dramas, and award-winning films. He knows what great acting looks like because he’s spent his entire career doing it. >> Couldn’t get to him in the crowd. And I’m like, the day is going by and I’m like, yo, I’m about to go this whole award show and I’m not going to meet my idol. I was like, I got to meet Mike.
Then they call me and they take me back and I’m about to present my award and I see him and he’s across the room and I was like, a path. I was like, oh, I’m about to meet Mike. I’m about to meet Mike. And then all of a sudden you see the crowd start to go into a little bit of a frenzy and my security comes over and they grab me like, [music] “You got to move. We got to move.
” And I’m like, “No, but I got to meet Mike.” And they were like, “Sir, we got to move now.” >> So when Will walked into a screening of Michael, he wasn’t just watching a movie. He was watching someone play his idol. Snoop Dogg has been in entertainment for over 30 years. He’s worked with legends and seen the music industry from every possible angle.
>> Me and Mike was family. Um his family and my family love each other. We have a record that never came [music] out together. Um we never had issues. >> He grew up in Long Beach, California during the height of Michael Jackson’s dominance. Michael wasn’t just an artist to Snoop’s generation. He was a standard.
Proof of what black excellence could look like on the world stage. After watching the film, Snoop said Jaafar didn’t just look like Michael. He moved like him. He breathed like him. >> When I seen the Michael Jackson movie, that was inspiring. >> Yeah. >> It was very inspiring because it was great storytelling, the cinematics, the acting, the believability and you know, nephew becoming Mike and just the performances and all of that that just was exciting to see.
It was It was a spark. It put a spark in me. >> That word, spark, coming from Snoop Dogg, that is not a small thing. This is someone who has worked with the greatest artists alive. And watching a young man become his idol on screen gave him a spark. That tells you everything about what Jaafar did in that theater.
>> You have absolutely no [music] idea. I mean, Michael was one of the most loved people in the world. >> Yes. >> And >> Yes. >> [cheering] >> LaToya Jackson is Michael’s older sister. She grew up in the same house. She watched him rehearse in the living room as a child. She knows every gesture, every smile, every way he carried pain in his body.
She admitted she was scared to watch the biopic. She knew it would be emotional. She wasn’t sure if she was ready, but then Jaafar appeared on screen. >> Jaafar’s absolutely [music] excellent in this movie. He did a fabulous job. And what’s so just amazing to me is that I forgot I was watching Jaafar.
I actually thought I was watching my brother. So, that showed he delivered on his part. >> So, what does your mother think of the movie? Has she had a chance to see it? >> Mother has seen it and mother’s here tonight. She’s not doing the carpet, but she’s here tonight. She loves it. She she felt and really thought Jaafar did an excellent job.
>> She said she actually thought she was watching her brother. Then she added that Michael is somewhere smiling. That’s not a film review. That’s a sister’s heart speaking out loud. Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson were genuine friends. Both child prodigies grew up inside the Motown machine. Both men understood from a young age what it meant to carry extraordinary talent as a burden and a gift.
>> Someone very, very special to the world, to his family, and to his friends, we’ve lost as a and Michael Jackson. >> After a private screening of the film, Stevie asked to meet Jaafar. No official cameras were scheduled, but people present there saw the reactions. When people saw Stevie Wonder seated in that theater, the comments went crazy.
He cannot see. He has never been able to see, but he was there, front and center. And honestly, that alone tells you how much Michael Jackson meant to the people who truly knew him. It was reported that Stevie walked slowly toward him. He reached out and touched Jaafar’s face with both hands, then pulled him into a hug that lasted nearly 20 seconds.
He leaned in close and whispered something in Jaafar’s ear. Jaafar started crying. Nobody heard what Stevie said, but whatever it was, it broke Jaafar open in the best possible way. A man who knew Michael, holding Michael’s nephew, passing something forward that can’t be named but can absolutely be felt.
Then we have Michael’s best friend, Chris Tucker. In 2001, Tucker appeared alongside Michael in the music video for You Rock My World, one of Michael’s final major creative projects. He was there in Michael’s world. He saw the man up close. >> OW! >> YOU GOT TO GO SEE THE MICHAEL MOVIE, MAN. I DONE saw it twice.
I’m going back to see it again. It’s the best movie I ever saw. I have to rush out. I mean, it’s a great movie. Go see the Michael movie, my boy MJ, Michael Jackson movie. Off the chain. Great movie. >> When someone who knew Michael personally calls the biopic one of the best films he has ever seen, that carries real weight.
>> They see they getting ready to see Michael second time. That was my second time. This her first time. Y’all going to enjoy Did you enjoy it? >> I enjoyed >> It was off the chain, man. >> It was great. >> It was like it kept me kept me wanting to watch. How did you How did you like the Michael movie? >> I loved it.
>> Wasn’t it good? >> I loved it from start to finish. >> Me too. >> I’m not going to say nothing cuz she hasn’t seen it yet, but >> Yeah, you got to I want to go see it again with a bigger audience so I can be dancing in there and I can talk the way I want to talk in there. >> All right. >> Nice to meet y’all, man.
>> He saw the film twice, then went back a third time. He told his followers to go see this movie. No hesitation, just pure enthusiasm from a man who had every reason to be critical and chose to be moved instead. Usher Raymond grew up watching Michael Jackson and has always credited him as one of the main reasons he came to understand what it truly means to be a performer.
Not just to sing, but to create moments. To tell stories through movement. To give every detail of yourself to the stage. >> Oh, it was nerve-racking to actually dance for and with Michael. Uh, I can remember on [music] rehearsals. And I mean, I don’t normally go all out in rehearsals, [music] dude. I was going all out, singing at the top of my lungs, dancing harder than I’ve ever danced, sweating, flying all over the room.
He was like, “Man, you really have a talent.” That was one of the greatest compliments that I could ever get. >> Wow. >> He performed at Michael’s legendary 30th anniversary concert in 2001. He shared a stage with the man. Director Antoine Fuqua, who directed one of Usher’s early music videos, personally invited him to the premiere.
Usher said you could feel the care and respect for Michael in every single frame of the film. He called it a beautiful reminder of why Michael will always be unforgettable. From one generational performer to another, that’s the kind of tribute that lands differently. Jackie Jackson is one of Michael’s older brothers and an original member of the Jackson 5.
>> I couldn’t believe it out here. I got so emotional cuz he became Michael on that screen. It brought tears to my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. He’s He’s incredible. >> Jackie was there from the very first performance. He stood on stage next to Michael as a child. He watched his little brother grow from a boy in Gary, Indiana, into the most famous entertainer the world had ever seen.
>> I’m so proud of him. >> I’m really proud tonight. >> To know that the legacy the Jackson family legacy continues on. >> I’m going to cry. >> Cuz I did I did when I saw it. I couldn’t believe it. >> Really? Really? What What was the What was the part of the film that made you so emotional? >> Just watching Just watching Jaafar do his thing, and you think you’re I’m thinking I’m watching my brother up there, you know? But I’m watching my nephew.
>> And now, he watched his nephew step into that role on screen. Whatever Jackie felt watching Jaafar, it came from a place that goes all the way back to a living room in Gary, where they rehearsed until their feet hurt. The most important reaction came from Katherine Jackson, Michael’s mother. >> I discovered that Michael was very talented when he was just about two or three years old.
Michael had a lot of rhythm and he loved to dance. I think he was born dancing. >> She raised nine children and watched one of them change the entire world. She was the first person who ever heard him sing, the first person who ever watched him dance. She lost him in 2009. Watching her grandson Jaafar step into the role of her son, getting the movements right, the voice right, the spirit right, is something that exists completely outside the normal conversation about movies and performances.
>> Has she had a chance to see it? >> Mother has seen it and mother’s here tonight. She’s not doing the carpet, but she’s here tonight. She loves it. She’s she felt and really thought Jaafar did an excellent job. >> This was a mother watching her son come back to life through her grandson’s body. >> The film was phenomenal.
I said, “Really?” >> Grandma, like you really think so? Said, “You were so good.” >> Aw, thank you. Thank you. >> Whatever she felt inside that theater, it was one of the most profound experiences this film could have produced for any single human being. Paris Jackson is Michael’s daughter. She was 11 years old when her father died.
She has spent her entire adult life figuring out how to exist in the world as the child of the most famous person who ever lived. She has built her own career, her own identity, her own voice, while always carrying the weight of who her father was and how quickly he was taken. >> So, I just like butt it out and I just like I’ve left it alone cuz it’s not it’s not my project.
So, you know, they’re going to make whatever they’re going to make. A big reason why I haven’t said anything up until this point is because I know a lot of you guys are going to be happy with it. Like a big section. The film panders to a very specific section of my dad’s fandom that still lives in the >> Paris publicly distanced herself from the project, making it clear she had no real involvement.
She later revealed that after reading parts of the script, she felt the film left out uncomfortable truths and painted an overly polished version of her father’s life. And then there were the fans. Not celebrities, not industry insiders, not people with publicists or red carpet invitations. Just people who loved Michael Jackson their entire lives, who had his albums on repeat as kids, who learned the Thriller dance in their bedroom, who cried when they heard the news in 2009, and who walked into a dark movie theater hoping, maybe just a little, to feel
something they thought they had lost forever. They posted from parking lots, from their phones propped up on dashboards, from bathroom mirrors at home with the light still on. Some of them could barely speak. Some of them laughed through tears. Some of them just sat quietly, staring at nothing, trying to process what had just HAPPENED TO THEM.
>> I GET IT. >> IS IT MY BROTHER? >> THERE’S NOT enough people told him he was great. And that’s why he’s gone. When you think about it, >> [laughter] [laughter] >> These reactions don’t get covered in trade publications. They don’t show up on entertainment news shows. But in a lot of ways, they are the most honest reactions in this entire video.
They just loved Michael Jackson, and for a few hours inside that theater, they felt like he was back. Now I want to hear from you. Drop a comment below. What was your reaction when you saw Jafar become Michael? And if you haven’t seen it yet, which of these reactions finally convinced you?
