Michael Jackson musical that does not mention child abuse allegations opens in London

A new musical about Michael Jackson’s life has opened in the West End despite criticism that it makes no mention of the child abuse allegations against him.

The writer of MJ, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage, is a lifelong Jackson fan and said she wanted to focus on his music rather than address the scandal.

The first sexual abuse allegations against Jackson surfaced in 1993. The musical ends in 1992, at the time of his Dangerous tour.

“Do I believe he was a paedophile? I don’t know that I can say one way or the other… It does hurt my heart to think about the possibility that it could be true, and I pray that it isn’t true, and that’s all I can do,” Nottage has said.

MJ has been a hit on Broadway, where it opened in 2022, winning four Tony Awards including best choreography for Christopher Wheeldon, its British director-choreographer, and best performance by an actor in a leading role for Myles Frost.

But reviewers in the US criticised its failure to address the abuse allegations, variously calling it “sanitised”, “a monument to misconduct” and “very smooth, somewhat criminal”.

The New York Times headlined its review: “In MJ, no one’s looking at the Man in the Mirror”, while the New York Stage Review said: “Michael Jackson is today a credibly accused child molester, and MJ succeeds only if you can ignore that fact.”

MJ is co-produced by the Michael Jackson Estate and is billed as offering “a rare look at the creative mind and collaborative spirit that catapulted Jackson into legendary status”.

Both Nottage and Wheeldon are lifelong Jackson fans, and said that they wanted the show to be about his music.

After a 2019 documentary, Leaving Neverland, detailed fresh accusations of child abuse, Nottage initially said that she found the accounts of the two alleged victims believable.

That drew the ire of Jackson fans, and in a subsequent interview she said: “The men came across as very believable. But here’s the caveat: were they ultimately telling the truth? I cannot 100 per cent say so, because I’m not judge and jury, and it’s not my place to do that.”

Wheeldon, a Royal Ballet associate, said that he did not consider pulling out of the project after Leaving Neverland was aired.

Asked by the New York Times if he believed Jackson was a child molester, Wheedon said: “It’s a very difficult question to answer.”

Nottage has also said: “There’s so much story to tell about Michael Jackson that you can’t do it in one musical… We felt that, as a musical, what we wanted to focus on was the music.”

She told the Los Angeles Times that critics who reviewed the show in the US were really reviewing “their complicated relationship to Michael Jackson. And, of course, there’s room for that, but what they forget is that we were making a show about an artist who had an indelible impact on 20th century music. And that he was a child star who was damaged in the process of trying to tell his own story through his art.”

The show is running at the Prince Edward Theatre. A Michael Jackson jukebox musical, Thriller Live, has been running in the West End since 2009.