With just three weeks until Lionsgate’s most anticipated release of the year hits theaters, the marketing push behind the Michael Jackson biopic “Michael” reached a new level as a newly released clip showed Jaafar Jackson recreating his late uncle’s landmark “Billie Jean” performance at the “Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever” television special, the moment that introduced the Moonwalk to the world and permanently altered the course of pop history.
Colman Domingo, who plays Jackson family patriarch Joe Jackson in the film, has described what Jaafar delivers in that sequence as a recreation done “frame by frame and beat by beat,” calling it a “revelation.” The footage arrives on the same day Jaafar appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” offering his most candid account yet of what it took to step into a moment so deeply embedded in the public memory that billions of people carry a precise image of how it looked, sounded, and felt.
The original performance is one of the most consequential in the history of televised music. The NBC special “Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever” was taped on March 25, 1983, before a live audience at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, California, and broadcast on May 16 of that year to an audience of roughly 47 million viewers. What made Michael’s inclusion particularly striking was that “Billie Jean” had nothing to do with Motown. It was a track from “Thriller,” released on Epic Records. The show’s producers had banned all performers from playing new material, a rule that applied even to Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. Michael Jackson negotiated his participation around a single condition, that he would perform “Billie Jean” or not appear at all. Berry Gordy, the label’s founder, eventually relented, and television history followed.
At the time of taping, “Billie Jean” was sitting atop the Billboard Hot 100 in the middle of a seven-week run at number one. When the bassline kicked in, Jackson was wearing his now-iconic black sequined jacket, black trousers, white socks, a single rhinestone-encrusted glove, and a black fedora, the same outfit that Jaafar has been painstakingly recreating for the film. Then came the bridge. During the instrumental break, Jackson spun, planted himself on his toes, and glided backward for a few brief seconds. The auditorium erupted. Jackson himself was reportedly unhappy with the performance afterward, crying backstage because he felt he had not held the toe-stand long enough. The rest of the world had just witnessed the birth of the Moonwalk.
Recreating that precise moment, with all its recorded history and the weight of 47 million witnesses, was always going to be the production’s biggest test. Jaafar, 29 and the son of Jermaine Jackson, mastered the full performance in just 20 days, working under the guidance of Rich + Tone, the choreography team long associated with Jackson’s legacy. “There are so many different elements: African dance, jazz dance, as well as Michael’s signature moves,” the duo explained. “We had to make sure Jaafar had all of that language in his body. That initial walk of one, two, then the hand, then the head, had to grab you.” For Rich + Tone, the “Billie Jean” sequence was the definitive test of the entire undertaking. If Jaafar could deliver that performance, they reasoned, the rest of the film was within reach.
Jaafar’s preparation extended well beyond the choreography. He worked with an acting coach, took vocal coaching, and at one point relocated to his uncle’s former bedroom in Encino to sleep and rehearse in the same space where Michael once lived. He has described dancing until his feet would bleed or go numb. Speaking on “The Tonight Show” on April 3, he reflected on the emotional toll of the transformation itself, spending hours in the makeup chair watching himself become the uncle he remembered from childhood visits to Neverland. “It was really a surreal, a spiritual moment at the same time,” he told host Jimmy Fallon. Director Antoine Fuqua recalled the moment Jaafar first stepped into character on set with equal intensity. “When the music started and he hit those first few moves,” Fuqua said, “this guy killed it. He has the desire, like Michael, to be the best.”
The film, written by John Logan and produced by Graham King alongside estate co-executors John Branca and John McClain, is rated PG-13 and is distributed by Lionsgate in the United States and Universal Pictures internationally. The ensemble cast includes Nia Long as Katherine Jackson, Miles Teller as John Branca, Kat Graham as Diana Ross, and Larenz Tate as Berry Gordy. Early Access screenings in IMAX and Dolby begin April 22, with the wide release following April 24. Box office tracking projects an opening weekend between $55 million and $60 million, which would set a new domestic record for a musical biopic, surpassing the $51.5 million debut of “Bohemian Rhapsody” in 2018. The world premiere is set for April 10 in Berlin. The Moonwalk that changed everything is about to hit the big screen again, and this time, it belongs to the next generation of the Jackson family.
— MICHAEL ✨ (@MJJProjects) April 3, 2026
