Paris Jackson has continued to share her lack of support for the biopic about her late father, Michael, and co-executors have hit back, calling her claims “meritless”.
The singer and model has criticised the upcoming Michael film multiple times now, and expressed disagreement with the way that co-executors of Michael Jackson’s estate have been handling his finances. She has accused them of mismanaging his money, not being transparent in their spending, and wasting resources from the estate.
One issue in particular she took issue with was the upcoming biopic, which she described as a risky investment. She added that she found it “troubling” money from the estate has been used for a large portion of the film’s budget, and questioned the choice to cast Miles Teller in the movie (as per Daily Mail).
Now, John Branca and John McClain – who have managed the estate since his passing in 2009 – have hit back at the accusations and described them as “meritless”.
According to new court documents (shared by Indulge Express), both McClane and Branca brand the accusations to be “a profound waste of the court’s time and, ironically, the estate’s money”.
Deadline also highlights that they accuse Paris Jackson of having “a complete lack of understanding about how the motion picture industry works and the role of producers in it.”
Jonathan Steinsapir, the attorney of the executors also highlighted instances where Branca and McClane have been “wildly successful” in turning over a profit for their Michael Jackson-inspired projects, citing the 2009 documentary Michael Jackson: This is It.
As highlighted by Deadline, Paris and her lawyers are also hitting out at Branca for allegedly not acknowledging the weight of a 1994 deal and $20million settlement with the family of Jordan Chandler, which forbade depiction of the then-underage boy’s relationship with Michael Jackson and the allegations of sexual abuse.
Because of the oversight, the original script of the new biopic depicted the Chandler allegations from Jackson’s perspective, allegedly violating the 1994 blackout clause and leading to pricey reshoots.
In response to the claims made against them and the biopic, the legal team for the co-executors have alleged that Paris is responsible for “irrelevant and highly incendiary, personal attacks”, and making “false and frivolous objections”.
They also claim that Paris will “continue to benefit substantially from the tireless work of the Executors”, and has “already received roughly $65 million in benefits [and] stands to inherit many hundreds of millions of dollars more.”
As per Daily Mail, the lawyers representing McClane and Branca have also accused Paris’ legal team of “wanting to object for objections’ sake”, and focused on “playing media games by making headline-grabbing, yet false, accusations”.
Paris’s team has called the $65million figure “outright false”, and also accused the executors of leaving more than $464million earning less than 0.1 per cent – something they say is putting their own interests ahead of the beneficiaries and using the estate as a way to “enrich and aggrandise” themselves (via Parade).
Last year, actor Colman Domingo said in an interview that Jackson’s children, Paris and Prince Jackson, were “very much in support” of the film. This was quickly refuted by Paris, who announced that she had “zero per cent involvement” with the film and that Domingo’s claim to the contrary was false.
Later in 2025, she filed a lawsuit claiming that her inheritance from father Michael Jackson has been “mismanaged”, and earlier in 2026 she shared an update on where she stands with Colman Domingo, following the aforementioned public spat over the Michael biopic.
A new trailer and poster for the hotly anticipated film was released last month, and it is set to arrive in cinemas on April 24.
