Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, is just as polarizing as he was 50 years ago.

From the beginning of his career, Jackson has been a spectacle. A child thrust into the limelight turned zany messiah persecuted by the masses is usually how his legacy is seen to have played out. His death in 2009 left little room for interpretation of his legacy as the world mourned the loss of an undoubtedly iconic figure of pop music.

The 2026 musical biopic “Michael” only served to both cement and revitalize this sentiment.

Critically panned but generally beloved, the “Michael” movie is a prime example of what happens when fandom turns into faith and criticism is lost in the face of that fervent belief.

Jackson’s story begins with his induction into the classic boy band of his father’s conception, “The Jackson 5,” in 1965, which is exactly where the “Michael” movie picks up from. The film chronicles his journey from charismatic leading boy to burgeoning pop star to not much else — the film’s plot effectively ends at his 25 years of age and only briefly flashes forward to his performance at Wembley Stadium in London when he was 29.

The rest of his life would go entirely ignored, at least until the inevitable sequel of the box office smash. This move to split up Michael Jackson’s life is not entirely without reason.

A theatrical biopic was always going to be spearheaded by the Jackson estate, particularly his siblings. And to that extent, it’s entirely predictable that they would produce a sanitized, corporate depiction of their money-maker brother.

It’s no secret that Michael Jackson was immensely wealthy, due in part to the millions of records he sold but also to his lucrative deal-holdings in Sony that would produce a lifelong feud with Sony CEO, Tommy Mottola, and eventually go sold for a staggering $1.2 billion posthumously.

However, Michael Jackson died with an equally staggering amount of debt. Admirable philanthropic efforts were also produced in conjunction with exuberant spending and massive loans that used the very same Sony catalog as collateral, resulting in a debt as deep as $500 million.

Even 16 years later, this debt would prove to be a ghost that would haunt Michael Jackson’s estate. Executors of his estate spent considerable time and effort recovering Jackson’s debt into a multi-billion dollar empire — the “Michael” movie is a hefty extension of these efforts.

And while the Jackson family are not the executors of Michael Jackson’s estate, they serve as primary beneficiaries and would go on to insert themselves into the movie by casting Jackson’s own nephew, Jaafar Jackson, in the lead role and asserting their control over production.

The film served as a definitive effort to both scrape in as much cash as possible and to bring Jackson into the 2020s. And so far, it seems to have succeeded. Jackson’s streaming numbers have increased massively and the masses are re-enamored by the censored portrayal of the figure they grew up with.

Now to address the elephant in the room. The latter of Michael Jackson’s life went unportrayed (for now) because of the numerous accounts of sexual abuse and pedophilia that Jackson was faced with starting in 1993.

According to the producers of the film, the Jackson biopic was forced to undergo reshoots as the third act of the movie was removed in its entirety following a clause in Jackson’s settlement that the 1993 accusations, posed by 13-year-old Jordan Chandler, were strictly prohibited from dramatization.

The non-disclosure clause possibly saved the musical biopic as the inclusion of, and certain dismissal, of the allegations would be a Pandora’s box for the film. The allegations against Jackson would span three decades with new allegations surfacing just this year.

These accusations would go on to taint Michael Jackson’s reputation by further cementing his status as the world’s most famous sex offender — one that would be parodied for the remainder of his life.

Furthermore, the 2019 tell-all documentary “Leaving Neverland” would reorient these accusations at the center of Jackson’s public persona and be the most polarizing piece of Jackson media. Since then, much of the Jackson fandom has dedicated themselves to his staunch defense.

Michael Jackson is like pop-Jesus — you either believe or you don’t, and people will believe what they want.

And for some, the allegations weren’t so hard to believe: the man who underwent the scalpel and radically changed his appearance, thought of himself as a Peter Pan figure and, most damningly, admitted to inviting children into his home doesn’t spell the best defense.

But on the other hand, there were those who would not let go of the image he had portrayed: a tortured child in an adult’s body whose eccentricities was the key to his artistry. This infantilization doesn’t save anybody — it doesn’t neutralize what he did, or what he was alleged to do and it certainly isn’t enough to excuse him.

But no matter what I personally believe, the thought process around developing Jackson’s innocence is genuine.

It’s as genuine as faith is. No matter the amount of insurmountable evidence, there will always be a workaround, a denial or a “what if.”

This isn’t entirely unique to Michael Jackson — sexual abuse allegations against celebrities, even our president, are hotly contested — but he is the only who boasts a fanbase large enough to actively refute and deny the experience of survivors.

There is nothing to say to those who want to believe. It’s best to simply accept that we might never know — never know if it was just a ploy to destroy him, assassinate his character or even kill him — but there is so much harm in saying that he was inherently different from the other abusers that are relegated to cultural and professional demise.

This is not a campaign arguing that he did something we will never know for sure, and it is certainly not a declaration attesting to his guilt and or innocence. He is also not alive to defend himself and his zealous fans certainly take that task upon themselves.

But people should know better than to follow the word of the most famous man on the planet, particularly one with so much cultural influence that he knew he could get away with it.