Joseph Fiennes’ Michael Jackson TV Show Pulled After Paris Jackson Tweet
Earlier this week, the world collectively recoiled in horror to an image from Urban Myths, a new British comedy series. The show focuses on old, probably-untrue stories about famous people, and one of those people, it turns out, was Michael Jackson. One episode of the show told the story of a road trip that Jackson supposedly took from New York to Los Angeles after 9/11, alongside Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor. And the image of Joseph Fiennes in late-period Michael Jackson makeup was a little bit much for just about all of us. So now the UK network Sky has made the exceedingly sane decision to pull the episode from air.
See, one of the people who saw the trailer and recoiled was Paris Jackson, daughter of Michael. And when someone asked her on Twitter what she thought of it, Paris reacted with absolute disgust:
@TheMJCast i'm so incredibly offended by it, as i'm sure plenty of people are as well, and it honestly makes me want to vomit.
— Paris-Michael K. J. (@ParisJackson) January 11, 2017
And now, as Deadline reports, Sky has issued a statement explaining why they won’t be airing the episode:
We have taken the decision not to broadcast “Elizabeth, Michael and Marlon,” a half-hour episode from the Sky Arts Urban Myths series, in light of the concerns expressed by Michael Jackson’s immediate family. We set out to take a light-hearted look at reportedly true events and never intended to cause any offence. Joseph Fiennes fully supports our decision.
It’s honestly crazy to think that this got as far as it did. As soon as the phrase “Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson” was spoken aloud, someone needed to step in and give a firm no.