The “Vampire Diaries” star was cast alongside Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson in director Antoine Fuqua’s new movie about the King of Pop.

Kat Graham says role as Diana Ross was cut from Michael Jackson biopic over ‘certain legal considerations’

The "Vampire Diaries" star was cast alongside Jackson's nephew Jaafar Jackson in director Antoine Fuqua's new movie about the King of Pop.

By Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on Entertainment Tonight and Popsugar.

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April 23, 2026 1:41 p.m. ET

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Kat Graham in 2025; Diana Ross in 1985. Credit:

Paras Griffin/Getty; Pete Still/Redferns

- Kat Graham revealed that her role as Diana Ross in the new Michael Jackson biopic, *Michael, *was cut.

- "I want to share that certain legal considerations affected a few scenes, including the ones I filmed with an incredible cast," the *Vampire Diaries* alum said.

- The news is the latest of many bumps in the road for the film, which premieres Friday.

Kat Graham fans will not get to see her portray the legendary Supremes singer Diana Ross in *Michael, *the forthcoming biopic about pop icon Michael Jackson,

The *Vampire Diaries* alum has revealed that her scenes in the Antoine Fuqua–directed feature were cut due to legal reasons she did not disclose.

"Ahead of the April 24 release of the Michael Jackson film, I want to share that certain legal considerations affected a few scenes, including the ones I filmed with an incredible cast," she wrote Thursday on X. "Unfortunately, those moments are no longer part of the final cut, though the team worked hard to preserve as much of the story as possible."

Fans expressed their disappointment over not getting to see Ross and Jackson's relationship play out in the movie in Graham's comments.

The singers and *The Wiz *costars established a friendship after they met during Jackson's time as a child performer with the Jackson 5. His brother Jermaine Jackson has even said that Michael wrote the 1992 single "Remember the Time" with Ross in mind.

Lionsgate, the studio behind *Michael,* had no comment when ** reached out about Graham's social media post.

Diana Ross and Michael Jackson attend the 1981 American Music Awards.

Barry King/WireImage

The news of Graham's exclusion is the latest of many bumps in the film's troubled road to the big screen. From *Leaving Neverland *director Dan Reed slamming the script as a "complete whitewash" of Jackson's complicated legacy to his sister Janet abstaining from involvement in the film, and thus appearing nowhere in it, the forthcoming biopic has already sparked major controversy on a number of fronts. Most recently, Jackson's daughter, Paris, publicly decried its depiction of her late father, who died in 2009 from acute propofol intoxication.

The first half of the two-part *Michael *centers on Jackson's early life as a member of the Jackson 5, with Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson portraying the pop music superstar; Colman Domingo playing his father, Joe Jackson; and Nia Long starring as his mother, Katherine. Miles Teller, Laura Harrier, and Larenz Tate round out the cast.

The official logline of the film — which has the backing of the Jackson estate — promises to highlight "both his life off stage and some of the most iconic performances from his early solo career" and give "audiences a front-row seat to Michael Jackson as never before. This is where his story begins."

Fuqua told EW in 2023 that his goal for the movie was to "tell the facts as we know it, about the artist, about the man, about the human being."

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A majority of the criticism of the film has focused on its exclusion of the singer's numerous allegations of child sex abuse.

The biopic ends in 1988, five years before Evan Chandler alleged that Jackson sexually abused his 13-year-old son Jordan in 1993. Chandler filed a $30 million lawsuit that prompted an investigation, which wrapped a year later following a settlement. A grand jury later declined to indict Jackson.

The investigation into Jackson was reopened in 2003 after the documentary *Living With Michael Jackson *included testimony from Gavin Arvizo, a 13-year-old who claimed he'd been having sleepovers with Jackson at his Los Olivos, Calif., Neverland Ranch complex. Jackson was charged with seven counts of child sexual abuse, which culminated in a 2005 trial. Jackson was ultimately acquitted on all counts.

A report published earlier this month in *Variety* claimed that *Michael *doesn't address Chandler's sexual abuse allegations due to a clause in the Chandler settlement that barred any depiction or mention of Jordan Chandler in any movie.

According to the report, Fuqua planned to depict this period in Jackson's life. Production had actually shot a scene of investigators searching Neverland for evidence, but after the Michael Jackson Estate discovered the clause in the Chandler settlement, the film was reworked to exclude the allegations altogether.

EW reached out to representatives for the Michael Jackson Estate and Lionsgate for comment at the time.

Jaafar Jackson as Michael Jackson in 'Michael'.

Glen Wilson/Lionsgate

Domingo and Long defended the decision to elide the allegations for the first part of the double feature in a Wednesday interview on *Today*.

"The film takes place from the '60s to 1988, so it does not go into the first allegations in, what, 2005?" Domingo said. "Basically, we center it on the makings of Michael. It's an intimate portrait of who Michael is."

Long suggested that the film bypassed this period of Jackson's legacy because of its team's choice to tell the pop star's story "through his eyes."

Domingo underlined that point. "Through his eyes, truly … That's what this film is, and there's the possibility of there being a part 2 that may deal with other things that may happen afterwards. This is about the making of Michael, how he was raised, and how he was trying to find his voice as an artist."

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.***

*Michael* lands in theaters on April 24.

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