• John McClain died Tuesday, May 26, in Malibu, California, from complications after a fall at his home that left him with a broken arm; he had been hospitalized at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in the days before his death
• He was 71 and had reportedly been dealing with health issues for several years; he was surrounded by friends and his nephew Warner Wright at the time of his death
• McClain was named co-executor of Michael Jackson’s estate in MJ’s 2002 will and took the role in 2009 — alongside attorney John Branca, he erased hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and built the estate into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise
• Before his estate work, he was an A&M Records executive who oversaw Janet Jackson’s breakthrough album Control and worked with Ice Cube and Dr. Dre
• His death comes as the estate is in the midst of a legal battle with Paris Jackson over a court-ordered accounting of fees from 2019 through 2024

John McClain, the music executive who transformed Michael Jackson’s debt-riddled estate into a multi-billion-dollar empire, died Tuesday in Malibu. He was 71.

According to TMZ, which first reported the news, McClain had fallen at his Malibu home and was medevacked to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where he was treated for a broken arm in the days before his death. He died Tuesday afternoon from complications related to the fall. A representative for the estate, Diana Baron, confirmed his passing. He was surrounded by friends and his nephew Warner Wright.

“I am profoundly grieved at the loss of my partner and ‘brother’ John McClain,” said attorney John Branca, his co-executor, in a statement. “One of the great innovators in the world of music and music marketing, John was a visionary, seeing past the mundane and into the future. He brought a passion and sense of conviction to all that he did and was the most generous of friends. It is difficult to imagine a world without him.”

The Estate He Helped Build

When Michael Jackson died in June 2009, he was reportedly close to half a billion dollars in debt — the result of years of extravagant spending and deteriorating business arrangements. McClain and Branca had been named co-executors in Jackson’s 2002 will, and when they stepped in, they inherited that debt alongside one of the most commercially powerful music catalogs in the world.

What followed was one of the more striking financial turnarounds in entertainment history. The two men cleared the debt and went on to generate billions through music releases, licensing, theatrical productions, and film. The posthumous projects included two albums of archival material, two Cirque du Soleil shows built around Jackson’s catalog, and the Broadway hit MJ: The Musical. Most recently, the estate produced the Michael Jackson biopic Michael, starring Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson — the film has grossed close to $800 million at the global box office since its April 24 release, making it the highest-grossing music biopic of all time in North America. In 2024, a California appeals court cleared the estate to proceed with the sale of half of Jackson’s publishing and recorded music catalog to Sony Music.

At the time of his death, McClain and Branca were in the midst of a legal dispute with Jackson’s daughter Paris — along with her brothers Prince and Bigi — over a court-ordered accounting of all attorney and estate fees from 2019 through 2024, with a compliance deadline set for September 15, 2026.

The Career Before the Estate

McClain was a Los Angeles native whose entry into music was practically inherited. His father owned the It Club, a jazz venue that hosted Miles Davis and John Coltrane; his mother was a pianist. He began his career as a music director and session musician, working with Gladys Knight, Diana Ross, and Lionel Richie, and later served as music director for R&B acts including the Sylvers and Shalamar.

His most consequential pre-estate role came at A&M Records, where he oversaw the label’s work with Janet Jackson and shepherded her breakthrough album Control (1986) — a record that repositioned her as an independent artist and became one of the defining pop albums of the decade. He also worked with Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, and was responsible for urging the label to sign Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.

He had been close to the Jackson family since well before either of those roles, a quiet insider presence at the center of some of the biggest business decisions in pop music history. Per Variety, sources said he had been ill for several years, though the estate cited the fall as the official cause of death. No funeral arrangements had been announced as of Tuesday.

The post John McClain, Who Rebuilt Michael Jackson’s Estate From $500M in Debt, Dies at 71 appeared first on Cream.

• Drake’s “Janice STFU” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, his 14th career chart-topper
• That breaks Michael Jackson’s record for most No. 1 hits by a solo male artist
• Drake now ties Rihanna and Taylor Swift for most No. 1s across all acts with 14
• He charted a record 42 songs on the Hot 100 in a single week and holds nine of the top 10
• His three new albums — ICEMAN, HABIBTI, and MAID OF HONOUR — debuted at Nos. 1, 2, and 3 simultaneously, a Billboard 200 first

Drake just did something no solo male artist has done in the 67-year history of the Billboard Hot 100. And then he did about five more things on top of it.

“Janice STFU” debuted at No. 1 this week, giving Drake his 14th career Hot 100 leader and breaking him out of a tie with Michael Jackson for the most No. 1 hits by a solo male artist in the chart’s history. He now ties Rihanna and Taylor Swift at 14 apiece across all acts. Only Mariah Carey (19) and the Beatles (20) have more.

The song drew 69.4 million streams and 3,000 sales worldwide in its first week, according to Luminate.

The Numbers Are Absurd

The No. 1 was just the headline. The full picture is staggering.

Drake charted a record 42 songs on the Hot 100 in a single week — all from his three new albums, ICEMAN, HABIBTI, and MAID OF HONOUR, which dropped May 15 on OVO Sound/Republic. That demolishes Morgan Wallen’s previous single-week record of 37 entries from last year. With 40 of those 42 being debuts, Drake also became the first artist ever to accumulate more than 400 career Hot 100 entries.

He occupies nine of the top 10 slots. The only song in the top 10 that isn’t his is Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas.”

On the Billboard 200 albums chart, ICEMAN debuted at No. 1 with 463,000 equivalent album units — the vast majority from streaming, pulling in over 462 million official on-demand streams. HABIBTI landed at No. 2 and MAID OF HONOUR at No. 3, making Drake the first artist in the chart’s 70-year history to hold the top three spots simultaneously.

That also pushed his career total to 15 No. 1 albums, surpassing Jay-Z for the most by a solo male artist and tying Taylor Swift among all solo acts.

What It Means

The records Drake broke this week span decades of chart history. He passed Michael Jackson, Jay-Z, and Morgan Wallen in a single chart cycle. He tied Taylor Swift and Rihanna. The only names still ahead of him on any list are Mariah Carey and the Beatles — and at 39, with three albums dropped in one night, he doesn’t appear to be slowing down.

On the Global 200, “Janice STFU” also debuted at No. 1, with Drake claiming eight of the top 10 globally. He joins BTS and Taylor Swift as the only artists to ever hold the chart’s top seven positions in a single week.

Fourteen No. 1s. Forty-two songs on the chart in one week. Three albums in the top three at once. Whatever the opposite of a quiet week is, Drake just had it.

The post Drake Just Broke Michael Jackson’s Billboard Record appeared first on Cream.

• A humanoid robot dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” at a store in Shenzhen, China has gone massively viral
• The bot pulled off a passable moonwalk before crashing hard into a step on the stage — twice
• A human technician had to drag its lifeless frame offstage while “Billie Jean” kept playing
• The clip is being held up as a perfect example of how far humanoid robotics still has to go

A humanoid robot attempted Michael Jackson’s moonwalk in front of a live crowd. It did not end well — and the internet absolutely cannot get enough of it.

The video, filmed at a “robot store” called Future Era in Shenzhen, China, shows the bot striding out onstage to Jackson’s 1983 classic “Billie Jean” and actually pulling off some halfway-decent footwork to start. There’s a moment — genuinely — where you think it might be okay. The little guy sashays across the stage, attempts something that resembles the iconic moonwalk, and the crowd is watching with what can only be described as cautious optimism.

Then it hits the step.

What follows is the kind of slow-motion catastrophe you can’t look away from. The robot stumbles, flails with that wild, trout-out-of-water energy that only a falling robot can produce, briefly seems to recover — and then walks straight back into that same step and crumbles into a completely lifeless heap on the stage floor. Face down. Done. Gone. While “Billie Jean” keeps playing over the speakers, because nobody thought to turn it off.

And then, for the perfect punchline: a human technician walks out and drags the robot’s inert body offstage. Just hauls it away. The crowd watches in near-total silence.

@waffle_pawffle

You could not write a better bit of physical comedy. The setup, the false recovery, the second fall, the corpse drag — it’s a four-act structure. It has arc.

Why Everyone’s Losing It

Part of what makes the clip so irresistible is how hard it commits to the premise before everything falls apart. This wasn’t a robot quietly malfunctioning in a lab. This was a full public demonstration, with an audience, with Michael Jackson, with a moonwalk. The higher the ambition, the more spectacular the collapse.

The video has inspired waves of jokes and genuine secondhand embarrassment online — and it’s also being pointed to as a pretty clear-eyed illustration of where humanoid robotics actually stands right now. As Futurism noted, most of the impressive robot demos you see circulating online are carefully pre-programmed routines. Everything looks incredible right up until something unexpected happens — like, say, a step. The infinite variables of a real environment are exactly the kind of thing these bots aren’t built to handle yet. A messy kitchen, a stray chair, two stairs at a robot store in Shenzhen — all equally capable of ending the show.

For context, another viral robotics moment making the rounds this week is footage of the company Figure livestreaming one of its humanoid robots sorting packages on a conveyor belt. It’s a deliberately controlled, constrained setup — and the robot still only barely outpaced a human intern competing against it. Which, as observers pointed out, was an intern who may have had every reason to lose on purpose.

This isn’t the first time a robot has gone haywire in spectacular fashion at a public event, either. Earlier this year, a different bot made headlines for trashing a hot pot restaurant, and compilation videos of robots losing the plot in various creative ways have quietly become their own genre of internet content. The “Billie Jean” bot is just the latest — and arguably the most theatrical — entry.

The Bigger Picture (Which Doesn’t Make It Less Funny)

None of this means the tech isn’t advancing. It clearly is. But there’s a real gap between a robot nailing a choreographed routine in ideal conditions and a robot that can vacuum your living room, navigate your dog’s toys, and not destroy itself on the way to the kitchen. The dancing is the easy part — or at least, it’s supposed to be.

Until that gap closes, we’ll have videos like this one. And honestly? The internet seems pretty okay with that arrangement.

As one observer put it, unless your job description is specifically “dancing badly to Michael Jackson while absolutely eating it on two stairs,” your career is probably safe from the robot uprising. For now.

The post Robot Does Michael Jackson’s Moonwalk, Then Eats It Hard appeared first on Cream.

• The Michael biopic has driven Jackson’s catalog to 181.6 million U.S. streams in a single week — his personal best by a wide margin
• Thriller has returned to No. 1 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart for the first time since 1984, now with 38 total weeks at the top
• \”Billie Jean\” has climbed to No. 17 on the Hot 100, 43 years after its original release
• The Essential Michael Jackson hit No. 1 on the U.K. albums chart for the first time since 2009, when it surged following Jackson’s death
• The chart boom arrives alongside renewed legal scrutiny, as the Cascio family’s sexual abuse lawsuit draws fresh attention

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Three weeks into its theatrical run, the Michael Jackson biopic Michael is doing something no marketing campaign could manufacture: it’s making a dead man’s decades-old music feel brand new again. Not just on one chart, not just in one country — everywhere, all at once, in numbers that are genuinely hard to wrap your head around.

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For the tracking week of May 1–7, Jackson’s solo catalog registered 181.6 million official on-demand song streams in the United States alone, according to data platform Luminate. That’s a 32% jump from the prior week’s 137.6 million — which was itself a 146% improvement over his then-record of 55.9 million weekly streams. He’s broken his own personal best three weeks in a row. Early data for the following week already showed 86 million streams logged in just three days (May 8–10), putting a 200-million-stream week within reach.

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\”Billie Jean\” is leading the charge. Originally released on January 2, 1983 as the second single from Thriller, it held the No. 1 spot on the Hot 100 for seven consecutive weeks and made Jackson the first artist ever to simultaneously top all four of Billboard’s major pop and R&B charts. Now, 43 years later, it’s back — rocketing from No. 38 to No. 17 on the Hot 100, topping newer releases from Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber in the process. The song has also climbed to No. 2 on Spotify’s global chart and currently sits at 2.7 billion total streams on the platform. It is, by every measure, still his biggest song — and it’s proving it all over again.

\n\n

\”Beat It,\” \”Human Nature,\” and \”Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough\” have all returned to the Hot 100 as well, with \”Beat It\” and \”Human Nature\” finishing second and third behind \”Billie Jean\” in Jackson’s catalog for the week with 11.4 million and 10.8 million plays respectively.

\n\n

Thriller Is Making History — Again

\n\n

The album that started it all is back on top. Thriller has reclaimed No. 1 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart for the first time since 1984, earning 62,000 equivalent album units in the May 1–7 tracking week — a 36% jump from the week before, driven by 50.3 million streams. That brings Thriller’s total weeks at No. 1 on that chart to 38, extending its own record for the most weeks at the top by a male artist. (SZA’s SOS holds the overall record with 46 weeks, having surpassed Thriller’s original 37-week run in June 2025.)

\n\n

On the Billboard 200, the numbers are just as striking. Thriller has climbed into the top five. The greatest-hits collection Number Ones has entered the top 10 for the first time ever. The Essential Michael Jackson jumped from No. 158 to No. 88. Off the Wall and Dangerous have both reentered the chart. And on the Top Album Sales chart, Thriller jumped from No. 48 to No. 7 — while also crossing 500 total weeks on that chart, a milestone reached by only three other albums in history: Bob Marley’s Legend, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Chronicle, and Nirvana’s Nevermind.

\n\n

This is all happening in the biopic’s third week of release. That’s not a opening-weekend spike. That’s a sustained cultural moment.

\n\n

The U.K. Is Feeling It Too

\n\n

Across the Atlantic, the effect is equally pronounced. The Essential Michael Jackson has returned to No. 1 on the U.K. albums chart — the first time it’s held that position since 2009, when it spent seven weeks there in the immediate aftermath of Jackson’s death. Thriller has jumped to No. 6 and Bad has climbed back into the top 10 for the first time in 14 years. Jackson has also debuted on the U.K. Official Dance Singles Chart for what Forbes reports is his most active year yet on that tally — not a chart where his music has historically been classified, but apparently one where it belongs.

\n\n

Even Janet Is Getting a Boost

\n\n

Here’s a detail that says everything about the reach of this moment: Janet Jackson, who doesn’t appear in the biopic and isn’t even mentioned in it, is seeing her own streaming numbers rise. According to sister La Toya, Janet “kindly declined” to be depicted in Michael. But for the week ending May 7, her catalog still amassed over 9.4 million official on-demand U.S. streams — her best weekly total of 2026, up 31% from two weeks earlier. A healthy portion of that comes from \”Scream,\” the duet she recorded with her brother, which pulled in nearly 1.2 million plays on its own. Even stripping that song out, her catalog is still up 20% from the prior period.

\n\n

Which raises a question that feels increasingly inevitable: could a Janet biopic be next?

\n\n

The Shadow the Biopic Doesn’t Acknowledge

\n\n

The chart triumph arrives alongside a legal story that the film itself pointedly ignores. Michael has been widely criticized for sidestepping the abuse allegations that have followed Jackson’s legacy for decades, and a new lawsuit is making that omission harder to overlook.

\n\n

In February, four siblings from the Cascio family — who were described as something of a second family to Jackson — filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexual abuse spanning more than a decade. The complaint alleges that \”Michael Jackson was a serial child predator who, over the course of more than a decade, drugged, raped, and sexually assaulted each of the Plaintiffs, beginning when some of them were as young as seven or eight.\” The family says Jackson groomed them and manipulated them into silence, and that their years of publicly defending him were a product of that grooming.

\n\n

Jackson’s estate has pushed back hard. Attorney Martin Singer called the lawsuit \”a desperate money grab\” and noted that the Cascio family \”staunchly defended Michael Jackson for more than 25 years, attesting to his innocence.\” Singer added: \”These shakedown attempts come more than 15 years after Michael’s death, thus carrying no risk of being sued for defamation. Sadly, in death just as in life, Michael’s talents and success continue to make him a target.\” The estate previously reached a settlement with the family in 2019.

\n\n

It’s the tension that sits underneath all of this — a catalog shattering streaming records, a biopic crossing half a billion dollars at the global box office, and a legacy that remains as contested as it is celebrated.

\n\n

For now, the numbers keep climbing. And if the early streaming data for week four holds, Michael Jackson may be about to break his own record again.

“,
“category”: “Music

The post Michael Jackson’s Music Is Taking Over the Charts Again appeared first on Cream.

• The four Cascio siblings — Eddie, Aldo, Dominic, and Marie-Nicole — detailed alleged sexual abuse by Michael Jackson in a 60 Minutes Australia interview that aired Sunday
• The siblings filed a lawsuit against Jackson’s estate in February, alleging abuse spanning 25 years at locations including Neverland Ranch and the homes of Elizabeth Taylor and Elton John
• Dominic alleged Jackson drank his urine as a so-called act of love when Dominic was around 12 years old
• Each sibling described distinct and escalating acts of alleged abuse, including drugging with Xanax, Vicodin, wine, and liquor
• Jackson’s estate called the allegations a “money grab,” with attorney Marty Singer dismissing the claims in a statement

The four siblings who say they were Michael Jackson’s so-called “secret family” sat down with 60 Minutes Australia this past Sunday to describe, in detail, the alleged abuse they say the pop icon inflicted on them as children — and the picture they paint is devastating.

Eddie, Aldo, Dominic, and Marie-Nicole Cascio first filed their lawsuit against Jackson’s estate back in February, alleging that the King of Pop was a serial child sex predator who abused them over the course of 25 years. The 60 Minutes interview, which aired May 10, was the first time they spoke publicly at length about what they claim happened.

“He’s a monster, he’s evil, what he did was evil,” Dominic told the program. “And he’s tricked the whole world to think he’s this innocent, perfect human being, and he’s not.”

How the Cascio Family Entered Jackson’s World

The Cascios’ connection to Jackson began in the 1980s, when their father, Dominic Sr., met the superstar while working at the Helmsley Palace Hotel in New York City. What followed was a swift and consuming entanglement — late-night unannounced visits to the family’s New York home, holidays at Neverland Ranch, private jet trips, world tours, and introductions to world diplomats. Home videos shown during the broadcast even captured Jackson’s famous chimpanzee, Bubbles, charming the kids during one of those early visits.

Eddie, now 43, said he was only 2 years old when he first met Jackson. The family was swept up in it all.

“When you have the biggest superstar in the world in the ’80s that wants to be your friend, you’re vulnerable and easily manipulated,” Dominic said. “My parents were young. For them to have such a big celebrity want to be friends with them… they definitely felt special, and so did we. He made us feel like we were his family, his kids, his everything.”

But the siblings say the gifts and the glamour were cover for something far darker.

What Each Sibling Alleges

Eddie said the abuse began when he was 11, during Jackson’s 1993 Dangerous tour — that the two shared a bed, and that Jackson molested him every night, continuing well into his adulthood.

“That’s when my world started to change,” Eddie said. “We were on tour, and that’s when Michael started to get closer and started rubbing me on my legs. I was sitting on his lap, and that’s when the first kiss happened, where he kissed me on the lips.”

Multiple siblings described a disturbing game Jackson allegedly called the “booty rumble.” “He would lay me on top of him with my genitals up against his. While he would shake, he would kind of push up against me,” Dominic recalled.

Dominic also alleged that Jackson would drink his urine as a twisted expression of affection. “He would drink my urine and tell me, ‘This is how much I love you.’ I’m maybe 12 years old at the time. Like, I’m a child who’s seeing this man do this,” he said. “And I said, ‘Oh, I guess he really does love me. I mean, I would never want to drink someone’s urine, so he must really love me.'”

Jackson “would tell me that this was a special bond that we had, and he would tell me you know I’m only doing this with you like I love you so much,” Dominic added.

Marie-Nicole alleged that Jackson would make her undress when she was 12 and masturbate while looking at her. She also claimed he gave her Xanax and Vicodin at age 11, telling her she’d be “floating” and would love it.

Aldo, the youngest of the four, alleged that abuse began while the two lay in bed playing video games. “He just pulled down my shorts and started giving me oral sex. And he’d [say] right away, ‘Doesn’t that feel good? See, I love you. I love you,'” Aldo claimed.

The siblings also said Jackson supplied them with alcohol from an early age — wine he reportedly called “Jesus juice” and hard liquor he called “Disney juice” — and that he coached them on how to deflect questions from parents and police, training them to insist that nothing unusual was happening.

Their lawsuit alleges the abuse took place across multiple locations, including Neverland Ranch, on tour, and at the homes of Elizabeth Taylor and Elton John.

Jackson’s Estate Responds

The Jackson estate isn’t staying quiet. Attorney Marty Singer provided a statement to 60 Minutes calling the Cascios’ allegations a “money grab.”

“Notably, these shakedown attempts come more than 15 years after Jackson’s death, thus carrying no risk of being sued for defamation,” Singer said. “Sadly, in death just as in life, Jackson’s talents and success continue to make him a target.”

The estate has consistently denied all abuse allegations against Jackson, who died in June 2009. The Cascios’ lawsuit, filed in February, is now working its way through the courts.

For the siblings, the interview was clearly about more than a legal case. “He’s tricked the whole world,” Dominic said. They want that to change.

The post Michael Jackson Accusers Share Disturbing Abuse Claims appeared first on Cream.

• Eddie, Dominic, Aldo, and Marie-Nicole Cascio gave their most detailed account yet of alleged abuse by Michael Jackson in a 60 Minutes Australia interview
• The siblings claim Jackson groomed and sexually abused all four of them over a 25-year period beginning in the late 1980s
• The Cascios filed lawsuits against Jackson’s estate — one seeking $213 million, another seeking $40 million
• Jackson’s estate attorney Marty Singer dismissed the allegations as a “desperate money grab”
• The family spent years publicly defending Jackson before changing course after the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland

The four Cascio siblings — once described as Michael Jackson’s “secret family” — sat down with 60 Minutes Australia on Sunday to make their most detailed and disturbing allegations yet against the late King of Pop, describing decades of alleged grooming, sexual abuse, and drug exposure that they say began when they were young children.

“He’s a monster. He’s evil. What he did was evil, and he’s tricked the whole world to think that he’s this innocent, perfect human being, and he’s not,” Dominic Cascio said on the broadcast.

The interview came more than two months after Eddie, Dominic, Aldo, and Marie-Nicole Cascio filed a lawsuit against Jackson’s estate alleging that the pop star was a serial child sex predator who abused victims at the homes of Elizabeth Taylor and Elton John, among other locations.

How the Cascio Family Entered Jackson’s World

The family’s connection to Jackson traces back to the 1980s, when the siblings’ father, Dominic Cascio Sr., was working as a hotel manager at the Helmsley Palace Hotel in New York City. He crossed paths with Jackson there and quickly became part of the singer’s inner circle. Before long, the whole family was swept into Jackson’s orbit — spending holidays at Neverland Ranch, traveling the world on his private jet, meeting world diplomats, and going on tour with one of the biggest stars on the planet.

Eddie, now 43, recalled first meeting Jackson when he was just 2 years old, when the singer began showing up at the family’s New York home late at night, unannounced. Home videos from those visits showed Jackson’s famous chimpanzee Bubbles charming the kids. “He was like, kind of like the fun uncle,” Dominic said.

“When you have the biggest superstar in the world in the ’80s that wants to be your friend, you’re vulnerable and easily manipulated,” Dominic reflected. “My parents were young. For them to have such a big celebrity want to be friends with them… they definitely felt special, and so did we. He made us feel like we were his family, his kids, his everything.”

The lavish gifts and access, the siblings now say, were the foundation of a long and calculated grooming campaign.

The Allegations in Detail

Eddie claims the abuse began during Jackson’s 1993 Dangerous tour, when he was 11 years old. He says Jackson started by getting physically close — rubbing his legs while Eddie sat on his lap — before escalating. “That’s when my world started to change,” Eddie said. “We were on tour, and that’s when Michael started to get closer and started rubbing me on my legs. I was sitting on his lap, and that’s when the first kiss happened, where he kissed me on the lips.” He claims Jackson nicknamed him “Angel” and that the abuse continued nightly and into his adulthood.

Eddie also described a game Jackson called the “booty rumble” — which he says began when he was around 8 years old, with a naked Eddie lying on top of a naked Jackson while the singer reached around and shook him. Dominic described a similar version of the game: “He would lay me on top of him with my genitals up against his. While he would shake, he would kind of push up against me.”

Dominic also alleged something even more disturbing. “He would drink my urine and tell me, ‘This is how much I love you.’ I’m maybe 12 years old at the time. Like, I’m a child who’s seeing this man do this,” he said. “And I said, ‘Oh, I guess he really does love me. I mean, I would never want to drink someone’s urine, so he must really love me.'”

Aldo, the youngest sibling, alleged that Jackson began molesting him while the two lay in bed playing video games. “He just pulled down my shorts and started giving me oral sex. And he’d say right away, ‘Doesn’t that feel good? See, I love you. I love you,'” Aldo alleged.

Marie-Nicole, the only girl in the family, claims Jackson would make her undress when she was 12 and masturbate while looking at her. She says he convinced her that a little girl being naked with an adult man was perfectly normal.

The siblings also allege Jackson supplied them with drugs and alcohol from a young age. He reportedly called wine “Jesus juice” and hard liquor “Disney juice.” “He gave me Xanax and Vicodin at 11 years old and told me I’d be floating and I would love it,” Marie-Nicole claimed. The family says the substances were used to make the children more compliant.

They also allege Jackson trained them to deflect suspicion — coaching them on how to respond if police or their parents ever questioned them, so they would insist nothing unusual was happening.

Years of Defense — Then a Reversal

What makes the Cascio case particularly complicated is the family’s own history. For years, the siblings were among Jackson’s most vocal defenders, publicly insisting he never harmed them. That changed in 2019, after the release of Leaving Neverland, the documentary in which Wade Robson and James Safechuck made similar allegations of abuse. The Cascios say watching that film gave them the language and the courage to finally confront what had happened to them.

The family has since filed multiple lawsuits. One, filed in 2025, sought $213 million. A more recent suit seeks $40 million. Earlier this year, the Daily Mail published a series of photos of the Cascio boys — mostly shirtless, in small shorts — submitted as supporting evidence in the case.

The timing of the renewed allegations has also drawn scrutiny, coming in the wake of the recently released Michael Jackson biopic.

Jackson’s Estate Fires Back

Jackson’s estate attorney Marty Singer did not hold back in his response to 60 Minutes Australia. “Notably, these shakedown attempts come more than 15 years after Jackson’s death, thus carrying no risk of being sued for defamation,” Singer said in a statement. “Sadly, in death just as in life, Jackson’s talents and success continue to make him a target.”

Singer pointed to the Cascios’ own long record of defending Jackson as evidence that the allegations are fabricated, calling the lawsuits a “desperate money grab.”

The Cascio siblings, for their part, say they’re not doing this for money alone. “We want to give courage to other victims out there to come out and be strong with us,” Eddie said. “Because at the end of the day, he was the monster, not us.”

The post Cascio Family Details Abuse Claims Against Michael Jackson appeared first on Cream.

• The Michael Jackson biopic Michael is projected to cross $500 million worldwide by Sunday
• The film has already earned $441.2 million globally through Wednesday of its third week
• Jaafar Jackson, Michael’s real-life nephew, stars in the title role under director Antoine Fuqua
• Jackson’s music is surging in parallel — he’s on track to move roughly 125,000 units this week across streaming and sales
• New competition arrives this weekend from Mortal Kombat II, though projections still favor Michael clearing the milestone

Three weeks in, and Michael is still making history. The Antoine Fuqua-directed biopic about Michael Jackson is on pace to cross the $500 million mark at the worldwide box office this weekend — a milestone that looked inevitable the moment it posted a staggering $217 million global debut on opening weekend (April 24–26), then followed that up with another $135 million in its second frame.

Through Wednesday, the film has earned $195.2 million domestically and $246 million internationally, bringing its worldwide total to $441.2 million. Deadline projects a third-weekend haul of around $30 million in North America and $50 million internationally — good for roughly $80 million globally. Factor in Thursday night ticket sales, and the film could land anywhere from a conservative $520 million to as high as $525–$530 million by Sunday night. Even if the domestic number comes in at the lower end of Box Office Pro’s $25–$30 million range, it’s still more than enough to clear the half-billion threshold.

The film stars Jaafar Jackson — son of Jermaine Jackson and the late King of Pop’s own nephew — in what has become one of the more talked-about casting choices in recent memory. The biopic traces Michael Jackson’s life from age 10, when he was performing alongside his brothers in The Jackson Five, through the Bad album tour in 1988. Critics have had their reservations, but audiences clearly haven’t.

The Music Is Having Its Own Moment

The box office run isn’t happening in a vacuum. Michael Jackson is currently dominating both the iTunes singles and album charts, with roughly a dozen entries across each. He’s on track to sell around 125,000 units this week when you factor in streaming — at least 45,000 of those coming from his Number Ones greatest hits compilation alone. The movie, whatever its controversies, is functioning as a full-scale cultural revival of Jackson’s catalog.

It’s also proving to be a serious financial win for the Jackson Estate and his children. Whether it leads anywhere else — a sequel, a longer career for Jaafar — is a genuinely open question. Showbiz411 noted pointedly that a part two seems unlikely, since it would risk unraveling everything the first film has built. As for Jaafar himself, the question of what comes next for him as an actor is one Hollywood will be watching closely.

What’s Fighting for the Weekend Crown

Michael does face some real competition this weekend. Mortal Kombat II — the sequel to the 2021 video game adaptation — opens Friday, and Deadline projects it could pull as much as $50 million domestically, with Box Office Pro putting the range at $40–$45 million. Meanwhile, The Devil Wears Prada 2, which knocked Michael off the domestic top spot last weekend, is heading into its second frame. Deadline has it finishing in the low $40 millions stateside, but globally it’s expected to remain a force — projections put its international take at $65–$75 million, which would give the Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway sequel a second-weekend worldwide total somewhere between $107 million and $117 million.

Two more newcomers round out the weekend: Hugh Jackman’s family comedy The Sheep Detectives, projected to earn $12 million-plus domestically, and Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard & Soft the Tour Live in 3D — co-directed by Eilish and James Cameron — which Deadline pegs at $6–$9 million in its opening frame.

But this weekend belongs to Michael. Half a billion dollars. For a biopic. About a man who’s been gone since 2009 — and whose music is currently all over the charts like he never left.

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