The Broadway musical The Immortal World Tour, starring Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris, is producing a new batch of songs in order to determine which of the existing ones she should sing in her father’s style. However, the production team has not turned down any songs off its list, with Paris saying in a recent tweet that they all “need to be on that stage.” And it’s this reluctance to abandon a number of songs that have caused some fans to accuse her of distancing herself from her father’s music and taking her moral compass in a different direction.
In response to this criticism, the production’s “vision and creative director,” John Branca, wrote that Paris won’t abandon any Jackson songs — including the ones that may have been written with sex in mind. “Paris will always make a musical choice by looking at the quality of the song in question, as well as the performance and emotional impact it will have on the audience. That is what every song must have,” Branca wrote in a statement. “In the case of ‘Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,’ for example, it takes 24 years for this story to get to Broadway, and much of that is due to artistic and technical limitations. We are trying to put together a really interesting, compelling story for this song, and we want it to work. That does not mean that the song will not stand on its own merits.”
Branca went on to defend Paris’ decision to sing “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” — and to leave out all the sex references — stating, “We are a family company, and believe in family values. But a mother does not abandon her child, and Michael himself said he did not abandon [his wife] Debbie Rowe.”
Branca also suggested that Paris’ unwillingness to sing “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” wouldn’t undermine her performance, citing the staging of a production that ran for two years and featured dancers in underwear. “Would you prefer she sing, ‘Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough’ in tights, and that they all act out the sexual acts as though they are taking place on the page?” Branca continued. “We can replace ‘Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough’ with one of the other Jackson songs we have already created or will produce.”
Read the full story at Fox News.
Related
Former babysitter of Michael Jackson’s children dies unexpectedly
Paris Jackson accuses ‘famous people’ of damaging her image
Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ going on display in New York museums