The 28-year-old eldest son of Michael Jackson, Prince Jackson, has made a surprise appearance at the Australian premiere of the Tony Award-winning musical MJ, at the Sydney Lyric Theatre.
It’s not the first time the Jackson family has supported the musical. In March 2024 Prince was joined by Michael's daughter Paris and other son Blanket Jackson at the opening of the musical in London.
Prior to that, in 2022, Paris and Prince Jackson attended the Tony Awards together to celebrate MJ on Broadway and to present the cast for its performance of "Smooth Criminal."
In Sydney Prince arrived on the red carpet and was swiftly escorted to a private room after posing for photos, offering only a brief comment to local media: “I’m doing great.”
MJ takes the audience back to 1992 and inside the creation of the iconic Dangerous World Tour. The production goes beyond the singular moves and signature sound of the star, offering a rare look at the creative mind and collaborative spirit that catapulted Michael Jackson into legendary status.
The Australian production marks the fifth iteration of the Broadway hit since its debut in February 2022, following successful runs in London, Germany, and across the US.
Featuring more than 25 of Jackson’s greatest hits – including “Beat It,” “Smooth Criminal,” “Man in the Mirror,” and “Thriller” – the musical has been seen by over a million people worldwide.
Critically acclaimed performer Roman Banks leads the cast of the Australian production joined by Brisbane-based newcomer Liam Damons, making his professional debut as young adult Michael.
"I think that one of the real joys was being able to watch every single Michael Jackson video, listen to every single Michael Jackson song, and then try and figure out how do you distill that into two hours of entertainment, which was really tough because there's so many songs that I love that didn't even make it onto the stage. One of the things that we wanted to do was not create a traditional jukebox musical. We wanted something that felt entirely different from some of the other things that you've seen on the Broadway stage, and so we tried to find a vocabulary that was inventive, that was fun, that something Michael Jackson himself would respond to, something that embraced the spectacle, which was such an element of his practice as an artist," explained two-time Pulitzer Prize winning writer Lynn Nottage who wrote the book for MJ the musical.
Picture: Daniel Boud
