Kat Graham’s Diana Ross Was Cut From Michael

It turns out wasting time filming scenes with Michael Jackson and Diana Ross was a Supreme mistake. Kat Graham (The Vampire Diaries) revealed that she played Queen of Motown Diana Ross in the Michael Jackson biopic Michael that were later cut because of legal issues. “Ahead of the April 24 release of the Michael Jackson film, I wanted to share that certain legal considerations affected a few scenes, including the ones I filmed with the incredible cast,” she wrote 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.”

It’s unclear exactly which “legal considerations” went into Ross not being included in the story. LaToya Jackson confirmed that Janet Jackson was not included because she asked to be left out of the film, and both Randy and Rebbie Jackson are also not featured. This is not the only time the film has run into legal problems, either. Initially, the film intended to dive into and negate the child-molestation allegations against Jackson, but the Jackson estate later realized that a previous settlement with an accuser required the estate to never dramatize the events.

Jackson and Ross were remarkably close in his lifetime. She was a mentor to him when he and he brother joined Motown. The Jackson 5’s first album in 1969 was titled Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5. When he died, his will stated that his children would go to Ross if his mother, Katherine Jackson, was unable to care for them, per CNN. In the final cut of the film Michael, young Jackson’s mentorship is taken care of entirely by Berry Gordy, whom he sees as a father figure and who stands up to his actual father, Joe Jackson, for him. (In real life, Gordy said that “I didn’t see any signs of” Jackson having an unhappy childhood.) But there was a mountain high enough to keep film Ross from meeting Jackson.