In both television and cinema, it's usual for an actor to face criticism for accepting a contentious part. According to Variety, Joseph Fiennes requested that Sky Arts remove the episode of Urban Myths in which he played Michael Jackson from circulation after expressing sorrow for doing so.
A controversial episode of the comedy-drama anthology series Urban Myths featured a fictitious account of Michael Jackson (Ralph Fiennes), Marlon Brando (Brian Cox), Elizabeth Taylor (Stockard Channing), and Carrie Fisher as herself.
Now, it's one thing to cause a Twitter storm when dubious stuff is broadcast on a global scale, but Michael Jackson's daughter Paris criticized this Urban Myths episode. Paris Jackson claimed in a Tweet that has since been removed that the Joseph Fiennes episode that makes fun of her father makes her want to throw up. Joseph Fiennes initially believed that he was taking part in a humorous fictitious account of Michael Jackson's life, but as the response reached a tipping point, he understood that he had made a grave error.
In the cancelled episode of Urban Myths, entitled “Elizabeth, Michael and Marlon,” Joseph Fiennes was made up with a lighter skin tone as well as a prosthetic nose to take on the look of Michael Jackson.
What's more, people were not just angry with the fact that such a trip never occurred in their a.life but with the fact that a white actor had to play a black celebrity and to make matters worse, the actor had to wear a prosthetic nose. It felt like the show was showing more of a negative side to the late king of Pop than a positive and that did not go down well with Michael's fans and family.
Joseph Fiennes doesn't have any regrets about the choice he made to have the episode cancelled in the past. Although he didn't intend to offend Michael Jackson's family in any way, it was soon clear that's exactly what he did. One could argue that by creating the episode in the first place, the harm had already been done, but sometimes you just have to take the fall for your poor attempts at humour and hope you can recover your dignity.
