Since Late Night with Seth Meyers premiered, it has been clear that the show's host is willing to pay a price to entertain his viewers. For example, Meyers has confirmed that he suffers after filming Day Drinking segments. On top of that, Meyers has a history of making jokes on his talk show that have forced him to deal with a backlash. In fact, Meyers recently had to respond after Donald Trump called for him to be fired.
While Meyers has gotten a lot of attention for his takes on the latest political news, fans of his show will know that he regularly makes jokes about a wide array of other topics. However, even when Meyers is cracking jokes about pop culture topics, he often remains fearless. One recent example of that came when the talk show host made a joke about Michael Jackson's biopic that was both hilarious and uncomfortably true.
Seth Meyers made a perfect joke about Michael Jackson's biopic
Like many other talk shows, Late Night with Seth Meyers has created several segments that have repeatedly come back. One of Meyers' recurring bits, which is called "Back in My Day," features the host holding a fake cigar, sitting in a rocking chair, and wearing something warm. During those segments, Meyers makes a series of comments about the news of the day from the perspective of a judgmental old timer.
On November 19, 2025, the YouTube channel for Late Night with Seth Meyers uploaded a "Back in My Day" segment that had just aired on the talk show. During the segment, Meyers' take on the upcoming Michael Jackson biopic was extremely funny, cutting, and too true for comfort.
“Back in my day, they weren’t making a Michael Jackson biopic. Back in my day, we wanted to know as little about Michael Jackson’s private life as possible. In fact, Michael Jackson’s private life was something we all agreed to just not think about! Blissfully ignorant, we were.”
Easily one of the most successful singers ever, Michael Jackson's music continues to be celebrated by the masses. Based on that and the fact that other musician biopics have recently made money, a movie being produced about Jackson makes perfect sense. However, to Meyers' point, there is a major aspect of Jackson's life and legacy that makes the upcoming biopic very uncomfortable.
Before Jackson passed away at only 50 years old, he'd been the focus of many allegations that he'd abused children. Jackson was even put on trial in connection with some of those allegations. While he was acquitted of those charges, more details about the allegations against Jackson have surfaced in the years since then, including after his passing.
Many performers who've faced similar allegations have become so controversial that they have mostly disappeared from pop culture. Actors like Kevin Spacey, Armie Hammer, and Bill Cosby are all notable examples of that. However, Jackson's music still remains so popular that Billboard reported that Sony bought a stake in his song catalog in a deal that valued the total rights at $1.2 billion.
As Meyers' joke pointed out, Jackson's songs remain so popular because it seems like society has some kind of unspoken agreement to not think about the allegations that dogged the singer. Furthermore, Meyers is right that the release of the upcoming Jackson biopic will likely make it harder for people to overlook that part of the singer's legacy, at least for a while.
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