Michael Jackson’s three children grew up in a world very few kids will ever know. Prince is the oldest, born in 1997. Paris is his sister. The youngest was called Blanket as a boy. He now goes by Bigi, and he was born in 2002.
With a dad who was always on the move, school didn’t look like it does for most families. The kids had a private school tutor who traveled with them.
But Michael had one more subject in mind for his children, and he started them on it early.
In October 2019, Prince sat down for interviews about a project he’d started with his little brother, and the talk led him straight back to how Michael raised them.
In this Extra interview from that month, Prince explains what it’s like to work side by side with Bigi.
Prince Jackson talks about working with his brother Bigi
So what was that extra subject?
Film. Michael gave his kids a film teacher.
“We had a film teacher at a very young age,” Prince told Entertainment Tonight on Oct. 26, 2019.
And he says it shows most in his little brother. “My brother has a really unique talent to be able to tell you, even a movie he hasn’t seen,” Prince said, meaning Bigi can tell you who made it and when.
“He really thinks and studies about film in a different way that you would notice,” Prince added. He was clear about where it came from, too: “that comes with his upbringing with my dad encouraging him to study film.”
That early lesson turned into something the brothers did together. In May 2019 they launched a YouTube movie-review series, and they kicked it off with “Avengers: Endgame.” Bigi didn’t hold back. “It’s one of the few movies I could probably call perfect,” he said.
Entertainment Tonight pulled together clips of that first review, and it’s your chance to hear Bigi talk movies in his own words, pizza in hand.
Prince and Bigi review “Avengers: Endgame” together
The setup was about as homemade as it gets. They called the channel Film Family, and they brought in their cousin Taj.
“Right now, it’s just me, my brother, and my cousin Taj, one camera in a room in our house,” Prince told Extra.
Each brother found his own lane. “My brother wants to be a director, I love producing,” Prince said.
If you want the review exactly as the brothers posted it, with no TV edits, here it is from their own channel.
The full review from the brothers’ own channel
A film teacher sounds like a small thing. But Michael got his kids real lessons while they were still little, and years later his sons were sitting in a room at home, talking movies into a camera of their own.
Prince knows exactly where that push came from. “My dad was always a strong believer in going for what you want,” he told Extra, “and ‘go follow your dreams and chase your dreams.'”
For two brothers who learned about movies before most kids learn to ride a bike, that sounds like advice they took to heart.