La Toya Jackson stood in front of a glittering black “Michael” backdrop in Los Angeles this April, diamonds at her neck, while Derek Hough of “Extra” held out the microphone. His first question was a simple one: “What is it like tonight to be here to honor your brother?”
“It’s magical just to see the love and the people that are here for him,” she told him. “It’s so, so magical.” She said Michael “would be so proud and so happy and so honored.”
The night was the Los Angeles premiere of “Michael,” the film about her brother’s life. Michael’s nephew Jaafar, Jermaine’s son, plays him on screen. So for La Toya, two years older than Michael and one of his three sisters, this was family playing family.
She had already seen the film, and she didn’t hide how it hit her. “Jaafar made you believe and think that it was Mike, and you look at him and you forget that it’s Jaafar and you think it’s your brother,” she told Extra. Then she added, “I cried three times.”
What got to her most was the start of the story, the family’s early years. She talked about “my father just making sure he instilled certain work… and making sure they did everything perfectly.” Remembering those days, she said, “it becomes emotional to you.”
A minute later she left the movie behind and started talking about the brother she grew up with. Listen for the moment she stops talking about the screen and starts talking about life at home with Mike. It starts at about 1:31.
La Toya Jackson talks to “Extra” about Michael at the “Michael” premiere
This is Extra’s own upload of the exclusive, about two minutes long. She talks about Jaafar at about 0:34, says she cried three times at 0:56 and gets to Michael at home at about 1:31.
So what did she see at home that the rest of us didn’t? “I think it’s wonderful that Mike had such an impact on the world,” she began. “And it’s funny because when you’re a part of the family, you live with this every day, and you see him this way every day.”
Fans saw what Michael chose to put on a stage or a screen. La Toya saw him every single day, and she knew there was more where that came from.
“He had so much more talent to show, and he didn’t,” she said. “And I would always say, ‘Mike, show them this. Show them this.'”
Michael’s answer was short. “He goes, ‘No, give them a little bit at a time.'”
So that was the plan. His big sister kept pushing him to show the world everything, and Michael chose to hand it out in pieces. Decades later, she still calls him Mike.
Baller Alert, which wrote up the same interview, put it the same way: La Toya recalled “encouraging him to show the world the full extent of his talent, though he always preferred to ‘give a little bit at a time.'”
Extra posted the interview on April 21, 2026, three days before “Michael” opened in theaters on April 24. La Toya’s whole memory of “show them this” takes about 20 seconds, near the end of the two-minute clip.