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CANCELLED! Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson: “Like a Noel Fielding puppet rescued from a fire”

Update: Sky said on Friday it had cancelled this programme after Paris Jackson said it made her want to “vomit”.”We never intended to cause any offence,” they said.

It’s the least likely casting decision since America voted Donald Trump president. Michael Jackson played by … Shakespeare In Love star Joseph Fiennes.

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The first look images from the Sky Arts series Urban Myths prompted outrage and ridicule in almost equal measure. That measure being: “a lot”.

First, the ridicule.

He does look kinda familiar though. You remember, that guy off Never Mind the Buzzcocks?

Now, the outrage. Fiennes’ casting was criticised as another example of TV “whitewashing” black people, and on Thursday the late singer’s daughter Paris Jackson weighed in.

Here’s a trailer for the show, in which Jackson takes a possibly fictional road trip in 2001 with Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando after 9/11. It’s even weirder than you thought.

For comparison purposes, here’s what Jackson looked like in 2001, rocking your world for the last time.

You might remember Fiennes from films such as Shakespeare in Love.

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He was also in the worst film ever made, Killing Me Softly.

It’s bad.