Multiple siblings of Michael Jackson's 'second family' accuse him of sexual abuse and grooming, sue singer's estate

Mekishana PierreSat, April 25, 2026 at 5:38 PM UTC

0

Michael Jackson performs in 1996Credit: JMEnternational/GettyKey Points -

Multiple siblings from the Cascio family have filed a lawsuit against Michael Jackson's estate, accusing him of sexual abuse and grooming.

The siblings, who described themselves as Jackson's "second family," claim the singer groomed them as his "soldiers" to defend him from other allegations.

The siblings reached a settlement agreement with Jackson's estate in 2020, but strained negotiations for further compensation led to their new lawsuit.

Multiple siblings who describe themselves as Michael Jackson's "second family" have accused the late singer of child sexual abuse and grooming in a new lawsuit, claiming he trained them to defend him against other allegations.

Four of the five Cascio siblings — Aldo, Eddie, Dominic, and Marie Nicole — detailed their accusations against the pop star in a new interview with The New York Times. The siblings met Jackson through their father, Dominic Cascio Sr., who was the manager of the Helmsley Palace in Manhattan, where Jackson often stayed in the 1980s, the outlet reported.

All five siblings — Frank Cascio abstained from joining the lawsuit, citing legal reasons — claimed to The Times that Jackson had groomed them to be his "soldiers" to defend him from other accusers' allegations because he was "the biggest star in the world."

For years, before and after Jackson's death, they denied that Jackson had done anything untoward to them, including in a 2010 interview with Oprah Winfrey. In his 2011 book, My Friend Michael: An Ordinary Friendship With an Extraordinary Man, Frank even praised the singer, sharing memories of the siblings' time spent with him.

"We were brainwashed," Eddie Cascio claimed in his interview with The New York Times. "We were groomed. He made us feel like he was everything: a friend, father, like every sort of emotional support. And he was."

Michael Jackson performs in 1996Credit: Bill Nation/Sygma via Getty

Some of the siblings say they realized earlier on that they were being abused but felt "too overwhelmed" to come forward about it. The others told The Times that they didn't fully comprehend the reality of the situation until after they watched the 2019 HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, which detailed the allegations of two men who accused Jackson of sexually abusing them as minors. Seeing how closely the film's allegations of child abuse "matched" their own experiences suddenly "deprogrammed" them, they told the outlet. They allege that after the documentary’s release and them filing their first lawsuit against Jackson's estate, the estate reached out claiming it was attempting to get them fair compensation "for the suffering Jackson had caused."

The siblings reached a settlement agreement in 2020 and received roughly $16 million from the estate, distributed over the course of five years. However, when the payments ended in 2025, the Cascio siblings claim that the negotiations with the estate for further compensation became contentious, elevating their private legal dispute to public litigation.

Marty Singer, an attorney who represents the Jackson estate, called the lawsuit "a desperate money grab by additional members of the Cascio family who have hopped on the bandwagon with their brother Frank" in a statement to PEOPLE on Friday.

"The family staunchly defended Michael Jackson for more than 25 years, attesting to his innocence of inappropriate conduct," Singer said. "This new court filing is a transparent forum-shopping tactic in their scheme to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars from Michael’s estate and companies."

Singer added, "Statements by the Cascios, including those appearing in dozens of passages throughout Frank Cascio’s 2011 book, as well as in interviews with Oprah Winfrey and others, directly contradict what is being alleged now. Throughout, the Cascios consistently and repeatedly asserted that Michael never harmed any of them or anyone else. With the estate's financial success growing, the Cascios, through two different attorneys, threatened to go public with heinous accusations that completely contradicted their previous statements defending Michael unless his estate paid staggering sums of money."

Advertisement

The Cascio siblings told The Times that their goal in filing this new lawsuit is about "more than money," claiming that they are using the opportunity to reveal the "truth" about Jackson to the world.

Jaafar Jackson as Michael Jackson in 'Michael'Credit: Glen Wilson/Lionsgate

The Cascio family's attorney and Marty Singer did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly's request for comment.

The Jackson estate plans to request for the lawsuit to be dismissed or placed on hold while arbitration continues, The New York Times reported.

Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.

The siblings' comments were published the same day that Michael, a biopic about the late star, premiered in theaters.

The film centers on Jackson's early life as a member of the Jackson 5 and a solo superstar, with Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson portraying the singer; Colman Domingo playing his father, Joe Jackson; and Nia Long starring as his mother, Katherine. Its story ends in 1988, notably avoiding certain controversial aspects of Jackson’s life, specifically the multiple allegations of child abuse that resulted in lawsuits and highly publicized court hearings. The omission of these controversies has courted criticism, including from Dan Reed, the director of Leaving Neverland, the documentary in which two men allege that Jackson sexually abused them as children.

"How can you tell an authentic story about Michael Jackson without ever mentioning the fact that he was seriously accused of being a child molester?" Reed asked in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published this week.

Jaafar Jackson as Michael Jackson in 'Michael'Credit: Lionsgate

During an appearance on the Today show, Domingo and Long were asked how they would respond to critics claiming that Michael "whitewashed" the allegations.

"The film takes place from the '60s to 1988, so it does not go into the first allegations in, what, 2005?" said Domingo, erroneously referring to a 2005 trial that concerned Jackson's second accuser. "And there's a possibility of a part 2 that may deal with some other things that happened afterwards." However, he added, "This is about the making of Michael, how he was raised and then how he was trying to find his voice as an artist and be a solo artist."

Michael screenwriter John Logan told The Hollywood Reporter, "Michael is a complicated person, people have complicated opinions, and that’s fine. We chose to tell the uplifting story of his triumph in the movie, and that's what we did."

on Entertainment Weekly

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”