Massai Zhivago Dorsey II is Nia Long’s eldest son, and until this spring, he had spent nearly a decade almost entirely out of public view. That changed on April 20, 2026, when he walked the red carpet at the Los Angeles premiere of “Michael,” the biggest film role his mother has had in years.
He wasn’t there to promote anything of his own. Dorsey has never acted, never recorded music, and has given no interviews. In an adulthood built almost entirely around staying unseen, this was one of his only public appearances in years, and it happened at the exact moment his mother’s own career put their family back in front of cameras.
| Quick Facts | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Massai Zhivago Dorsey II |
| Born | Los Angeles, California, November 2000 |
| Age | 25 |
| Parents | Nia Long and Massai Z. Dorsey |
| Half brother | Kez Sunday Udoka, 14 |
| Education | Birmingham High School, Eastern Kentucky University, Golden West College, New York University (graduated 2024) |
| Known for | Nia Long’s eldest son; former college baseball player |
Table of Contents
Two Famous Parents, a Short Engagement
Long met actor Massai Z. Dorsey on the set of NBC’s “Third Watch” in 1999. The two got engaged soon after, and their son was born in Los Angeles in November 2000, while they were still together. The engagement ended in 2001, ten months after it began.
Long, whose own acting career already stretched back to “Boyz n the Hood” and “Love Jones,” raised her son largely as a single mother from there. She later had a second son, Kez Sunday Udoka, now 14, with her former fiance, NBA head coach Ime Udoka.
A Few Premieres, Then Years Out of View
As a child, Dorsey occasionally turned up beside his mother at industry events: a circus fundraiser in New York in 2004, the Los Angeles premiere of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” in 2009, and the 2014 premiere of “The Single Moms Club,” a film his father also appeared in. He was 13 at that last one. After it, he all but disappeared from public record for years.
The Baseball Commitment That Didn’t Hold
What filled those years was baseball. Dorsey played shortstop and second base at Birmingham High School in Los Angeles, and in 2018 he told MLB.com he hoped to reach the professional level one day. The following May, he announced his commitment to Eastern Kentucky University’s baseball program, thanking his coaches, trainers, and teammates in a post he called “extremely exciting.” He graduated from Birmingham with honors the next month.
He was still at Eastern Kentucky that November, home for his younger brother Kez’s eighth birthday. What happened in the two years after that was never made public the way the commitment had been. By the 2020 and 2021 seasons, he was on the roster at Golden West College, a junior college in Huntington Beach, California, playing infield rather than at the Division I program he had committed to two years earlier.
A Different Degree, Four Years Later
By 2024, he had made his way to New York University. There is no public record of him announcing it the way he had the Eastern Kentucky commitment. Long marked the graduation instead, in May 2024, sharing a photo of the two of them, Dorsey in a purple cap and gown, and writing that she was proud of her “class of 2024” son. Friends from her circle, including actress Erika Alexander, left comments calling him a “magnificent young man, raised by a queen.” His Instagram bio still identifies him as an NYU graduate.
Why the ‘Michael’ Premiere Mattered
The film that finally drew Dorsey back into view stars Jaafar Jackson, Michael Jackson’s nephew, in the title role, and is directed by Antoine Fuqua. Long plays Katherine Jackson, the singer’s mother, in the biggest film role of her recent career. More than 3,300 guests attended the premiere at the Dolby Theatre on April 20. Dorsey was there with his younger brother and his grandmother, Talita Long. The film opened nationwide four days later. That same day, Long posted a photo from premiere night, calling her sons her protectors and her teachers, and writing that the bond between the three of them was unbreakable.
What Nia Long Says About Raising Both Her Sons
Long has spoken for years about raising two sons with two different fathers largely on her own. In a 2009 interview, she said patience mattered most as a single mother, and encouraged other women in her position to ask for help. In a 2023 interview, she said she wants her sons ready to lead without “seeming like spoiled brats,” but as “gentlemen and respectful of women.”
This April, in an interview with Playboy, she put the whole arrangement in one line: “I love my coparenting situation.” She and her sons’ fathers don’t have to be a couple, she said, to still “celebrate our children.” It comes closer than anything else she has said publicly to explaining why her oldest son is rarely seen, and why, this spring, he made an exception.
