One of the great collective lies in recent years has been the varying degrees of shock displayed by the media and public as stories of the #MeToo Movement have garnered headlines, as if the conditions described in the various accounts of abuse were something not widely known or even tacitly rationalized by audiences around this planet. The truth about casting couches and scummy entertainment executives has been an open secret for many, many decades. The truth is many, many people decided to still buy the music and go to the movies even after singers beat the shit out of their girlfriends and directors raped young girls. And the truth is many communities still cheered, defended, and protected individuals connected to everything from sexual assault to murder as long as touchdowns and championships occurred.
The lie a lot of people want to tell themselves is this: We didn’t know. It’s the same lie the public desperately tries to cling to even as they push to the back of their minds the uncomfortable knowledge of carrying around smartphones built with slave labor, and wearing clothes sewn in sweatshop conditions. At the end of the day, there’s a history of normal, everyday people valuing their creature comforts more than any concern for the hows or whys of where those comforts are coming from, and the character of the individuals who bring those comforts to them.
Many recent documentaries have looked back at major scandals of the 1990s and early aughts, with the cultural zeitgeist of the time largely coming across as cringe-worthy in how it handled things. Amazon’s Lorena dissected how the John and Lorena Bobbitt cases became an instance where the media snickered at the thought of a sliced-off penis more than it analyzed the effects of spousal abuse and rape. After Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly documented decades of sexual assault allegations against the R&B singer and the tepid responses from colleagues in the entertainment industry and authorities, prosecutors issued a 10-count indictment late last month alleging Kelly sexually abused four victims, three of them between the ages of 13 and 16, over a span of a dozen years.
HBO’s Leaving Neverland is a devastating recounting by James Safechuck and Wade Robson of their alleged sexual abuse by Michael Jackson, whom they met when they were just 9 and 5 years old, respectively. The most fascinating aspect of the four-hour program is how their families were seduced into letting small children sleep in a grown man’s bed, and whether these testimonials will for some be the damning confirmation of the longstanding child molestation accusations against Jackson.
In 1993, the family of Jordan Chandler sued Jackson for similar behavior and eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed amount believed to be as high as $25 million. In 2005, Jackson was acquitted by a Santa Barbara, California, jury over charges he molested a 13-year-old boy. The molestation allegations, along with other odd behavior, put a cloud over Jackson and his legacy which lasted until his death in 2009, at which time the hagiography of various tributes to the “King of Pop” pushed these uncomfortable aspects to the side for a while. Safechuck and Robson cite personal healing and the #MeToo Movement as reasons they’ve come forward to tell their stories, after earlier denying anything untoward occurred as children and young men. The Jackson estate and family maintain Michael Jackson’s innocence, and argue he was a caring man who was taken advantage of by “admitted liars” for his wealth and fame, accusing HBO of “tabloid character assassination,” and suing the network for $100 million in damages.
Defenders and the devoted among Michael Jackson’s fandom have long argued the situation is one of misunderstanding. They paint Jackson as a victim of childhood abuse by a father and music executives whom cared more about hit singles than being a kid enjoying life. Being robbed of that childhood led to a very damaged person, who attempted to make up for lost time by building an amusement park out of his home, embracing a whimsical lifestyle, and seeking relationships with children instead of adults in order to reclaim some form of innocence.
The alternative interpretation of what’s known about Jackson is he was indeed a very damaged individual, but the lifestyle and childlike playfulness was the facade of a sexual predator. And similar to other entertainers who spent their lives surrounded by children and used their celebrity to commit awful crimes, Jackson lured families into his circle little by little by taking advantage of the avarice of starstruck parents whose children ended up alone with him in his bed and shower.
Wade Robson is now a noted dancer and choreographer. When he was just a young child in Australia, he became enamored with Jackson after watching a Making Of Thriller videotape and hearing Jackson’s music. Robson began emulating the artist’s moves and ultimately won a contest at a mall, leading to meeting the man himself during a concert stop in Brisbane. The young Robson was pulled onstage to dance and spent time with Jackson at his hotel. Jackson asked Robson and his family to come see him if they ever come to the United States. This would eventually lead to Wade, his mother Joy, and his sister being invited to spend time at Neverland Ranch, and phone calls from Jackson to Robson for “six to seven hours at a time.”
Robson was 7 years old.
James Safechuck was a child actor appearing in a Pepsi commercial with Jackson when he sneaked into the star’s dressing room to take a peek at his sunglasses, and ended up meeting and befriending him. Safechuck stated Jackson made him feel “important.” Jackson reached out to Safechuck’s family, going to their home in Simi Valley, California, in order to have movie and game nights with James. Jackson flew the Safechuck family to Hawaii, and invited the boy to sleep in his hotel room with him. The Safechuck family allowed James to spend more and more time with Jackson, including being alone with the entertainer for extended stays at the Neverland Ranch.
Safechuck was 10 years old.
Leaving Neverland cuts between these two narratives as the two men claim their “sleepovers” as children escalated, as their families try to explain in the present day how they were gradually separated more and more from their children, and thought allowing Jackson to bring their kids into his bed was somehow okay. Safechuck and Robson describe graphic details of fondling, mutual masturbation, oral stimulation, penetrative rape, and other depraved acts of pedophilia between Jackson and the boys in the rooms of Neverland Ranch. And it is truly disturbing. Director Dan Reed states this level of detail was purposeful, in order to rebut claims of the contact in these sleepovers being exaggerated. Both men assert Jackson professed his love, with Safechuck presenting as evidence a diamond-encrusted ring which he states was given to him in a secret “ceremony” to represent a “marriage” to the man.
Both men claim Jackson justified the behavior as being the way people show someone they’re loved. The boys were told they could never trust anyone with the knowledge of what happened (especially women), and were ultimately replaced by a new child who became the object of Jackson’s affections.
From David Fear at Rolling Stone:
The doc’s second half then starts with the 1993 case against Jackson by 13-year-old Jordan Chandler, who claimed that the singer had molested him when he was staying at the ranch, and why both Safechuck, Robson and their families felt compelled to testify on his behalf. By the time further allegations prompted a criminal trial, Safechuck told his mother that Jackson “was not a good man” and asked that they refrain from aiding the defense.
Robson, however, did; one of Neverland‘s most painful sections finds the now-successful choreographer and ‘N Sync/Britney Spears collaborator worried that his career might be tainted, Michael’s children might never see their father again and that he felt he needed to protect Jackson — all this despite what he claims had happened to him. After Jackson’s death in 2009, both men have married and have become fathers; they also find that they can’t sleep at night and are suffering from various PTSD symptoms. They eventually begin to refer to what happened to them as abuse. Things get worse before they start to get better. (Both Robson and Safechuck admit they initially denied the allegations due to what they said was a need to compartmentalize the alleged abuse.)
Where Leaving Neverland is at its most fascinating, at least for me, is not in the lurid details of the allegations, or even the descriptions of Jackson’s alleged grooming of his victims. Sadly, these descriptions are all too familiar for those who’ve heard the stories of incidents like these before. What makes the four hours compelling is the ways in which Jackson is said to have seduced these children’s parents and greater families, and the rationalizations by which they allowed behavior from a grown man, which on its face seems strange.
I can’t say definitively whether Michael Jackson is a child molester or not, or tell someone with definitive clarity he’s guilty of these specific allegations. But if we’re being honest, I would bet dollars to donuts that in any other case where a male family friend came into these boys lives and wanted to spend hours at a time on the phone with them, isolated the children from their family, and invited young boys into their bed for sleepovers, the reaction would have been: That’s goddamn creepy.
Because it was Michael Jackson, because he lavished gifts and money on them, because it allowed these families to say they knew someone famous, they went along with it. And many fans of Jackson give him the same pass even today, even as the number of allegations increase and the stories become more disturbing.
- Shock at Sundance: The premiere of this documentary at the Sundance Film Festival caused waves, with festival organizers having healthcare professionals on hand at the screening to assist anyone who was triggered by its subject matter, and descriptions of the screening leaving the audience “slightly dazed.”
- ”He was a sexual predator”: According to Leaving Neverland’s director, he did not want to delve into speculation about Michael Jackson psychology or why he may have done what he’s accused of doing, since the film is not really about Jackson per se, but more focused on the Robsons and Safechucks.
VICE: Michael Jackson fandom breeds a particular kind of intensity. What has the backlash to the film been like from them?
Dan Reed: So let me be clear about one thing: There are tens of millions of Michael Jackson fans out there in the world. People who love Michael’s music and have great memories of dancing to his music at their weddings or bar mitzvah or the last time they saw their mom. His music is interwoven into the fabric of people’s lives around the world. And a majority of MJ fans are just people who just really like his music.
But there is also this league of fans who are almost like a cult, and they say very nasty things [about the film] on social media. And their words echo the two-decade long rhetoric of the Jackson family and legal team, which is shaming the victims. It happens often in these cases. It’s what they do very aggressively and relentlessly, and I don’t think you can get away with that in 2019 like you could in the past.
The majority of Jackson fans are people who will be really shocked to hear this very compelling case of abuse by Jackson, as I was. When I first came into this I had no prejudice against Jackson, I had no fixed opinion about whether he was or wasn’t a pedophile, he could’ve been innocent. I believed he was a good guy, made good music, seemed nice to children, and I think most people were in that grey area. Sadly, it turns out he was a sexual predator, and I think a lot of people are going to rethink their view of him.
And I’m sure your next question is going to be: Should people stop listening to his music?
VICE: That is on my list of questions.
Dan Reed: [Laughs] I wouldn’t say that there should be any hashtag to ban Michael Jackson like there is with R. Kelly. I think Jackson’s music is too woven into the fabric of American and British life, and others around the world, to just rip it out like that. Do you want your children’s party soundtrack to be MJ songs? I don’t know. I wouldn’t. But should it be banned? I don’t think so. It’s great music, he was a great artist and entertainer. He was also a pedophile.
- The response from the Jackson estate: Both the Jackson family and Michael Jackson’s estate have been working hard to disparage Leaving Neverland, calling the documentary “a public lynching,” issuing a 10-page response, and filing suit against HBO citing a non-disparagement clause in a 1992 deal between HBO and Jackson to air one of his concerts from the Dangerous tour, which never happened when the tour was ultimately canceled. Beyond this, the estate is attempting to distract attention by releasing rare performances of Jackson at the same time the documentary airs.
From Aja Romano at Vox:
The estate dropped a last-minute documentary of its own on Jackson’s official YouTube channel, free for a limited time: a concert documentary, Live in Bucharest (The Dangerous Tour), from Jackson’s 1992 Dangerous tour — ironically, a tour that collapsed due in large part to the news about the first police investigation into the allegations. The concert film is, as Variety notes, exactly the same length as the first part of Leaving Neverland. The Jackson estate also promised to release a second concert on YouTube on Monday night, this one of Jackson’s famed 1988 concert at Wembley Stadium in London. Like the Sunday night concert, this one will also be released at 8 pm Eastern — the same time that HBO will air the second part of its documentary.
In a lengthy and scathing statement, the estate labeled the film as being “not a documentary,” but rather “tabloid character assassination,” and “another lurid production in an outrageous and pathetic attempt to exploit and cash in on Michael Jackson,” as well as “just another rehash of dated and discredited allegations.”
The estate also attacked Robson and Safechuck’s credibility, calling the men “admitted liars” and emphasizing their previous denials of abuse. “The film takes uncorroborated allegations that supposedly happened 20 years ago and treats them as fact,” the statement read. “The two accusers testified under oath that these events never occurred. They have provided no independent evidence and absolutely no proof in support of their accusations, which means the entire film hinges solely on the word of two perjurers.” As with every one of Jackson’s accusers and witnesses who have come forward to corroborate those allegations in the past, the estate insisted Robson and Safechuck were motivated by money.
The estate also savaged the documentary as deliberately one-sided — an intentional choice to center the narrative on the victims and their families that the film’s director, Dan Reed, has been very open about. Per the estate, however, “the director neglected fact checking so he could craft a narrative so blatantly one-sided that viewers never get anything close to a balanced portrait.”