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So, with the airing of the new documentary film, Leaving Neverland, people are ready to cancel Michael Jackson, with radio stations across the West vowing never to play his music again.
Well, I just watched the movie, and I found the case against MJ deeply flawed. THREAD.
Well, I just watched the movie, and I found the case against MJ deeply flawed. THREAD.
Claims of child abuse against MJ are nothing new. From 1993 to his death he was dogged by accusations, and even subject to thorough investigations by both the FBI and LAPD. After a lengthy court trial, he was acquitted on all counts.
Largely this was due to lack of evidence, but also because Jackson’s most damning accusers, some of whom he settled with out of court, had been exposed as frauds, such as Evan Chandler in this secret phone recording:
Despite Jackson being acquitted, many continued to believe he was guilty, citing the fact that in an interview with Martin Bashir he infamously said he saw nothing wrong with sharing his bed with kids. His supporters attributed this to his childlike naivety.
In any case, him sharing his bed with kids, though disturbing, is not proof of him abusing kids, which is what the allegations in question are.
So, what stunning new evidence does Leaving Neverland bring to light that has suddenly convinced so many that the FBI, police, judge and jury were wrong, and that MJ really was a child molester?
The entire movie rests on the testimony of 2 men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who, long after defending MJ against allegations while under oath in court, now claim that they were, after all, abused by the “King of Pop”.
Their testimony is captivatingly told, but it is not corroborated by any hard evidence, and so we are forced to simply take their word for what happened.
This is hard to do, because from the outset the film is clearly manipulative. Throughout its 4 hour length, filmmaker Dan Reed subtly prods Robson and Safechuck with suggestions to steer their story a certain way.
Further, the film often accompanies the accusers’ words with melancholy music, and shots of MJ with creepy music, a sign that Reed is pushing for an emotional reaction from viewers, rather than the cerebral one that someone interested in getting to the truth might hope for.
The movie also omits any info that might contradict the narrative being woven by Reed and the accusers, with the only dissenting voice being that of MJ himself in archival footage, a ghost jailed in celluloid, helplessly protesting its innocence to the sneers of eerie violins.
Unfortunately, anyone who is not taken in by the emotional heft of the narrative and accompanying music, and who actually delves into some of the claims made, will quickly notice serious inconsistencies in the testimonies of the accusers and their families.
For instance:
For instance:
1) Robson claims in the film that he and his co-accuser Safechuck never met each other as adults. This is false. In a 2016 deposition, it was confirmed that they met in 2014, and that they even have the same attorneys. 
2) And yet, their accounts often contradict each other. Safechuck continually portrays MJ as paranoid, secretive, and ultra-cautious in his abuse, while Robson continually portrays MJ as wild, reckless and brazen in his abuse.
Read more here:
Read more here:
3) When Robson and Safechuck’s claims do match, they are often similar to those described in “Michael Jackson Was My Lover”, by Victor Gutierrez, which was resoundingly debunked in court as the erotic fiction of a fantasist and child rape apologist.
4) Robson claims that MJ arranged for Robson’s migration to the US for the “explicit purpose” of sexually abusing him. This is contradicted by the claim that Robson’s parents asked MJ to sponsor Robson so they could migrate.
5) "Oh thank god, he can't hurt any more children. Those were my thoughts, and I danced. I was so happy he died."
This is what Safechuck's mother claims she said on hearing of MJ's death. The problem is, MJ died in 2009, 4 years before her son “realised” he’d been abused.
This is what Safechuck's mother claims she said on hearing of MJ's death. The problem is, MJ died in 2009, 4 years before her son “realised” he’d been abused.
6) As for Robson, he reacted to MJ’s death by writing an articulate and unusually ebullient paean to MJ in The Official Michael Jackson Opus: themichaeljacksonallegations.com/2018/05/12/rob…
7) In fact, for years after MJ’s death, Robson continued to defend him, not in the conflicted fashion of someone suffering Stockholm syndrome toward an abuser, but in the assured fashion of someone correcting the record.
These are just some of the many contradictions in the testimony of the accusers. Which leads one to ask, what accounts for such incongruities?
Those convinced of MJ's guilt will inevitably claim that the accusations are filled with contradictions because the accusers are traumatised from the abuse they suffered, and therefore unable to recall clearly.
It is indeed common for victims of real crimes to occasionally misremember or confabulate, resulting in inconsistent accounts of the abuse they suffered. But it is extremely unusual for their entire story to be in a constant state of flux, as it is in this case.
And we are not just talking about one unusually inconsistent accuser here; we’re talking about two. The probability that both accusers would constantly fudge the details of their story makes the inconsistencies even more suspect.
In any case, while we should accept that the accusers would be under great mental stress, and that this would affect their recall, we cannot use this explanation as evidence that the allegations are true (because that would be circular reasoning).
The best way to assess whether stress and trauma are responsible for the inconsistencies of the accusers’ stories is to search the histories of the accusers for further evidence of such stress or trauma, or repression thereof. So let's do that...
As kids, Robson and Safechuck both defended MJ in court against allegations of child abuse. Robson also went on to defend MJ as an adult. This is not inconsistent with molestation: people have been known to become so twisted by abuse that they defend their abusers.
However, Robson not only defended MJ repeatedly, but he was also eager to be associated with MJ even after the popstar died. For instance, in 2011, he begged the MJ estate to allow him to be the director of a MJ tribute show. leavingneverlandfacts.com/wade-robson-em…
The gig went to someone else. Some time after, Robson claims he suffered a nervous breakdown. Is this, finally, hard evidence of abuse trauma? No. Robson himself claimed it was due to him overworking and realising he would never get to be a film director. themichaeljacksonallegations.com/2018/05/12/rob…
Unable to secure any lasting work in showbiz, Robson soon also began suffering financial troubles. This led to him pawning his personal belongings, including some of his MJ memorabilia. He did this throughout 2011 and 2012, while continuing to praise MJ publicly.
The following year, Robson’s “repressed memories” of abuse by MJ surfaced, at the age of 30. He immediately wrote a book about the abuse, and began shopping it to publishers, but interest was scarce.
Fortunately, Robson received backup from Safechuck, who claimed that seeing Robson talking about the abuse on TV had refreshed his own memory, and that he was now also sure that he’d been abused.
Together, the pair filed a $1.5 billion dollar creditor’s claim and civil lawsuit against MJ’s estate. Their case was thrown out of court due to the Statue of Limitations and possible implications of perjury. But Robson & Safechuck can still appeal, and intend to.
Now, it is possible that Robson’s effusive tributes to MJ, his insistence on being associated with MJ even after death, his grand showbiz aspirations, his sudden epiphany of abuse when penniless aged 30, are the encrypted cries for help of an an abuse survivor.
It is also possible that watching Robson detail his abuse on TV really did trigger latent memories of abuse in Safechuck, and that the two then decided to collaborate in good faith to innocently seek justice in the form of $1.5 billion by blaming MJ’s estate for MJ’s abuse.
But, the more I learn about this case, the more room for doubt I find, and I am just not able to explain away the inconsistencies as peremptorily as so many of you have done.
And even if Robson and Safechuck are telling the truth, then Leaving Neverland, with its tendentious cherry-picking, and its refusal to address suspicious holes in the testimony, from which doubts have sprouted, has utterly failed them, and they deserve better than a shock-doc.
Whatever the truth, one fact remains: despite all the doubts we should have about the allegations—after Jussie Smollett and Covington—the world has once again uncritically swallowed a victimhood narrative based on mere talk.
And that, to me, is wrongdoing I can be certain of.
And that, to me, is wrongdoing I can be certain of.
