The two-part, four-hour-long HBO documentary follows the story Robson and Safechuck, who first met Jackson as young children and now claim the singer sexually molested both of them at separate times.
Robson first met Jackson at the age of 5 after he won a shopping mall dancing competition in his native Australia. The prize led to a meeting with Jackson backstage at his concert in Brisbane.
By 1990, when the now-36-year-old choreographer was about 8 years old, the family came into contact with Jackson again during a vacation in Los Angeles. Wade alleges in the documentary that Jackson convinced Robson’s mother, Joy, to let him stay over alone with the singer while the rest of his family went on a trip to the Grand Canyon.
Michael Jackson and Wade Robson.HBO
With a close relationship to the iconic singer that made her feel as if she had “another son,” Joy says she ignored the signs of abuse and also spoke out in defense of Jackson for years.
“The fame, the whole thing, you do get caught up in it,” Joy said in the documentary. “I really didn’t know. I don’t know what else I could have done, but whatever it is, I wish I had.”
“Maybe I could forgive [Michael] at some point if I tried to understand that he was sick,” continued Joy. “But forgiving myself is another thing. I don’t know if I’ll ever do that.”
Michael Jackson with Wade Robson.Dan Reed/HBO
Jackson also allegedly asked Joy if she would leave her son with him in Los Angeles while the rest of her family returned to Australia.
“Michael said to me, ‘Will you leave [the] little one with me for a year?'” Joy recalls in the documentary. “I was stunned. I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ He said, ‘I would do wonders for his career. I could work with him, we could do so much together, it would be wonderful for him to stay here with me.'”
Despite the singer’s attempts to convince her, Joy claims she continued to say no.
“I said, ‘Michael, he’s my child, he’s 7 years old, I am not going to leave him with you.’ We went through this for a couple of hours where I tried to explain to him that it wasn’t going to happen,” she says in the film. “And after a while, he looked at me and said, ‘I always get what I want.'”
Safechuck, 40, had a similar tale. He met Jackson at 10 years old when he was cast in the singer’s 1986 Pepsi commercial. He said the pop star took him and his family on tour where their relationship allegedly turned sexual when Jackson taught him how to masturbate.
Michael Jackson and Jimmy Safechuck.
“I had one job, and I f—ed up,” his mother, Stephanie, said during aLeaving Neverlandinterview. “All those wonderful memories were based on the suffering of my son.”
Stephanie eventually allowed her son to sleep in the room with Jackson but became suspicious when their hotel rooms began being booked further and further away.
“My son had to suffer for me to have this life,” she says in the documentary. “My son is messed up today because of it. I’m messed up today because of it.”
Around this time, Jackson had allegedly given Safechuck’s parents a loan for a new home and forgiven the debt after Safechuck testified on his behalf, according to the documentary.
Asked at the end of the documentary whether he forgives his parents, James replied that he is still “working on that.”
CBS
During an interview with Gayle King forCBS This Morningthat aired on Wednesday, Jackson’s brothers Tito, Marlon, and Jackie Jackson, as well as Jackson’s nephew, Taj Jackson, said that they had not seen the documentary.
“I know my brother,” Jackie, 67, said. “I know what he stood for. What he was all about. Bringing the world together. Making kids happy. That’s the kind of person he was.”
In the same sit-down, Marlon, 61, claimed that Jackson was “never inappropriate” with children.
Chevaz Clarke/CBS
The Jackson estate came out swinging beforeLeaving Neverlandeven premiered at Sundance.
“This is yet another lurid production in an outrageous and pathetic attempt to exploit and cash in on Michael Jackson,” the Jackson estate said in a statement in January.
Ron Wolfson/WireImage
source: people.com
