A few weeks ago, HBO ran a four-hour documentary in two parts called Leaving Neverland. It's about Michael Jackson and about two adult men — Wade Robson and James Safechuck — who have come forward to tell stories about being in sexual relationships with Jackson when they were way, way under the age of consent. I guess some people don't believe these men are telling the truth but given the way Michael lived and acted and the number of times he was accused of this and how he admitted to sleeping (but only sleeping) with children, it's not that great a shocker.
I DVR'ed the two parts when they debuted. I also recorded an Oprah Winfrey special in which she cross-examined and interviewed the two men before an audience of adults who were molested when they were kids. Only in the last few days have I gotten around to watching all of this.
The first part struck me as taking two hours to tell a story that could have been done in twenty minutes by omitting a lot of redundant details about who touched what body parts. It was very discomforting and given the stories being told, it should have been. I spent a lot of it like anyone else who saw it, getting quite pissed-off at the parents of the boys and at others who should have seen what was going on and stopped it.
I almost quit about 70% of the way through Part One and almost didn't watch Part Two or Oprah at all but I was ultimately glad I made it through all of this. The second part was much more interesting because it was about the cover-up of the molestations by both Michael and the boys. Michael was acquitted in a jury trial of abusing yet another male child, that acquittal coming in large part because one of the two boys, Wade Robson, testified that Jackson never violated him. He now says that was a lie and you'll squirm at that failure of our justice system. Both Robson and Safechuck have struggled to cope with the whole experience since their days with Michael, as have their friends and families now that the two men are telling their stories.
I worked with Michael Jackson in the eighties on a proposed cartoon show about him. I decided the show was not a good idea and am now very glad I moonwalked off the project. It was not because of the creepy (if not ghastly and illegal) way he treated children but that was not so evident at the time. I just thought it would not be a good show, mostly because Michael was placing so many conditions on how he could be depicted. Every second he was on screen as a character would have been discussed and he clearly could not deal with not getting his way.
In fact, one of several points in the documentary that gave me a personal chill was this one: Michael asks the mother of one of the boys if she will leave the kid with him for an entire year. This woman — who was apparently fine with leaving her son in Michael's bedroom for weeks at a time — for some reason says no to a year. She then quotes Michael as saying, "I always get what I want." He said that to me about elements of the proposed cartoon show.
It's strange to be around a person who inhabits a world where he always gets whatever he wants…or at least, expects it. Our meetings were in the house he had on Hayvenurst near Ventura Boulevard in Encino. After one, my agent asked me what he was like and I said, "I got the feeling that if Michael suddenly decided he wanted Ventura Boulevard flooded with hot chocolate, that would have happened."
It may take me a while to decide how I feel about various aspects of the documentary but I can answer a few for myself right now…
Do I believe the boys' stories? Yes, I do. Do I believe they should have come forth and told those stories? Yes, I do.
Can you listen to Michael Jackson music after this? Not without thinking about what a horrible human being he was, no. And yeah, I guess I knew for a long time he was doing things like that but it's easier to flush that stuff out of your mind when you haven't heard the details or seen videos of him with a seven year-old boy who's now grown up and explaining how Michael masturbated him.
And lastly, do you recommend this documentary? If the topic interests you, definitely. If it doesn't…well, maybe it should. While I recognize child abuse is a serious problem, it's not an issue that particularly touches my life. I've never had nor wanted children and I haven't been around all that many since I was one…so it's easy to think of it as someone else's concern. And maybe the reason it exists is that too many people think of it that way, including some whose life it does touch and they just haven't noticed it yet.