(Updated: March 8, 2019)

(Second Update: March 25, 2019)

Because if you watched a 4 hour special and an Oprah interview, you deserve the other side of the story without getting too much more of your time wasted. There’s a lot of information out there that will give you a headache to sort through, so I suffered the headache for you and made a concise list of what I believe is the most pertinent information. I’ll provide links and videos though, in case you have more than ten minutes and want to verify these claims.

And no — this is absolutely NOT about discrediting abuse survivors. This is about Robson, Safechuck, and a dead man who cannot defend himself against new allegations.

All right. Let’s go.

1). The law does not protect the dead from defamation of character.

https://www.minclaw.com/legal-resource-center/what-is-defamation/can-dead-people-defamed/

2). Michael Jackson, outside of his knowledge, was thoroughly investigated by the FBI, including during years coinciding with the alleged abuse described in this documentary. Furthermore, Neverland was randomly searched from top to bottom and he was investigated by Child Protective Services. No evidence of wrongdoing was ever found.

*Specific FBI pages addressing Jackson’s molestation investigations: https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/fbi-releases-files-on-michael-jackson/

3). Wade Robson, at 22 years of age, testified under oath in Jackson’s 2005 child molestation trial that Jackson had never touched him in a sexual manner. Jackson died in 2009. Wade’s first molestation allegations occurred in 2012 and he filed a lawsuit in 2013.

In the petition to the court, Robson claimed that when he was a child, Jackson made a “prophesy” that Robson would be a film director. When Robson was chosen to direct a Step Up film, he believed the “prophesy” was coming true and could not handle the pressure. He subsequently suffered a mental breakdown, went to therapy, and had some sort of thought about his son that led him to realize he had been sexually molested by Jackson for seven years between the ages of 7 and 14.

Read Robson’s Claim (Story on page 6): Petition to Court

Direct quote from the petition (also on page 6):

Claimant lacked any understanding that his long-term childhood relationship with Decedent included ongoing sexual abuse over a seven-year period — the acts giving rise to this claim — prior to May 8, 2012.

Wade was apparently 30 years old before he understood anything whatsoever about his alleged childhood/teen sexual abuse. His actions prior to 2012, such as begging for a role for the MJ-themed Cirque du Soleil show in 2011, were done while still “lacking understanding” of sexual abuse.

Wade’s letter to Cirque du Soleil

For the record, Robson didn’t get the job at Cirque du Soleil.

In 1993, James Safechuck testified under oath that Jackson never sexually abused him. He did not make allegations against Jackson until 2014, a year after Robson. With Robson’s lawyers by his side, Safechuck states that he did not realize he had been sexually abused until he began therapy in 2013 (at age 35). Yet, the document later implies Safechuck actually did understand the inappropriateness of his alleged interactions with Jackson far earlier than 2013 because he reportedly panicked over the prospect of his relationship with Jackson being exposed during the 2005 trial. Additionally, he feared he would have pedophilic urges after his son was born in 2010. After this, he identifies learning about Robson’s 2013 lawsuit as another trigger for fearing his childhood sexual abuse would be exposed, and then having an “aha” moment about needing therapy after hearing Robson’s story. The entirety of the document reads as though Safechuck was always in turmoil over the abuse that he may or may not have consciously comprehended…

Confused? Me too. You can read the document for yourself here: Safechuck’s Declaration.

Regardless, both men’s lawsuits (and later amended lawsuits with tweaked details) were tossed out by the court, more or less due to technicalities like Jackson being dead and his estate not being responsible for what he may or may not have done twenty or more years ago.

[EDIT: It is important for me to add here that the second lawsuits were thrown out for more than just statute of limitations issues. Particularly in the case of Robson, summoned emails caught him in blatant lies about his abuse claims. He had sworn under oath (in 2016) that he had only discussed his abuse in one written communication, only to have thousands of emails surface showcasing him crafting and changing his story, as well as attempting (but failing) to get a book deal out of it. Check it out for yourself; scroll down to the lawsuit against HBO. View page 14, lines 5–26.]

Robson and Safechuck are currently awaiting another court date in the aftermath of Leaving Neverland. They have been adamant that they were not paid for filming the documentary and are not seeking financial gain…

Though their lawsuits seek millions of dollars from the Michael Jackson Estate, and Robson was revealed to have sold Jackson memorabilia a few years back.

[EDIT: To coincide with the release of Leaving Neverland, the Robsons have a child abuse charity, a very commendable thing if they are genuinely working to help child abuser survivors. However, followers of the organization have noticed slight changes recently made to the website to eliminate contradictory claims that appear in the documentary. Make what you will out of that.]

https://www.facebook.com/1440382009/posts/10220780651573040?sfns=mo

4). The graphic and detailed descriptions of sexual abuse Robson and Safechuck give are a selling point for the documentary. However, it has been noticed that the details echo descriptions from the book, Michael Jackson was My Lover: The Secret Diary of Jordie Chandler.

Michael Jackson won a $2.7 million slander lawsuit against the author, Victor M. Gutierrez, in 1998, after he’d made false claims about having a video tape featuring Jackson and an under-aged boy.