Article content

We may never have evidence that Michael Jackson sexually abused Wade Robson and James Safechuck at Neverland Ranch when they were boys, as the two convincingly allege in HBO’s four-hour documentary Leaving Neverland. But the question speaks to Jackson’s secretive personal life, in which he deliberately left many of his choices unexplained to the public, leaving millions of fans to guess, speculate, and spread rumours and myths. These five come up again and again.

MYTH NO. 1: Michael Jackson’s father sexually abused him as a child

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or 'Michael Jackson wanted to be white' — and four other myths about the singer Back to video

Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

Jackson again stands accused of sexual misconduct with children. He settled with a boy for a reported $20 million to $25 million in the early ’90s, was found not guilty in a 2005 jury trial on charges that he abused another boy and is now the subject of the posthumous “Leaving Neverland.” Is it possible he was repeating a cycle of abuse? Biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli’s 1991 bestseller, “Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness,” reported that rumours of family patriarch Joseph Jackson’s sexual abuse had been “circulating for many years within the music industry.” That same year, Michael’s sister La Toya Jackson wrote a memoir, “Growing Up in the Jackson Family,” that accused her father of sexually abusing her and sister Rebbie.