To those who hate me…

“F**k you! Die! Liar! Coward! Parasite! Traitor! Wait till we catch you in the streets. May god have mercy on your rotten soul. Watch your back. Youʻre gonna burn in hell!”

The above are some of the many feelings and thoughts, in defense of Michael Jackson, that you have written to me via social media and email over the last 5 years. Depending upon the state that I am in, sometimes they roll off my back, sometimes they hurt, sometimes they make me angry, and sometimes they make me laugh; but they always make me present.

Here is what I believe you believe:

Michael Jackson was my idol as a child and I was lucky enough to have the privilege of meeting him. He became my friend and took me under his wing. He loved me, cared for me, taught me, and helped me tremendously in my life and entertainment business career. I lovingly and vehemently defended Michaelʻs innocence as a child sexual abuser in court multiple times, denying that he had EVER done anything inappropriate to me and that he would ever do that to any other child. I sang his praises and defended his innocence in hundreds of interviews over the years. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I completely changed my story and said that Michael Jackson sexually abused me for several years and caused me psychological, emotional and physiological pain. I then sued his estate and entities for money. From your perspective, what really happened was that my career and life fell apart, I ran out of money and since Michael was already dead, I decided to betray the man whom had given me the world, and fabricate an elaborate lie about him; all for the sake of money and fame.

If something along those lines is what you believe to be true, I understand why you hate me.

If you have any interest in entertaining the entire story, I invite you to click and read the following links.

Link 1 - Link 2 - Link 3

Often, we humans only believe in the truth we want to believe in; we tend to see what we want to see. I understand the resistance or complete unwillingness to see someone who we idolize and adore, someone who has given and taught us so much, someone who is so positively intertwined in the fabric of our lives, in a negative light. It can feel as though, if we were to see and acknowledge that darkness in them, we would have to re-write our own life story, re-design our entire belief system and that is often too overwhelming and painful of an idea to even entertainment for a moment. Instead, often we choose not to believe or look the other way and demonize the one who is challenging our long held beliefs because that is easier then having to re-examine all that we think we know to be true. Before I was able to deal with and process the truth of my story, I and my family felt this way in regard to Michael Jackson.

This is a most understandable human phenomenon when the person we are defending is someone that we actually knew personally; someone that was physically and emotionally a real part of our lives. But an impenetrable and violent resistance to an alternate or expanded view of someone becomes troubling when we actually never knew that someone personally, at all. When we were not actually a physical part of each others lives. When we most likely never even met them. When our only interaction with that person was that of a fan, idolizing their creative talent from afar and believing with all of our heart that we know who they were based purely upon the image and persona that they and the massive marketing machine behind them designed and distributed to us for the sake of selling us music, merchandise and tickets. This is not a real relationship with someone whereby we have some capability of making an authoritative assessment as to who they truly were. Yet many of you who have and continue to send me angry, ugly, hateful, violent comments and threats are doing just that; making an assessment as to who Michael Jackson truly was, even though you did not know him and most likely never even met him. And then defending Michael, that someone whom you did not know, against another person whom you do not know, me.

Those who hate me, I do not need for you to believe, validate or support me. I am not trying to persuade you to take my side or ask you to stop believing and saying the things that you do. What Iʻm curious about, is what it is inside of you and many of us, that makes us take such violent actions and use such hateful words in order to defend what we "believe" to be true.

In my personal experience, sometimes when we are angry, we are actually angry with ourselves and when we hate, itʻs because, at least to some degree, we hate something about ourselves.

Those who hate me, I honestly wish you peace and fulfillment. I wish you physical, mental and emotional health. I wish you love. I send you love.

Wade Robson.

2/2/18