In an era of flat-earthers, scripted reality shows, consumption overload and “fake news”, wherein lies the truth about the King of Pop?

Certainly not in Leaving Neverland.

American Jesus : Hold Me, Carry Me Boldly, by David LaChappelle

3 decades ago, Michael Jackson reached the apex of fame, when the success of Thriller turned Michael Jackson into the most famous man who ever lived. It’s no coincidence that it was during this time-frame that Michael penned a song entitled The Price of Fame, in which he lamented:

I want a face no one can recognize, in disguise

Someone called out my name

They thought of taking pictures, autographs, then they grab

My joy has turned to pain

You see, the real price of fame is the commodification of your very existence. This is the real Faustian pact, brought into the modern musical era first by Robert Johnson, but exemplified by the ultimate rags-to-riches story of the young talented black boy from the poorest ghetto of the United States.

Rags-to-riches might be the feel-good story, yet it isn’t the great American Dream. The end-game of industry is, of course, a structure in which you can continually amass wealth, clicks, views, attention, or whatever your heart desires by doing as little as possible. It should be clear by now that attention, and not work, is what drives the current inhabitant of the White House, to give but one example.

It is ironic to address this when it comes to Michael Jackson. If James Brown was “the hardest working man in show-business”, then Michael Jackson and Prince Rogers Nelson, both born in the mid-west in the Summer of 1958, were both his star students, not just musically but also within their tireless work-ethics. But look around the people who, in the words of Prince are “willing to do the work”, and you’re sure to find significantly more people figuring out ways to capitalise on it. Some of these relationships can be mutually beneficial, or at least begin that way. If we consider Michael Jackson’s relationship with MTV in the age of the music video, it is nigh-impossible to say who benefited more. But this was a direct relationship. Artists require promotional mediums, and promotional mediums require artists. It is not complex mathematics.

Michael Jackson and Ola Ray during the shooting of “Thriller”

So where does the water turn to poison? The answer lies succinctly within the chorus of Michael’s 1995 song Tabloid Junkie.

Just because you read it in a magazine

Or see it on the TV screen

Don’t make it factual

If you aren’t a Michael Jackson fan, the cry of “Fake News!” is probably something you associate with the Presidency of Donald J Trump. The great irony of it is similar to The Streisand Effect, whereby attempting to censor or remove information only serves to publicise it more. In regards to Donald Trump, his suggestion that something is “Fake News” almost always means that it’s actually far more truthful than he will ever concede it to be.

Yet, it’s Michael Jackson fans, who for 30 years have lived with Fake News as a literal concept. Noted American journalist James Baldwin was perhaps the first to address this in 1985, when he stated:

“The Michael Jackson cacophony is fascinating in that it is not about Jackson at all. He will not swiftly be forgiven for having turned so many tables.”

What Baldwin may not have foreseen was that that cacophony would become a billion dollar industry. An industry that lives and breathes independently, and as Baldwin noted, actually doesn’t need, require, or correlate to Michael Jackson the human being nor Michael Jackson the creator of art.

It is interesting to try and figure out when we are expected to take this cacophony seriously and when we are not. Neither scenario, apparently, requires any evidence at all, yet some wish to be taken factually without feeling the need to present any actual facts. In the past week alone, as of the writing of this article, there have been tabloid reports stating that “Michael Jackson and LaToya Jackson are the same person”, “Michael Jackson was chemically castrated”, “Michael Jackson is secretly still alive”. None are “new” stories, yet they, and others, pop up regularly like a bizarre merry-go-round, satiating the lowest common denominator of readers and continually generating advertising revenue. People who wouldn’t normally get a second of print or screen time, like Conrad Murray, the disgraced doctor who literally killed his patient through incompetence, get rolled out to try and give credence to all manner of inane theories with not a single ounce of journalistic integrity to be found.

Multiply these stories by a thousand, think of the most preposterous variables you can imagine, and there is a significant chance that such a story has been written somewhere about Michael Jackson by an organisation that probably considers itself to be credible, sometime in the last 30-odd years. Like vultures, this industry fed on Michael’s very existence. Every sighting, every appearance was an opportunity to further construct their narrative that Michael Jackson was “a weird guy”. And every strengthening of that narrative meant more stories could be constructed, with every story giving the public another opportunity to suspend their disbelief. The existence of this cacophony wasn’t lost on Michael.

“Why not just tell people I’m an alien from Mars. Tell them I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight. They’ll believe anything you say, because you’re a reporter.” — Michael Jackson

A still from Michael’s “Leave Me Alone” video addressing how agency over his own life had been taken from him.

Baldwin’s quote regarding the cacophony not being about Michael at all was further proven by Michael’s death in 2009. The hysterical need to create stories about him did not slow down at all — it simply briefly changed tack into stories that referenced his death (in many cases haphazardly) before settling back into it’s former form. You see, they found it much easier when research and facts were not needed.

It is under these circumstances that two men, with the same lawyer, attempted to file monetary lawsuits against The Michael Jackson Estate. An Estate that has earned quite literally billions of dollars since Michael’s passing. It is worth clarifying at this juncture that Michael Jackson has topped the Forbes List of “highest earning dead celebrities” almost every year since his passing. Consider that that’s a list that also includes the likes of Elvis Presley, John Lennon, and Bob Marley, and you ought not to be surprised at the numerous attempts people have made to extract some of those many billions for themselves.

Michael Jackson on trial in 2005, where he was found not guilty on all charges.

Still, “extorting Michael Jackson for millions of dollars” isn’t exactly a new business model attempt. Let’s not forget that attempts were made during his life, and they only served to expose the accusers as liars with fictional stories back then. It would hardly be a stretch to imagine that those extortionists probably wished they didn’t have to deal with the inconvenient fact that Michael was alive and able to successfully defend himself.

Here we find Wade Robson. Despite being given more opportunities than your average person, not least a record deal, a pathway to make his name, and even the opportunity to make his own short film at Neverland in 2007 (a film where he thanked Michael Jackson in the credits for allowing him to film on “his sacred land”), Wade found that his career dried up. His big directing gig didn’t work out, and he simultaneously begged the Michael Jackson Estate for work directing the “MJ ONE” Cirque de Soleil show whilst also talking on camera to TMZ stating he was working on the project. He was never offered work on the project. They didn’t consider him qualified enough for the job.

Wade has a breakdown. He has a wife and a kid and no income. He could get a normal job, but in the words of legendary lawyer Thomas Mesereau, why work when you can sue Michael Jackson? After all — people sued Michael in the past alleging things who’d never even met Michael, and their cases were heard — so why shouldn’t those who knew him get a slice?

Still, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Before filing the suit, Wade writes a book, gets an agent and tries to shop it around. Because it’s the product, attention and getting the sale here that’s important to Wade, which should give reasonable people pause, if it weren’t for the fact we’re talking about Michael Jackson. Wade’s stories are wildly inconsistent, contradict themselves repeatedly and defy logic. At one point he claims that he repressed the memories. At another point, he always remembered them but “didn’t realise” what happened was wrong. Despite the fact that he testified — under oath and severe cross examination — at one of the biggest trials in history. He claims that Michael manipulated him into resenting and avoiding women, but neglects to mention that Michael set him up with his own niece Brandi Jackson, who dated him for 7 years but split up with him after he cheated on her. The court asked Wade for emails between him and his family — he redacts almost all of them under “attorney-client privilege”, despite the fact that his family are not attorneys. He lied under oath, failed to produce documents and attachments when required, and offered no explanation for his erratic behaviour or changing stories. What’s even worse is that doctored, forged evidence was also submitted, as detailed here.

Wade Robson, Michael Jackson and Brandi Jackson

Moving on to James Safechuck. The key part of the story is that James only files his lawsuit after finding out about Wade’s suit, and very conveniently uses the same law firm — a law firm known for public mud-slinging.

Here’s where things get interesting. Safechuck, of course, needs a story. Let’s rewind to the 1990’s. An author named Victor Gutierrez publishes a fictional book entitled Michael Jackson Was My Lover. The issue here is that Victor is a known pro-pedophilia member of a group called NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association) — a group which seeks to normalise sex between adults and minors. Gutierrez and his NAMBLA cohorts see an opportunity to try and make the most famous artist of all time their “poster boy” for what they believe. He reports that at a NAMBLA conference, the attendees saw Michael as being “one of them”, and hoped his accusations would lead to “social acceptance”. The issue here, of course, is that the accusations were false. Michael sued Gutierrez, won, and Gutierrez fled the country to avoid paying damages.

What does this have to do with James Safechuck? Quite a bit, and most notably that his “testimony” mimicked large parts of the Gutierrez book. The fictional, pro-pedophilia propaganda by Victor Gutierrez in parts reads exactly like Safechuck’s testimony.

Now, unfortunately for Robson and Safechuck, the law is more stringent than the requirements of the media, tabloid or otherwise, and both of their cases were rightfully thrown out of court. That option has failed to pay the dividends they’d hoped, but extracting money from an Estate isn’t the only way to make money. In fact, there are ways that can rely solely on the aforementioned “Michael Jackson Cacophony”, a place where, as we’ve noted, facts and truth aren’t needed.

Fast forward to 2018, when we’re in the midst of the #MeToo movement. Whilst it is certainly true that the movement has empowered victims of sexual assault to tell their stories and hold those responsible to account, there is always a downside to lowering the barrier in this way. In this particular environment, creating a safe environment for victims also creates a perfect environment for liars. Public sentiment requires less proof than ever before.

We’ve already established that truth, facts and logic appear to be fictional constructs to reporters writing about Michael Jackson, therefore it logically follows that he’d be the prime target for opportunistic shysters, and even more so in this climate. Is it a coincidence that this “documentary” pops up in the midst of #MeToo? Is it a coincidence that it pops up on the 10th anniversary of his death, a time that nobody will fail to acknowledge in streams, programming, events, coverage and even Broadway musicals? Of course not — it is a deceptive and wicked attempt at hijacking the narrative for personal gain, and when that is the original goal, they needed to strike now — at the right moment, like a hunter. The irony of director Dan Reed making his name from a documentary called “The Paedophile Hunter” is not lost. Perhaps a more accurate name for this film would be “The Witchhunt”, as much like the infamous events of the 17th century, it relies on an attempt to falsify moral outrage, mass hysteria, and convincing the public to believe something with no evidence. Perhaps even more apt is to consider the distortion of intent when it comes to black men. Over 60 years since the murder of Emmett Till, #BlackLivesMatter has shown us that not much has changed when it comes to falsifying the intent of black men. Till and Jackson were both killed by the hands of another, and both were the victims of a false outrage, based on lies and propagated by white privilege.

Michael Jackson in 1971

It is incredibly telling that this documentary attempts to construct a narrative simply based on the threadbare, inconsistent stories of two men seeking money. It is more telling that they falsify their credibility by stating that Wade and Jimmy were not acquainted before the film premiere, when court documents have proven this to be false. Since a real documentary would endeavour to tell multiple sides of a story in the interests of integrity, this film isn’t worthy of that term. Instead, we must call it what it is — a work of fiction, preying on emotions, in order to support financially motivated legal claims.

It would not be difficult to address the other side of the coin. There are literally dozens — perhaps hundreds — of children who Michael Jackson gracefully opened his home to. Many around the same time as Wade and Jimmy. If the publicity around this film is achieving anything, it’s a spectacular backfire, since more people come forward to state Michael’s innocence on an almost daily basis. Kelley Parker. Talun Zeitoun. Corey Feldman. Macaulay Culkin. Eddie and Frank Cascio. Emmanuel Lewis. Nathan Cavaleri. Lala Romero. Jonathan Spence. Bryton James. Why is this important? Because the film utilises two stories in order to infer behavioural patterns to try and gain credibility despite a lack of evidence. Yet, had they asked any of the above names to be interviewed, the film would quickly fall apart.

Michael Jackson & Brett Barnes

Perhaps most telling are the words of Brett Barnes, who tweeted the following when Wade first made his allegations:

“I wish people would realise, in your last moments on this earth, all the money in the world will be of no comfort. My clear conscience will.”

Again, when the news came out about this film:

“So people are getting their facts from a movie now? I wonder how they feel about the documentary showing the great alien invasion of ’96. I think it was called Independence Day.”

and

“Not only do we have to deal with these lies, but we’ve also got to deal with people perpetuating these lies. The fact that they fail to do the small amount of research it takes to prove these are lies, by choice or not, makes it even worse.”

In the meantime, Wade Robson conveniently sets up a foundation, and solicits for donations. It’s a 501 c3 foundation, meaning that it’s private and federally tax exempt. Under this type of structure, Robson is not required to file a Form 990 — the form that provides the public with financial information about a nonprofit organization, and often the only public source of that information. So whilst the director and producers of this movie claim that no direct financial compensation was paid to Robson, we can’t know if a financial donation was made to the foundation. Even if we don’t look at that suspiciously, it doesn’t matter. Fame and attention are what matters in this climate, more than ever, and once you have those, the money will almost always follow, one way or another.

“Remember, it’s not a lie if it makes us money.”

The people who stand to gain from this documentary claim to have facts. They will manipulate your emotions into believing that they can provide receipts and evidence, however they have failed to do so on any occasion.

Here, however, are some actual, indisputable facts:

Michael Jackson was exonerated by a criminal trial that found him not guilty on all counts.

Michael Jackson was exonerated by a lengthy FBI investigation that picked over every aspect of his life with a fine-tooth comb, and found no evidence.

Michael Jackson was the victim of numerous extortion attempts during his life — including both time-frames where accusations were made against him.

Both Wade Robson and Jimmy Safechuck filed lawsuits where the end-game was to try and claim huge sums of damages.

The lack of laws protecting defamation of the deceased means that you can use “artistic license” to engage in what would otherwise be considered slander, libel and defamation. If you — the reader of this article — were to pass away tomorrow, I or anyone else would be fully protected under the law to make a “documentary” accusing you of heinous crimes. Why would I, or anyone else do such a thing? Imagine now that you are one of the most famous, successful and wealthy people that ever lived. As you can now understand — the motive is clear, and Wade’s self-characterisation as a “Master of Deception” could not be more telling.

As usual, Michael Jackson himself had the true understanding of how the world operates. One can now easily imagine the following words to his 1995 song, “Money” being sung by Wade Robson and Jimmy Safechuck to Dan Reed, HBO and Channel 4.

“If you show me the cash

Then I will take it

If you tell me to cry

Then I will fake it

If you give me a hand

Then I will shake it”

They’d do anything for money.

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My name is Casey Rain and I am an award-winning musician, documentarian and writer from the United Kingdom. I have guest-lectured at Universities around the world, including the University of Minnesota, on the music business, documentary production, and the life and career of Prince Rogers Nelson, as well as releasing several records on international major labels with the critically-acclaimed British Asian band Swami. You can follow me on Twitter here.