Is the King of Pop too much of a cash cow to be cancelled?
There’s a Michael Jackson musical, a Cirque du Soleil show – and now a biopic starring his nephew. As the singer’s estate rakes in hundreds of millions despite those damning claims of paedophilia...
SONY’S endless corporate bragging about its scrupulous ethical values and commitment to diversity and inclusion doesn’t specifically mention its policy on child abuse. So how does it square this with purchasing the musical catalogue of an alleged child abuser?
Perhaps it feels the generous support it gives to four children’s charities speaks for itself.
But money, it is said, speaks louder than words and a few days ago the media giant forked out a great deal of it – at least €561million it’s estimated, although some say it could be as much as €702million – to buy just half of Michael Jackson’s musical catalogue from the late performer’s estate.
Including such mega-hits as Thriller, Beat It and Bad, it is believed to be the biggest ever deal for a single musician’s work.
And it doesn’t even include the estate’s other money-spinning Jackson-related businesses such as the Broadway musical MJ, Cirque du Soleil’s Jackson-themed shows, and a forthcoming biopic that stars Jaafar Jackson, son of Michael’s brother Jermaine, as the man himself.
The size of the Sony deal speaks volumes for Jackson’s continued popularity and musical appeal 15 years after his death. Last year, the entertainment industry bible Billboard estimated his estate now earns €70million a year from his music, royalties from theatrical shows and merchandising.
BUT if Sony is a deeply ethical company, what on earth is it doing investing a nine-figure sum in the legacy of a man exposed in the all-too-convincingly horrific 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland as a manipulative paedophile who is alleged to have raped two pre-pubescent boys for years?
And the same question could be asked of the acclaimed Hollywood film-makers, led by Oscar-winning British producer Graham King, who are working with Jackson’s estate on Michael, a feature film about his life.
The biopic, set to come out in just over a year, doesn’t just have the star’s nephew playing the King Of Pop, but two of the singer’s most vociferous defenders – his friends John Branca and John McClain, the co-executors of the Jackson estate – as co-producers. Claims it will cover all aspects of his life seem hard to believe.
The estate, which chiefly benefits Jackson’s large and fractious family, has always vehemently denounced any suggestion he was a child abuser.
It has dismissed the claims of Wade Robson and James Safechuck, his two accusers in Leaving Neverland, of being malicious liars intent on making millions by suing the Jackson industry, making much of the fact that they initially stood by the star.
That explanation, coupled with the singer’s success in creating a mythology that he’d never had a proper childhood and shared his home and even his bed with young boys to somehow rediscover it, has been enough to satisfy many of his diehard fans.
And also enough for the entertainment and merchandising industries to justify themselves in continuing to cynically ride the Jackson gravy train – despite years of police investigations and several massive payouts by him to halt legal proceedings.
Indeed, 15 years after his death and five years after the release of Leaving Neverland, the Jackson industry tills ring even more loudly than before he died. It is as though the scandal over his monstrous alleged crimes never happened.
Like the reckless banks and corporations that cannot be allowed to go under because they’re too economically important, Jackson is ‘too big to fail’.
His musical brilliance, not to mention cultural relevance to a generation of older listeners, have steamrolled allegations that would have had other celebrities ‘cancelled’ in seconds.
But anyone who saw Leaving Neverland won’t easily forget those claims, presented in horrific detail and with wrenching candour by Robson and Safechuck, both now in their 40s. Backed by their mothers, they described how Jackson brainwashed the families and later coerced the boys into defending him.
‘Everybody wanted to meet Michael or be with Michael,’ recalled Safechuck of the superstar’s overpowering celebrity.
‘He was already larger than life. And then he likes you.’
ACCORDING to Robson, Jackson started to abuse him in 1990 when he was seven and stopped only when he was 14, raping him both on tour and in a bedroom at his Neverland Ranch in California bearing a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign and protected by an alarm system that rang if anyone approached.
Safechuck, an earlier victim, was ten when his ordeal started in 1988. He says they even had a sham marriage complete with a wedding ring and fake certificate setting out their vows. He says they had codewords for obscene acts, and Jackson would surreptitiously scratch his hand when he wanted sex – which often happened in a secret closet off the star’s bedroom.
They said Jackson convinced them these acts were ‘romantic’ and they never understood the truth until they’d reached adulthood. And he groomed them never to reveal the abuse, just as he groomed his fans to believe it was entirely natural for him to spend his nights alone with young boys.
The pair have been fighting for ten years for their day in court and will finally get it – possibly around the release of the Jackson film in April 2025. This makes it even more unlikely the biopic will cover his alleged crimes except to rubbish them, says Dan Reed, the British director and producer of Leaving Neverland. The pair are suing two of Jackson’s companies, saying their employees were complicit in their sexual abuse and didn’t prevent it, thereby failing in their ‘duty of care’ to the young boys.
Although in the aftermath of Leaving Neverland being aired some radio stations stopped playing his music and a Jackson musical in Chicago was withdrawn, the backlash proved short-lived.
Months before he died of a drugs overdose on the eve of a London comeback concert in 2009, the notoriously spendthrift Jackson said he and his family were living like ‘vagabonds’ after he’d fallen more than €375million in debt.
However, his estate executors settled his troubled finances within a year, generating hundreds of millions of dollars by making a string of big deals, involving Sony, Cirque du Soleil, a Jackson-themed video game and myriad merchandising ventures.
The executors have since extended the Jackson brand into ever more lucrative ventures. In 2016, Sony paid €700million to buy out the Jackson estate’s half of Sony’s music publishing arm.
MJ The Musical, a glitzy jukebox show about Jackson’s life, has made €160million since it opened two years ago in New York. There’s also a touring version of the musical and three international spin-offs planned, including a London production that opens next month.
Meanwhile, sales of his songs thrive. Every Halloween, streaming of Jackson’s 1983 hit Thriller soars to the point that last November it pushed the single to number one on three different Billboard music charts in the US.
And inevitably a feelgood movie about Jackson’s life, like the one that’s coming, will only supercharge that demand.
‘It’s all about the money. Sadly people simply don’t care that he molested pre-pubescent children,’ Leaving Neverland’s Dan Reed
told the Mail at the weekend when asked why even his compelling four-hour documentary – a co-production between Channel 4 and HBO which was highly praised by critics – hasn’t dimmed the enthusiasm for Jackson.
He said he wasn’t surprised, adding: ‘There are too many people making massive amounts of money.’
The documentary-maker predicted that next year’s Jackson biopic will ‘glorify’ a star who abused children. He attacked the Jackson estate for ‘vilifying’ the singer’s accusers when any responsible organisation would want to investigate their claims.
Reed said it was ‘hilarious’ that the Jackson camp claims that the pop star’s accusers are motivated solely by money, when ‘the people cashing in on this massive asset are Jackson’s family and his lawyers’.
He insisted neither he nor Jackson’s two accusers are trying to have him ‘cancelled’ and said he wants fans to keep enjoying what he called ‘the soundtrack to so many people’s lives’.
But Reed said it sent a terrible message to other sexual abuse victims if ‘because of his wealth and power, and the loyalty of his fans, Jackson gets away with it’. That message, he said, is: ‘Don’t tell anyone. Don’t say anything. You will be crushed and people will not believe you.’
Robson and Safechuck, he said, simply want ‘validation’ from a proper trial (albeit only a civil one given Jackson is dead), although, represented by lawyers working pro bono, they are fighting ‘an extremely powerful cultural phenomenon backed by a hugely wealthy and powerful organisation’.
Next up for that organisation is the biopic Michael, which will be directed by Antoine Fuqua, a black American director famous for action films.
Its co-producer, Graham King, made the 2018 Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, which earned €837million but was accused of sanitising the Queen singer.
The Jackson estate-approved musical, MJ, barely mentioned the child abuse allegations, and then only dismissively, and Dan Reed has said that it is ‘extremely unlikely’ the film biopic will be any different.
Neither representatives for producer Graham King nor the film’s writer, veteran Hollywood screenwriter John Logan, would comment (although King is understood to share the Jackson estate’s criticisms of Safechuck and Robson).
Logan is putting on a new play in London that takes the side of actress Tippi Hedren in her controversial claim that Alfred Hitchcock was a vindictive sexual predator.
It will be fascinating to see if he’s equally sympathetic to two men whose claims against Jackson are infinitely more serious.