Jackson accusers face vitriol, death threats
Backlash swirls around Michael Jackson documentary
Men’s claims of sexual abuse by star documented in “Leaving Neverland”
PARK CITY, Utah – Wade Robson and James Safechuck were prepared for backlash when they went up against one of the world’s most beloved entertainers.
But they couldn’t have anticipated the level of vitriol leveled at them since last month’s Sundance Film Festival premiere of “Leaving Neverland,” which revisits their allegations of childhood sexual abuse by “King of Pop” Michael Jackson, who settled out of court on similar charges in 1994.
In the days leading up to the fourhour documentary’s first screening, the festival’s social media pages were flooded with messages from Jackson’s fans, fiercely defending his innocence. Some even made death threats against Robson, Safechuck and director Dan Reed, and others have recently accused HBO – which will air the two-part documentary March 3 and 4 (8 p.m. EST/PST) – of paying journalists to slander Jackson, who died in 2009 at age 50.
On Thursday, Jackson’s estate sued HBO over the documentary after repeatedly urging the network not to air the film, denouncing it as “tabloid character assassination” by “two admitted liars.” (Robson and Safechuck filed lawsuits alleging molestation in 2013 and 2014, respectively. A probate judge dismissed their lawsuits in December 2017 but did not rule on the validity of their allegations.)
Still, the hostility “hurts less and less as time goes on,” Robson told USA TODAY in a joint interview with Safechuck last month. “It’s not a great feeling, I’ll be honest. But I just keep trying to remember that each and every one of us (as) humans are at our own state of evolution . ...
So the people who are choosing to take that nasty, volatile approach to me and James, that’s just where they’re at right now, and I wish them some peace and less anger in their lives.”
‘He knew what he was doing’
Robson, 36, born in Brisbane, Australia, was first introduced to Jackson at age 5, after winning a contest to dance onstage with the pop star when his “Bad” tour came to Australia in 1987. An avid fan who dressed and danced like Jackson, he was understandably awestruck when the singer invited Robson’s family to visit his Neverland Ranch in California two years later. It was then, Robson says, that he first slept in Jackson’s bed and was molested by him.
“He was already a god to me before I met him,” Robson says. “Then to get this wild, strange opportunity as a little boy in Australia to be brought together with him and have him tell me: ‘You’re special. I want to spend time with you. I want you to be my friend and I love you.’ This was God, in my mind, saying this to me, and that’s where it begins.”
Safechuck, 40, recounts the first time he met Jackson, on the set of a Pepsi commercial at age 10. Then a child actor in Los Angeles, Safechuck says Jackson became a fast friend: calling his house daily, coming over for play dates and eventually inviting the boy to join him on tour. It was during a trip to Paris that Jackson allegedly introduced him to masturbation while staying in the pop star’s hotel room one night.
Both men say Jackson targeted them specifically after learning that each came from unstable families whose parents fought often. And those parents rarely forbade their children from staying with him.
“He knew what he was doing,” Safechuck says. “He has a way of sensing weakness in families.”
Robson and Safechuck each say they were sexually abused by Jackson until age 14. They describe him as being psychologically and emotionally manipulative during those years: He told them he (and they) would go to jail if anyone found out about their relationships, and he ran drills with them to hastily put on their clothes if they risked being caught.
They also say that Jackson tried to turn them against their families and women and that he listened in on their parents’ phone calls while the boys stayed with him at Neverland. One time, “my mom was on a call with her sister talking trash about my dad, and then he was like: ‘Look how evil women are. Your dad is a sweet guy. Women are conniving,’ ” Safechuck says. “It was a consistent theme with him.”
‘We’ll always have this love’
Both men say Jackson often plied them with alcohol and pornography and even recorded one of his sexual encounters with Safechuck.
“He immediately freaked out when he realized what he just did and taped over it,” Safechuck says. Although he was aware Jackson was filming, “it was fun at the time, and when you’re having fun, (Jackson) isn’t thinking about it. But later, he’s like: ‘Wait a minute. I just documented this.’ He was very careful, but that was his one sort of slip.”
One of the most disturbing anecdotes in “Neverland” is that Jackson allegedly staged a mock wedding with Safechuck when the boy was 10, exchanging vows and rings in his bedroom. “It was more of a reinforcement of: ‘Don’t worry. We’ll always be together. We’ll always have this love,’ ” Safechuck says. The ring was one of many pieces of jewelry that Safechuck says Jackson gave him.
And then the relationship changed
An aspiring dancer at age 9, Robson and his family moved to Los Angeles at Jackson’s urging, after promises he would be the boy’s mentor. But once he arrived, Robson says, he saw Jackson increasingly less as the singer moved on to younger boys including Macaulay Culkin and Brett Barnes (both of whom have denied Jackson abused them).
On rare occasions when he was invited to stay at Neverland, “there was an unsaid feeling to be impressive and make it worth his while – get back into that favorite position in his life,” Robson says. “So the sex became, in the craziest way, the safe zone as the rest of the relationship really changed.”