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Never Neverland the New Michael Jackson Biopic and the Campaign to Whitewash the King of Pop's Reputation Written by Andrew Hamill, read by William Lang Part 1 Michael Antoine Fuqua's new biopic of Michael Jackson has broken multiple box office records since its release on 24 April 2026. Jackson's global franchise is rejoicing at the note perfect portrayal of the star by his nephew Jafar Jackson, and some screenings have been followed by dance parties in the auditoriums. The sprawling Michael Jackson industry family members, managers, PR agents, bodyguards, celebrities and thousands of other hangers on is reveling in the film's impact as Jackson's reputation at last sheds its baggage and the coffers of the businesses associated with his legacy start to swell once more. Fuqua and his screenwriter John Logan portray Jackson as a sensitive child who discovered his talent under the tutelage of his overbearing father, Joseph. A steel worker by trade, Joseph Jackson had settled in the town of Gary, Indiana with his wife Catherine in 1950 after an abortive attempt to launch his own musical career. In the following years He he conscripted five of his nine children into a musical ensemble in the early 1960s and subjected them to a grueling regimen of constant rehearsal and strict physical discipline. Just six years old when he joined the group, Michael was the youngest member of what would become known as the Jackson 5. Propelled by their talent and 1970s Hollywood's hunger for family friendly egg ethnic entertainers, the quintet signed with Motown Records in 1968, appeared on network television, and were even granted a short lived television variety series. Michael Jackson emerged as the brightest star in the Jackson 5 firmament during the 1970s, and he released his breakthrough solo album, off the Wall in 1979. Three further albums followed over the next 12 years, each of which was promoted with all the resources the American music industry could summon. Jackson was an extremely gifted dancer and performer, and his music merged crisp, funky arrangements with infectious vocals, a high tenor punctuated by percussive yelps and hiccups, his unthreatening, oddly androgynous demeanour and his approachable music expanded his following into hundreds of millions and propelled him into pop superstardom. As Jackson's fame grew during the 1980s, he shared his newly acquired wealth with his parents and siblings. He established his own quarters in a separate part of the Havenhurst mansion they had all shared since 1971. He also began undergoing treatment to trim his wide nose, which his brothers had mocked, and lighten his skin. Jackson suffered from vitiligo, an autoimmune condition that produces patches of discolouration across the body. In 1984, while filming a Pepsi commercial, Jackson's hair was set on fire by a pyrotechnic device and the burns he received required several painful operations. The accident also destroyed the hair follicles on the back of his head, which meant that for the rest of his life he would wear a variety of wigs and hats, often his trademark fedora, in public and private. During this period, he developed an addiction for prescription painkillers. In the mid-80s, a more disturbing character trait began to emerge. Jackson's tendency to associate with prepubescent boys. In March 1987, Jackson met a nine year old actor named James Safechuk called Jimmy during the filming of another commercial for Pepsi. Jackson would later invite Safechuck to visit him at Havenhurst, and he repeatedly visited the Safechuck family's modest home in Simi Valley, California. Jackson met an Australian boy named Brett Barnes on the Australian leg of his BAD tour on 13th November 1987 and they were often seen in public together afterwards. A few weeks after Jackson met Barnes, he met a five year old fan named Wade Robson in Brisbane. Safechuk, Barnes and Robson would remain in touch with Jackson for decades, but their attitude towards the star would change over time and diverge dramatically. Barnes is now a married father and he remained Jackson's friend until the star's death in 2009. Although he has said that he shared a bed with Jackson over a period of more than a year. Unlike Robson and Safechuck, he insists to this day that nothing untoward occurred. His profile on X currently proclaims his membership of Apple Head Club Doo Doo Head, two terms of endearment that Jackson used with him and other young boys. Whenever he was asked about his friendships with young children, Jackson invariably replied that he had been denied a real childhood by his martinet show business father and that these relationships were an attempt to recapture the phase of innocent play and exploration that he had been denied. Jackson also supported many children's charities and was the driving force behind the 1985 charity Single Women We Are the World, which became the eighth best selling single of all time. In 1988, Jackson bought a large ranch near Los Olivos, California, which Paul McCartney had rented during the recording of the 1983 McCartney Jackson duet say say say. Jackson renamed the complex Neverland Ranch after the magical island retreat in JM Barrie's play Peter Pan and transformed it into a miniature theme park maintained by dozens of staff featuring a carousel, Ferris wheel, train track and petting zoo. Jackson repeatedly invited large groups of children to Neverland where they enjoyed its amenities free of charge. In the 2019 documentary Square One, a Jackson supporter estimated that Michael Jackson invited some 22,000 children to Neverland each year. Part 2 A formal investigation into a case of alleged sexual activity between Jackson and a minor was first revealed by journalist Diane diamond in her 2005 book Be Careful who youo Love, reissued and updated in 2019. Diamond reports meeting a go between for an anonymous source at an Italian restaurant in Santa Monica, California on 23 August 1993. This person provided diamond, then a reporter for the tabloid TV show Hard Copy, with leaked reports from the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services about an investigation into Jackson's alleged sexual abuse of a child named Jordan Chandler. The go between said the motivation of the source was to ensure Jackson would not get away with it again, which suggests that this was not the first time the agency had been made aware of Jackson's activities. The criminal investigation of Jackson had grown out of a civil lawsuit filed by a Los Angeles dentist named Evan Chandler, who was then involved in a custody battle with his ex wife June over their 13 year old child. Jackson had befriended Jordan Chandler in May 1992 after Jackson's car broke down and he visited a Rent a Wreck car agency owned by June Chandler's new husband, David Schwartz. While Jackson waited for his car to be repaired, Schwartz telephoned young Jordan, who was a Michael Jackson fan, and told him to rush over to the rental agency to meet his idol. Soon, Jackson was in regular contact with June and her son Jordan Chandler, and his conduct with the boy established a pattern of behavior that would recur in contacts with his other special friends. He routinely called Jordan during the 1990 tour promoting his album Dangerous and spoke to him for hours. After the tour ended, Jackson invited the family, June Jordan and his sister Lily to Neverland and showered them with compliments and gifts. He took them on a trip to Las Vegas and after June Chandler had retired, to her bedroom with Lily. Jordan and Jackson watched the exorcist together, after which Jackson invited the frightened child to sleep with him. When his mother found out about this, she put up some initial resistance, to which Jackson responded with tearful entreaties. In her 2005 testimony about the occasion, June recalled that Jackson was sobbing, crying, shaking and trembling. He implored her, you don't trust me. We're a family. Why are you doing this? Why are you not allowing Geordie to be with me? Why can't he sleep in my bed? There's nothing wrong. There's nothing going on. Don't you trust me? When June relented, Jackson bought her a Cartier bracelet and Jordan began sleeping with Jackson in the Vegas hotel bedroom every night. Jordan continued visiting Neverland and sleeping with Jackson after this trip, and in spring 1993, June later testified, Jackson began visiting Jordan at her home in Santa Monica, California. He would spend the night in bed with Jordan, leave when Jordan went to school, and return after Jordan got home. This happened approximately 30 times in total, with Jackson sometimes spending an entire week sleeping in the same bed as the boy. These odd sleeping arrangements became a point of contention in June's ongoing custody dispute with her husband, Evan. At first, Evan Chandler welcomed his son's relationship with Jackson. However, once it became apparent that Jackson preferred the company of June and started to spend considerable time with Geordie, Evan began to oppose the relationship. According to the Chandler camp, the father was motivated by concern for his son. According to the Jackson camp, Chandler, an aspiring screenwriter with a credit on the 1993 Mel Brooks comedy was Robin Hood Men in Tights, was jealous of the star's closeness to his son and hoped to pressure Jackson into supporting his own show business aspirations. According to Evan Chandler, it wasn't until 16 July 1993 that his son admitted that Jackson had done anything inappropriate while he was recovering from anesthesia administered during a dental procedure in his father's office. Jackson fans claim Evan Chandler administered sodium amytal truth serum, but this seems unlikely. Jordan confessed that Jackson had in fact molested him. In an affidavit filed on 28 December 1993, Jordan described the abuse as an incremental escalation. The first step was Michael Jackson hugging me. The next step was for him to give me a brief kiss on the cheek. He then started kissing me on the lips, first briefly and then for a longer period of time. He would kiss me while we were in bed together. The next step was when Michael Jackson put his tongue in my mouth. I told him I did not like that Michael Jackson Started crying. He said there was nothing wrong with it. He said that just because most people believe something is wrong doesn't make it so. Michael Jackson told me that another of his young friends would kiss him with an open mouth and would let Michael Jackson put his tongue in his mouth. Michael Jackson said that I did not love him as much as this other friend. The next step was when Michael Jackson rubbed up against me in bed. The next step was when we would lie on top of each other with erections. In May 1993, George and Lily and their mother joined Jackson on a trip to Monaco to visit the World Music Awards. Jordan sat on Jackson's lap during the award ceremony, which prompted journalist Piers Morgan to remark, I was sitting literally five rows away from Jackson, who was one of the first to sit next to Prince Albert. And for two hours he sat with that boy on his knee. And this is not a very, very young boy, not a 3 year old. This is a 13 year old boy, almost fully developed teenage boy, sitting on his knee. It was rather tactile behaviour. He was hugging him, laughing and joking with him, encouraging the bands, giving his views. The boy and he seemed like very close friends, almost like they were having a relationship. Images included in a 2007 television documentary titled Michael what Really Happened show the outside of the suite in which Jackson and Chandler were staying being guarded by full size statues of two Sikh warriors. In his 1993 affidavit, Chandler stated, that's when the whole thing really got out of hand. We took a bath together. This was the first time we had seen each other naked. Michael Jackson named certain of his children friends that masturbated in front of him. Michael Jackson then masturbated in front of me. He told me that when I was ready, he would do it for me. While we were in bed, Michael Jackson put his hand underneath my underpants. He then masturbated me to a climax. After that, Michael Jackson masturbated me many times, both with his hand and with his mouth. Upon hearing Geordie recount these incidents, however, Evan Chandler did not contact the police. During recorded telephone conversations, he said he would hire the nastiest son of a bitch lawyer he could find who would make sure that Jackson would not sell one more record. This established a separate pattern followed by nearly all subsequent allegations about Jackson, a broken or dysfunctional family, disputed circumstances and parents who display some combination of vindictiveness, disingenuousness, self righteousness, greed and duplicity. Part 3 In August 1993, Evan Chandler offered Jackson a deal in return for a payout of $20 million, he and his son would not contact the authorities about Jackson's alleged abuse. The Jackson camp responded with an offer of $1 million tied to help with Evan Chandler's screenwriting aspirations. On 17 August, Jordan met with Los Angeles child psychiatrist Mathis Abrams for three hours and claimed Jackson had abused him. Under California law, Abrams was required to report any allegations of sexual abuse he encountered to the police, regardless of any medical privilege. Accordingly, a criminal investigation against Jackson was opened the following day. On 23 August 1993, the first news reports about the allegations began appearing in the media. Journalist Diamond's report for the television tabloid Hard Copy claimed that Jordan Chandler could identify unique features of Jackson's genitalia and lower torso. Likely these were symptoms of his vitiliga. Tabloids on both sides of the Atlantic began offering large sums to anyone who claimed to have information on Jackson and young boys payments that would later compromise the credibility of criminal prosecutions. Negotiations between Chandler and Jackson fell apart, and in September 1993, attorney Larry Feldman, a civil litigation specialist, filed a $30 million lawsuit against Michael Jackson. Meanwhile, as part of the criminal investigation, authorities executed search warrants at Neverland Jackson's Century City condominium, which he called the Hideaway and the hotel room Jackson had shared with the Chandlers. Perhaps the most incriminating material discovered during The Raid were two books edited by Georges St. Martin and Ronald C. Nelson, which were found in a locked cabinet in Jackson's master bedroom in Neverland. One of these was titled the Boy A Photographic Essay, and it contained color photographs of naked boys taken during the filming of an adaptation of Lord of the Flies in Puerto Rico. The other was Boys Will be Boys, a 1966 compilation of pictures of boys, many of whom are pre pubescent and naked. One of the books bears an inscription to Michael from your fan. Rhonda, 1983, Chicago. Nothing further is known about this person. Jackson inscribed, boys will be boys. Personally, look at the true spirit of happiness and joy in these boys faces. This is the spirit of boyhood, a life I've never had and would always dream of. This is the life I want for my boys. M.J. these books were particularly popular with boy lovers worldwide, since they could be purchased legally in most Western countries. But the two men responsible for them were in fact pedophiles. Georges St. Martin, a pseudonym for Martin Swithenbach, a British photographer from a prestigious family who had relocated to the United States to study business administration at Harvard on a fulbright scholarship from 1950 to 1952. In 1978 he co founded the North American Man Boy Love association. According to some accounts, in others he was merely a trustee and contributed to its bulletin. In July 1981 he was convicted in a New York court of sodomizing young boys and sentenced to between seven and a half and 15 years in prison. Ronald C. Nelson was the pseudonym of Ronald Drew, a New York teacher indicted for distributing pornographic images of Children in 1980. The 1993 Neverland hall also yielded a nude photograph of a boy later identified as Jonathan Spence and another photograph of a boy holding an umbrella and wearing only a bikini bottom which was partially pulled down. Jackson missed several dates on his Dangerous World tour and eventually cancelled his remaining shows as his legal and public relations problems accumulated. The allegations against him, he said, had aggravated his addiction to painkillers. In November 1993, five former security guards at Havenhurst filed a lawsuit claiming that they had been fired in February 1993 because because they knew too much about Jackson's interactions with young boys. The lawyer for the Havenhurst five, former Los Angeles county prosecutor Charles Matthews, stated in a press conference, I have information that this investigation that started in August wasn't the first investigation involving alleged misconduct by Mr. Jackson. The guards lawsuit was eventually dismissed and several of the plaintiffs admitted that they had never actually seen Jackson behaving inappropriately with the boy. Like virtually all of Jackson's accusers, the guards had also accepted large payouts from tabloid outlets and TV shows to share their story. On 8 December 1993, Jackson's sister Latoya held a press conference in Tel Aviv where she was on tour and stated, michael is my brother, but I cannot and I will not be a silent collaborator of his crimes against small innocent children. Latoya claimed that her mother, Catherine Jackson, had shown her checks for large amounts of money that Jackson had made out to the families of some of the young boys he associated with. She offered to provide proof of her claims to a news outlet in return for $500,000, but she was unable to deliver. She later retracted her comments and reaffirmed her support for her brother, claiming that she had been controlled by her then husband Jack Gordon, who she said had abused her. To help prepare for their forthcoming civil suit, Evan Chandler's legal team hired Dr. Richard Gardner to interview Jordan Chandler. Gardner specialised in child sexual abuse cases and in debunking false claims of abuse. According to a transcript of their conversation, Chandler recorded how Jackson had persuaded his mother to let them sleep together. Michael somehow got her to agree that there would be no further questions asked. And so from that point on I was in his bed till the end of our relationship. Chandler then described Jackson's escalating sexual contact with him. He got me to twist one of his nipples while I sucked on the other, and he masturbated himself. Gardner informed the Chandlers that he found Jordan's account credible. On 20 December 1993, police served a search warrant to take photos of Jackson's body to corroborate descriptions Jordan Chandler had given police, including an account of a dark splotch on the underside of Jackson's penis that would only have been visible when Jackson was aroused. Jackson went into hysterics, repeatedly lashing out at the lawyers and police. Two days later, he bought satellite time to issue a four minute statement on the search. Wearing nearly centimeter long false eyelashes, Jackson denounced the search as a horrifying nightmare. The photographs taken during that search have never been released because Jackson's case never went to trial. And Jackson's case never went to trial because his attorneys put on a masterly display of practical lawyering. In the 2019 podcast Telephone Stories, the Trials of Michael Jackson, one of Jackson's lawyers, Carl Douglas, recalls with pride how he and Jackson's other lawyers had avoided a trial by successfully arranging a settlement formally agreed on 25 January 1994, the confidential settlement agreement, which is now available in redacted form, is a slightly sinister masterpiece of enforced silence. In return for payouts to various persons totaling more than $20 million, the minor promises to make no further claims or statements in any public forum that accused Jackson of any wrongful conduct whatsoever with regard to the miner or any other person. Jackson and his associates also agreed never to discuss the matter publicly. The financial terms of the settlement were leaked in 2004. $15,331,250 was paid into a trust on Jordan Chandler's behalf, while June and Evan Chandler each received payouts in the low seven figures. The criminal case against Jackson collapsed when grand juries in LA and Santa Barbara, where Neverland was located, refused to return indictments and Jordan Chandler indicated he was unwilling to testify. On 21st September 1994, District Attorneys in both jurisdictions announced that they were suspending but not terminating their respective criminal prosecutions of Jackson. Jackson had avoided a civil and a criminal trial, but his reputation had been severely damaged. The experience also destroyed what remained of the Chandler family. In 1995, Jordan Chandler, then 15 years old, successfully sued for emancipation from his parents, which was granted on 12th November 1995. He then broke contact with his parents and disappeared from public view. Evan Chandler closed his dental practice the following year and shot himself in November 2009 after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Part 4 In 1996 a curious book entitled Michael Jackson Was My Lover, the Secret Diary of Geordie Chander appeared. Written by an LA based Chilean journalist named Victor Gutierrez. Gutierrez claimed he had heard about Jackson's sexual proclivities while he was researching a piece on the North American Man Boy Love association in the mid-1980s he began to investigate Jackson and formed relationships with a number of his Hispanic maids. He also claimed to have interviewed Jordan Chandler and gained access to his diary. The Chandler family claims Jordan did not keep a diary. Guterres shopped around Michael Jackson Was My Lover to publishers but none would touch it so he self published the book instead. Despite the misleading title, it is not a diary. It is written in the third person. Based on interviews Gutierrez claims to have conducted with many associates and employees of Jackson, including maids Orietta Murdoch, Blanca Francia and Adrianne McManus. It describes Jackson's alleged sexual encounters with Jordan Chandler, Brett Barnes and Macaulay Culkin in graphic detail. The tone is conspicuously non judgmental as to Jackson's actions and the descriptions of sexual encounters between Jackson and children. Romantic, erotic, often employ the terms favoured by pedophiles and Gutierrez is not a reliable Source. In a 1995 interview with Diane diamond he alleged that he had seen a videotape of Michael Jackson having sex with a boy. Jackson sued Gutierrez, Diamond, KABCAM Radio Inc. And Paramount Pictures Corporation, and Guacheras was ordered to pay Jackson $2.7 million. He promptly declared bankruptcy and decamped to Chile for a few years. Nevertheless, his book does contain certain documents and photographs that were not public record at the time, including bank statements and confidential legal and medical documents. It also contains a photograph of Michael Jackson in pyjamas in Jordan Chandler's bed and a photograph that purports to show Chandler's used underwear kept in Jackson's room. The book also contains interviews with Joy Robson, the mother of Wade Robson and Jimmy Safechuck's father. Speculation continues about who gave Gutierrez access to the private documents he produced. Did he obtain them from maids, lawyers or were Guterres sources either Evan or Jordan Chandler who wanted the world to know that Geordie's allegations were truthful even though neither could ever repeat them in public. One document that Gutierrez calls exclusive is introduced as the description Geordie gave his father about Jackson's genitalia on October 4, 1993 at 11:45pm the description includes Mike, circumcised, short pubic body, oil stink, and a diagram of what appears to be an erect penis with a dark patch under the tip. Since the coroner who performed the autopsy on Michael Jackson in 2009 noted that Jackson's penis appears uncircumcised, Jackson's defenders claim Jordan's description of Jackson's genitals was incorrect. Most of the people who observed the search of Jackson's body, however, maintained that his descriptions were accurate. In the mid-1990s, Blanco Francho, one of Guterres sources, sued Jackson for abusing her son Jason, and they received an out of court settlement of over $2 million. To help repair his image, Jackson made a surprise announcement that he and Lisa Marie Presley had been married in a ceremony held in the Dominican Republic on 26 May 1994. This marriage ended on 20 August 1996, and for much of their married life the couple lived apart. When they divorced, comedian Norm MacDonald joked on Saturday Night Live. The nation is still reeling from Thursday's bombshell announcement that Lisa Marie Presley has filed for divorce from Michael Jackson. According to friends, the two were never a good match. She's more of a stay at home type and he's more of a homosexual pedophile. Jackson had become a punchline. The reaction to Jackson's legal predicaments, like those of O.J. simpson, had fractured along racial lines. Many black Americans revered Jackson as a musical genius whose songs had entranced hundreds of millions, if not billions of people of all races across the globe. Now the establishment was punishing him for his eccentricities, which were hardly unexpected from someone with his extraordinary gifts and unusual childhood. During the 1960s and 70s, any number of white rock stars had engaged in outright sexual affairs with young groupies without facing prosecution or public vilification. And Michael Jackson's wholesome music had never even hinted at anything sordid or perverted. On the contrary, he recorded saccharine pines to compassion, tolerance and understanding. All the profits from Jackson's Dangerous tour were donated to various charities, including the star's own Heal the World Foundation. After Jackson's marriage to Lisa Marie Presley failed, he married Debbie Rowe, a medical assistant to Jackson's dermatologist, Dr. Arnold Klein. This marriage supposedly produced two children in the late 1990s, a boy named Michael Joseph Prince Jackson Jr. And and a girl named Paris Jackson. Questions still hover over the parentage of these children, especially Paris, who does not appear to be biracial. A third child named Prince Michael Bigey Jackson II was born to an unnamed surrogate in 2002, but none of this did anything much to rehabilitate the singer's image. Jackson and his PR men therefore decided on a fateful gamble. For eight months in late 2002 and early 2003, British journalist Martin Bashir was permitted to follow Jackson around with a camera crew chatting about his day to day life. The 110 minute documentary that resulted Living With Michael Jackson was broadcast on 3rd February 2003 in the UK on ITV and three days later on American television network ABC. The upshot is one of the most poignant and disturbing celebrity profiles ever created. By this time plastic surgery had wrecked Jackson's jaw and reduced his nose to a pitiable tripod of cartilage and pale flesh. Bashir accompanies Jackson to the store in the Forum shops, an over the top candy floss pastiche of a Roman palace attached to Caesar's palace in Las Vegas, complete with animatronic statues and garish ceiling frescoes. Jackson floats through the store spending millions of dollars on bling. His attempt to bottle feed Bidgee fails before our eyes as Jackson's visible agitation alarms the child. Jackson drapes a green veil over the child's face and hands it to someone off screen. One interview is conducted before a larger than life painting of Jackson clad only in a loincloth and surrounded by winged putty. The editors repeatedly cut away from Jackson to focus on this piece of self glamorizing kitsch. Living with Michael Jackson paints Jackson as an eccentric with hyperbolically bad taste and non existent parenting skills. One scene, however, would result in Jackson's last clash with the legal system. Jackson is filmed sitting on a couch with a boy named Gavin Arvizo, then 12 years old, who had recently gone into remission after a near fatal bout with cancer. Jackson's pale right hand is entwined with Arvizo's left and Arvizo rests his head on Jackson's shoulder. Even during a documentary intended to quash rumors about his relationships with children, Jackson had allowed himself to be recorded in a posture with a young boy that made them look like starstruck lovers. When Bashir asks Jackson why it is acceptable for a grown man to share a bed with young boys, Jackson repeats the familiar the most loving thing to do is to share your bed with someone. It's very charming, it's very sweet. It's what the whole world should do. To counter the fallout from Basir's documentary, Jackson summoned Gavin's mother, Janet Arvizo, and Gavin's siblings, Star a boy and Davilin a girl, to the Neverland Ranch. There the family recorded interviews for a rebuttal video eventually aired on Fox in which they showered Jackson with fulsome praise. It was during visits to Neverland to film this video. Gavin later claimed that that Jackson began abusing him during cross examination. At a later trial, Gavin admitted that he had not raised claims of molestation against Jackson until after meeting with two attorneys, including Larry Feldman, the lawyer who had represented the chandlers in their 1993 lawsuit against Jackson. Feldman arranged for Gavin to be interviewed by Dr. Stanley Katz and after Gavin alleged Jackson had abused him, the two men reported the incident to the authorities. Again, the parent of a child allegedly abused by Jackson had not reported the incident directly to police. Janet Arvizo never sued Jackson, but she may have been awaiting an opportunity to do so. Part 5 A criminal conviction for sexual abuse, however, essentially guarantees success in any later civil lawsuit and Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon now had a second chance to prosecute Michael Jackson. Jackson was duly arrested and released on bail and a second search warrant was served on Neverland Ranch on 11 November 2003. In her book about the case, Diane diamond described the new security precautions surrounding Jackson's bedroom. Once inside the mansion, investigators took special note of the motion detectors that lined the 25 foot hallway leading to Michael Jackson's private bedroom suite. Anyone who walked down the corridor would trigger the sensors, setting off a series of chimes inside Jackson's private domain. In addition, on the wall next to the bedroom door was a keypad entry device that required a code. The keypad, along with an astonishing total of six locks on the door itself, some of them deadbolts, had been added since police were last in the Tudor style mansion in 1993. As the raid unfolded, diamond reported Jackson was in a villa at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, supposedly working on a video. He was also engaging in a three week long party during which he refused all maid service and insisted food and drinks be left outside the door. His guests were a revolving group of boys, many of whom spoke German. When passersby did spot him through the open villa door, diamond writes, he was said to have looked zonked out and to be wearing a long purple dashiki type robe. When Jackson finally left, Marat's management found the villa trashed with trays of rotting food, cigarette burns in the furniture and According to the 2007 documentary Michael what Really Happened? Words written in faecal matter on the bedsheets. Jackson was discreetly informed that he was no longer welcome at the hotel, according to a prosecution motion. The 2003 search yielded a fresh trove of erotica, including the gynoids. Actually, gynoids erotic illustrations of female cyborgs by Japanese artist Hajime Soriyama. Genetically manipulated nude illustrations, mostly female, some male. Extreme sadomasochism and body mutilation. Naked as a Jaybird Nude Adult male and Female erotica. Very Graphic Man A Study of Man Graphic Primer for Homosexuals 4 Barely Legal DVDs 1 Pimps Up, Hose Down DVD on the Power Mac G4 Located in Jackson's master bedroom, the officers found evidence of visits to the websites varsityteens.com adoptablekids.com and adoption.com Many of the books and magazines were stored openly and were accessible by the children who visited Jackson's bedroom. The fingerprints of Gavin Arviso and Jackson were found on an issue of Hustler Bailey Legal Hardcore. Even more ominous for Jackson, the judge in the Arvizo case granted the prosecution's motion to bring other allegations of Jackson's sexual misconduct with children before the jury. In 1995, California had enacted evidence code 1108, which was intended to make it easier for prosecutors to meet the burden of proof in sexual assault cases. This law created an exception to the general common law ban on introducing evidence of a defendant's prior bad behaviour at trial and permitted evidence of prior similar acts of sexual misconduct, even if they had not resulted in a conviction. Jackson's 2005 trial was a worldwide media event, and the courthouse became a circus. Courtroom observers ran a gauntlet of Jackson fans and satellite trucks broadcasting to stations around the globe. Jackson often looked dazed, and observers speculated that he was under the influence of prescription sedatives. Gavin Arvizo testified that Jackson had served him and his brother wine, which Jackson called Jesus Juice, and that Jackson had fondled him. Jason Francia, son of Jackson's former maid Blanca Francia, testified that Jackson touched his genitals through his clothes twice during tickling sessions in Jackson's Century City hideaway condominium. Former maids and security guards testified to seeing Jackson in compromising situations with young boys, but they also acknowledged receiving thousands of dollars from tabloids. Avizo's mother named, in an odd coincidence, Janet Jackson after her remarriage, also testified, mainly to back up the claim that she and her children had been held hostage to ensure their participation in the rebuttal video. Her testimony was disastrous. She went on rambling tirades, snapped at the jury with her fingers and trapped herself in contradictions. Any sympathy she enjoyed from the jury as a victim of domestic abuse and the mother of a child who had nearly died from cancer quickly wore thin on cross examination. She was painted as a con artist and grifter who was simply out for Jackson's money. Another problem for the prosecution was the absence of what would certainly have been their star witness. Jordan Chandler was by then 23 years old, but lead prosecutor Tom Sneddon was unable to convince him to testify. According to co prosecutor Ron zonen, on a January 2024 episode of the podcast Telephone Stories, Chandler said that if he was served a subpoena, he would simply go live in Europe for the next three or four years. However, his mother, who'd had no contact with her son for over a decade, did testify for the prosecution. Jackson's team was led by a veteran Los Angeles criminal defence attorney, Tom Mesereau. Mesereau attacked every major prosecution witness, pointed out every inconsistent statement, tabloid deal and cash grab lawsuit. What kind of person could witness the sexual abuse of children and not report it? The kind of person, Mazarow insisted, who sensed blood in the water after the Chandler and franchise settlements and wanted to cash in. Masarow continues to advocate for Jackson's innocence, as evidenced by his long interviews for episodes of the Telephone Stories podcast, which were released in late 2024 and early 2025. In mid May 2026, long after any legal obligations to or financial benefit from Michael Jackson or his estate had lapsed, Mesero gave a 45 minute interview to 60 Minutes Australia in which he declared that Jackson, whom Mesereau considered a friend, never abused any child. For the defence, Mazeroux presented former child associates of Jackson who denied abuse, including Macaulay Culkin, Wade Robson and Brett Barnes. On 13 June 2005, the jury unanimously acquitted Jackson on all charges. The jurors then gave press interviews in which they complained the prosecution's evidence was simply insufficient to prove the specific charges against Jackson, even though several said they believed that Jackson probably had molested little boys. Others reported their distrust of Gavin Arvizo's mother, including one female juror who was dismayed that a mother would let her children sleep alone with Jackson, given the existing allegations about the pop star. After the trial, Avizo's mother would be convicted of perjury and welfare fraud. Among Jackson fans, 13 June is still celebrated as vindication Day, but It was a Pyrrhic victory. Although the jurors had properly focused on the Arvizo allegations, the testimony of the former maid, security guards and other employees merely confirmed decades old suspicions about the star in the public mind. Jackson's wraith like zoned out demeanour suggested a man who was fighting demons before the world's eyes and losing. After the trial, Jackson decamped to Bahrain with his children, ostensibly to work on new musical projects with the help of Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the second son of the King of Bahrain. On his rare forays into the outside world, Jackson disguised himself in an abaya and veil. Meanwhile, his many business enterprises were plunging towards bankruptcy, undone by his uncontrolled spending and the lack of fresh income from music. Jackson soon returned to the usa. But his attempts to get his life back on track and his finances under control failed, and he died of an overdose of the sedative painkiller propofol on 25 June 2009. In a postscript to the 2019 reissue of Diane Diamond's 2005 book, diamond wrote a highly placed law enforcement source once revealed to me the results of a forensic deep dive into Jackson's financials. The source said that the examination concluded that over the years leading up to the 2005 criminal trial, the entertainer had doled out about $200 million worth of gifts and hush money to young boys and their families. This astonishing figure appeared to be confirmed by attorneys representing Wade Robson and James Safechuck during civil litigation against the Jackson estate in 2015. Part 6 In 2015, six years after Michael Jackson's death, Wade Robson and Jimmy Safechuck both finally disavowed their earlier exculpatory statements and alleged that Michael Jackson had in fact sexually abused them. Inevitably, these new allegations surfaced in the context of claims for millions against Jackson's businesses after the swarm of lawsuits that had accompanied Jackson and his businesses and associates over the decades, Robson and Safechuck suits initially attracted only modest attention. That changed in January 2019, when the four hour HBO documentary Leaving Neverland was screened at the Sundance Film Festival. The documentary consists mainly of long interviews with Robson and Safechuck and their mothers, Joy Robson and Stephanie Safechuck Leaving Neverland was greeted with a standing ovation at Sundance and positive reviews in the press. Jackson fans point out that the documentary included no skeptical counterpoint and that the lawsuits Robson and Safechuck filed were barely mentioned. A long post entitled A Critical Analysis of Leaving Netherland details many issues with Robson and Safechuck's credibility, including timeline conflicts, evolving stories, and implausible claims in legal filings. Because Jackson had been dead for years when the lawsuits were filed and the statute of limitations for claims against Jackson had elapsed decades ago, Robson and Safechuck's lawyers had to construct a Rube Goldberg theory that made corporate entities associated with Jackson somehow responsible for the star's private misdeeds. Both lawsuits would later be dismissed, but they revived after changes to the statute of limitations in California. Despite these credibility problems, the sheer immediacy, emotional impact and detail of Robson's and Safechuck's accounts convinced many viewers that they are basically true. Director Dan Reid also offers corroboration in the form of dozens of faxes from Michael Jackson to Wade Robson. Jackson had bought the family a fax machine and began sending written declarations of love to Robson in childish language. These faxes were submitted as evidence in Robson's lawsuit and can now be reviewed online. We'd get home, Joy, Robson recalled, and the whole living room would be filled with faxes like all over the floor everywhere. This was in addition to the hours long telephone conversations between Robson and Jackson. Stephanie Safechuck reports that Michael Jackson bought the Safechuck family a house shortly after they had given depositions supporting his side in the 1993 Chandler lawsuit. Safechuck describes a ceremony in which Jackson married him and displays the ring Jackson had given him. Jackson's abuse, Robson alleges, continued until he was 14. Jackson had Robson pose on all fours, exposing his anus and genitals to Jackson while Robson stared at a cardboard cutout of Peter Pan. Jackson masturbated and licked Robson's anus. Jackson's attempt to penetrate Robson with his erect penis had to be aborted when it proved to be too painful for the boy. Shortly afterwards, a frantic Jackson told Robson to search for the underwear he had put on after this encounter to see if it had any blood on it. When Robson found the blood stained underwear, Jackson instructed him to throw it into the bin on the ground floor of the apartment complex. Safechuk recounts that in the early 1990s, Jackson began giving Safechuck alcohol at the Hideaway. They watched pornography together and on one occasion Jackson inserted a finger into Safechuck's anus. After Safechuck winced in pain, Jackson promised not to try it again. Are these accounts credible? Kenneth V. Lanning is one of the world's leading authorities on pedophilia and a former supervisory special agent at the FBI. Lanning was interviewed for Diane Diamond's book be careful who you love and for telephone stories in each case. He declined to directly comment on Michael Jackson's case, but he described the typical behavior pattern of what he calls a preferential child molester. A preferential child molester is not someone who acts out opportunistically or when intoxicated. He and it is almost always a heavy simply has a sexual preference for children. Preferential child molesters are often of above average intelligence and have good social skills. They understand their desire is taboo and develop strategies to gain legitimate access to children, for instance by applying for employment in a school, religious organisation or Boy Scout group. As Lanning points out in his 2010 study Child Molesters A Behavioural Analysis, preferential child molesters typically proceed by seducing their child targets in much the same way that adults seduce one another. They tend to focus on attention starved children from broken or dysfunctional homes. At first, the pedophile wins over the child's parent or parents by offering them support, advice, services or gifts and showering them with praise. Once the parent's guard is down, the pedophile turns his attentions to the child. Child spending time on things adults and children can do together without arousing suspicion, such as visiting an amusement park or sporting event, playing games with them, giving them gifts, and smothering them with attention and praise. Preferential pedophiles are often noted to be very good with children, able to talk to them easily and understand their worldview perhaps even better than their parents. Their homes will often feature items of interest to children, such as game consoles, toys, puppets, or figurines. Pedophiles, writes Lanning, often refer to children using words like clean, pure, innocent, or impish. The homes of some pedophiles, writes Lanning, have been described as shrines to children or as miniature amusement parks. After the pedophile has created a situation in which he and the target child can spend time alone, he must convince the child to keep secrets. To this end, the pedophile often encourages the child to engage in naughty behaviour such as smoking, drinking, cursing, or viewing pornography. This creates a bond of shame and secrecy. Some pedophiles resort to outright threats or violence, but that is rarely the case with those who follow a seduction model. When confronted with accusations, Lanning writes, the first reaction of a child molester to discovery is complete denial. The offender may act shocked, surprised, or even indignant about an allegation of sexual activity with children. Many molesters do not believe what they are doing is wrong, Lanning writes. Preferential sex offenders may be pillars of the community and are often described as nice guys. He might admit to an act but deny the intent was sexual gratification saying, is it a crime to hug a child? Many child molesters, especially preferential molesters, spend their lives attempting to convince themselves they are not immoral, sexual deviants or criminals. They prefer to believe they are high minded, loving individuals whose behavior is misunderstood or politically incorrect at this time in history. Child molesters frequently attempt to justify their behaviour to law enforcement. They might claim that they care for children more than the children's parents or guardians do and what he does is beneficial to the child. They love to talk about starving abused children in third world countries. The truth about Michael Jackson is not revealed by any particular accusation or eccentricity. It emerges from a clear and consistent pattern of behavior spanning almost three decades. That pattern of behavior fits the model of a preferential child molester with the seduction strategy perfectly. Jackson's defenders take four approaches to the evidence that their idol was a predatory pedophile. The first is simply to ignore the issue. This is the approach taken by Antoine Fouqua's new biopic. The second approach is to acknowledge Jackson's often dubious public behaviour, but attribute it to the star's peculiar upbringing. Michael Jackson never had a proper childhood, so the childish aspects of his adult character can be attributed to a sensitive and gifted individual's desire to recapture the playful innocence that early stardom stole from him. Fuqua's film implicitly employs this strategy too. It opens with a young Michael Jackson staring longingly through the front window of his house at children playing in the street before being directed back to family rehearsal. The third approach is to endorse Jackson's denials and excuses. The allegations against him were lodged by disgruntled ex employees, tabloid vultures and overzealous prosecutors, all of whom were motivated by some combination of envy, resentment, greed and racism. Jackson never did anything improper. On the contrary, he offered inspiration, hope, material assistance and carefree fun to millions of children worldwide. The fourth line of defense is hinted at by Guterres weird book and openly stated in an infamous 2013 article titled Remembering Michael Jackson on the website of the North American Man Boy Love Association. Michael Jackson was a courageous role model to pedophiles everywhere because he openly lived his love of boys. Describing Macaulay Culkin, the author writes, one senses a deep frustration in his inability to openly discuss in positive terms his friend's love of boys and its essential goodness. To paraphrase Tolstoy, there are many ways to defend Michael Jackson, but those who Condemn him, all do so. In the same way Michael Jackson exploited his celebrity and wealth to abuse unknown numbers of young boys. Despite the credibility problems of some accusers, the sheer weight of allegations and corroboration leave no doubt as to this fact. Neverland was not a tribute to childhood postponed, it was a lure. Jackson sought and chose his prey carefully, looking for boys from broken homes or whose parents were shallow mediocrities easily addled by celebrity and wealth. Then he love bombed their families, used the boys for his sexual pleasure and discarded them once they had reached puberty. His childish behaviour was a mask he donned to break down defences. He was, in the words of journalist Maureen Orth, a stone cold pedophile. The story of Michael Jackson's career of sexual abuse is also the story of the cowardice, greed and hypocrisy of Jackson and so many in his orbit. Instead of seeking help to either redirect or suppress his desires, Jackson chose to act on them. The parents of Jackson's victims ignored warning signs that would have alerted anyone with a modicum of common sense or moral decency. Not a single parent of a boy who accused Jackson initially went to the police. Instead, they turned to lawyers and often tried to milk their own child's suffering for as much money as possible. Who knows how many children might have been spared had a mother or father gone straight to the police as soon as they saw evidence of Jackson's exploitation of their child? The Jackson family, for their part, maintain their hypocritical facade to this day. Michael Jackson brought them a life of luxury and they will never allow themselves to be convinced by the evidence, no matter how overwhelming. According to Variety, the last third of Michael had to be reshot after attorneys for the Jackson estate discovered a clause in the settlement with Jordan Chandler that barred the depiction or mention of him in any movie. It is hard to imagine that Chandler's appearance in a film made with the estate's involvement could have been anything other than exculpatory. But after it spent an additional 25 to 50 million refinancing reshoots, he was airbrushed from the story entirely. That investment has now been handsomely repaid, as Michael seems set to make at least $1 billion at the box office. Reports indicate that a sequel is already in development. The first film's narrative concludes with Jackson embarking on his world tour to promote his Bad album in 1987, six years before the child molestation investigations became public. It is difficult to imagine how a second installment of Jackson's life story could avoid them entirely. It may take hardball litigation and calculating cynicism to continue the whitewash of Jackson's reputation, but his entourage of significance has no shortage of either. And that was Never Neverland by Andrew Hamill Read for you by William Lang thank you for listening. Choice hotels get you more of what you value. Here's a little tune to help you remember. Same drive, different day don't you wish you were getting away? Pack your bags and come on through Texas, Ohio, Alaska, we're up there too. 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Never Neverland the new Michael Jackson Biopic and the campaign to whitewash the King of Pop's Reputation Written by Andrew Hamill Read by William Lang Part 1 Michael Antoine Fuqua's new biopic of Michael Jackson has broken multiple box office records since its release on 24 April 2026. Jackson's global franchise is rejoicing at the note perfect portrayal of the star by his nephew Jafar Jackson, and some screenings have been followed by dance parties in the auditoriums. The sprawling Michael Jackson industry, family members, managers, PR agents, bodyguards, celebrities and thousands of other hangers on is reveling in the film's impact. As Jackson's reputation at last sheds its baggage and the coffers of the businesses associated with his legacy start to swell once more. Fuqua and his screenwriter John Logan portray Jackson as a sensitive child who discovered his talent under the tutelage of his overbearing father, Joseph. A steel worker by trade, Joseph Jackson had settled in the town of Gary, Indiana, with his wife, Catherine, in 1950 after an abortive attempt to launch his own musical career in the following years. He conscripted five of his nine children into a musical ensemble in the early 1960s and subjected them to a gruelling regimen of constant rehearsal and strict physical discipline. Just six years old when he joined the group, Michael was the youngest member of what would become known as the Jackson 5. Propelled by their talent and 1970s Hollywood's hunger for families, friendly and ethnic entertainers. The quintet signed with Motown Records in 1968, appeared on network television and were even granted a short lived television variety series. Michael Jackson emerged as the brightest star in the Jackson 5 firmament during the 1970s and he released his breakthrough solo album, off the Wall, in 1979. Three further albums followed over the next 12 years, each of which was promoted with all the resources the American music industry could summon. Jackson was an extremely gifted dancer and performer and his music merged crisp, funky arrangements with infectious vocals, a high tenor punctuated by percussive yelps and hiccups. His unthreatening, oddly androgynous demeanor and his approachable music expanded his following into hundreds of millions and propelled him into pop superstardom. As Jackson's fame grew during the 1980s, he shared his newly acquired wealth with his parents and siblings. He established his own quarters in a separate part of the Havenhurst mansion they had all shared since 1971. He also began undergoing treatment to trim his wide nose, which his brothers had mocked, and lighten his skin. Jackson suffered from vitiligo, an autoimmune condition that produces patches of discoloration across the body. In 1984, while filming a Pepsi commercial, Jackson's hair was set on fire by a pyrotechnic device and the burns he received required several painful operations. The accident also destroyed the hair follicles on the back of his head, which meant that for the rest of his life he would wear a variety of wigs and hats, often his trademark fedora, in public and private. During this period, he developed an addiction for prescription painkillers. In the mid-80s, a more disturbing character trait began to emerge. Jackson's tendency to associate with prepubescent boys. In March 1987, Jackson met a nine year old actor named James Safechuk, called Jimmy, during the filming of another commercial for Pepsi. Jackson would later invite Safechuck to visit him at Havenhurst, and he repeatedly visited the Safechuck family's modest home in Simi Valley, California. Jackson met an Australian boy named Brett Barnes on the Australian leg of his Bad tour on 13th November 1987, and they were often seen in public together afterwards. A few weeks after Jackson met Barnes, he met a five year old fan named Wade Robson in Brisbane. Safechuk. Barnes and Robson would remain in touch with Jackson for decades, but their attitude towards the star would change over time and diverge dramatically. Barnes is now a married father and he remained Jackson's friend until the star's death in 2009, although he has said that he shared a bed with Jackson over a period of more than a year. Unlike Robson and Safechuck, he insists to this day that nothing untoward occurred. His profile on X currently proclaims his membership of Apple Head Club Doo Doo Head two Terms of endearment that Jackson used with him and other young boys. Whenever he was asked about his friendships with young children, Jackson invariably replied that he had been denied a real childhood by his martinet show business father and that these relationships were an attempt to recapture the phase of innocent play and exploration that he had been denied. Jackson also supported many children's charities and was the driving force behind the 1985 charity single We Are the World which became the eighth best selling single of all time. In 1988, Jackson bought a large ranch near Los Olivos, California which Paul McCartney had rented during the recording of the 1983 McCartney Jackson duet Say say say. Jackson renamed the complex Neverland Ranch after the magical island retreat in JM Barrie's play Peter Pan and transformed it into a miniature theme park maintained by dozens of staff, featuring a carousel, Ferris wheel, train track and petting zoo. Jackson repeatedly invited large groups of children to Neverland, where they enjoyed its amenities free of charge. In the 2019 documentary Square One, a Jackson supporter estimated that Michael Jackson invited some 22,000 children to Neverland each year. Part two a formal investigation into a case of alleged sexual activity between Jackson and a minor was first revealed by journalist Diane diamond in her 2005 book Be Careful who youo Love, reissued and updated in 2019. Diamond reports meeting a go between for an anonymous source at an Italian restaurant in Santa Monica, California on 23 August 1993. This person provided diamond, then a reporter for the tabloid TV show Hard Copy, with leaked reports from the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services about an investigation into Jackson's alleged sexual abuse of a child named Jordan Chandler. The go between said the motivation of the source was to ensure Jackson would not get away with it again, which suggests that this was not the first time the agency had been made aware of Jackson's activities. The criminal investigation of Jackson had grown out of a civil lawsuit filed by a Los Angeles dentist named Evan Chandler, who was then involved in a custody battle with his ex wife June over their 13 year old child. Jackson had befriended Jordan Chandler in May 1992 after Jackson's car broke down and he visited a Rent a Wreck car agency owned by June Chandler's new husband David Schwartz, while Jackson waited for his car to be repaired. Schwartz telephoned young Jordan, who was a Michael Jackson fan, and told him to rush over to the rental agency to meet his idol. Soon, Jackson was in regular contact with Dune and her son, Jordan Chandler, and his conduct with the boy established a pattern of behaviour that would recur in contacts with his other special friends. He routinely called Jordan during the 1990 tour promoting his album Dangerous and spoke to him for hours. After the tour ended, Jackson invited the family, June, Jordan and his sister Lily to Neverland and showered them with compliments and gifts. He took them on a trip to Las Vegas and after June Chandler had retired, to her bedroom with Lily. Jordan and Jackson watched the the Exorcist together, after which Jackson invited the frightened child to sleep with him. When his mother found out about this, she put up some initial resistance, to which Jackson responded with tearful entreaties. In her 2005 testimony about the occasion, June recalled that Jackson was sobbing, crying, shaking and trembling. He implored her, you don't trust me. We are a family. Why are you doing this? Why are you not allowing Geordie to be with me? Why can't he sleep in my bed? There's nothing wrong. There's nothing going on. Don't you trust me? When June relented, Jackson bought her a Cartier bracelet and Jordan began sleeping with Jackson in the Vegas hotel bedroom every night. Jordan continued visiting Neverland and sleeping with Jackson after this trip, and in spring 1993, June later testified, Jackson began visiting Jordan at her home in Santa Monica, California. He would spend the night in bed with Jordan, leave when Jordan went to school, and return after Jordan got home. This happened approximately 30 times in total, with Jackson sometimes spending an entire week sleeping in the same bed as the boy. These odd sleeping arrangements became a point of contention in June's ongoing custody dispute with her husband, Evan. At first, Evan Chandler welcomed his son's relationship with Jackson. However, once it became apparent that Jackson preferred the company of June and started to spend considerable time with Geordie, Evan began to oppose the relationship. According to the Chandler camp, the father was motivated by concern for his son. According to the Jackson camp, Chandler, an aspiring screenwriter with a credit on the 1993 Mel Brooks comedy Robin Hood, Men in Tights, was jealous of the star's closeness to his son and hoped to pressure Jackson into supporting his own show business aspirations. According to Evan Chandler, it wasn't until 16 July 1993 that his son admitted that Jackson had done anything inappropriate while he was recovering from anesthesia administered during a Dental procedure in his father's office. Jackson fans claim Evan Chandler administered sodium amytal truth serum, but this seems unlikely. Jordan confessed that Jackson had in fact molested him. In an affidavit filed on 28 December 1993, Jordan described the abuse as an incremental escalation. The first step was Michael Jackson hugging me. The next step was for him to give me a brief kiss on the cheek. He then started kissing me on the lips, first briefly and then for a longer period of time. He would kiss me while we were in bed together. The next step was when Michael Jackson put his tongue in my mouth. I told him I did not like that Michael Jackson started crying. He said there was nothing wrong with it. He said that just because most people believe something is wrong doesn't make it so. Michael Jackson told me that another of his young friends would kiss him with an open mouth and would let Michael Jackson put his tongue in his mouth. Michael Jackson said that I did not love him as much as this other friend. The next step was when Michael Jackson rubbed up against me in bed. The next step was when we would lie on top of each other with erections. In May 1993, George and Lily and their mother joined Jackson on a trip to Monaco to visit the World Music Awards. Jordan sat on Jackson's lap during the award ceremony, which prompted journalist Piers Morgan to remark, I was sitting literally five rows away from Jackson, who was one of the first to sit next to Prince Albert. And for two hours he sat with that boy on his knee. And this is not a very, very young boy, not a 3 year old. This is a 13 year old boy, almost fully developed teenage boy sitting on his knee. It was rather tactile behaviour. He was hugging him, laughing and joking with him, encouraging the bands, giving his views. The boy and he seemed like very close friends, almost like they were having a relationship. Images included in a 2007 television documentary titled Michael what Really Happened show the outside of the suite in which Jackson and Chandler were staying being guarded by full size statues of two Sikh warriors. In his 1993 affidavit, Chandler stated, that's when the whole thing really got out of hand. We took a bath together. This was the first time we had seen each other naked. Michael Jackson named certain of his children friends that masturbated in front of him. Michael Jackson then masturbated in front of me. He told me that when I was ready, he would do it for me while we were in bed. Michael Jackson put his hand underneath my underpants. He then masturbated me to a climax. After that, Michael Jackson masturbated me many times, both with his hand and with his mouth. Upon hearing Geordie recount these incidents, however, Evan Chandler did not contact the police. During recorded telephone conversations, he said he would hire the nastiest son of a bitch lawyer he could find who would make sure that Jackson would not sell one more record. This established a separate pattern followed by nearly all subsequent allegations about Jackson, a broken or dysfunctional family, disputed circumstances, and parents who display some combination of vindictiveness, disingenuousness, self righteousness, greed and duplicity. Part 3 In August 1993, Evan Chandler offered Jackson a deal. In return for a payout of $20 million, he and his son would not contact the authorities about Jackson's alleged abuse. The Jackson camp responded with an offer of $1 million tied to help with Evan Chandler's screenwriting aspirations. On 17 August, Jordan met with Los Angeles child psychiatrist Matthis Abrams for three hours and claimed Jackson had abused him. Under California law, Abrams was required to report any allegations of sexual abuse he encountered to the police, regardless of any medical privilege. Accordingly, a criminal investigation against Jackson was opened the following day. On 23 August 1993, the first news reports about the allegations began appearing in the media. Journalist Diamond's report for the television tabloid Hard Copy claimed that Jordan Chandler could identify unique features of Jackson's genitalia and lower torso. Likely these were symptoms of his vitiliga. Tabloids on both sides of the Atlantic began offering large sums to anyone who claimed to have information on Jackson and young boys payments that would later compromise the credibility of criminal prosecutions. Negotiations between Chandler and Jackson fell apart and in September 1993 attorney Larry Feldman, a civil litigation specialist, filed a 30 million dollar lawsuit against Michael Jackson. Meanwhile, as part of the criminal investigation, authorities executed search warrants at Neverland, Jackson's Century City condominium, which he called the Hideaway, and the hotel room Jackson had shared with the Chandlers. Perhaps the most incriminating material discovered during The Raid were two books edited by Georges St. Martin and Ronald C. Nelson, which were found in a locked cabinet in Jackson's master bedroom in Neverland. One of these was titled the Boy A Photographic Essay, and it contained color photographs of naked boys taken during the filming of an adaptation of Lord of the Flies in Puerto Rico. The other was Boys Will be Boys, a 1966 compilation of pictures of boys, many of whom are pre pubescent and naked. One of the books bears an inscription to Michael from your fan Rhonda 1983 Chicago. Nothing further is known about this person. Jackson inscribed boys will be boys personally. Look at the true spirit of happiness and joy in these boys faces. This is the spirit of boyhood, a life I've never had and would always dream of. This is the life I want for my boys. M.J. these books were particularly popular with boy lovers worldwide since they could be purchased legally in most western countries. But the two men responsible for them were in fact pedophiles. J.E. saint Martin, a pseudonym for Martin Swithenbach, a British photographer from a prestigious family who had relocated to the United States to study business administration at Harvard on a fulbright scholarship from 1950 to 1952. In 1978 he co founded the North American Man Boy Love Association. According to some accounts, in others he was merely a trustee and contributed to its bulletin. In July 1981 he was convicted in a New York court of sodomizing young boys and sentenced to between seven and a half and 15 years in prison. Ronald C. Nelson was the pseudonym of Ronald Drew, a New York teacher indicted for distributing pornographic images of Children in 1980. The 1993 Neverland hall also yielded a nude photograph of a boy, a later identified as Jonathan Spence, and another photograph of a boy holding an umbrella and wearing only a bikini bottom which was partially pulled down. Jackson missed several dates on his dangerous world tour and eventually cancelled his remaining shows as his legal and public relations problems accumulated. The allegations against him, he said, had aggravated his addiction to painkillers. In November 1993, five former security guards at Havenhurst filed a lawsuit claiming that they had been fired in February 1993 because they knew too much about Jackson's interactions with young boys. The lawyer for the Havenhurst five, former Los Angeles county prosecutor Charles Matthews, stated in a press conference, I have information that this investigation that started in August wasn't the first investigation involving alleged misconduct by Mr. Jackson. The guards lawsuit was eventually dismissed and several of the plaintiffs admitted that they had never actually seen Jackson behaving inappropriately with a boy. Like virtually all of Jackson's accusers, the guards had also accepted large payouts from tabloid outlets and TV shows to share their story. On 8 December 1993, Jackson's sister Latoya held a press conference in Tel Aviv where she was on tour and stated, michael is my brother, but I cannot and I will not be a silent collaborator of his crimes against small innocent children. Latoya claimed that her mother, Catherine Jackson, had shown her cheques for large amounts of money that Jackson had made out to the families of some of the young boys he associated with with. She offered to provide proof of her claims to a news outlet in return for $500,000, but she was unable to deliver. She later retracted her comments and reaffirmed her support for her brother, claiming that she had been controlled by her then husband, Jack Gordon, who she said had abused her. To help prepare for their forthcoming civil suit, Evan Chanber's legal team hired Dr. Richard Gardner to interview Jordan Chandler. Gardner specialised in child sexual abuse cases and in debunking false claims of abuse. According to a transcript of their conversation, Chandler recounted how Jackson had persuaded his mother to let them sleep together. Michael somehow got her to agree that there would be no further questions asked. And so from that point on I was in his bed till the end of our relationship. Chandler then described Jackson's escalating sexual contact with him. He got me to twist one of his nipples while I sucked on the other and he masturbated himself. Gardner informed the Chandlers that he found Jordan's account credible. On 20 December 1993, police served a search warrant to take photos of Jackson's body to corroborate descriptions Jordan Chandler had given police, including an account of a dark splotch on the underside of Jackson's penis that would only have been visible when Jackson was aroused. Jackson went into hysterics, repeatedly lashing out at the lawyers and police. Two days later he bought satellite time to issue a four minute statement on the search. Wearing nearly centimeter long false eyelashes, Jackson denounced the search as a horrifying nightmare. The photographs taken during that search have never been released because Jackson's case never went to trial. And Jackson's case never went to trial because his attorneys put on a masterly display of practical lawyering. In the 2019 podcast Telephone Stories, the Trials of Michael Jackson, one of Jackson's lawyers, Carl Douglas, recalls with pride how he and Jackson's other lawyers had avoided a trial by successfully arranging a settlement formally agreed on 25 January 1994. The confidential settlement agreement, which is now available in redacted form, is a slightly sinister masterpiece of enforced silence. In return for payouts to various persons totaling more than $20 million, the minor promises to make no further claims or statements in any public forum that accuse Jackson of any wrongful conduct whatso with regard to the miner or any other person. Jackson and his associates also agreed never to discuss the matter publicly. The financial terms of the settlement were leaked in 2004. $15,331,250 was paid into a trust on Jordan Chandler's behalf, while June and Evan Chandler each received payouts in the low seven figures. The criminal case against Jackson collapsed when grand juries in LA and Santa Barbara, where Nervoland was located, refused to return indictments and Jordan Chandler indicated he was unwilling to testify. On 21st September 1994, District Attorneys in both jurisdictions announced that they were suspending but not terminating their respective criminal prosecutions of Jackson. Jackson had avoided a civil and a criminal trial, but his reputation had been severely damaged. The experience also destroyed what remained of the Chandler family. In 1995 Jordan Chandler, then 15 years old, successfully sued for emancipation from his parents, which was granted on 12th November 1995. He then broke contact with his parents and disappeared from public view. Evan Chandler closed his dental practice the following year and shot himself in November 2009 after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Part 4 In 1996 a curious book entitled Michael Jackson Was My Lover, the Secret Diary of Geordie Chander appeared, written by an LA based Chilean journalist named Victor Gutierrez. Gutierrez claimed he had heard about Jackson's sexual proclivities while he was researching a piece on the North American Man Boy Love association. In the mid-1980s he began to investigate Jackson and formed relationships with a number of his Hispanic maids. He also claimed to have interviewed Jordan Chandler and gained access to his diary. The Chandler family claims Jordan did not keep a diary. Guterres shopped around Michael Jackson Was My Lover to publishers but none would touch it, so he self published the book instead. Despite the misleading title, it is not a diary. It is written in the third person. Based on interviews Guterres claims to have conducted with many associates and employees of Jackson, including maids Orietta Murdoch, Blanca Francia and Adrianne McManus. It describes Jackson's alleged sexual encounters with Jordan Chandler, Brett Barnes and Macaulay Culkin in graphic detail. The tone is conspicuously non judgmental as to Jackson's actions and the descriptions of sexual encounters between Jackson and children. Romantic, erotic often employ the terms favoured by pedophiles and Gutierrez is not a reliable Source. In a 1995 interview with Diane diamond, he alleged that he had seen a videotape of Michael Jackson having sex with a boy. Jackson sued Guterres, Diamond, KABCAM Radio Inc. And Paramount Pictures Corporation and Guacheras was ordered to pay Jackson $2.7 million. He promptly declared bankruptcy and decamped to Chile for a few years. Nevertheless, his book does contain certain documents and photographs that were not public record at the time, including bank statements and confidential legal and medical documents. It also contains a photograph of Michael Jackson in pyjamas in Jordan Chandler's bed and a photograph that purports to show Chandler's used underwear kept in Jackson's room. The book also contains interviews with Joy Robson, the mother of Wade Robson, and Jimmy Safechuck's father. Speculation continues about who gave Gutierrez access to the private documents he produced. Did he obtain them from maids, lawyers or were Guterres sources either Evan or Jordan Chandler, who wanted the world to know that Geordie's allegations were truthful even though neither could ever repeat them in public? One document that Gutierrez calls exclusive is introduced as the description Geordie gave his father about Jackson's genitalia on October 4, 1993 at 11:45pm the description includes Mike circumcised, short pubic body oil stink and a diagram of what appears to be an erect penis with a dark patch under the tip. Since the coroner who performed the autopsy on Michael Jackson in 2009 noted that Jackson's penis appears uncircumcised, Jackson's defenders claim Jordan's description of Jackson's genitals was incorrect. Most of the people who observed the search of Jackson's body, however, maintained that his descriptions were accurate. In the mid-1990s, Blanco Francho, one of Guterres sources, sued Jackson for abusing her son Jason, and they received an out of court settlement of over $2 million. To help repair his image, Jackson made a surprise announcement that he and Lisa Marie Presley had been married in a ceremony held in the Dominican Republic on 26 May 1994. This marriage ended on 20 August 1996, and for much of their married life the couple lived apart. When they divorced, comedian Norm MacDonald joked on Saturday Night Live. The nation is still reeling from Thursday's bombshell announcement that Lisa Marie Presley has filed for divorce from Michael Jackson. According to friends, the two were never a good match. She's more of a stay at home type and he's more of a homosexual pedophile. Jackson had become a punchline. The reaction to Jackson's legal predicaments, like those of O.J. simpson, had fractured along racial lines. Many black Americans revered Jackson as a musical genius whose songs had entranced hundreds of millions, if not billions of people of all races across the globe. Now the establishment was punishing him for his eccentricities, which were hardly unexpected from someone with his extraordinary gifts and unusual childhood during the 1960s and 70s, any number of white rock stars had engaged in outright sexual affairs with young groupies without facing prosecution or public vilification. And Michael Jackson's wholesome music had never even hinted at anything sordid or perverted. On the contrary, he recorded saccharine pions to compassion, tolerance and understanding. All the profits from Jackson's Dangerous tour were donated to various charities, including the star's own Heal the World Foundation. After Jackson's marriage to Lisa Marie Presley failed, he married Debbie Rowe, a medical assistant to Jackson's dermatologist, Dr. Arnold Klein. This marriage supposedly produced two children in the late 1990s, a boy named Michael Joseph Prince Jackson Jr. And a girl named Paris Jackson. Questions still hover over the parentage of these children, especially Paris, who does not appear to be biracial. A third child named Prince Michael Biggee Jackson II was born to an unnamed surrogate in 2002. But none of this did anything much to rehabilitate the singer's image. Jackson and his PR men therefore decided on a fateful gamble. For eight months in late 2002 and early 2003, British journalist Martin Bashir was permitted to follow Jackson around with a camera crew chatting about his day to day life. The 110 minute documentary that resulted in Living with Michael Jackson was broadcast on 3rd February 2003 in the UK on ITV and three days later on American television network ABC. The upshot is one of the most poignant and disturbing celebrity profiles ever created. By this time plastic surgery had wrecked Jackson's jaw and reduced his nose to a pitiable tripod of cartilage and pale flesh. Bashir accompanies Jackson to the Faberge store in the Forum shops, an over the top candy floss pastiche of a Roman palace attached to Caesar's palace in Las Vegas, complete with animatronic statues and garish ceiling frescoes. Jackson floats through the store spending millions of dollars on bling. His attempt to bottle feed Bigey fails before our eyes. As Jackson's visible agitation alarms the child. Jackson drapes a green veil over the child's face and hands it to someone off screen. One interview is conducted before a larger than life painting of Jackson clad only in a loincloth and surrounded by winged putty. The editors repeatedly cut away from Jackson to focus on this piece of self glamorizing kitsch. Living with Michael Jackson paints Jackson as an eccentric with hyperbolically bad taste and non existent parenting skulls. One scene, however, would result in Jackson's last clash with the legal system. Jackson is filmed sitting on a couch with a boy named Gavin Arvizo, then 12 years old, who had recently gone into remission after a near fatal bout with cancer. Jackson's pale right hand is entwined with Arvizo's left and Arvizo rests his head on Jackson's shoulder. Even during a documentary intended to quash rumours about his relationships with children, Jackson had allowed himself to be recorded in a posture with a young boy that made them look like starstruck lovers. When Bashir asks Jackson why it is acceptable for a grown man to share a bed with young boys, Jackson repeats the familiar the most loving thing to do is to share your bed with someone. It's very charming, it's very sweet. It's what the whole world should do. To counter the fallout from Bashir's documentary, Jackson summoned Gavin's mother, Janet Arvizo and Gavin siblings star a boy and Davilin a girl, to the Neverland Ranch. There, the family recorded interviews for a rebuttal video eventually aired on Fox in which they showered Jackson with fulsome praise. It was during visits to Neverland to film this video. Gavin later claimed that Jackson began abusing him during cross examination. At a later trial, Gavin admitted that he had not raised claims of molestation against Jackson until after meeting with two attorneys, including Larry Feldman, the lawyer who had represented the chandlers in their 1993 lawsuit against Jackson. Feldman arranged for Gavin to be interviewed by Dr. Stanley Katz, and after Gavin alleged Jackson had abused him, the two men reported the incident to the authorities. Again, the parent of a child allegedly abused by Jackson had not reported the incident directly to police. Janet Arvizo never sued Jackson, but she may have been awaiting an opportunity to do so. Part 5 A criminal conviction for sexual abuse, however, essentially guarantees success in any later civil lawsuit. And Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon now had a second chance to prosecute Michael Jackson. Jackson was duly arrested and released on bail, and a second search warrant was served on Neverland Ranch on 11 November 2000. In her book about the case, Diane diamond described the new security precautions surrounding Jackson's bedroom. Once inside the mansion, investigators took special note of the motion detectors that lined the 25 foot hallway leading to Michael Jackson's private bedroom suite. Anyone who walked down the corridor would trigger the sensors, setting off a series of chimes inside Jackson's private domain. In addition, on the wall next to the bedroom door was a keypad entry device that required a code. The keypad, along with an astonishing total of six locks on the door itself, some of them deadbolts had been added since police were last in the Tudor star mansion in 1993. As the raid unfolded, diamond reported, Jackson was in a villa at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, supposedly working on a video. He was also engaging in a three week long party during which he refused all maid service and insisted food and drinks be left outside the door. His guests were a revolving group of boys, many of whom spoke German. When passersby did spot him through the open villa door, diamond writes, he was said to have looked zonked out and to be wearing a long purple dashiki type robe. When Jackson finally left, Marat's management found the villa trashed with trays of rotting food, cigarette burns in the furniture and, According to the 2007 documentary Michael what Really Happened? Words written in fecal matter on the bed sheets. Jackson was discreetly informed that he was no longer welcome at the hotel, according to a prosecution motion. The 2003 search yielded a fresh trove of erotica, including the gnoids, actually gynoids erotic illustrations of female cyborgs by Japanese artist Hajime Soriyama. Genetically manipulated nude illustrations, mostly female, some male Extreme sadomasochism and body mutilation Naked as a Jaybird Nude Adult Male and Female Erotica Very Graphic Man A Study of Man Graphic Primer for Homosexuals 4 Barely Legal DVDs 1 Pimps Up Hose Down DVD on the Power Mac G4 Located in Jackson's master bedroom, the officers found evidence of visits to the websites varsityteens.com adoptablekids.com and adoption.com Many of the books and magazines were stored openly and were accessible by the children who visited Jackson's bedroom. The fingerprints of Gavin Arvizo and Jackson were found on an issue of Hustler Bailey Legal Hardcore. Even more ominous for Jackson, the judge in the Arvizo case granted the prosecution's motion to bring other allegations of Jackson's sexual misconduct with children before the jury. In 1995, California had enacted evidence code 1108, which was intended to make it easier for prosecutors to meet the burden of proof in sexual assault cases. This law created an exception to the general common law ban on introducing evidence of a defendant's prior bad behaviour at trial and permitted evidence of prior similar acts of sexual misconduct, even if they had not resulted in a conviction. Jackson's 2005 trial was a worldwide media event and the courthouse became a circus. Courtroom observers ran a gauntlet of Jackson fans and satellite trucks broadcasting to stations around the globe. Jackson often looked dazed, and observers speculated that he was under the influence of prescription sedatives. Gavin Arvizo testified that Jackson had served him and his brother wine, which Jackson called Jesus juice, and that Jackson had fondled him. Jason Francia, son of Jackson's former maid Blanca Francia, testified that Jackson touched his genitals through his clothes twice during tickling sessions in Jackson's Century City hideaway condominium. Former maids and security guards testified to seeing Jackson in compromising situations with young boys, but they also acknowledged receiving thousands of dollars from tabloids. Avizo's mother named, in an odd coincidence, Janet Jackson after her remarriage, also testified, mainly to back up the claim that she and her children had been held hostage to ensure their participation in the rebuttal video. Her testimony was disastrous. She went on rambling tirades, snapped at the jury with her fingers and trapped herself in contradictions. Any sympathy she enjoyed from the jury as a victim of domestic abuse and the mother of a child who had nearly died from cancer quickly wore thin on cross examination. She was painted as a con artist and grifter who was simply out for Jackson's money. Another problem for the prosecution was the absence of what would certainly have been their star witness. Jordan Chandler was by then 23 years old, but lead prosecutor Tom Sneddon was unable to convince him to testify, according to co prosecutor Ron zonen. On a January 2024 episode of the podcast Telephone Stories, Chandler said that if he was served a subpoena, he would simply go live in Europe for the next three or four years. However, his mother, who'd had no contact with her son for over a decade, did testify for the prosecution. Jackson's team was led by a veteran Los Angeles criminal, defence attorney Tom Mesereau. Mezurau attacked every major prosecution witness, pointed out every inconsistent statement, tabloid deal and cash grab lawsuit. What kind of person could witness the sexual abuse of children and not report it? The kind of person, Mazurow insisted, who sensed blood in the water after the Chandler and franchise settlements and wanted to cash in. Masereau continues to advocate for Jackson's innocence, as evidenced by his long interviews for episodes of the Telephone Stories podcast, which were released in late 2024 and early 2025. In mid May 2026, long after any legal obligations to or financial benefit from Michael Jackson or his estate had lapsed, Mesero gave a 45 minute interview to 60 Minutes Australia in which he declared that Jackson, whom Mesereau considered a friend, never abused any child. For the defence, Mazeroux presented former child associates of Jackson who denied abuse, including Macaulay Culkin, Wade Robson and Brett Barnes. On 13 June 2005, the jury unanimously acquitted Jackson on all charges. The jurors then gave press interviews in which they complained the prosecution's evidence was simply insufficient to prove the specific charges against Jackson, even though several said they believed that Jackson probably had molested little boys. Others reported their distrust of Gavin Arvizo's mother, including one female juror who was dismayed that a mother would let her children sleep alone with Jackson, given the existing allegations about the pop star. After the trial, Avizo's mother would be convicted of perjury and welfare fraud. Among Jackson fans, 13 June is still celebrated as vindication day, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. Although the jurors had properly focused on the Arvizo allegations, the testimony of the former maid, security guards and other employees merely confirmed decades old suspicions about the star. In the public mind, Jackson's wraith like zoned out demeanour suggested a man who was fighting demons before the world's eyes and losing. After the trial, Jackson decamped to Bahrain with his children, ostensibly to work on new musical projects with the help of Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the second son of the King of Bahrain. On his rare forays into the outside world, Jackson disguised himself in an abayah and veil. Meanwhile, his many business enterprises were plunging towards bankruptcy, undone by his uncontrolled spending and the lack of fresh income from music. Jackson soon returned to the usa, but his attempts to get his life back on track and his finances under control failed, and he died of an overdose of the sedative painkiller propofol on 25 June 2009. In a postscript to the 2019 reissue of Diane Diamond's 2005 book, Diamond, a highly placed law enforcement source once revealed to me the results of a forensic deep dive into Jackson's financials. The source said that the examination concluded that over the years leading up to the 2005 criminal trial, the entertainer had doled out about $200 million worth of gifts and hush money to young boys and their families. This astonishing figure appeared to be confirmed by attorneys representing Wade Robson and James Safechuck during civil litigation against the Jackson estate in 2015. Part 6 In 2015, six years after Michael Jackson's death, Wade Robson and Jimmy Safechuck both finally disavowed their earlier exculpatory statements and alleged that Michael Jackson had in fact sexually abused them. Inevitably, these new allegations surfaced in the context of claims for millions against Jackson's businesses. After the swarm of lawsuits that had accompanied Jackson and his businesses and associates over the decades, Robson and Safechuck suits initially attracted only modest attention. That changed in January 2019 when the four hour HBO documentary Leaving Neverland was screened at the Sundance Film Festival. The documentary consists mainly of long interviews with Robson and Safechuck and their mothers, Joy Robson and Stephanie Safechuk. Leaving Neverland was greeted with a standing ovation at Sundance and positive reviews in the press. Jackson fans point out that the documentary included no skeptical counterpoint and that the lawsuits Robson and Safechuck filed were barely mentioned. A long post entitled A Critical Analysis of Leaving Netherland details many issues with Robson and Safechuck's credibility, including timeline conflicts, evolving stories and implausible claims in legal filings. Because Jackson had been dead for years when the lawsuits were filed and the statute of limitations for claims against Jackson had elapsed decades ago, Robson and Safechuck's lawyers had to construct a Rube Goldberg theory that made corporate entities associated with Jackson somehow responsible for the star's private misdeeds. Both lawsuits would later be dismissed, but they revived after changes to the statute of limitations in California. Despite these credibility problems, the sheer immediacy, emotional impact and detail of Robson's and Safechuck's accounts convinced many viewers that they are basically true. Director Dan Reed also offers corroboration in the form of dozens of faxes from Michael Jackson to Wade Robson. Jackson had bought the family a fax machine and began sending written declarations of love to Robson in childish language. These faxes were submitted as evidence in Robson's lawsuit and can now be reviewed online. We'd get home, Joy, Robson recalled, and the whole living room would be filled with faxes, like all over the floor, everywhere. This was in addition to the hours long telephone conversations between Robson and Jackson. Stephanie Safechuck reports that Michael Jackson bought the Safechuck family a house shortly after they had given depositions supporting his side in the 1993 Chandler lawsuit. Safechuck describes a ceremony in which Jackson married him and displays the ring Jackson had given him. Jackson's abuse, Robson alleges, continued until he was 14. Jackson had Robson pose on all fours, exposing his anus and genitals to Jackson while Robson stared at a cardboard cutout of Peter Pan. Jackson masturbated and licked Robson's anus. Jackson's attempt to penetrate Robson with his erect penis had to be aborted when it proved to be too painful for the boy. Shortly afterwards, a frantic Jackson told Robson to search for the underwear he had put on after this encounter to see if it had any blood on it. When Robson found the blood stained underwear, Jackson instructed him to throw it into the bin on the ground floor of the apartment complex. Safechuck recounts that in the early 1990s, Jackson began giving Safechuck alcohol at the hideaway. They watched pornography together and on one occasion Jackson inserted a finger into Safechuck's anus. After Safechuck winced in pain, Jackson promised not to try it again. Are these accounts credible? Kenneth V. Lanning is one of the world's leading authorities on pedophilia and a former supervisory special agent at the FBI. Lanning was interviewed for Diane Diamond's book Be Careful who you Love and for telephone stories. In each case, he declined to directly comment on Michael Jackson's case, but he described the typical behavior pattern of what he calls a preferential child molester. A preferential child molester is not someone who acts out opportunistically or when intoxicated. He and it is almost always a he simply has a sexual preference for children. Preferential child molesters are often of above average intelligence and have good social skills. They understand their desire is taboo and develop strategies to gain legitimate access to children, for instance, by applying for employment in a school, religious organisation or Boy Scout group. As Lanning points out in his 2010 study Child A Behavioural Analysis, preferential child molesters typically proceed by seducing their child targets in much the same way that adults seduce one another. They tend to focus on attention starved children from broken or dysfunctional homes. At first, the pedophile wins over the child's parent or parents by offering them support, advice services or gifts and showering them with praise. Once the parent's guard is down, the pedophile turns his attentions to the child, spending time on things adults and children can do together without arousing suspicion, such as visiting an amusement park or sporting event, playing games with them, giving them gifts, and smothering them with attention and praise. Preferential pedophiles are often noted to be very good with children, able to talk to them easily and understand their worldview perhaps even better than their parents. Their homes will often feature items of interest to children such as game consoles, toys, puppets, or figurines. Pedophiles, writes Lanning, often refer to children using words like clean, pure, innocent, or impish. The homes of some pedophiles, writes Lanning, have been described as shrines to children or as miniature amusement parks. After the pedophile has created a situation in which he and the target child can spend time alone. He must convince the child to keep secrets. To this end, the pedophile often encourages the child to engage in naughty behaviour such as smoking, drinking, cursing or viewing pornography. This creates a bond of shame and secrecy. Some pedophiles resort to outright threats or violence, but that is rarely the case with those who follow a seduction model. When confronted with accusations, Lanning writes, the first reaction of a child molester to discovery is complete denial. The offender may act shocked, surprised or even indignant about an allegation of sexual activity with children. Many molesters do not believe what they are doing is wrong, Lanning writes. Preferential sex offenders may be pillars of the community and are often described as nice guys. He might admit to an act but deny the intent was sexual gratification saying, is it a crime to hug a child? Many child molesters, especially preferential molesters, spend their lives attempting to convince themselves they are not immoral, sexual deviants or criminals. They prefer to believe they are high minded, loving individuals whose behaviour is misunderstood or politically incorrect. At this time in history, child molesters frequently attempt to justify their behaviour to law enforcement. They might claim that they care for children more than the children's parents or guardians do, and what he does is beneficial to the child. They love to talk about starving abused children in third world countries. The truth about Michael Jackson is not revealed by any particular accusation or eccentricity. It emerges from a clear and consistent pattern of behaviour spanning almost three decades. That pattern of behaviour fits the model of a preferential child molester with the seduction strategy perfectly. Jackson's defenders take four approaches to the evidence that their idol was a predatory pedophile. The first is simply to ignore the issue. This is the approach taken by Antoine Fouqua's new biopic. The second approach is to acknowledge Jackson's often dubious public behaviour, but attribute it to the star's peculiar upbringing. Michael Jackson never had a proper childhood, so the childish aspects of his adult character can be attributed to a sensitive and gifted individual's desire to recapture the playful innocence that early stardom stole from him. Fuqua's film implicitly employs this strategy too. It opens with a young Michael Jackson staring longingly through the front window of his house at children playing in the street before being directed back to family rehearsal. The third approach is to endorse Jackson's denials and excuses. The allegations against him were lodged by disgruntled ex employees, tabloid vultures and overzealous prosecutors, all of whom were motivated by some combination of Envy, resentment, greed and racism. Jackson never did anything improper. On the contrary, he offered inspiration, hope, material assistance and carefree funds to millions of children worldwide. The fourth line of defence is hinted at by Gutierrez's weird book and openly stated in an infamous 2013 article titled Remembering Michael Jackson on the website of the North American Man Boy Love Association. Michael Jackson was a courageous role model to pedophiles everywhere because he openly lived his love of boys. Describing Macaulay Culkin, the author writes, one senses a deep frustration in his inability to openly discuss in positive terms his friend's love of boys and its essential goodness. To paraphrase Tolstoy, there are many ways to defend Michael Jackson, but those who condemn him all do so in the same way. Michael Jackson exploited his celebrity and wealth to abuse unknown numbers of young boys. Despite the credibility problems of some accusers, the sheer weight of allegations and corroboration leave no doubt as to this fact. Neverland was not a tribute to childhood postponed. It was a lure. Jackson sought and chose his prey carefully, looking for boys from broken homes or whose parents were shallow mediocrities easily addled by celebrity and wealth. Then he love bombed their families, used the boys for his sexual pleasure and discarded them once they had reached puberty. His childish behavior was a mask he donned to break down defences. He was, in the words of journalist Maureen Orth, a stone cold pedophile. The story of Michael Jackson's career of sexual abuse is also the story of the cowardice, greed and hypocrisy of Jackson and so many in his orbit. Instead of seeking help to either redirect or suppress his desires, Jackson chose to act on them. The parents of Jackson's victims ignored warning signs that would have alerted anyone with a modicum of common sense or moral decency. Not a single parent of a boy who accused Jackson initially went to the police. Instead, they turned to lawyers and often tried to milk their own child's suffering for as much money as possible possible. Who knows how many children might have been spared had a mother or father gone straight to the police as soon as they saw evidence of Jackson's exploitation of their child. The Jackson family, for their part, maintain their hypocritical facade to this day. Michael Jackson brought them a life of luxury and they will never allow themselves to be convinced by the evidence, no matter how overwhelming. According to Variety, the last third of Michael had to be reshot after attorneys for the Jackson estate discovered a clause in the settlement with Jordan Chandler that barred the depiction or mention of him in any movie. It is hard to imagine that Chandler's appearance in a film made with the estate's involvement could have been anything other than exculpatory. But after it spent an additional 25 to 50 million refinancing reshoots, he was airbrushed from the story entirely. That investment has now been handsomely repaid, as Michael seems set to make at least $1 billion at the box office. Reports indicate that a sequel is already in development. The first film's narrative concludes with Jackson embarking on his world tour to promote his Bad album in 1987, six years before the child molestation investigations became public. It is difficult to imagine how a second installment of Jackson's life story could avoid them entirely. It may take hardball litigation and calculating cynicism to continue the whitewash of Jackson's reputation, but his entourage of significance has no shortage of either. And that was never Neverland. By Andrew Hammel Read for you by William Lang thank you for listening. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month is back. So I think thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal, so there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try@mintmobile.com switch upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for
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