JACK LASH
Michael Jackson documentary Leaving Neverland – nine unanswered questions from Lisa-Marie Presley to why James Safechuck and Wade Robson changed their stories
THE shocking revelations from the Michael Jackson documentary Leaving Neverland have left fans reeling after James Safechuck and Wade Robson gave graphic accounts of how the King of Pop allegedly groomed and abused them over many years.
But the documentary, which aired on Channel 4 on Wednesday and Thursday, also raised more issues than it answered...
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Viewers were left feeling sick as Australian-born Wade claimed he was abused from the age of seven to 14, often with his mother Joy sleeping in a next door room.
James’s story was shockingly similar, with allegations Jackson introduced him to masturbation and porn and later married him in a faux wedding ceremony, lavishing him with gold and diamond jewellery in return for sexual favours.
But Dan Reed’s explosive film – which also included interviews with the boys’ mums Stephanie Safechuck and Joy Robson – didn't address all of the issues and many viewers were left wondering about unanswered questions.
Here, we fill in the blanks...
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1. What’s the boys’ relationship with their mums like now?
While Joy Robson did appear to be genuinely sorry for allowing Wade to go to Michael’s bed Stephanie Safechuck came across as almost blasé when she admitted ““I f***ed up. I failed to protect him.”
When Jackson moved on to another boy, Stephanie said, “We’ve been dumped.”
It was evident that neither of the accusers were ever seen with their mums and both seemed to struggle with the question of whether they had forgiven their parents for enabling the alleged abuse.
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In a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, the boys opened up about their mums.
Asked if they had forgiven their mothers, James said, "No, right now I'm trying to learn how to communicate with my mom and I'm also trying to get her to get help.
"Because if you don't help yourself, you can't help other people. So, she needs to work on her own issues so that she can understand what happened."
Wade said his mum had asked director Dan Reed to skip over the sexual abuse details when she saw a preview.
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Speaking about his relationship with his mum he says it's "grown immensely over the last six years or so."
"It was really challenging for a while. I've gone through lots of anger towards her, lots of confusion. Thankfully, we've been able to go through a lot of healing through this process."
2. Who is Brett Barnes and did he claim to be abused?
Brett Barnes’ name was brought up alongside Macaulay Culkin as a boy who “replaced” James and Wade when Jacko tired of them.
Brett first met Jackson when he was five, after slipping a letter to one of his dancers in 1987, and he was rewarded with long phone calls, first visiting Neverland when he was nine.
But Brett has always denied any abuse took place, defending Jackson in both the 1993 and the 2005 case.
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At 11, he told the press he shared a bed with Jackson but that they slept on opposites sides of it.
After Jackson’s 2005 molestation case, he stayed silent until this week, when he reportedly filed a lawsuit against the makers of Leaving Neverland.
According to TMZ, the insinuation that he might have been abused by the singer has left him open to “hatred, contempt and ridicule.”
3. What did Jackson's wives Lisa-Marie Presley and Debbie Rowe say?
Jackson was married to Lisa Marie Presley from 1993 to 1996 and Debbie Rowe, the mother of his oldest two children, from 1996 from 1999.
But Neverland staff have since said that neither spouse ever stayed overnight at the ranch.
Both have claimed that Jackson did not abuse children, with Lisa even saying that she though Jordan Chandler was lying in 1993.
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She said: “I believed he didn’t do anything wrong, and that he was wrongly accused and, yes, I started falling for him.”
Debbie Rowe defended her ex-husband in the 2005 trial and later claimed he was the victim of “opportunistic vultures” who were after his money.
4. Why did the victims' parents let it happen?
The question most viewers were shouting at the TV when mums Stephanie and Joy said they agreed to their young boys sharing a bed with a grown man, was "why"?
Both mums were well aware of the time Jacko was spending with their sons, joining the singer on tour and staying at his home.
Stephanie Safechuck recalls the first time she was asked if Jimmy could spend the night in the pop star's room: “I didn’t think it was appropriate for my son to go sleep with him. And that’s how it was the first trip.”
But after being invited on tour, in an unexplained U-turn, Jimmy was allowed to share a hotel room with the star, while his parents slept next door.
It wasn't long before her room was moved further and further away from the star's but she believed the reason she was given - that there wasn't a suite closer.
Both mums admitted they had their heads turned by the mighty superstar and him showering them with gifts.
Jimmy’s mum said: “'He flies you first class, you have a limo waiting for you at the airport — it's amazing.”
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Director Dan Reed stood up for the parents in a recent interview.
"Their choices are questionable, but I don’t think for a second they knew.
“It was a more innocent time back then. People weren’t talking about paedophilia so much, so it wasn’t something that came to mind."
5. Where were the dads at the time and where are they now?
James Safechuck Jr and wife Stephanie opened their home to Jacko and treated him like a son after their seven-year-old won a dance competition to meet him.
In the documentary, Stephanie described how Jackson would come over for dinner and play with Jimmy before he invited the family to Neverland.
What the documentary didn't mention was that in 1993, when Jacko was accused of molesting Jordan Chandler, James Snr admitted he had seen the star kiss his son on the lips but claimed he saw nothing wrong in that.
James - who has a much smaller role in the programme than his wife - said he asked his son if there was any truth in the allegations that Jacko abused children and told the court: “My son looked me square in the eyes and said 'No'. That is all that is needed.”
He added: “Michael is like a son to me and I trust him with my life and with my son's life, understood?”
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The case was dropped after the Chandlers were allegedly given a £15million pay-off and shortly afterwards Jackson wrote off a loan he had given James to buy the family home.
Viewers were shocked when the documentary told how Wade’s mum, Joy, left her seven-year-old alone at his Neverland ranch for five days while the family went off to visit the Grand Canyon, allowing the pair to sleep in the same bedroom.
In the early 1990s, the Robsons decided to move to the US from Australia so that Wade could spend more time with his hero.
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Dad Dennis refused to go but Joy took their two youngest children – Wade and his older sister Chantal – to LA.
When their oldest boy Shane opted to join them in the US, leaving their father alone, it proved too much to bear.
Dennis took his own life in 2002 – the day that Shane left.
6. Why did James and Wade change their stories?
One thorny issue which was not addressed in the documentary was Wade and James' previous testimony during the 1993 case where Jackson was accused of molesting 13-year-old Jordan Chandler.
Both boys told police they had never been abused by Jacko.
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James later said he gave his statement after meetings with Jackson’s lawyer to go through “rehearsed questions and testimony".
In 2005, when Jackson appeared in court accused of abusing Gavin Arvizo, Wade – then aged 24 - once again testified that he had shared the singer's bed but no abuse had ever taken place.
But in 2013, four years after Jackson's death, he filed a £1million lawsuit against the Jackson estate claiming he had been repeatedly sexually abused. He lost his case, on the grounds that the estate could not be held responsible for the actions of the deceased.
At the time, Wade claimed he had lied in court because he had been threatened by Jackson and had been “brainwashed” into believing the relationship was normal.
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He said: “I was psychologically and emotionally completely unable and unwilling to understand that it was sexual abuse.
“Michael was, yes, an incredibly talented artist with an incredible gift. And he was also a paedophile and a child sexual abuser.”
He's previously said about breaking his silence until this documentary: "I want to speak the truth as loud as I spoke the lie."
7. Why didn't the Neverland staff and Jackson's aides come forward?
As one of the biggest stars in the world, Jackson would have had an enormous entourage and staff attending his needs.
When Jacko was arrested in 1993, in the Chandler case, one member of staff broke ranks.
Former maid Blanca Francia, claimed to have witnessed Jackson showering with Wade and also said the singer had abused her son.
But, according to a later investigation, staff were threatened into silence.
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She claimed that in the midst of the Jordan Chandler allegations, armed members of tough South-Central L.A. gangs, including the notorious Bloods, moved into Neverland.
The purpose was to send a strong message to employees who might have considered co-operating in the investigation as well as a warning to the the families of other boys.
In 2005, Adrian Marie McManus, another maid told the court she saw Jackson touching boys inappropriately — including Macaulay Culkin. He has always denied this.
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However, the defence team discredited her by revealing she was part of a £12million wrongful termination lawsuit against Jackson, which was lost, and had been accused of stealing from him.
Director Dan Reed said he didn’t include any Neverland staff or visitors in the film because he wanted it to be about the boys.
He told the Huffington Post: “What we have in the story is from the horse’s mouth.
“We have the child speaking about what happened to him, and I didn’t know how much more credible it would appear if I have a maid going, ‘Well, yeah, I saw Wade.’”
8. What has Macaulay Culkin said about his relationship with Jackson?
In Leaving Neverland, Wade claimed he was sidelined after Michael met Macaulay Culkin and began a relationship with him.
The child star became close to Jackson after the 1990 film Home Alone made him a household name and the start of the friendship followed a similar pattern to that described by James and Wade – with long phone calls, shopping sprees and childlike games.
The difference, he claimed in court in 2005, was that the bed-sharing was completely innocent and Jackson never abused him.
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He continued to deny anything inappropriate happened as recently as January on a US podcast.
He said the relationship was “normal” and “mundane”, adding: “It’s almost easy to try to say it was weird or whatever, but at the end of the day, we were friends.”
In early 2018 he said: “He enjoyed my youthfulness. He liked being a kid with me. It never struck me as odd. I never felt uncomfortable. That was just the way he was.”
9. Why did the world allow him to openly parade his young ‘friends’ around?
In the 1990s, Jacko was frequently seen in the company of young boys yet the music industry and his legion of fans never questioned it as creepy or inappropriate.
Footage seen last night saw Jackson leaving hotels and hopping into limos with young boys on his arm, with scores of paparazzi looking on.
Many believe the alleged abuse went unchallenged because of a carefully calculated Peter Pan myth, with Jackson playing the childlike innocent who never grew up.
The stories of his own abuse, at the hands of his father, and a stolen childhood on tour with the Jackson Five made the image all the more believable.
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Investigator Maureen Orth claims many in the know turned a blind eye because his status as a music legend made him a cash cow.
She said: “He was such a highly prized corporate money-making machine, such a valuable product that almost no one, especially those C.E.O.s and moguls who make millions off him, has ever really questioned his motives: why this reclusive man-child with no known history of romantic relationships prefers to live a fantasy life in the company of children.”
How can I watch Leaving Neverland in the UK?
The controversial documentary Leaving Neverland aired on Channel 4 on March 6 and 7, 2019.
You can watch it on .
The documentary had its premiere at the on January 25, 2019.
The two-parter is being aired despite objections from the singer's family.
Victim James Safechuck's mum laughs while recalling Michael Jackson 'abuse' in Leaving Neverland
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