Data Staff Report
The family of singer Michael Jackson on Monday joined the firestorm against “Leaving Neverland,” calling the harrowing new documentary about Jackson’s alleged history of sexually abusing boys a “public lynching.”
“People have always loved to go after Michael. He was an easy target because he was unique. But Michael was subjected to a thorough investigation which included a surprise raid of Neverland and other properties as well as a jury trial where Michael was found to be COMPLETELY INNOCENT. There has never been one piece of proof of anything. Yet the media is eager to believe these lies,” the late singer’s family said in a statement Monday, after the documentary’s Sundance Film Festival premiere on Friday left attendees stunned and shell-shocked.
“We can’t just stand by while this public lynching goes on, and the vulture tweeters and others who never met Michael go after him,” the statement continued. “Michael is not here to defend himself, otherwise these allegations would not have been made.”
Jackson’s estate and some of his fans have actively campaigned against the film in statements and on social media, questioning its veracity and attacking defenders of the film, its director Dan Reed, and Jackson’s accusers Wade Robson and James Safechuck, whose stories are featured in the four-hour documentary.
Jackson’s fans have seized on the fact that both of the accusers previously defended Jackson against other child sexual abuse allegations. However, sexual abuse experts note that trauma can affect survivors’ memories and perceptions of their experiences, particularly if they were children at the time of their abuse, as Robson and Safechuck would have been.
During a 2005 trial, Robson testified that Jackson did not molest him when he was a child. But Robson has said that he later realized he “compartmentalized” the abuse because of his close relationship to Jackson.
The family of Jackson, who died in 2009, continues to maintain that he “was and always will be 100 percent innocent of these false allegations,” and in their statement Monday, referred to Robson, Safechuck and the filmmakers as “opportunists.”
Robson and Safechuck have denied accusations from Jackson’s defenders that they were paid to tell their stories.
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