I feel upset, sick and cheated by Leaving Neverland

[Persimmonn]

I was one of those people who kept saying the men are out to make money. That there’s no evidence etc. But I finally watched the documentary yesterday and it’s hurt me a lot. I feel like I was lied to my whole life. I know it sounds so melodramatic and selfish but MJ was my idol growing up. I remember being 7 years old and dancing and singing his songs.

Now I feel sick to the core. If Wade Robson and James Safechuck are lying, then they’re incredibly good liars.

MJ was a paedophile.

I can quite believe Culkin wasn’t personally abused himself, but he may have seen all kinds of things that he would feel uncomfortable admitting to now. It’s rather unlikely that he saw nothing at all untoward, given what was going on.

Yeah, I think that might be right Tatiana, even Cory Feldman, who is adamant he was not abused, said that MJ was showing him pornography when he was 13yo. A lot of people would consider that abusive on its own terms but it's hard to believe that Culkin wasn't aware of other red flags.

I would be highly surprised if Culkin wasn’t abused to.

The poor boy was peado cat-nip, as he already had parents that were willing to trade his well-being for profit. Abusers are masters at identifying children who do not have strong protective systems around them.

MJ was incredibly good at initiating hysterical bonding. He would enact behaviours that would cause anybody to form emotional attachments but this is especially effective with children who are missing those attachments from one or both of their parent figures. Once attached, it becomes very easy to manipulate.

He also formed those bonds with the mothers and inserted himself into the family as another child, perverting these women’s natural mothering instincts.

He presented as the perfect father to those boys. Present, interested, gentle, affectionate and able to supply them with endless resources. It is an incredibly seductive persona and it is no wonder that the boys took so long to let go of the “dream” of Michael and accept the reality of who he was. A deeply disturbed abuser.

I watched Abducted in Plain Sight too and found so many similarities between him and MJ when I was watching the Neverland documentary. It’s like the groomer fills a gap in the family, and latches on like a parasite. Makes a space for himself and slowly feeds off the victim. For Safechuck and Wade it was money, toys, a career and houses, thanks to their shit mothers.
Makes me so angry.

That bit on Oprah stayed with me too Tenpenny, when Wade said he was scared MJ might be turning into the werewolf from Thriller when he was crying in the bedroom.

So young that he can't tell fact from fiction - how is he going to be able to process the abuse in anyway that makes sense. The vulnerability of a little child is terrifying to me as a parent.

"That doesn't mean that the other 4 young boys who have spoken out about being abused by MJ are lying."

This is so important.

You see this behaviour again and again - including in less serious threads on here. People insist that because something wasn't true for them, it must not have been true for everyone else as well. Abusers are able to work between those lines, and to use this to their advantage.

I have a situation in my family where someone who was abused isn't believed because a sibling who is relatively close in age didn't have the same experience. It's devastasting for the person concerned, because the family has literally closed ranks against the person who suffered the most.

The best defence against this is to approach every situation with the attitude that one's own experience is just one, among many, many life experiences.

I know an MJ superfan, she’s met him multiple times and absolutely adores him. She truly believes he is the kindest, most wonderful person in the world. She is currently posting #mjinnocent posts all over social media and has written thousand word long posts picking apart all the allegations. Says she won’t watch the documentary as she doesn’t want to give the makers the ratings. I’m very worried for her as she seemed very fragile to begin with and I think used her lifelong MJ obsession as a crutch of sorts, and is very deep in the superfan community. But if she carries on with her campaign for mj’s innocence I can see her alienating people in real life.

"thanks to their shit mothers"

I do think we have undergone a sea-change in attitudes about this. I am not saying the behaviour of abusers like MJ was every morally justified. Because it wasn't. But it was socially less well-recognised, and people were perhaps less willing to question than they are now. That's partly why so many famous predators were able to operate in plain sight. It was also why there was practically a culture of sexual abuse involving the non-famous in some institutions.

I think many of the superfans are also worried about the rapidly diminishing value of their MJ tat memorabilia.

I agree that to be a self-professed superfan on anybody usually goes hand in hand with vulnerability - well balanced people don't need or want idols. I'm finding it hard to be sympathetic though when they are calling the victims liars - even though I understand it is hard for them to adjust their world views.

Superfans are usually obsessive and devoid of all reality. They are probably vulnerable themselves and the person they obsess about usually fills a void that they have in their lives.

When you see how devoted some fans are to the cult of Jackson, despite never meeting him in person, it's really not hard to see how the parents of these boys could have been drawn into the 'hes just a manchild himself who wants to be friends' way of thinking too.

Yes, the thought of their lifetime idol being a complete deviant and widely shunned will be cataclysmic for a superfan, because what is their life without him.
Someone quoted a figure of $1.5billion upthread re Wades legal dealings. As far as I'm aware that ridiculous sum I'd just another falsehood doing the rounds. With regards to Wades demeanour, can you remember how Jackson told him to "shelve his emotions" at a young age. He is clearly a very deep and guarded individual. Safechuck seems more emotionally open, there's a lot more fragility and sadness about him.

Although it's ironic that the super fans who are slavishly pushing the innocent man child line are also the ones asking why the parents let the boys stay. If he was innocent then why question the parents letting them stay?

I don't think there's any rhyme or reason as to how a 'superfan's' mind works. Sadly. The parent in these scenarios are just as groomed as the boys, infact many of us have been a bit groomed my MJ in the past, he was so good at it.There's never really been anyone who has a had such mega-stardom like he has so it's hard to compare. Imagine him coming into your life if you were a massive fan? Be like communing with your god almost for some people. He really was revered. I was totally put off him after he dangled that poor child out of a window, along with trying to change his skin colour, among other things. ;-)

That should say 'there's never'! Typo! Whoops. So incandescent with rage I can't type.

What I can't get my head around is Rowe and the hows and whys she gave him two children in their sham marriage with no intention of being a mother to them. And this was long after all the allegations and pay-offs.

At this point, I'm clearly being hypocritical because I've defended the parent's behaviour as stupid rather than malicious. But that's where my brain stops working. She created children for her husband who is widely considered to be a risk to children as a gift and then you just leave them there?

Although I do blame the parents to some extent, I can also see that the lines MJ spun them were very seductive. He also convinced them he had hardly any friends, sought them out, phoned them every night, went over for dinner twice a week, had the whole family over (so not always singling out the young boy visibly) and basically made himself like another child- but crucially, one whose happiness then depended on them indulging him. He made them feel needed, and made out the only thing he wanted in return was their attention and love, and in return he gave them what he had (time, money).

I know now it looks bad that he bought them a house or whatever, but he did everything to break down their normal boundaries and made it seem like their 'second son' was buying them a house.

Perhaps he did like being part of a family, perhaps it was just a giant elaborate grooming ruse to be near the young boy, but it was sustained, went on for years and was utterly convincing. They also felt dropped when he moved on.

It is coming to me now, it was MJ who instigated all the meet ups, not the boys, it was done for his own selfish needs.

What I don’t get is, it’s one thing not believing the accusers without ‘real’ evidence, but how can anyone defend a man not only has been accused of paedophilia, but also whose house was filled with pictures of naked children. Being ‘a bit weird and childlike’ just doesn’t excuse child pornography, never mind the rest.

Agree Lola Flores there should be some sort of retribution .... perhaps more so to people who made money out of frightening and silencing witness?

Like Spring I can totally see how this happened. Ie they fell under his spell. He was the biggest star of the time. He was huge. That level of stardom won't be repeated. We've moved on as a society since then.

I can totally see how it all happened. How he phoned them every night. How he persuaded the mums to leave the children with them. It might seem odd now. But I can see how it happened then.

The mum's are being crucified but that is with the benefit of hindsight. Now it seems clear that MJ was a paedophile, how he used his 'man-child' persona to gain access to boys.

But this is circa 30 years ago - was child sexual abuse in many people's consciousness? Now I don't leave my children anywhere without considering 'safe guarding' to some extent? Lack of awareness plus being groomed disarmed the parents - however, they were elements of being reckless and greedy which played a part in what happened which are still I think unforgivable.

Teyem I think Rowe was just a surrogate...

I agree. I really used to buy into the narrative that he was just this childlike, misunderstood man who was a bit strange because hed never had a real childhood himself because of his abusive dad...
But as I've got older I've realised that he is not childlike, he was a grown man, an intelligent and ambitious one. I think he cultivated this fragile image of himself and I think he justified his own behaviour to himself with that narrative...
I'm in no doubt now that he was a paedohpile. Theres no other real explanation for his known behaviour with children... even without this documentary I think that if anyone else in the world behaved the way he did with children and spoke to and about children in the romantic way he did.. there would be no doubt t in anyone's mind that he was a paedophile... this documentary just confirms that.

I can see how it happened with James’ mum, he forced himself to become part of the family, took his time.

But Wade’s mum was a different case entirely. They hadn’t spent that same time together, and she left her son with Michael after spending 4 hours with him - I think they’d only met once before at the dance contest?

James’ mum talks about questioning the distance in rooms, trying to listen in etc whereas Wade’s mentions nothing. It’s telling, I think, that MJ felt ‘safe’ to have her in the next room whilst abusing her son, when he made sure James’ mum couldn’t easily get to them.

Still, who can know what went through their minds at the time.

One thing I found interesting, for want of a better word, this story/pattern of grooming is no different to any other ‘average Joe’. The presents, promises and infiltrating family, the special bond spiel. It’s almost an identical method every single time, no matter who the perpetrator is.