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.

Yes I know, just because I think he's a jerk, doesn't mean the abuse didn't happen.....before you say it.

Wrong again. No one was going to ask you that. They would have asked you the actual relevant bit as in 'what in the name of God do you think him considering divorce at some point in his marriage (if he did) would prove about his character''. That he's human? Ludicrous.

Actual evidence has been posted. You've chosen to ignore it

Evidence of WHAT? Where?? How can I 'choose to ignore' something that isn't there?

what in the name of God do you think him considering divorce at some point in his marriage (if he did) would prove about his character

At some point in his marriage, you mean when his wife suggest not doing it but he so desperate for money that he feels she is holding him back? Can you see this is all motive, of course you can't. I have been saying all along, you don't want to see or know anything else.

You are being petulant now. Not a reasonable minded mumsnetter. What evidence? You are choosing to ignore the links I have posted which contain documents to back up what I am saying.

Oprah is right, you have been triggered by all of this. That's right Oprah said that as well. Not just me.

Did you watch the video that I posted rather than making smarmy comments about it? What are your thoughts?

In case you think I am lying, here is the link with the proof.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6907531/Wade-Robson-wanted-cash-Michael-Jackson-sex-abuse-claims-tell-book.html

Sorry signed witness statements aren't proof are they? Not good enough for you....

Posting tabloid links?

Pass thanks.

thought so....you don't wanna know.

Ccmrob that wasn't an answer to my question! We can't know if he was advised or not just that if he was he didn't take that advice, what possible reason could there be for that? I know people who have been accused of awful things - completely untrue in their case and ever since they go to great lengths to never put themselves in a position where they could be accused again, why didn't he do the same? Even if he had insisted on leaving the bedroom door open it would have been enough to put some doubt to the rumours but he didn't even do that!

I can't answer that, simply. I don't know why. I know his family went on record to say it was advised, but he didn't listen. As I said I think it was a very bad choice to put himself in the situation ever again. But I can't answer that as I don't know what was said or the reasons for it.

Does that not put a little bit of a question in your mind about his character and his motivations? I will confess to having been a huge fan before this but the documentary has completely convinced me that those boys were telling the truth. I bought into the whole childishness and thought that he was a little boy himself emotionally but if that were true then surely someone in his family or legal team would have needed to step in and ensure that he wasn't putting himself at risk as he was clearly displaying a lack of ability to make a reasoned judgement. The fact that he continued without putting any measures in place to safeguard himself says to me that he believed that he had successfully groomed the whole world into believing that he was incapable of abusing children and that he could just pay his way out of future allegations, also that the people around him possibly knew or suspected but turned a blind eye

Not possible imho. Some of those around him included people who have suffered and spoken out as they are victims of child sexual abuse. If there was even a hint of anything untoward there would have been reports.

How did the documentary convince you they were telling the truth? Does none of the facts surrounding their reports not trouble you, this most include bits deliberately left out to not skew their timelines or contradict what they were seeing.

If Dan Reed wanted to be as truthful and balanced as he said he would have left those key facts out. A true documentary would have told the entire timeline, included all the key details and left the viewer to make their own mind up.

As it was was, it was cleverly crafted to trigger emotional support for these two men and invoke anger and rage.

I understand what you are saying and if I was looking at it and still desperately wanting to believe he was innocent I would be thinking the same but there was too much there for it not to be true. I know many victims of abuse in a professional capacity and their stories of how they were groomed and how they were affected were absolutely textbook, you can't possibly understand all the little subtleties if you haven't seen it yourself. That then led me to revisit what I already knew but hadn't allowed myself to acknowledge because I hadn't wanted it to be true, things like what I mentioned upthread about continuing to share a bed with boys and not allowing any witnesses in to protect himself, the fact that his voice was completely different to how he spoke in public. I can't comment on the filmmaker's abilities or what others feel he should or shouldn't have included as there will obviously always be people who disagree but what I saw very clearly was 2 victims who were still struggling to make sense of what had happened to them and 2 mothers who were wracked with guilt at what they had allowed to happen

Finally, I think we actually have someone on this thread willing to have a decent debate, we might not agree or see things the same way but it doesn't mean insults have to be thrown.

Thing is, despite me being a fan, me not wanting him to be guilty is nothing to do with his music or status. I don't want him to be guilty because I genuinely horrifies me the thought of kids being harmed.

As I have said over both threads, I also have experience of CSA. Not me, but family, close family. So I know the score. The thing I have experienced, and I wonder if you experienced the same, is did the people who you know suffered keep changing their story? I'm not talking about was it a Friday or a Monday. I'm talking actual meaty details of events taking place?

Also, I know what you are saying about having people around him looking after his interests and advising him, but do you really think he would be so stupid to invite a journalist to his house and give him access to such private places like Bashir if he had something to hide? Bearing in mind this was all after the first allegations, so he would have known what the risk was doing that, the guy would have been looking at anything and everything to get stuff to chuck in there. He didn't have to do it, so why did he?

Again, it just all doesn't make sense to me.

It's years since I saw the Martin Bashir interview and at the time I remember feeling that it confirmed my view of him as being a child, now I think that that was the purpose, he had no intention of stopping so he had to give us something to make us see it as innocent. In a way I think we were all groomed by him. Also we need to remember that he was a professional performer and he had plenty of opportunity to prepare for the interview and get rid of anything incriminating.

Wrt the details changing, in my experience the victims really struggle with facing up to what happened. At the time the abuse is going on they have a physiological response and they experience sexual pleasure and this together with the fact that they are told this is love makes them really struggle to accept that these things were done to them rather than them actively taking part iyswim? The realisation is not one lightbulb moment but a long long process and it comes with such shame, their brain will often block things off or "fracture" the memory to protect them, at the same time they don't want to believe it so it did not surprise me that there were discrepancies. I knew one man who was unable to get an erection without thinking about the abuse he had suffered, he even contacted his abuser and arranged to meet up with him as an adult as he was so sexually frustrated he needed a release and that was the only way he could manage it.

None of that fits with their accounts of what happened.

Robson has been more devious that Safechuck, but it's staggering. The fact he is supportive of Michael and in with the family right up until 2011, he get's rejected for the show and then bam. Allegations. It doesn't smack of a lightbulb moment, it's just revenge plain and simple.

All the stuff after that, he writes memoirs about the whole thing and then refuses to disclose them to the courts when they get wind of them. These are his diaries which, if anything, should corroborate what he is saying. But he chooses to hide them? Why? His emails, why did he refuse to disclose those to the courts. Because after he was forced to, they showed he had been emailing himself accounts of the abuse others had described so he could use them himself, the courts found. The emails showed Robson found one particular story from the early 1990s which specifically named he and his mother. He emailed it to his mother and asked whether it was true. She replied, ‘Wow, none of that is true’. He then included it in his story anyway.

This is why I am don't think their story is true as per the film would like you to believe because the director put none of this in there as he didn't want to make them look bad, a true film maker would include all the facts no matter what and let the audience decide for themselves.

It's nothing to do with who MJ was or what he stood for, if anything these two for me have compounded my doubts about the allegations and made my mind up for me in 2016 when they were made public. It's a sham and makes a mockery of genuine victims who have suffered.

That's your interpretation, mine is still very different. I didn't know about the emails but I know from my work that a lot of victims started to accept what had happened to them when they heard accounts from others so that for me is further evidence that he was guilty. Safechuck believed they were in a relationship and MJ even bought him a wedding ring, can you imagine the betrayal he felt when he realised he was not the only one?

He said he felt none, though, he still loved him apparently. MJ buying him a wedding ring is his story.

Regarding Safechuck, there was a book written about Michael Jackson called Michael Jackson was my lover, which was apparently account from Jordy Chandler. In it were very specific descriptions of the abuse. The Chandler family denied the book had anything to do with them. But the account of what happened to Safechuck in his testimony and in the film, was word for word how it was described in this book. Like he copied it. Weird that.

There are CCTV pictures of MJ in disguise with a young boy buying a ring, exactly as Safechuck described which emerged after the documentary so I think it is safe to say it is more than just a story.

Your other point again comes down to interpretation, you already said above that you don't want it to be true so you are looking at that evidence as proof that the allegations are lies, others will be looking at it as evidence that his methods of grooming and abusing the boys were the same which to those of us who believe it accept as further evidence that they were telling the truth.

I watched the Martin Bashir interview last night as we were discussing it here and I wanted to see whether my thoughts on it were the same since leaving neverland. I noted in several places MJ blatantly lied, he said that his 3 children despite being very obviously white were biologically his, he also said that Blanket's mum was a woman he had a relationship with and only when pushed he admitted she was a surrogate, he than said that she was a black woman - Blanket again is very obviously white! Then further denials of plastic surgery except for a nose job

There is actually a news piece about MJ and the jewellery store visit. A security guard approached MJ as he was blantantly in a disguise ( big security no-no in Jewellery shops ) as well as the cctv footage of both MJ and Safechuck in the store.

Yeah I saw that too. It's possible he was buying rings as James said for him. The disguise means nothing, he often went out disguised and I would too. The key here is what sized rings he bought at the time. He told the store staff he was buying rings for Sheryl Crow, his backup singer at the time. Wouldn't it look odd, if he claimed that but then bought a child sized ring instead? Wouldn't that have flagged with the store staff? Assuming he bought anything at all at the time, as the report doesn't actually say he purchased anything.

James would have known about that story and that it was a news report at time and could have easily purchased a ring and added that bit in to add more weight to what he was saying?

I'm not saying that bit wasn't true I am simply pointing out how easy it would be to make it up and make it seem like it happened.

Okay I’ll you win I’m done. It’s like banging your head against brick wall. I’m just gonna do what the others have done and this and other threads and let you get on with it.

We can but hope.

Your other point again comes down to interpretation, you already said above that you don't want it to be true so you are looking at that evidence as proof that the allegations are lies, others will be looking at it as evidence that his methods of grooming and abusing the boys were the same which to those of us who believe it accept as further evidence that they were telling the truth.

Maybe, but it's not really hard to interpret it any other way. His deposition and the book have it word for word. I have being saying all along Safechuck has years to perfect his story and make it match Wade's and the one outlined in the book. Of course, James said he knew back in 2005, when he claims he was begged to be a witness (which has also been proven as not true), that he knew Michael was a bad man. He claims he told his mother this at the time. If either of them had spoken up at the time when they had the opportunity, maybe things would be different.

However I think no good is going to come from this for either party. Michael's family (mainly his kids) have seen their father's legacy wrecked and I feel nothing will come of the appeal so there will likely be no trial on this. I think this documentary will be the end of things as it stands.

121 posts from one person defending a men who almost everyone now believes is a paedophile. There's no point engaging with him.

On here. Yes you are most most think he his guilty. In the real work I think you will find it more balanced.

I haven't seen anything whatsoever which proves Michael is guilty. I can't understand why so many people are 100% convinced he was a paedophile.

Those who think he's guilty ignore certain things, such as the fact that Michael did also have lots of girls stay over at his house and in his bedroom.

He had an 'alert' system which rang if anyone approached his bedroom - well yes, I would too if I were him, he was the most famous person in the world, you'd want all the security systems you could get. People are twisting things to fit their viewpoint.