Since making his abuse allegations in 2014, Safechuck has consistently claimed that the alleged abuse ended in 1992, at the age of 14. Safechuck says that this is because beyond 1992 he had become too big and too old to satisfy Jackson’s alleged pedophilic interest in prepubescent boys. Safechuck even claims in legal documents, and in Leaving Neverland, that in 1992 another boy, Brett Barnes, replaced him, insinuating that Barnes went on to become the singer’s next victim after Jackson lost interest in Safechuck. But Barnes, who was not given the right of reply by director Dan Reed, took to social media to refute the insinuation.
“Not only do we have to deal with these lies, but we’ve also got to deal with people perpetuating these lies,” said Barnes via Twitter. “The fact that they fail to do the small amount of research it takes to prove these are lies, by choice or not, makes it even worse.”
Barnes also engaged an attorney to demand that HBO remove his image and likeness from Leaving Neverland, and even threatened to sue them for allowing such a salacious suggestion to be included in the film.
But wait, there’s more!
While we are still on the subject of James Safechuck and his inability to tell the truth, let’s take a look at another of the highly contentious elements of his constantly changing story – when and how he claims to have realised he was allegedly abused, and how and why it affects both the narrative of Leaving Neverland and the validity of his multi-million dollar lawsuit against Jackson’s Estate and companies.
In his sworn declaration, Safechuck claims that in 2005 he told his mother, Stephanie Safechuck, that Jackson had abused him. This narrative is somewhat supported by a scene in the Leaving Neverland film where Stephanie claims that she ‘danced’ when she learned that Jackson had died on June 25, 2009. “I was so happy he died,” she says, adding that her thoughts were: “Thank god, he can’t hurt any more children.” However, in another document, Safechuck abandons the claim that he told his mother he was abused, instead stating that he only told her Jackson was “not a good person,” without providing any explanation or context. This is the version of events that Safechuck himself goes with in Leaving Neverland.
Since the film’s release, director Dan Reed has taken it upon himself to speak on behalf of Safechuck and Robson in media interviews to promote it.
By his own admission, Reed knows next to nothing about Michael Jackson. And despite making a film about their subject matter, Reed clearly hasn’t properly studied the sworn declarations that form part of Robson and Safechuck’s lawsuits against Jackson’s Estate—he didn’t even mention the lawsuits in his film—and cannot talk about their claims without undermining or contradicting them.
In the very same declaration that Safechuck swears he told his mother about the alleged abuse in 2005, he contradicts himself by also swearing that it wasn’t until 2013—when he saw Wade Robson discussing his alleged abuse in a televised interview—that he first realised he was abused. Further contradiction arises when Safechuck claims that it wasn’t until he had the “help of a therapist” that he was “finally able to begin to recognise that he was a victim of childhood sexual abuse.”
That’s three versions of one story! In carefully written legal filings! Sworn under the penalty of perjury! Safechuck and his lawyers just cannot seem to get their story straight.
Just some facts