Dan Reed was a documentary filmmaker who specialized in terrorism and war when he detoured into very different terrain, explosive in other ways entirely: the accusations of child sexual abuse that have followed Michael Jackson since 1993.
The result of that was Leaving Neverland, which premiered on HBO in 2019. The harrowing four-hour documentary seemed poised to permanently reshape Jackson’s legacy. Wade Robson and James Safechuck’s highly detailed accounts of childhood abuse at Jackson’s hands were, to many viewers, impossible to forget. The film won an Emmy, with the Jackson Estate deriding the decision to honor “a complete fiction” that is “completely one-sided.”
But seven years later, Jackson’s streaming numbers are up, MJ the Musical is a Broadway juggernaut, and Lionsgate’s Michael — a biopic helmed by Training Day director Antoine Fuqua and starring Jaafar Jackson, Jackson’s own nephew, as the pop superstar — is tracking to be one of the year’s biggest box-office hits.
Leaving Neverland, meanwhile, has quietly vanished from HBO after a legal settlement with the Jackson estate. With Michael set to open on nearly 4,000 screens, Reed called The Hollywood Reporter from the U.K. to discuss the ethical ramifications behind the blockbuster machinery of music biopics.
I found your film Leaving Neverland profoundly disturbing. Now I don’t even know where the film is. Did HBO take it down?
The Michael Jackson estate had a contract which Jackson had signed with HBO for a concert recording in Budapest in 1992. The contract contained a non-disparagement clause. The estate argued that the non-disparagement clause, which says, “You can’t say anything nasty about Michael,” applied forever to everything that HBO would ever do — which is patently ridiculous. Somehow the estate managed to persuade HBO to come to an amicable settlement. And that involved, after six years on the platform, taking Leaving Neverland down.
HBO has a license only until 2029. So after that, I can resell it and make it available again. The sequel went out on YouTube in the U.S., which pretty unsatisfying.
Walk me through the evolution of your thoughts on Michael Jackson through the making of these films. What have you learned?
I learned Michael Jackson fucked little boys. That’s what I learned. I don’t make documentaries about celebrities or pop music or any kind of music. I make documentaries about terror attacks and war and stuff. And so as a filmmaker, this was off my usual beat, but I saw it as a chance to make something about child sexual abuse, which I had actually touched on in a previous film.
I was skeptical at first, because Jackson’s so famous and there were so many rumors and so many versions of what could possibly have happened with these children floating around. When I approached Wade and James, I took great care to maintain a kind of skeptical distance from what they were telling me. But I found their accounts to be so detailed and layered and convincing. And I was able to corroborate a lot of what they said and also check out records, investigate the police investigation and read trial transcripts.
So there was a process of gradual understanding that these guys genuinely had a story to tell, and that they weren’t just gold diggers out to sort of create some fraudulent narrative — that they really were who they said they were.
So I began by being skeptical and I ended by being sure that what Wade and James had to say had great merit.
Those “gold digger” accusations still seem to surface a lot, including from Antoine Fuqua, who told The New Yorker “sometimes people do some nasty things for some money.”
For Antoine Fuqua to accuse people of gold digging is kind of ironic. It seems to me all the people involved in this movie are just making bank.
How can you tell an authentic story about Michael Jackson without ever mentioning the fact that he was seriously accused of being a child molester? I just don’t really see it. If anyone’s making money, it’s Michael Jackson’s estate and the people who worked on this biographical picture. Wade and James, the protagonists of Leaving Neverland, have never made a cent from their accusations. People don’t seem to understand: If you bring a lawsuit, you don’t get any money until you win in court. And when you win in court, that means you’ve proved your case, right?
The amount they’re reportedly seeking is astronomical, like $400 million.
Something like that. That’s a made-up amount. I presume it would be a large amount, right? But it’s been 10 years. They haven’t made any money.
Skeptics also point to Robson changing his story.
He was defense witness No. 1 in 2005. But he realized that he couldn’t stay quiet anymore. Although he’d been in love with Jackson, he could no longer defend his abuser. And so the price of coming out is huge. You have to tell your parents you were lying to them. Your whole world comes apart. That’s part of what Leaving Neverland is about: When people disclose these things, it shatters their world. And so that’s not something that one does lightly, in my view.
Do you communicate with them still?
I keep in touch with them. I’m hoping to make another film about the trial that’s coming up.
What have their thoughts been about Michael?
I don’t know. I haven’t talked to them about the movie. I can’t imagine they’re particularly thrilled.
What about this notion that after your movie came out, if one thought logically, the movie should have taken Jackson down. But in fact his popularity rose after your movie, and streaming numbers on Jackson’s music rose and they only continue to grow. Since then, we’ve had the MJ Broadway musical, which is a huge hit and tours. So what does that say?
It says that people don’t care that he was a child molester. Literally, people just don’t care.
None of the allegations in Leaving Neverland have been seriously challenged, right? But there was enough noise online from those simplistic debunking [videos] that people found it easy to give themselves permission to like Michael Jackson’s music again, if they ever stopped liking it.
I think a lot of people just love his music and turn a deaf ear. And short of having actual video evidence of Michael Jackson engaged in sexual intercourse with a 7-year-old child, I don’t know what would be sufficient to change these people’s minds.
I’m not trying to stop anyone from consuming his music. I’ve never advocated canceling Michael Jackson. Book burning is for the Middle Ages and the Taliban. I just think if you’re going to enjoy his music, let’s also consider the fact that he liked to have sex with children and see how that affects your enjoyment, in all honesty.
I also recall around the time your movie came out that I tweeted something and I was descended upon by his fan army. I think Oprah Winfrey, who did a post-airing Q&A related to Leaving Neverland, got attacked very much as well. I assume you were on the receiving end of a lot of that too.
Oh yeah.
They are not merely looking the other way. They are really convinced of his innocence. It’s an interesting phenomenon.
It’s like religion. Is that interesting? I don’t know. They think he’s a God, so blasphemy is not permitted, and anyone who blasphemes against the deity is threatened with death. That’s pretty routine. We’ve seen this going on down the centuries.
So I’m not at all surprised that all the death threats and all of that is just part and parcel of the nature of Michael Jackson worship. These are not people who simply enjoy listening to a Michael Jackson track now and again. They’re convinced that he was this pure, godlike figure, a sort of transcendent, childlike genius who had no sexual identity and was somehow very pure, and they identify with that.
My film was about these two young men who, unfortunately, had their childhood ruined by a predatory pedophile who began to have sex with Wade when he was seven and with James when he was 10. Seems to me that’s a pretty distasteful thing to keep in your mind while you’re listening to “Billie Jean.”
What is it about Michael? Because other artists have been taken down for similar things. I’m thinking of R. Kelly, Woody Allen — they have been essentially canceled. Why, even after death, does he just continue to delight people?
I think it’s partly because his music is so ubiquitous, right? It’s part of the soundtrack of people’s lives. But it’s partly because also Jackson, he kind of incorporated an identity for himself where he had a cover story for why he liked to keep company with little children, right?
Because he “didn’t have a childhood.”
Yeah, all of that. I’ve never understood that. “You didn’t have a childhood, so therefore you need to sleep alone with a little boy who’s not your son.” By all means, spend time with children. Why not? It’s a beautiful thing. But when the sun goes down, give the child back to his parents. Don’t take him into your bedroom and lock the door.
I mean, what’s that all about? You ask any of the estate, any of the people who work there, what was he doing with those children? They have no answer.
From what you’ve seen so far of reviews and the way the journalists are covering this film — which I’m hearing is going to make an extraordinary amount of money — do you have any message for them?
I think clearly some of the press is sucking up to the Jackson machine because: A, the estate and the fan base has always ensured that the price of criticizing Michael is years of invective and smears and what have you. And B, there’s a ton of money to be made by any kind of association with the Jackson IP. If you can get on board and be part of the success of this movie, then that’s going to be good for you.
So a lot of people, I think, will kind of swallow any misgivings they may have and just sort of say, “Oh well, it’s a great jukebox movie” and just completely ignore the fact that this guy was worse than Jeffrey Epstein.
I think Jackson was genuinely a very nasty man and hurt a lot of children. And he may have been a great entertainer, but those two things don’t cancel each other out. The fact is that pedophiles exist, and he was one of them, and he made those choices. Many other people who’ve been abused as a child did not choose to abuse others.
And the reason why he gets away with it is because he was so wealthy and surrounded by very aggressive and resourceful lawyers and had tremendous resources. The Michael Jackson estate still instills fear in anyone who wants to oppose them, and they’re certainly a formidable opponent if you want to take them on.
But yeah, I think a lot of people just want to forget about the children and enjoy the music.
English (US) ·