JACKSON'S ACCUSERS: The Truth EXPLODES Now!

It’s been seven years since I voluntarily listened to a Michael Jackson song.

I couldn’t tell you which one it was or what I was doing. I only know that after watching Leaving Neverland in 2019 – a documentary in which two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, shared harrowing details of alleged sexual abuse by Jackson – the thought of listening to his music has repulsed me ever since.

But Leaving Neverland barely made a dent in Jackson’s legacy. Walk down London’s Old Compton Street and you’ll regularly see queues of theatre-goers lining up for MJ: The Musical. Every time I see that line, it never fails to shock me that so many people could choose to ignore such astonishing accusations.

This year, a biopic about the superstar is expected to be one of the biggest box office success stories of 2026. Again, I can’t even comprehend seeing a film about a man who – at least to me – was as monstrous as they come.

Because, however you wish to remember the King of Pop, you can’t get away from the fact that his life was largely defined by his peculiar relationships with children.

These relationships ultimately led to what was arguably the most publicised trial of the 21st century; and now, a new Channel 4 series – Michael Jackson: The Trial – explores Jackson’s arrest for allegedly molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo, and his eventual acquittal in the summer of 2005.

I started watching The Trial convinced Jackson was a predator; but watching it was the first time my certainty about Jackson’s predatorial nature and habits came into doubt.

The series gives significant space to Jackson’s defenders; and, briefly, their determined belief in his innocence opened my mind to the possibility that he was a deeply damaged man, desperate to reclaim a lost childhood.

After all, they knew the man. I only know the King of Pop – and Jackson never made any secret of his traumatic upbringing.

His father, Joe Jackson, openly admitted to whipping Michael with ‘a switch and a belt’ – something the singer has echoed when reflecting on Jackson 5 rehearsals – and the trauma of never having had a real childhood famously never left him.

The Trial is strikingly balanced – the first documentary on the case I’ve seen that appears to have no agenda beyond examining the evidence – and both sides are compelling, with every contributor seeming to believe, sincerely, that they are speaking without artifice.

I felt more empathy for his defenders than I imagined I would. They weren’t protecting his name for the sake of a brand, they were protecting his legacy because they truly loved him.

But my doubt didn’t last long.

Across four episodes, key voices from Jackson’s inner circle speak out for the first time, sharing truly grotesque recollections, including testimony from a housekeeper who says she saw Jackson kiss 13-year-old Jordan Chandler and put his hand near the young boy’s crotch before paying her $300 ‘hush money’.

In a previously unheard audio recording, Jackson claimed the children became enamoured with his personality and that they would want to touch him – which, he said, would ‘sometimes get me into trouble’. 

To my ears, this was delivered with a waft of mischief – like he’d taken the last sweet. 

And the recordings also captured Jackson saying: ‘If you told me right now… “Michael, you could never see another child”… I would kill myself.’

I’m yet to hear a defence that helps statements like this make any sense.

I’m well aware that the full truth of whatever happened beyond these insider recollections is only known by Jackson and the children who slept beside him.

But the crux of the matter is: One side has mountains of evidence, while the other simply finds it incomprehensible to believe he was capable of being the monster these traumatised children say he was. 

We know Jackson’s relationship with children wasn’t just unconventional, it was haunting.

To suggest anything else is just putting an adoration for Jackson before any rationality.

Ultimately, Jackson’s is a fascination with children that no one has ever convinced me has pure intentions – not least because close confidante of Jackson, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, conceded that the only assurance he had that Jackson wasn’t a paedophile was ‘my personal knowledge of him is, he wasn’t capable of harming a child’.

Jackson’s defendants’ unshakeable belief is compelling – but ultimately, that is all it is. Belief.

The trial itself unravelled when Robson and former child actor Macaulay Culkin appeared as witnesses for the defence and denied being abused by Jackson (Robson later revealed Jackson did sexually abuse him, and that he only recognised the grooming and abuse when he became a father himself) and the Arvizo family’s character was also dismantled in court.

But there are mountains of evidence suggesting Jackson was a paedophile who used his grotesque wealth and power to abuse children.

If my certainty was briefly shaken; well, by the end of watching The Trial, it had never been firmer.

The series presents more evidence than we’ve ever heard before, from witnesses who’ve never previously spoken out – people who are putting themselves squarely in the firing line of Jackson’s ferociously loyal fanbase simply by coming forward.

Not to mention: the accounts in Leaving Neverland from Robson and Safechuck – the latter said Jackson started abusing him when he was 10 years old – remain too compelling to ignore.

The crimes Jackson is accused of are unthinkable, and anyone who loved him could understandably struggle to accept them. But the evidence against him is too damning to be dismissed outright.

Ultimately, the truth was buried with Jackson – along with any justice his alleged victims may ever receive.

But the trauma of the witnesses speaking in The Trial seems abundantly clear decades on, and I don’t believe anyone could convincingly fake that sort of trauma; least of all for a few minutes of airtime.

I was boycotting The King of Pop’s music even before I watched The Trial. Now that I’ve seen it, I can’t imagine I’ll want to listen to a Michael Jackson song ever again.

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