Legally, Reed and HBO have no obligation to include a denial by Jackson’s estate - you cannot defame a dead man, as it were. The larger issue with Leaving Neverland, though, is that for something that calls itself a “documentary,” it is woefully one-sided - and in some cases, conveniently selective about the information it chooses to include about its two subjects. (Even today, Robson’s mother sounds awed at the memory of her first trip to Jackson’s Neverland Ranch: “It’s like a fairy land.”) It’s all in the service of answering the question every viewer is bound to ask: But how on Earth did these boys end up having “sleepovers” with a grown man? As Robson, who says Jackson first abused him at age 7 during a family trip to Neverland, explains, “For me to look back on the scenario now, what you’d think would be kind of like standard instincts and judgment seemed to go out the window.” Part 1 of Neverland effectively establishes - through interviews with Robson and Safechuck, as well as their moms and siblings - how surreal, overwhelming, and intoxicating it was for these ordinary families to be the subject of so much attention from the most famous man on the planet. The singer took an immediate interest in the boys and quickly became a close family friend - having dinner at their houses, chatting daily on the phone with the boys and their moms, inviting them on trips. The four-hour film (airing March 3 and 4th on HBO) tells the “separate but parallel” stories of Robson and Safechuck, both of whom met Michael Jackson separately at the height of his fame.
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