Regardless of whether you’ve watched Dan Reed’s documentary Leaving Neverland, the film that charts the alleged abuse by Michael Jackson of two young boys, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, it will have been hard to avoid the outpouring of emotion that it’s triggered.
Since it aired first in the US and then on Channel 4 earlier this month, a fierce debate has raged around the disturbing footage of Robson and Safechuck recalling their alleged abuse. The two men, now 36 and 40 respectively, described in harrowing detail the grooming, sexual abuse and intimidation they claim lasted for years after they had first met Jackson (who died in June 2009) in the ’80s. They say they were manipulated into having sex with Jackson, who became so entangled in their lives that their families often allowed them to spend time alone with him at his Neverland ranch in California.
Many of those who watched the two-part, four-hour documentary seemed to be in little doubt that Robson and Safechuck were telling the truth – so disturbing and graphic were their stories and so clear the distress etched on their faces. Film-maker Louis Theroux capturedthe emotions of many when he tweeted: ‘If you can’t see that Michael Jackson was a paedophile after watching @danreed1000’s film you are being wilfully blind. And if you are campaigning against it you are actively colluding in the silencing of victims.’
The singer’s army of fans were not going to be silenced, though, and they took to Twitter in their hundreds of thousands with the hashtag #MJisInnocent. One group even crowdfunded adverts on London buses and tubes to proclaim his innocence (though these have now been removed). Since news of the documentary, the singer’s only daughter Paris Jackson has been thrust back into the spotlight. In January, shortly before the highly anticipated HBO lm premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, the 20-year-old was reported to have been taken to a rehab centre over concerns for her mental health.
At the time, a source told Entertainment Tonight that Paris had ‘decided that she needed to take some time out to reboot, realign and prioritise her physical and emotional health’. Paris had previously sought medical help after her attempt to take her own life in 2013. She told Rolling Stone magazine in 2017 that she did so because she never felt she could ‘do anything right’ and had subsequently been put on the same antidepressants her father had been prescribed.
Paris has become a public face of this most recent scandal, both for Jackson fans who want to support her, and those seeking some form of acknowledgement or apology from her about the horrific abuse her father is alleged to have perpetrated. This continual hounding of her feels increasingly uncomfortable to watch. While her brothers Michael, 22, and Prince Michael II (known as Blanket), 17, keep out of the public eye, Paris has been making headlines. This is partly because she has been active on social media in the wake of the documentary, responding to fans and critics of her father – in many posts seeming as though she was trying to keep the peace.
In one message last week, she told her 1.32 million followers, ‘y’all take my life more seriously than i do. calm yo tittaaaaysss’, then added, ‘i didn’t mean to offend... i know injustices are frustrating and it’s easy to get worked up. but reacting with a calm mind usually is more logical than acting out of rage and also.... it feels better to mellow out.’ She later added, ‘smoke some weed n think about the bigger picture. chillax my dudes’. In another she said she didn’t think it would be possible to ‘tear down’ her father’s name. In response, Paris was told that she should denounce Michael. One follower called her ‘Brainwashed’, while another told her, ‘The kids were abused and his actions ruined many lives. I’m sorry that your love affair with his talent blinds you to real tragedies.’
Paris has been accused of living in denial, partly because she has previously told Rolling Stone that she believed he was innocent of the multiple child abuse allegations made against him, saying, ‘Nobody experienced him being a father to them. And if they did, the entire perception of him would be completely and forever changed.’ While it’s not clear whether she has even seen Leaving Neverland, or whether she still genuinely believes her father to be innocent, one thing is very clear: Paris is a vulnerable young woman, with a history of mental health problems and self-harm, living in an extreme and terrifyingly cloistered world that very few of us could begin to understand.
She says that when her father died, she and her brothers lost the only good thing in their lives. Her circle is relatively small. She only discovered who her mother, Debbie Rowe, was when she was 13, after doing research online. Besides the Jackson family, her godfather Macaulay Culkin and her new boyfriend Gabriel Glen are said to be the closest people to her. Her life is the furthest thing from normal you can imagine – and she is shouldering a huge and devastating legacy. Meanwhile, Radar Online ran a story last Wednesday claiming that Paris was ‘spiralling out of control’, having been on ‘a two-day bender’ – accompanied by photographs of her at LA bars and a post that she had shared on social media of herself smoking a bong.
Paris shouldn’t be held accountable for her father’s alleged crimes. It’s natural, however, that she might feel moved to defend him. It’s not the first time: after Michael’s death, an 11-year-old Paris elected to speak at her father’s funeral. Fighting back tears, she told mourners at the Staples Center in LA, ‘Ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine. And I just want to say that I love him so much.’
‘I knew afterward there was gonna be plenty of shit-talking,’ Paris said during her interview with Rolling Stone in 2017. ‘Plenty of people questioning him and how he raised us. at was the first time I ever publicly defended him, and it definitely won’t be the last.’ The Jackson family’s stance is clear: Michael’s nephew Taj has spoken out to condemn the documentary, and they have begun a legal battle to sue HBO for $100 million. Paris’s personal battle, however, is going to be something far more difficult.