Reed is not judgmental he acknowledges that once your life is invaded by magic - a substance more addictive than money or love (for which you will mistake it) - you will not willingly let it go. Conveying this is a singular accomplishment. Ironically (or fittingly?), the slow reveal of Jackson’s actions over the years (thanks to many journalists, documentarians, and online researchers) contributed to that cultural shift, and Leaving Neverland will take its place as a milestone in continued understanding of the phenomenon.īefore they became tales of abuse, heartbreak, and cruel abandonment, Robson’s and Safechuck’s stories were love stories.
![michael jackson man in the mirror dedication michael jackson man in the mirror dedication](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/livingglobally-140225062738-phpapp01/95/living-globally-3-638.jpg)
Americans undertook this late-breaking examination in the 1980s, around the same time that these two men say the abuse began. Robson and Safechuck speak about their experiences with a frankness and lack of shame made possible by three decades of confrontation with the human propensity for pedophilia, a compulsion from which no country, social class, or profession is immune. We are hardwired to feel happy for people in love. The stories of James Safechuck and Wade Robson are textbook cases of child seduction, illustrated by miles of video and still footage in which pheromones bounce off of Jackson and his boy friends, whose exuberance in each other’s company is disturbingly infectious.
![michael jackson man in the mirror dedication michael jackson man in the mirror dedication](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-1LUJC0OeGE/SkTd2OG7lLI/AAAAAAAAFJE/2uR1UbSpjJ8/s400/man_in_the_mirror_front.jpg)
![michael jackson man in the mirror dedication michael jackson man in the mirror dedication](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LgQ66jdg5GU/maxresdefault.jpg)
NOT HAVING PAID strict attention to Michael Jackson’s lyrics before his death, I spent three decades singing, “The chair is not my son” whenever anyone played “Billie Jean.” That changed after I saw Leaving Neverland, the Dan Reed–directed HBO documentary in which two men speak about childhoods spent as Jackson’s special friends.