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“He was one of the kindest, loving, gentle, most caring people I knew,” Robson says, “… and he also sexually abused me.”
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It does not demand your immediate sympathy for Robson and Safechuck, nor does it demand immediate condemnation of Jackson. It gives you permission to like him, to like his music, even to love him, because Robson and Safechuck did, and so did their families. Leaving Neverland is not a character assassination of Jackson. How glorious it is to feel liked, to feel special, because one of the most liked, special people in the world sees something in you. You’re thrilled, thrilled, just like young Jimmy and young Wade, when they’re first invited to Neverland Ranch and stay up past their bedtimes to eat junk food and watch movies that aren’t even in theaters yet. You’re marveling along with Robson when he meets his idol at age 5 after winning a dance contest in Australia. You’re humming along to the melodies of “Smooth Criminal,” smiling with Jackson as Safechuck is photographed jumping beside him after doing a Pepsi commercial with the King of Pop. It’s that ability - that compassion, and that patience - that ultimately makes Leaving Neverland so devastating. HBO’s two-part, four-hour documentary, which first airs March 3 and 4, intentionally mimics the contours of the sexually exploitative relationships Jackson allegedly had with two of his victims, Jimmy Safechuck and Wade Robson. It lets you love him until, finally, it’s impossible. Leaving Neverland knows you love Michael Jackson.