‘Leaving Neverland’ doco exposing Michael Jackson’s abuse of Aussie dancer gets TV release

A dynamite new documentary on Michael Jackson has had the late singer’s estate all fired up since its premiere last month at Sundance Film Festival. Now, with HBO announcing a March 3 release date for Leaving Neverland, Team MJ is set to explode.

Jackson’s star’s estate has issued what’s been described as a blistering letter to HBO, underlining issues in the Dan Reed-directed documentary and requesting a meeting to find a “solution.”

And there’s no shortage of harsh words for the documentary makers or the two accusers who feature in the doco, one of whom is the Australian former child dancing star Wade Robson.

In the letter written by lawyer Howard Weitzman and addressed to HBO chief executive Richard Plepler, Leaving Neverland is slammed as a “one-sided, sensationalist program” which ignores journalistic ethics.

What the letter doesn’t do is threaten legal repercussions should HBO air the doco, but MJ’s reps let rip with a volley of warnings. “That HBO has now joined the tabloid media’s ‘Michael Jackson cacophony’—ten years after his death—is truly sad,” the letter reads. “We know that HBO is facing serious competitive pressures from Netflix, Amazon and other more modern content providers, but to stoop to this level to regain an audience is disgraceful. We know HBO and its partners on this documentary will not be successful. We know that this will go down as the most shameful episode in HBO’s history.”

Leaving Neverland, which takes its name from Neverland Ranch, the California estate where Jackson lived from 1988 to 2003, left some filmgoers in tears and was immediately hailed by critics as an urgent, important film when it debuted at Sundance.

Friends, family and supporters of Jackson weren’t quite so enthusiastic about the film, which contained explicit descriptions of sexual abuse, as told by Robson and James Safechuck. In the leadup to its screening, Jackson’s estate slammed the doco as “yet another lurid production in an outrageous and pathetic attempt to exploit and cash in” on the dead artist.

Michael Jackson

The film goes into granular detail on the two boys’ relationship with Jackson at the peak of his fame and how they were kept apart from their parents for long stints.

Brisbane-born Robson, who has enjoyed a successful career as a dancer and choreographer and directed music videos and world tours for such artists as *NSYNC and Britney Spears, testified on behalf of the King of Pop at his 2005 trial in Santa Maria, Calif., claiming that while he’d slept in Jackson’s room many times, the star had never molested him.

Now in his 30s, Robson, says he was indeed abused by Jackson from the ages of 7 to 14, and has said he was the victim of “complete manipulation and brainwashing.” In 2013 he filed an amended complaint against Jackson’s estate. As Leaving Neverland premiered, Robson explained, “It’s all we’ve wanted for the past six years to be able to talk, communicate.”

With the HBO premiere looming, the Michael Jackson Estate is said to be unhappy that Reed didn’t seek out its views on allegations from Robson and Safechuck and tells HBO that litigations with these two men “made it unequivocally clear that they had no credibility whatsoever.”

HBO won’t budge. The criticism “doesn’t change our plans,” HBO programming president Casey Bloys told Variety. “We announced the air date. It will air as planned.”

HBO will air Leaving Neverland in two parts, on March 3 and 4.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.