Strong ratings for Michael Jackson ‘exposes’ on Seven and Nine
It took the 10th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death and the revival of legal action over R. Kelly for Nine’s 60 Minutes and Seven’s Sunday Night to investigate recently regurgitated accusations against pop’s Peter Pan.
Was he just compensating for a lost childhood or was there something darker and more perverse at play at Neverland?
Both Nine and Seven were up against each other last night with Jackson features.
60 Minutes drew 1.077 million overnight metro viewers and was the second most popular show last night, after Married At First Sight with 1.65 million.
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Sunday Night had 680,000 metros and ranked #5 last night.
There was precious little fresh ground covered, certainly nothing not dealt with in Jackson’s 2005 court case, in which a jury unanimously rejected all 14 charges and brought about the downfall of an ambitious district attorney.
“Opportunists out to make a buck,” Jackson’s lawyer Tom Mesereau dismissed the latest accusers.
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Among the accusers were Australian choreographer Wade Robson and one-time child actor James Safechuck, as well as a former maid Adrian McManus who admitted on camera she was caught stealing a large sum of money from the singer, and one of his former security team, Melanie Bagnell.
McManus, who appeared on both shows, was responsible for cleaning Jackson’s bedroom and related of his underwear along with that of his 10—12-year-old guests (“I noticed there were a lot of little boys who’d be hanging around, you wouldn’t see little girls”) found in his jacuzzi, bed, and clothes closet.
Bagnell had similar testimony, alleging Jackson was big on fondling and kissing his young guests.
Asked why they didn’t report these incidents back then, both insisted they were afraid to, and Bagnell belatedly apologised to the kids.
McManus called Jackson a “manipulator” and claimed the singer personally called her once and asked her eight times, “what do you know?”
Not to be left out, Ten Network is screening the HBO two-part four-hour documentary Leaving Neverland, directed by Dan Reed, and mostly featuring Robson and Safechuck.
The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year to inevitable controversy.
It is scheduled t premieres Friday, March 8 at 9pm, and Saturday, March 9, at 9:30pm on 10 and WIN Network.
It remains to be seen if the $100 million injunction by the Jackson estate to stop HBO from screening it in America will affect the Australian screening.
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