Michael Jackson and the legacy we can’t escape

With a second Leaving Neverland’ film out, Laura Barton wonders if you can ever truly separate the art from the artist

- Laura Barton

It is now six years since the release of Dan Reed’s documentary Leaving Neverland, a film that cast the late megastar Michael Jackson as a serial paedophile. Over four hours, Reed profiled two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who allege Jackson abused them when they were young children. The details were harrowing – the lavishness of their seduction, the closed doors and elaborate warning systems, the spare telling of the acts that took place.

The response, among critics and film festival audiences, was commendatory, and the film seemed then part of the wider groundswell that led to the toppling of a number of monolithic men – among them R Kelly, Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby. Their work has duly been tarnished as a result. The fact that the same has not happened to Jackson is intriguing, and certainly attributable to more than the absence of a conviction.

But in some fierce quarters, Leaving Neverland was denounced; Jackson’s estate called it lurid, outrageous, pathetic. Furious fans rallied outside screenings. Even the less fervent wondered whether perhaps the allegations were rooted in some great misunderstanding. Others accused Robson and Safechuck of being little more than opportunists, in search of fame and fortune. Reed received death threats.

That the three would be prepared to re-enter the fray for Leaving Neverland 2 might seem surprising, but this sister documentary, broadcast this week, is an important work, one that follows both the men’s 10-year legal journey, and the fallout of the original film. It explores how speaking publicly can lead to an almost excavatory trauma, and forces us to question, once again, why we remain so in thrall to Michael Jackson.

In the immediate aftermath of the original