Michael Jackson's friends who don't appear in Leaving Neverland

The testimonies of James Safechuck and Wade Robson have opened a wound that was thought to be closed: is Michael Jackson a child molester? The Leaving Neverland whistleblowers, who joined Jordan Chandler - whose father Evan led a legal action - and Gavin Arvizo - supported by the Santa Barbara Sheriff and his family - represent only a minor portion of all the friends the singer had. and eventually gave up. Here, a tour of some of those stories, sometimes noticed by the media, others, consulted by the courts on the two occasions that Jackson was in check.

It is the time of Off the wall, Michael Jackson's fifth solo album, but one of the truly most important in his career: it marks the beginning of his collaborations with producer Quincy Jones, who knew how to make all the arrangements come true that the musician wanted in his recordings or simply in his imagination and showed in a beat box key. Jones and Jackson worked together on the production of The Wiz, a film in which Jackson starred formally.

At that time, whoever was the king of pop began to shine like never before in his role as composer, arranger, singer and dancer, but there also began what Paul McCartney recently defined as "the dark side": his friendship with minors

Terry George

It was a 13-year-old boy from Leeds who was called holy by Michael Jackson at 9pm two or three times a week for five months.

Their friendship began with a visit by Terry to the hotel where the star was staying, seeking an interview with him. "He invited me to his hotel and we got along great. When he was about to leave, he invited me to see us the next day," George told the Daily Mirror.

According to George, they had such a good time that the musician asked for her phone number to keep in touch. "It made me feel special. It caught my attention to learn that he had a hotline to a celebrity, so I agreed and he promised he would call me."

There was a night when the singer sounded different on the other end of the line. "He was silent. I asked him if he was still there. Then out of nowhere he asked me if I masturbated. And if I did, did he use cream? I was puzzled. I said no, I didn't know what he meant." Jackson was 21 years old at the time.

"When I stopped talking, he said, 'Would you believe I'm doing it now?' And I could hear on the line that he was making strange noises. It made me feel confused and uncomfortable," George said.

Despite the inconvenience, they kept in touch until the boy's parents decided they would not speak anymore.

Emmanuel Lewis

This boy, averaging 1.5 meters tall, was a television star who knew how to be friends with Michael Jackson for many years. They attended the 1984 Grammys together, traveled to Disney World - sharing a room - and shared the stage at Victory Tour concerts.

When Michael Jackson suffered serious burns during the filming of a Pepsi commercial -he was compensated with an amount that he later allocated to the creation of a foundation to help children burned-, the singer spent long months recovering at the home of the Lewis.

In 1993, Emmanuel Lewis - like Wade Robson and James Safechuck - declared before the media that Michael Jackson had never gone too far with him.

Jonathan Spencer

He is one of Michael Jackson's most discreet companions. They were together on the set of Captain EO. "I met Michael when I was five years old. He was friends with a son of his brother Tito, with whom he was a classmate at school in Encino. My friend invited me to one of his uncle Michael's concerts," Spence said in 1995 according to the MJ and Boys site.

Back in 1984, he visited Disney with Michael Jackson and other friends. "Jonathan was one of the boys I was most obsessed with. I remember he had beautiful blue eyes that drove him crazy. Michael loved him very much, and in his room he had many photos of him, even more than his own family. The I saw them hugging and kissing, but never anything sexual between them. Although the boy stayed and slept in the same bed as Michael. I'm sure of it, because I was the one who changed the sheets," said Estela Rodriguez, a former employee at Hayvenhurst, the Jackson's home that preceded Neverland.

Blanca Francia, who is one of the witnesses who testified against Michael Jackson in 1993 before the singer and his lawyers sealed the case by offering money to the plaintiffs, said she never saw Spence's mother or father around, except difference from other cases. "The boy called Michael daddy," said the employee, who was told by her son that Michael Jackson had messed with him, which is why they received two million dollars from the singer to avoid any legal action.

The infants who accompanied Jackson were defined as "special friends" in the 1993 lawsuit and Tom Sneddon's investigation. As in this excerpt from the 1993 legal text that you can review in its entirety here where Blanca Francia declared before the law that she found Jonathan Spence's underwear in MJ's bedroom, in addition to having seen them share the jacuzzi.

Orietta Murdock, who also testified at law in the 1993 indictment against Michael Jackson, said MJ once gave Spence a Ford Mustang convertible.

In the 1993 indictment, comment was made on a photo of a nude teenager that had been found among Michael Jackson's belongings of Hayvenhurst, along with adult magazines. The description of the image and its protagonist matched Jonathan Spence, whom the police should have interviewed.

The aforementioned photo appears commented on by a former security guard at Jackson's former home -Leroy Thomas- whom he would have ordered to destroy it, is quoted by Blanca Francia, who told the press at the time that Jackson took "polaroids of the children who accompanied him.

That story is also part of a story included in Víctor Gutiérrez's book, Michael Jackson was my lover, which deals with the case of Jordie Chandler. In that book Spence appears giving the only known statements of him about MJ. "He bought me everything I wanted and invited me to work with him. That made me feel very important," said Gutiérrez, who lost a lawsuit against the king of pop for not being able to prove the existence of a video in which MJ abused. sexually from one of his nephews, son of Jermaine Jackson.

Sean Lennon

This is a not so well known story that had a decant through music and video clip, quite worthy of Michael Jackson. The son of John Lennon, lead singer and songwriter for The Beatles, was a friend of Michael Jackson. Together with his friend Mark Ronson they spent nights with the interpreter in North America.

As many images show, Sean Lennon was part of "Applehead's Club", as Michael Jackson's friends who visited Neverland as special guests knew each other. Mark Ronson, his mutual friend with the singer, said in 2008 that he and Sean were exposed to pornography during a sleepover where they were both about ten years old.

The friendship of Sean Lennon and Michael Jackson ran more or less along the same path as with the best-known cases - Jordan Chandler or Macaulay Culkin, for example. There was a moment of fascination and quite often between the two. Sleepovers at both of their houses, visits to Neverland and photos with his mother -Yoko Ono-, until he began to move away or be moved away as he grew up.

In 2016, Sean Lennon released a video clip for the song "Bubble's Burst." Supposedly, it tells of Michael Jackson's relationship with his chimpanzee, whom he gave up for adoption when he became an adult. The video shows how the animal refuses contact with Jackson until he convinces him and they become friends - the images he uses can be considered suggestive. After that, the friendship between Jackson and the animal begins, where he teaches him to dance and plays with him until they are interrupted by a police officer who looks a lot like Tom Sneddon, the policeman who twice brought Jackson to justice. About the intention of the video and its possible scope, Lennon spoke in 2016.

"Nothing illegal happened to me, but the whole place - Neverland - felt like I was in a Peter Pan fantasy land. And there was this feeling that when Bubbles got too old, I would have to get rid of him, because chimpanzees become either angry adults or dangerous adults. And I felt like that was kind of related to me, in terms of the whole situation. Because there was something Michael liked about hanging out with kids: they're so innocent and fun. Then, when you become an adult, you feel like a chimpanzee: too old for me to play with you," he said.

This is the video:

https://youtu.be/nxH8Bc0cHok

Macaulay Culkin

The retired actor is probably, along with Wade Robson, the man who saved Michael Jackson from going to jail in 2005. His testimony, as recorded in Leaving Neverland, was key to the singer being found not guilty of ten charges that included sexual abuse of children, in addition to having given them alcohol.

In 1990, he became friends with the singer, who sought him out especially after seeing him in action as a film actor. Hence the story sounds familiar: sleepovers in Neverland, trips together and collaborations. In this case, Culkin was the protagonist of the "Black or White" video.

Jackson invited the boy to the set of "Jam" and he in turn invited the singer to the set of My Little Angel 2: Lost in New York. Jordan Chandler's statements before the courts and Víctor Gutiérrez's book point him out as one of the musician's "special friends", which is why he was required by the police and Jackson's defense in 1993 and 2005.

Jackson and the actor's friendship didn't abate over the years, but it followed the same cycle as with their other friends: growing intense until Culkin was 14, then they kept in touch with less intensity. Culkin appears in MJ's thirty-year career special with Elizabeth Taylor and is godfather to Paris Jackson, the singer's only daughter.

Culkin has openly stated that he shared a room with Jackson, as in this interview with Larry King:

More on Michael Jackson

https://youtu.be/XPew3KZ9HaM

The singer himself admitted to sharing a bed with Culkin in an interview with Martin Bashir for the controversial documentary Living With Michael Jackson.

In the 1993 indictment, several witnesses referred to Culkin's relationship with the singer. Adrian McManus said he saw Jackson kissing Culkin, as well as having her hand on the boy's genitals. Blanca Francia said she saw the boy sharing a bed with Jackson and found his underwear in the room.

Macaulay Culkin, like Wade Robson and James Safechuck for years, has always denied being abused by Michael Jackson. You can read his testimony at the 2005 trial here.

Brett Barnes

Part 1 of Leaving Neverland culminates with a statement by Wade Robson depicting how painful it was to be replaced as Michael Jackson's "special friend" by another boy of Australian origin.

Barnes, who has always been an outspoken defender of the singer, actually came after James Safechuck in Jackson's life. He met the king of pop during his Bad tour and his story is, in part, very similar to the one told by Wade Robson in Leaving Neverland: his parents contacted the singer, who invited them to the ranch of the.

Hence the pattern is also similar: a Jackson employee stated that he had seen him accompanied by Barnes in the same situation previously reported with Macaulay Culkin.

They went on vacation to Africa and toured the world with the singer, in addition to declaring to the media that they had shared a bed but nothing else had happened, as this video shows:

https://youtu.be/UOr2NpMIDnU

Brett Barnes declared before the court that he had accompanied Michael Jackson in bed until he was 19 years old without anything sexually occurring, despite having been pointed out by Jordan Chandler as another of the children abused by the interpreter.

Jordan Chandler

Michael Jackson's story with Jordan Chandler ended in court and with the singer paying millions of dollars to the family, although his fans take pains to pretend that this money came from "his insurance company."

They met because Jordie's stepfather had a car rental company that the King of Pop had to turn to. Jordan, a fan of the singer, introduced himself and they liked each other to such an extent that they continued in telephone contact, as happened so many times in the life of Jackson's friends.

According to statements by Jordan Chandler in the 1993 indictment, Michael Jackson wept at his refusal to put his tongue in his ear and manipulated him by crying, comparing his disposition to that of Brett Barnes.

Hence the pattern of Jackson's "special friendship" kicking in: trips, invitations to Neverland and obscure details from witnesses. You can read what the witnesses said in this case at this link.

The sexual activity of Jordan Chandler and Michael Jackson did not seem to bother his mother, who, when consulted by Jordi's biological father, said that everything was fine if her son was gay, according to the book All That Glitters, which tells how Michael Jackson reached an out-of-court agreement with Jordan Chandler's family to stop the civil lawsuit.

The story goes that Jordan Chandler could testify against Michael Jackson in a criminal trial just the same, regardless of the settlement, but for some reason backed out.

Over the years, Jordi came to declare that it was all his father's idea to get out of poverty. Dan Reede, director of Leaving Neverland, for his part, said that he would like to have Jordan Chandler's testimony in a hypothetical second part of his documentary.

Frank, Eddie and Dominic Cascio

The Cascio brothers have historically defended Michael Jackson against allegations of child abuse.

According to them, their friendship with the singer followed the same patterns as with other children: phone calls and invitations to play, watch movies and other children's activities. The difference? They only visited Neverland in 1993.

The Cascios together with Brett Barnes were the children who accompanied Michael Jackson on the Dangerous tour that brought him to Chile. In the images of the landing, you can see that they are the first to get off the plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSDca3Y93wk

A short time ago the manager of the hotel confessed that they manipulated water pistols that they filled with alcohol -Dom Perignon Champagne-. In addition, she explained the confusing incident that made the singer suspend one of his two presentations: playing on the hotel stairs with his friends, he was trapped for long minutes, which caused him a panic attack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfxhNnkoLUk

They accompanied the singer for many years on his travels around the world. At the end of 1995, when Jackson separated from Lisa Marie Presley -according to the publications of the time because she did not pay attention to her constant distractions with her friends- the Cascios were still there.

In the documentary Michael Jackson: the life of an icon, Frank -who began working for the king of pop when he came of age- can be seen recounting a version that contradicts Gavin Arvizo, a boy who in 2005 led MJ on trial for indecent assault.

Other friends

Michael Jackson had many friends, always the same age. Their friendships were not always at odds with strictly legal matters, they did not always have to give a statement in any of the cases in which they were involved, but there is a record, for example, of cases like Aaron Carter, who has publicly said he wanted to hit Wade Robson for the accusations against the king of pop, although in the past he has confessed to receiving alcohol from him when he was a minor privately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLg0gn7h2fA

Jackson had a special friend

. He was accused of possessing photos of co-stars on the short Ghosts posing nude.

Gavin Arvizo, his family and the Santa Barbara sheriff revived questions of his conduct in 2003. The boy claimed to have been masturbated by Michael Jackson in an interview with police.

https://youtu.be/GproPyRYlh4

Michael Jackson ended his life accompanied by Omer Bhatti, a boy who was with him in medical emergencies, received a dedication on the Invincible album, and at the time of his death, sat with the Jackson family at his funeral.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlZTlHoW3jQ

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