{"id":410,"date":"2026-04-24T21:57:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T21:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/04\/24\/as-michael-opens-leaving-neverland-accuser-james-safechuck-issues-message-to-abuse-survivors\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T21:57:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T21:57:00","slug":"as-michael-opens-leaving-neverland-accuser-james-safechuck-issues-message-to-abuse-survivors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/04\/24\/as-michael-opens-leaving-neverland-accuser-james-safechuck-issues-message-to-abuse-survivors\/","title":{"rendered":"As \u2018Michael\u2019 Opens, \u2018Leaving Neverland\u2019 Accuser James Safechuck Issues Message to Abuse Survivors"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\tJames Safechuck<\/a>, one of two men whose allegations of childhood sexual abuse by Michael<\/a> Jackson anchored HBO\u2019s 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland<\/a><\/em>, has released a video message to other survivors of childhood sexual abuse, timed to the renewed publicity surrounding the upcoming Jackson biopic Michael<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\tDistributed by Safechuck\u2019s attorney John Carpenter of the Los Angeles plaintiffs\u2019 firm Carpenter & Zuckerman, the video addresses other survivors of childhood sexual abuse. \t<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThe Michael<\/em> movie\u2019s coming out and it\u2019s getting a lot of promotion,\u201d says Safechuck, 48. \u201cThere\u2019s billboards and commercials and just people praising Michael and it can be triggering for survivors who have their own Michael in their lives, whether it\u2019s the priest who\u2019s close to God or the sports coach who\u2019s just helping the kids or the step-parent who\u2019s supporting the family. <\/p>\n

\t\u201cOur abusers are praised sometimes, even after we come out and tell the truth,\u201d he continues. \u201cAnd I just wanted to let you know that you\u2019re not alone and that there\u2019s other survivors out there that understand what you\u2019re going through and that are there with you. And that if you\u2019re feeling all the feels, then lean into people that are close to you, lean into people that support you and that give you love and know that you\u2019re not alone.\u00a0\u2026 [T]elling the truth and telling what happened is a good thing and that it\u2019s part of your healing.\u201d \t<\/p>\n

\tSafechuck is a plaintiff in an ongoing civil suit against Jackson\u2019s corporate entities, MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures, which a California appeals court revived in 2023 after years of dismissals. <\/p>\n

\tMichael, directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Jaafar Jackson \u2014 Michael Jackson<\/a>\u2018s nephew \u2014 as the late singer, is already breaking box office records as it heads into its opening weekend<\/a>. Michael<\/em>\u00a0earned a huge $12.6 million in Wednesday and Thursday previews, putting it on course to open to $70 million-plus domestically, the top start ever for a music<\/a> biopic.<\/p>\n

\tDan Reed, the director of Leaving Neverland<\/em>, told The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> in an interview<\/a> that \u201cpeople don\u2019t care that [Jackson] was a child molester. Literally, people just don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThe Jackson estate has consistently denied the allegations made by Safechuck and fellow Leaving Neverland<\/em> subject Wade Robson, saying after the project\u2019s 2019 Emmy win, \u201cThe film takes uncorroborated allegations that supposedly happened 20 years ago and treats them as fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tSafechuck\u2019s attorney Carpenter tells THR<\/em> his client was \u201cstruggling with everybody celebrating his abuser,\u201d leading him to make the video. \u201cThe most successful abusers, be they Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, priests, coaches, relatives or Cesar Chavez, tend to have inordinate power and\/or influence, which translated into misplaced trust,\u201d Carpenter says. \u201cIt\u2019s very powerful. It\u2019s powerfully hurtful when people are celebrating their abuser. And so I think that\u2019s what\u2019s happening right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tCarpenter says he does not expect Robson to put out a statement regarding Michael<\/em>. As for the pending trial, Carpenter says the date is currently \u201cin flux\u201d but expects it to happen \u201csometime in 2027.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James Safechuck, one of two men whose allegations of childhood sexual abuse by Michael Jackson anchored HBO\u2019s 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, has released a video message to other survivors of childhood sexual abuse, timed to the renewed publicity surrounding the upcoming Jackson biopic Michael. Distributed by Safechuck\u2019s attorney John Carpenter of the Los Angeles plaintiffs\u2019 firm Carpenter & Zuckerman, the video addresses other survivors of childhood sexual abuse. \u201cThe Michael movie\u2019s coming out and it\u2019s getting a lot of promotion,\u201d says Safechuck, 48. \u201cThere\u2019s billboards and commercials and just people praising Michael and it can be triggering for survivors who have their own Michael in their lives, whether it\u2019s the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,101,102,84,26,27,60,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hollywood","category-james-safechuck","category-leaving-neverland","category-michael","category-michael-jackson","category-movie-news","category-movies","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}