HBO’s ‘Leaving Neverland’ shows why victims don’t always speak up

Invariably, the question arises any time accusations of past sexual abuse are raised against a powerful man: “Well, why did they wait so long to come forward then?”

It is always framed as persuasive proof of the victim’s dishonesty. Wouldn’t an honest person have spoken up sooner? What did they have to hide? What are they trying to get out of it now?

But what the past couple years of reckoning have shown us, and what Leaving Neverland now demonstrates to devastating effect, is that it’s not nearly so simple.

Structurally, Leaving Neverland is straightforward. Dan Reed’s four-hour, two-part documentary is built around in-depth interviews with Wade Robson and James Safechuck, two men who say they were abused by Michael Jackson as children. Their separate but similar tales unfold in chronological order, supplemented by archival photos and footage and sit-downs with their mothers, wives, and siblings.

The picture Leaving Neverland paints, though, is devilishly complicated. With heartbreaking honesty, Robson, Safechuck, and their loved ones examine these relationships from the inside – as well as the far-reaching consequences they’re still grappling with, years later. 

Hell-bent on letting the world know exactly what kind of man Jackson was, Leaving Neverland never shies away from grisly detail. Safechuck and Robson relay what was done to them in precise and thorough terms, and Reed often pairs their narratives with childhood photos meant to underline just how young they were when the abuse began: 10 years old for Safechuck, and seven years old for Robson.

But just as sickening, and just as revealing, are the descriptions of Jackson’s psychological manipulations, and the tangled emotions they engendered. We come to understand exactly what Jackson meant to these boys and their families, how his fame had a way of warping the reality around them, how difficult it was for each of them, even in adulthood, to comprehend the horrors that had been inflicted upon them by a man they once considered a friend. 

“It just didn’t seem that strange,” Robson remarks of the first time Jackson groped his genitals. He seems almost shocked at his own words, and needless to say, we are too. By this point, however, Leaving Neverland has shown us how that reaction would have made perfect sense in the distorted context Jackson created for himself and his victims – one in which the boys were equal participants instead of victims, and in which it was the outside world, not Jackson, that they needed to fear.

Leaving Neverland‘s strength lies in its willingness to engage with the complexity of these stories.

Most of the physical abuse is chronicled in Part 1; Part 2 follows the end of Safechuck and Robson’s sexual relationships with Jackson, and their journeys through adolescence and adulthood. But it’d be a mistake to assume Part 2 is any less essential to this narrative. Leaving Neverland is interested not just in the fact of the crimes themselves, but in what happens to the victims afterward.

Both Robson and Safechuck intended to keep secret their abusive relationships with Jackson, and went so far as to speak out in favor of Jackson when another boy, Jordan Chandler, accused Jackson of abusing him in 1993. (Robson also testified in Jackson’s defense at his 2005 child molestation trial.) It wasn’t until well into adulthood that both men revealed the truth to their loved ones and then to the public, each spurred by the breakdowns they suffered after having sons of their own.

Their reasons for their choices, every step of the way, are thorny and varied – a potent mix of love, shame, fear, and self-preservation – and the lingering impacts of Jackson’s violations aren’t always immediately obvious, even to Robson and Safechuck themselves. But Leaving Neverland‘s strength lies in its patience, and its willingness to engage with the complexity of these men’s stories.

Leaving Neverland does not spend any time raising possible defenses against Robson and Safechuck’s claims, and nor does it explore what this might mean for Jackson’s legacy. Some, particularly those inclined to believe in Jackson’s innocence, may take issue with this apparent one-sidedness. (The Jackson estate, for what it’s worth, strongly denies the claims in the documentary.)

Most, however, will likely find Leaving Neverland difficult to dismiss. By limiting its focus to Robson and Safechuck’s perspectives, the documentary serves an eye-opening look at the methods and consequences of child molestation, and of the power that allowed Jackson to get away with it.

Jackson, Robson recalls, framed their sexual activity as a way for them to show affection for one another, and told him to keep it a secret because “other people are ignorant, and they’re stupid, and they’d never understand.” Jackson wasn’t entirely wrong: For too long, too many of us did try very hard not to understand what was going on.

Where he may have miscalculated was the “never.” Leaving Neverland doesn’t offer any solution to the discomfort viewers are bound to feel after sitting through four hours of harrowing interviews. It simply presents this information for us to do with what we will. In doing so, it plays not like an out-of-the-blue attack against a beloved icon, but as a long-overdue corrective to the loud denials that Jackson offered us, and we allowed ourselves to accept.