This week, Netflix released the three-part docuseries Michael Jackson: The Verdict, that re-examines the pop star's highly publicized 2005 child molestation trial, through new interviews with jurors, attorneys, and journalists, to provide an inside look at the court proceedings. Because no cameras were allowed in the courtroom, the series relies on the recollections of its participants as well as the evidence presented at trial. For many viewers, particularly younger ones, it may be the first time they've encountered the actual case against him in any meaningful detail.

For those of us who are old enough to have lived through the trial, our collective memory of it is as more of a cultural event than a criminal case. People remember Jackson dancing on the roof of an SUV, arriving late to court, showing up in pajama bottoms, and the carnival atmosphere surrounding the Santa Maria courthouse. They remember the verdict. What they often don't remember are the witness testimonies, corroborative evidence, grooming materials, confidential settlements, and ruthless tactics employed by the defense.

Part of that amnesia is simply the passage of time. But part of it may also be the result of what happened after Jackson’s death. In the years since 2009, the Michael Jackson Estate has undertaken one of the most successful reputation-rehabilitation campaigns in modern entertainment. Through films, documentaries, Broadway productions, licensing deals, museum exhibitions, social media campaigns, legal challenges, and strategic media partnerships, the image of Michael Jackson that has been preserved for a new generation is primarily that of a musical genius and cultural icon.

The allegations never disappeared. But they gradually ceased to occupy the same central place in the public story.

The new Netflix series, however, has tilled the dirt that the Estate seemingly worked very hard to sweep under the rug. It’s the biggest blow to Jackson’s legacy in America since the 2019 Emmy Award-winning HBO docuseries Leaving Neverland. That doc—which explores the parallel experiences of two adult men who allege that the singer groomed and abused them as children—is no longer available for viewing for anyone in the U.S. or Canada. That’s because the Estate launched a multi-year legal campaign using a decades-old contract and ultimately succeeded in forcing HBO into arbitration and, later, a settlement that resulted in the film being removed from HBO's streaming platform. It’s just one example of when something is perceived as a serious reputational threat, the Estate doesn't simply issue statements—it goes hard in the paint. An extraordinary amount of money depends on preserving Michael Jackson’s commercial viability.

Over the past 16 years, the Michael Jackson Estate has evolved into a sprawling legacy-management operation, one dedicated not only to generating revenue from Jackson's music and likeness, but to shaping the story that survives him. Since his death, Michael Jackson has been transformed from a drug-addicted financially distressed celebrity stained by child molestation allegations into a professionally managed intellectual property asset whose commercial value depends on the active maintenance of his public image. And by the Estate’s own telling in court documents, “the Executors have successfully rebuilt and enhanced Michael Jackson’s image.”

To understand how Jackson's reputation evolved from that of a disgraced superstar to a cultural icon, I turned to an unlikely and boring source: probate court. Over the past several weeks, I reviewed years of estate accountings and supporting filings, which collectively tell the story of an organization engaged in far more than routine estate administration. Buried among the spreadsheets and schedules is a roadmap for how the Estate monetized Jackson's brand, challenged threats to it, and worked to ensure that future generations would remember him primarily as an artist rather than a defendant.

The Estate has become a massive commercial enterprise whose financial success depends, at least in part, on maintaining Michael Jackson's viability as a cultural icon. And over the years, a growing number of people—including former accusers, family members, and beneficiaries—have accused its leadership of employing aggressive tactics in service of that goal.

When Leaving Neverland came out, it threatened to destroy the value of Jackson’s reputation that the Estate worked so hard to rebuild. According to the 2026 complaint filed by the Cascio siblings, in the wake of the documentary, the Estate deployed a private investigator, Scott Weisberg—known as Harvey Weinstein’s “secret weapon”—to identify and neutralize potential accusers. The complaint claims the Estate embedded representatives into their lives through deceptive practices, gained their trust, discouraged independent counsel, and then used that trust to secure their silence. The complaint also claims that the Estate ultimately persuaded the Cascios to sign what was presented as a “life rights” or “consulting” agreement but was, in reality, a sweeping settlement that provided each sibling roughly $690,000 annually for five years in exchange for confidentiality, non-disparagement, and releases of liability.

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For the better part of a year, the internet has spoken about Euphoria’s third season with the doom of a terminal cancer diagnosis: The cast hates each other. Sam Levinson is toxic. Zendaya is disgusted. The writing sucks. HBO wants the show over. This is definitely the final season.

And yet, this past Sunday, HBO aired a trailer for the finale calling it not a series finale, but a season finale. It occurred to me that there was never any official announcement that the third season of Euphoria would be its last. The discourse around the hit drama has become so rumor-saturated that speculative language somehow calcified into “fact.” It made me question whether any of the scuttlebutt and negativity swirling around the show was true. I decided to trace each piece of gossip back to its point of origin to see whether there was anything solid under the sediment. I sifted through DeuxMoi submissions, Reddit conspiracies, and entertainment trade reports to separate documented fact from collective hallucination. The actual reporting was much narrower and more industry-normal than the yarn that formed around it.

What I discovered is that the Euphoria fandom exhibits uniquely intense parasocial dynamics, heavily blurring the lines between the actors' personal lives and their on-screen traumas. Instead of simply enjoying the drama, fans seem to feel obligated to “save” or advocate for their favorite stars. The result is a lot of social media noise campaigning against Levinson or the co-stars deemed responsible for putting the actors through emotional stress. Narratives seem to emerge from a gradual pileup of assumptions, entertainment headlines, internet telephone, and straight-up projection. It’s weird.

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Michael—the Michael Jackson biopic starring his nephew Jaafar Jackson and directed by Antoine Fuqua—is a box office smash. Since opening on April 24, it has made nearly $600 million globally. The film, which covers the time from Jackson’s debut in the Jackson 5 in the 1960s to his first solo tour at the end of the 1980s, allows the viewer to bask in the dazzling glow of Jackson’s ascent to stardom, before a string of ever-growing child molestation allegations cast a dark shadow over his legacy.

That wasn’t always the case. The movie originally opened amidst the scandal of the 1993 allegations, with its third act focusing on how those allegations impacted Jackson’s life. Despite the involvement of his estate and family—five of his siblings and one of his children are credited as producers—the filmmakers were unaware of a confidentiality agreement in the 1994 settlement between Jackson and his accuser, Jordan Chandler, that included restrictions surrounding the commercial use of Chandler’s story. (Jackson was sued twice before he died for breach of contract of that settlement.) It wasn’t until Fuqua was submitting his final cut that he was told the film needed to be changed, which necessitated rewrites and reshoots. The resulting edit is a feel-good crowd pleaser that allows audiences to experience the legend without having to contend with the allegations that darkened the second half of his life.

In the Epstein era, the public has developed a near-obsessive literacy around grooming, power, and the mechanics of abuse—except, apparently, when the accused is Michael Jackson. Last month, Fuqua—who’s perhaps best known for directing Training Day for which Denzel Washington won the Academy Award for Best Actor—told The New Yorker that he doesn’t know the truth of the allegations, but that “sometimes people do some nasty things for some money.” It read to me as a tacit admission that he doesn’t believe the allegations against Jackson. While Fuqua was able to rewrite his film, nobody can rewrite history. But that hasn’t stopped Jackson’s fans from trying.

His fanbase—sometimes referred to as Moonwalkers—is one of the largest, fiercest, and most loyal of any around. The intense devotion of his fans has been documented countless times over the last 60 years. These days, they operate as a kind of reputational security detail, enforcing loyalty in a cultural moment that otherwise prides itself on skepticism. With the release of Michael, they’ve been hard at work attacking Jackson’s accusers and anyone who supports them. Online, that often manifests as aggression, coordinated pile-ons, and conspiratorial thinking.

Even his daughter, Paris Jackson, has become a target, where anything short of loudly defending Jackson is treated as betrayal. According to her, she’s been harassed for not promoting the film and inadequately celebrating her father’s birthday by not posting about it on Instagram.

In this moment of moral panic over the “Epstein list,” where the idea of elite abuse networks has moved from fringe to mainstream, a subset of Michael Jackson fans have folded that logic into their defense of him. Some argue Jackson was targeted or set up by powerful figures who allegedly fabricated or amplified accusations for money or control. Epstein is invoked as proof that elites do conspire, therefore Jackson must have been a victim of one. A more elaborate version claims Jackson was used as a kind of public distraction, drawing attention away from “real” abusers in powerful circles (sometimes explicitly referencing Epstein’s network), with the implication being that focusing on Jackson was a misdirection campaign. A fringe claim suggests Jackson himself was somehow aware of or opposed to Epstein’s abuse network, operated as a covert protector of children and that this made him a target. Most irksome is the widespread conviction that Jackson was investigated, but nothing was found. That framing obscures the substantial amount of testimony, corroboration, settlements, and investigative material that emerged over the years.

That elasticity of belief is what makes the whole thing feel so unmoored from reality. What gets lost in that recursive logic is the fact that there is a record—the sheer number and persistence of allegations (as of this writing, more than 10 accusers have stepped forward), the whopping $23 million settlement in 1994, the smaller private settlements that haven’t received as much fanfare, Jackson’s own public statements and behavior, the carefully constructed lure of Neverland Ranch, his alleged grooming materials, law enforcement files including FBI records connected to the investigations, testimony from his former staff, and most notably, his troubling pattern of close relationships with young boys who would eventually age out of their roles in Jackson’s life.

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Terry George

Jackson’s friendship with Terry George is an early documented example of the singer becoming close with a young boy. They met in 1979 when the Jacksons’ Destiny World Tour stopped in Leeds. An ambitious George went to Jackson’s hotel and asked to interview him. Jackson invited the boy upstairs to his room. Jackson was 21 and George was 13.

“As I went to leave he invited me to hang out with him the next day at the hotel,” George told the Mirror in 2009. “We would sit and giggle and laugh together. It was clear he was happier to be around children than adults and enjoyed their company.”

Jackson asked for George’s phone number and the two remained in touch. “He’d ring at 9 pm on the dot three times a week and we became like best friends,” George said. The two would talk for hours at a time. However, just a few months into the friendship, one 9 pm phone call shifted abruptly.

According to George, Jackson knew he’d made him uncomfortable and didn’t push the conversations in that direction again. Jackson stopped calling as frequently, so George began calling him instead. That stopped when he’d racked up a large phone bill and his parents’ line got cut off.

They reunited in 1981 when Jackson visited the UK, but things were different. “I’ve no idea why his attitude towards me had changed,” said George who, at 15, had physically matured since the last time they saw each other in person. They lost touch soon after.

In 1993, George was contacted by Los Angeles detectives investigating the Jordan Chandler case. “The police told me that they felt Michael’s behaviour started with his friendship with me.”

Emmanuel Lewis

Emmanuel Lewis first met Michael Jackson in 1983, on the set of the music video for “Thriller.” At the time, Lewis was starring in the title role of the new sitcom Webster. Though he was only 3’ 4” tall and played a 5-year-old on TV, Lewis was actually 12. Jackson was 25.

A close and public friendship blossomed between the two. According to J. Randy Taraborrelli in what is one of the most widely cited biographies of the singer, Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness:

Jackson chose to spend that Christmas with Lewis and his family—his single mother and siblings. A month later, in January 1984, Jackson suffered severe scalp burns while filming a Pepsi commercial. Instead of recuperating at Hayvenhurst, where Jackson still lived with his family, he moved in with the Lewises, and stayed for many months. Every night was like a sleepover.

They took trips to Disney World together and Lewis was often on the set of Jackson’s various music videos and projects. Jackson was known for carrying Lewis around like a toddler, which he did at the Grammy awards in 1984.

Lewis has always maintained that there was nothing inappropriate about his relationship with Jackson and that he does not believe the molestation allegations leveled against the singer.

However, according to Taraborrelli, Lewis’s mother Margaret became “concerned about the friendship” after Michael and Lewis checked into the Four Seasons hotel in Los Angeles as father and son. (Taraborrelli’s biography was first published in 1991, two years before any child molestation allegations were publicly made.) Shortly afterward, the two were not permitted to spend time alone together. Their hangouts became less frequent, and seemed to drop off completely in the 1990s. Lewis did not attend Jackson’s private funeral or his televised memorial at the Staples Center.

Jonathan Spence

Jonathan Spence lived in the same Encino neighborhood as the Jackson family compound Hayvenhurst, and was a friend of Tito Jackson’s son Taj, with whom he attended The Buckley School. Spence’s father, Johnnie Spence, was a successful and respected musical director and arranger. In 1976, he and his young family permanently relocated from Surrey, England to Los Angeles, where he was able to secure lucrative work in the television and film industry. Just one year later, Johnnie Spence died suddenly of a heart attack when he was only 41, leaving his wife Marion to raise their two children alone.

Spence told journalist Victor Guiterrez in 1995 that he first met Jackson around 1978 when he was five years old, through his friendship with Taj, who was living at Hayvenhurst at the time. “My friend would invite me to his uncle Michael’s concerts. When we would go to his house, we would play with his uncle Michael,” he said.

It wasn’t until 1983, when Spence was 10, that he actually became friends with Jackson. Spence would have sleepovers at Hayvenhurst and stay up late playing games with Taj’s uncle. About a year later, Spence’s friendship with Jackson was independent of his friendship with Taj.

Estela Rodriguez, who worked as a housekeeper at Hayvenhurst at this time, confirmed to Guiterrez that the boy slept in the same bed as Jackson.

“I remember Jonathan had precious blue eyes that Michael was mad about. Michael loved him a lot, and in his room he had lots of photos of him, even more than of his own family…I saw them hug and kiss but never saw anything sexual between them, although the boy stayed and slept in the same bed as Michael.”

Blanca Francia—who replaced Rodriguez as Jackson’s maid at the end of 1985 and would follow Jackson to Neverland—seemed to corroborate the unusual closeness of the two in court documents filed in Jackson’s 2005 criminal trial.

“During this time, [Jackson] had Spence refer to him as ‘Daddy.’ While at the Havenhurst home [Jackson] would tell Francia to lie and conceal Spence's presence there from [his] parents. Francia would clean [Jackson]'s bedroom and observe Spence's underwear on the floor. She also observed that [Jackson] and Spence would take many Jacuzzis together.”

Francia eventually quit in 1991, due to Jackson’s behavior with young boys—including her own son Jason. “I was disgusted. I could not stay,” she told the LA Times.

Taraborrelli reported that Spence and Jackson “were seen nuzzling and hugging” each other, behavior that reportedly continued on the set of Captain EO, the science fiction 3D short directed by Francis Ford Coppola that was part of an attraction at Disney theme parks. In his 1994 biography Michael Jackson: Unauthorized, Christopher Andersen wrote:

“To some on the set, Michael seemed oblivious of everything but his [young] companion. Without the slightest hint of self-consciousness, he hugged, cuddled and generally displayed a considerable amount of affection toward the boy. Spence fetched Michael water and orange juice and sat on his lap between takes.”

In court documents presented at Jackson’s 2005 trial, Francia stated in police interviews that Spence and Jackson slept together, and that she had to lie to Jackson’s parents Joe and Katherine, telling them that there was no boy in his quarters. Paparazzi photos documented the pair attending a movie screening in NYC, hanging around on film sets, and walking through Disneyland.

By the time Jackson left for his Bad world tour at the end of 1987, Spence was approaching 15 and the intensity of their friendship had waned. They remained friends, though, and according to Jackson’s former personal secretary, Orietta Murdock, she was instructed to give Spence “whatever he wanted,” which included concert tickets and even a Mustang convertible when he was 16.

By 1991, when he was 17 or 18, Spence no longer had a direct line to Jackson, who frequently changed phone numbers. Spence hadn’t made the shortlist of people to receive the new number. “It’s hard to get in touch with him, though. I usually have to call his secretary, and then a couple of days later, he’ll call me,” he said.

In 1993, when he was 20, Spence was interviewed by police in their investigation into Jordan Chandler’s allegations. For his part, Spence said that he had never been molested by Jackson. In 1995, he told Gutierrez, “Nothing sexual ever happened. No amount of money in the world would make me speak of things that didn’t happen between us. I love Michael. We should never talk to other people about personal friendships.”

However, in November 1993, as part of its investigation, police raided Hayvenhurst. Though he had moved into Neverland by then, Jackson’s old quarters in the family compound had remained untouched. There, police found a photo of a naked boy. Having already interviewed Spence, the investigators believed they recognized the boy as Jonathan Spence. Although considered suspicious by investigators, the photo didn’t meet the legal definition of child sex abuse material—a visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

In Jackson’s 2005 molestation trial, prosecutors filed a motion to introduce into evidence several erotic and pornographic material that was seized in the 1993 and 2003 raids. In the motion, each piece of evidence is listed and described. One item reads:

(The list of porn, erotica, pictures of naked boys, and other materials that were seized in the raids is available here.)

The judge denied entry of the photos (there were two) of the naked boys into evidence, ruling they were overly prejudicial. The existence of this photo has been widely reported. It was mentioned in an issue of Jet in 1993 as well as in Maureen Orth’s 1994 Vanity Fair feature “Nightmare in Neverland.”

Francia told Andersen that Jackson enjoyed taking photos of little boys:

“Francia spotted one such snapshot lying on a table in Michael’s room. Francia said it showed a particular favorite of Michael’s sitting on the edge of his bed apparently nude, with only a sheet draped over his genitals. Beneath that photo were more Polaroids – close-ups of the boy’s lips, his open mouth, his face. Francia placed them back where she found them.”

In a June 1995 Primetime interview with Diane Sawyer, Jackson denied investigators had found incriminating material. “They turned my room upside-down, went through all my books, all my videotapes, all my private things, and they found nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing,” he said.

In a September 1995 Vanity Fair feature “The Jackson Jive,” Orth reported:

“Investigation sources say police found a lewd, commercially published hardcover book of black-and-white photos of nude boys aged about 7 to 12 ‘at play,’ and according to one, that book ‘is often found in the home of pedophiles.’ There was also a picture of a nude little boy, scantily draped with a sheet, found in Jackson’s bedroom.”

Although Spence was only the second known “special friend” of Jackson’s, the relationship established a pattern that would continue for the next 20 years.

Sean Lennon

Sean Lennon met Michael Jackson when he was eight years old, likely through his mother Yoko Ono. Jackson and Lennon would have a close relationship for the next seven years, with sleepovers reportedly at Hayvenhurst and Neverland Ranch. When he was 13, Lennon appeared in Jackson’s 1988 film Moonwalker. Paparazzi photos also document Lennon on set of Jackson’s music videos for “Bad” and “Smooth Criminal” while personal photos show them at an amusement park.

In Michael Jackson: Unauthorized, biographer Christopher Andersen obtained taped interviews from 1993 between James DeBarge—Janet Jackson’s ex-husband—and a police informant. According to DeBarge, who was living at Hayvenhurst from 1984 to 1985, Jackson was spending “more and more time with little Sean Lennon—sometimes days at a time in his room, watching television, playing games, roughhousing on the floor.” From Andersen’s book:

“DeBarge revealed that one morning he peeked into Michael’s room and saw him in bed with Sean. Asked if he saw Michael and Sean together in a sexual way, DeBarge reportedly replied, ‘Yes.’

DeBarge went on, ‘My room was next door. I saw them when I was snooping…All the boys would sleep in bed with him.’”

(In 1994, DeBarge testified in front of a grand jury in relation to the 1993 allegations by Jordan Chandler. The records from that hearing are not publicly available.)

According to court documents filed in Los Angeles in 1993, Jackson told his bodyguards to hide ”a young Asian boy believed to be somewhere between nine and 14 years of age in the guard shack until Michael called to say his parents had left the estate.”

Andersen reported that Katherine Jackson inadvertently confirmed that the boy was Sean Lennon, saying, “Sean would come and visit and stay about a week.’” Jackson and Lennon’s friendship appeared to taper off by the end of 1990, when Lennon was 15.

Sean Lennon has said that “nothing ever happened to me in an illegal way” with Jackson. He recalled the time he spent with the singer fondly in a 2019 interview in Exclaim magazine.

“I think that was a super strange time, but not in a dark way. In an odd way, in a unique way… it was like Disneyland all day long. He’d set up water balloon fights and pie fights in basketball courts. Just really fun stuff where he’d like invite all his friends over and there’d be two teams and everyone would dress in garbage bags and throw pies at each other.“

In 2016, Lennon collaborated on an album with Primus bassist Les Claypool, calling themselves the Claypool Lennon Delirium. One track, “Bubbles Burst,” reflects on Lennon’s relationship with Jackson. Lennon told NPR the song was about how both he and Bubbles the chimp had aged out of their friendships with Jackson:

“I just thought it was an interesting metaphor for what happened to a lot of Michael’s friends who were my age. It felt like there was something odd going on, and I still don’t know what it was. Nothing ever happened with me in an illegal way, but the whole place just felt like I was in some Peter Pan fantasyland. And there was a sense that when Bubbles got too old, he’d have to be gotten rid of, because chimpanzees turn into angry adults or dangerous adults. And it just felt like that was something I could relate to in terms of the whole situation out there. Because there was something Michael liked about hanging out with kids, because they’re so innocent and fun. Then, when you become an adult, it felt like you were a chimpanzee: too old to play with anymore.”

James Safechuck

James Safechuck’s civil complaint—filed in Los Angeles in 2014—alleges that Michael Jackson began cultivating a close relationship with him when Safechuck was a child actor around eight or nine years old, after they worked together on a Pepsi commercial in 1986/1987. Jackson allegedly initiated contact through letters, invitations to his Hayvenhurst home, lavish gifts—including his infamous “Thriller” jacket—and private access to his world. Safechuck claims Jackson gave him presents including clothing, jewelry, a globe, cash, shopping sprees, and quickly became embedded in his family’s life, calling frequently, visiting their home, and inviting Safechuck on trips and to rehearsals.

According to reporting from J. Randy Taraborrelli in his 1991 biography Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness, after Jackson purchased a $100,000 Rolls Royce for Safechuck’s parents, his manager Frank Dileo became concerned about “the way it looked.” It seemed inappropriate. “It looks bad, you and all these kids,” he allegedly told Jackson. According to Taraborrelli, Dileo asked Jackson to break off the friendship with Safechuck.

Jackson gave Safechuck the nickname “Rubba,” which the complaint alleges was a name Jackson gave to many of his young male friends.

In 1993, Blanca Francia told Hard Copy, that the singer showered with young boys and gave them the nickname “Rubba,” which Francia alleged was shorthand for Jackson rubbing the boys against his genitals.

According to the complaint, the relationship intensified in 1988, when Safechuck was 10 and Jackson was 29 or 30. Jackson allegedly began asking for Safechuck to sleep in his hotel room during trips, first in Hawaii then New York, though Safechuck’s mother initially refused. That changed during a trip to Pensacola, Florida, where Safechuck says he stayed with Jackson while his parents stayed in another house. Soon after, Safechuck was invited to join Jackson on his Bad tour for six months, appearing onstage with him and traveling internationally with expenses paid by Jackson and his companies.

The complaint alleges that the first incident of sexual abuse occurred during the Paris portion of the Bad tour in June 1988, in Jackson’s room at the Hotel de Crillon. Biographer Christopher Andersen notes in Michael Jackson: Unauthorized that Jackson’s Bad tour assistant Jolie Levine noticed only one bed seemed to be in use within the suites in which Jackson and Safechuck slept, though two were usually available. Levine referred to Jackson as a “chickenhawk”—a term used for older men who pursue younger men for sexual relationships—to police during the 1993 criminal investigation.

After that, Safechuck says he regularly slept in Jackson’s bed for the rest of the tour and that the abuse continued from 1988 through 1992 in hotel rooms, at Neverland, at Safechuck’s family home, and at Jackson’s apartments, including one nicknamed “The Hideout.” He alleges Jackson framed sexual activity as “showing love,” rewarded him with jewelry afterward, and taught him code words and secret cues so others would not understand what they were discussing. Their encounters would often allegedly involve Jackson giving Safechuck wine and watching pornography with him.

Safechuck further alleges that Jackson coached him to deny everything if ever questioned, warning him that both of their futures would be ruined if anyone found out. Jackson allegedly drilled him to be vague with police, told him not to trust investigators, and insisted repeatedly that any sexual conduct had been Safechuck’s idea. The complaint also describes Jackson as possessive and jealous, allegedly discouraging Safechuck’s interest in girls, referring to their bond as a secret “committed” relationship, and even staging a fake “marriage” with a ring and document.

The Neverland allegations are especially striking. Safechuck claims Jackson told him the ranch was his “home,” had him sleep in Jackson’s bedroom, and staged the upstairs bedroom to make it look as if Safechuck had slept there separately. The complaint alleges Jackson installed hallway chimes, cameras, secret closets, and tapped phones, all of which Safechuck says helped maintain secrecy and control.

In court documents filed in the 2005 criminal trial, Francia was said to have observed:

The complaint also cites witness statements from the 1993 Chandler investigation, including staff allegedly reporting suspicious behavior, underwear near Jackson’s bed, warnings not to leave children alone with him, and security protocols that allowed Jackson to enter Neverland late at night with unidentified boys.

Mark Quindoy and his wife Faye were estate managers at Neverland Ranch from 1988 to 1990. Quindoy kept a diary where he made detailed notations of what happened—and what he saw—every day at Jackson’s estate. According to Quindoy’s witness statement taken by the Santa Barbara County Sheriffs Department (“SBSD”) on September 22, 1993 in connection with the criminal investigation into the allegations of childhood sexual abuse made by Jordan Chandler:

“Quindoy informed the SBSD that he had witnessed several incidences of suspicious activity between [Jackson] and [Safechuck] at Neverland, including finding [Jackson]’s and [Safechuck]’s underwear lying next to [Jackson]’s bed, and seeing [Jackson] put his hand down the front of [Safechuck]’s shorts while the two were bathing together in a Jacuzzi. Mr. Quindoy informed the SBSD that there was gossip amongst the Neverland staff that [Jackson] was ‘having an affair’ with [Safechuck] and that they were sleeping together.”

Journalist Cathy Griffin confirmed that the Quindoys had told her the same story in 1991—two years before the 1993 allegations—when she was working on a biography of Jackson that ultimately was never published.

In 1991, two years before any molestation allegations were made public, La Toya Jackson and her then-husband Jack Gordon were interviewed by the New York Daily News to promote her new memoir La Toya: Growing Up in the Jackson Family. In the interview, Gordon says that his wife told him that her brother Michael was “a pederast.” She added that she was “just being truthful.”

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In September 1993, La Toya privately contacted Deputy District Attorney Lauren Weis, head of the Los Angeles County sex crimes unit. Though the call was not taped (at La Toya’s request) it carried the risk of perjury. The existence of the call was only publicly revealed in 2019 on the Telephone Stories podcast, where DA Weis described what La Toya told her. She allegedly said that Katherine Jackson knew what was going on, that she referred to her son Michael as “a damn fag,” and that she showed checks to La Toya that were allegedly written to the families of young boys.

“La Toya told me that he always had young boys over the house and this started at Hayvenhurst and the boys that she saw with him were between five and 13. She said…that Michael would stay alone in his bedroom with children at Hayvenhurst for days on end, that food trays would be left outside the door by housekeepers. She said there was a boy whose father was a garbage man—and then I have the name Jimmy Safechuck.”

James Safechuck, Sr. was a garbage man.

In December 1993, La Toya held a press conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, in which she revealed that she believed the allegations against her brother, and that she could not stay silent about it. Later that month, while a guest on The Howard Stern Show, she specifically named Safechuck:

"These checks are written for a million dollars. A million dollars. My mother said, 'Look at it good. You know what this is?' She goes, 'This is Jimmy Safechuck, this little boy that comes over here that stays with him and stays in that room and he locks himself up in the room with him, he sleeps in the same bed with him.' And she goes, 'Yes, what do you think they do up there, La Toya?' And she knows all this. And she gets on television and she lied."

During an interview on Today with Katie Couric, La Toya was asked why she thinks Katherine hadn’t spoken up in defense of the children. La Toya replied:

“She denies it, because she has no [financial] support [otherwise]. In other words, if she were to go and tell the truth, Michael would drop everything, and she would probably be out on the streets. So she has to stand by him.”

Years later, La Toya Jackson told Barbara Walters that she was forced by her abusive ex-husband Jack Gordon to make those comments about Michael. (Court documents filed in 2017 stated that Katherine Jackson received a $67,000 monthly stipend from Jackson’s estate, $30,000 of which went to La Toya each month.)

In October of 1993 Jordan Chandler was interviewed by a therapist who specialized in child sex abuse. According to the transcripts, Chandler said that Jackson told him “about how all of his children friends masturbate in front of him.” When asked which friends, Chandler said, “A boy who went on the Bad tour with him.”

Safechuck alleges the abuse stopped around puberty, when Jackson shifted his attention to younger boys, including Brett Barnes.

In 1993 Safechuck was asked by Jackson to provide a witness statement to the police in connection with the criminal investigation of Chandler’s allegations against Jackson. Safechuck, who was 15 at the time, met with one of Jackson’s lawyers who, according to his complaint, rehearsed questions and testimony with him. He denied that Jackson was ever inappropriate with him.

The entire Safechuck family were deposed, in support of Jackson, for the Chandler lawsuit. According to Safechuck’s mother Stephanie, in the documentary series Leaving Neverland, Jackson purchased a home for the family afterward.

Safechuck’s complaint alleges that the two had not spoken in years, until 2005, when Jackson contacted Safechuck and asked him to testify on his behalf in the criminal trial against him for child sexual abuse. According to Safechuck, the call began with Jackson offering to help his career before shifting to a request that he appear at trial. When Safechuck refused, he claims Jackson became angry and threatening, warning that his lawyers could pursue him for perjury related to the 1993 Chandler investigation—implying that Safechuck lied to police when he said Jackson did not abuse him. Safechuck says the call left him panicked, causing him to tell his mother that Jackson was a “bad man,” but was unable to tell her any details or say anything but the very briefest statement that he had been abused.

Days later, Jackson allegedly called Safechuck’s mother directly to persuade the family to testify, while his legal team and staff also contacted Safechuck, urging him to take the stand and deny any allegations. According to the complaint, Jackson’s lawyers wanted Safechuck to specifically deny the witness statements from former Neverland employees.

Safechuck says in his filings that reflection on his experiences with Jackson—a year and a half of grooming followed by roughly three years of abuse—enabled him to understand the concept of false consent. With the aid of a therapist, James recognized that what Jackson did to him “as a child” was “sick,” the documents reveal.

As of this writing, Safechuck’s lawsuit against the companies tied to Jackson is still active and headed toward trial. After years of dismissals and appeals, a California appeals court revived both Safechuck’s and Wade Robson’s cases in 2023, ruling that Jackson’s corporations could potentially be held liable for failing to protect them as children. The trial date is currently set for November 2026 in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Wade Robson

Wade Robson’s civil complaint alleges that his relationship with Michael Jackson began when Robson was a young child and quickly evolved from mentorship into a pattern of grooming and sustained abuse. Robson first met Jackson in 1987 when he was five, after winning an Australian dance competition performing in Jackson’s style, which led to a meet-and-greet and an invitation to dance onstage during the Bad tour. In 1990, at age seven, Robson traveled to the United States with his family and was invited to visit Jackson at his recording studio and then to stay at Neverland Ranch. According to the complaint, Robson and his sister initially slept in Jackson’s bedroom, but on the second night, Robson alone shared Jackson’s bed, and this is when the alleged abuse began. Robson claims the abuse continued nightly during that visit and in subsequent encounters, including at Jackson’s Westwood apartment. From the outset, Jackson allegedly framed their relationship as one based on love while emphasizing secrecy, telling Robson that no one could ever know because it would destroy both of their lives and careers.

The complaint describes how the relationship intensified over time, with frequent phone calls and faxes between Robson in Australia and Jackson in the United States, as well as additional visits arranged for Robson and his family. Jackson allegedly encouraged Robson to call him “Dad,” while referring to Robson as his “son,” deepening the emotional bond and dependency. In 1991, shortly before Robson’s ninth birthday, his family relocated to California which the complaint alleges allowed Jackson more consistent access to him. According to Robson’s mother Joy, Jackson helped the family obtain green cards. Between the ages of seven and 14, Robson claims that whenever he was with Jackson, they shared a bed and sexual abuse occurred regularly over a period of approximately seven years.

In the documentary series Leaving Neverland, Robson said that when Brett Barnes—another young Australian boy—began spending a lot of time with Jackson, Robson felt like he was being replaced, echoing Safechuck’s sentiment.

During this same time, Robson’s career advanced with Jackson’s involvement and support. He appeared in several of Jackson’s music videos, spent time at Jackson’s various residences, and by age 11 had released music on Jackson’s record label. By 14, he had begun working professionally as a choreographer. The complaint suggests that this professional advancement was intertwined with the personal relationship, further binding Robson to Jackson. According to Robson, the frequency of the abuse decreased as he entered puberty—marking a shift in Jackson’s attention and the nature of their relationship—until stopping completely when he was around 14 or 15, after Jackson’s failed attempt at anally penetrating the teenager.

There have been several witness testimonies corroborating Robson’s allegations. Charli Michaels was employed as a uniformed security guard for Jackson at Neverland from 1990 to 1992. In a March 1994 deposition, she said that on Mother’s Day 1990, she observed Robson’s mother Joy crying. Michaels said, “She didn't understand why she was not allowed to be with her son, that basically she was told that her son was there to be with Michael…And she was very uncomfortable with it.”

Later that day Michaels walked in on Jackson and Robson in Jackson’s dance studio “and saw [Jackson] touching the boy in what I considered to be a very inappropriate matter for any type of dance lesson.” She said:

On February 9, 1990—according to court documents filed in connection to Jackson’s criminal trial—Mark Quindoy was driving Jackson and Robson home from a toy store shopping spree when he glanced in the rearview mirror.

“[He] was astonished to see Michael Jackson with his arms around young Robson, kissing him passionately on his face and neck. Mr. Quindoy said it was just like a boy kisses a girl in the backseat, except that in this case the other party was also a young male, and he was not responding. Wade was wearing shorts and Jackson's hand was traveling up one thigh to the other, around Wade Robson's genitalia area, and was noticeably unresponsive to Jackson's fondling.”

In the same documents, Quindoy also said that Jackson isolated parents from their children, and devoted himself to occupying a child’s attention and activity separate from his parents for hours, and oftentimes days, outside the presence of the child’s parents.

Blanca Francia, Jackson’s personal maid, told prosecutors in Jackson’s 2005 criminal trial that she observed Robson's underwear on the floor of Jackson's bedroom. According to court documents filed in association with the trial:

For years, Robson publicly defended Jackson and denied anything untoward had happened between them. Robson’s complaint alleges that during the 1993 investigation involving Jordan Chandler, he was subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury about his relationship with Jackson. Jackson allegedly arranged and paid for Robson’s legal representation and, according to the complaint, called him daily to coach his testimony, framing the situation as something “they” needed to fight together while warning that both of their lives would be destroyed if the truth came out. Robson ultimately testified in a private session. A similar pattern is alleged to have occurred during Jackson’s 2005 criminal trial, when Robson was again subpoenaed and claims Jackson coached him and portrayed the case as an attempt to “take us down.” At the time, Robson says he did not view himself as a victim and had not disclosed the alleged abuse to anyone.

It was not until 2012, after beginning therapy, that he says he first revealed the allegations and came to understand his experiences as abuse, linking them to later psychological distress. Robson’s civil complaint has been consolidated with James Safechuck’s and is currently scheduled for trial in November 2026.

Jason Francia

Jason Francia’s mother Blanca worked as a personal maid for Jackson for about five years, cleaning his bedrooms at the Hayvenhurst estate, Neverland Ranch, and the Hideout in west Los Angeles. She was one of the few people allowed to enter Jackson's bedrooms. She often brought her son Jason along with her to Neverland when she was working. Both Blanca and Jason testified as witnesses for the prosecution at Jackson’s 2005 criminal trial, alleging, under oath, that Jackson sexually molested Jason in three separate incidents when he was between the ages of seven and 11.

According to Jason, the first incident occurred at the Hideout. Jason said that he and Jackson were in a red sleeping bag together when Jackson touched and tickled him in the area of his genitals. He recalled that his mother walked in on them, was very upset, and told Jason to get out of the sleeping bag.

The second incident also allegedly occurred at the Hideout. Jason said he was sitting on Jackson's lap, watching television, when Jackson began to tickle him. Jason said that Jackson's hand went down his shorts or up his leg, and touched his testicles. He testified that he found a $100 bill in his shorts later that day.

The third incident occurred in the alcove/loft of the arcade at Neverland. Jason said he was lying on a couch while Jackson was spooning him. Jackson began to tickle him again, and allegedly put his hand up Jason's shorts, under his briefs and tickled his testicles. Jason said this lasted for more than 10 seconds and he didn’t remember how or why it stopped.

Blanca testified at the trial that she walked in on Jason and Jackson in a dark room in the same sleeping bag. She noticed that Jackson would give Jason up to $100 in cash at a time and feared her son was becoming one of Jackson’s “special friends.” Fearing for her son, and disgusted with Jackson’s behavior around young boys, she stopped working for him. Afterward, she noticed something was wrong with her son. He became very depressed and angry. She said that after putting Jason in counseling, she eventually learned he had been molested.

La Toya Jackson seemed to corroborate this story in 1993 on a Spanish language talk show. She alluded to children going to psychiatrists and, though erroneously referring to Blanca as “Bianca,” she said:

When Jason was 13, he was interviewed by detectives investigating the Jordan Chandler case. No criminal charges were filed from that interview. Jason told prosecutors that lawyers quietly settled a claim on his behalf against Jackson for $2 million. Other than his 2005 testimony, Jason has not spoken publicly about his encounters with Jackson.

Macaulay Culkin

Macaulay Culkin was a 10-year-old movie star when Jackson befriended him in 1991. At Jackson’s 2005 criminal trial, Culkin testified that Jackson had somehow gotten his phone number and called him one day “out of the blue,” not long after Home Alone came out. Culkin said that Jackson wanted to connect with him, because he knew the difficulties that a meteoric rise to fame could present to a young boy.

They became fast friends. Culkin was regularly seen by Jackson’s side for the next year. He appeared in Jackson’s video for “Black or White,” and was invited to hang out on set of the video for “Jam.” Jackson visited Culkin on the set of Home Alone 2, even bringing Brett Barnes along.

They took a week-long trip to Bermuda, another trip to Disney World, and Culkin would have sleepovers at Neverland, testifying that he visited the ranch more than a dozen times from 1991 to 1994. In the 2003 documentary Living with Michael Jackson, Jackson admitted to sharing a bed with Culkin, much to the dismay of interviewer Martin Bashir. “When Macaulay Culkin were [sic] little, [his brother] Kieran Culkin would sleep on this side, Macaulay Culkin was on this side,” he said. “We all would just jam in the bed, you know, we would wake up at dawn and go in the hot-air balloon.”

Culkin confirmed on the stand that he shared a bed with Jackson while on vacation or at Neverland. He told prosecutors, “[Jackson] enjoyed my youthfulness. He liked being a kid with me. It never struck me as odd. I never felt uncomfortable. That was just the way he was.”

Between the ages of 14 to 16—in the years following the Jordan Chandler allegations—Culkin had barely any contact with Jackson. In 1998, when Culkin was 18, Jackson reportedly named him as godfather to his newborn daughter Paris.

Culkin testified in 2005, and still maintains, that Jackson did not molest him. However, transcripts of Jordan Chandler speaking to his therapist in 1993 revealed that he said Jackson told him that he and Culkin masturbated together.

Several of Jackson’s former staff submitted witness testimonies in 1993, and testified at the trial in 2005, that they’d observed Jackson’s behavior with Culkin and it was inappropriate.

Phillipe LeMarque was employed as a butler and cook at Neverland from January to July 1991. LeMarque told Detective Rosibel Ferrufino of the Los Angeles Police in a taped interview in September 1993:

“It was near two in the morning and Michael asked me to bring him French fries. The guards informed me that the ‘blue fox,’ the code name that we used for Jackson in radio transmissions, was in the [arcade] with Macaulay Culkin. When I entered I saw Michael with his hand in the boy’s pants. He didn’t see me, so I later entered through another door. The boy didn’t do anything; he just kept playing video [games]. Everyone at the ranch knew that he was obsessed with this boy.”

LeMarque repeated this allegation on the stand at Jackson’s 2005 criminal trial.

Blanca Francia testified that Culkin was one of Jackson’s “special friends” who would spend the night alone with him and saw them in the same bed together. According to court documents filed in 2004 associated with the criminal case:

Adrian McManus took over cleaning Jackson’s private quarters after Blanca Francia quit in 1991. She testified at Jackson’s criminal trial in 2005 that, over the course of her employment, she witnessed Jackson molesting children on three occasions. The first incident involved Macaulay Culkin. According to court documents filed in 2004:

“She saw Jackson kiss Culkin and place his hand on Culkin’s buttock area. She observed Jackson fondling the child’s crotch area outside the boy’s clothing.”

In an updated version of J. Randy Taraborrelli’s Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness published after the singer’s death, he interviewed McManus regarding the August 21, 1993 police raid on Neverland. Because of the events and allegations leading up to that day, Jackson’s camp expected a search warrant would be issued. Employees were allegedly mobilized to remove crates worth of items from the property. From Taraborrelli’s book:

“They couldn’t get the stuff out fast enough. They took sheets, pillows, bedspreads, towels and wash clothes…They took stacks of magazines. They took pictures. I remember that one person who worked for Michael held up a photograph and everyone else gathered around to ask, ‘Who is that? Who is that? Is that Macaulay Culkin in his underwear? It is!’ Then they would take the picture and put it in a box with a lot of other pictures of children in their underwear.’”

When Culkin, who was 24 at the time, was on the stand, prosecutors asked him about the allegations Neverland staff made involving him. He replied:

“I couldn’t believe that, first of all, these people were saying these things or—let alone that it was out there and people were thinking that kind of thing about me.”

Culkin’s reaction seemed directed less at denying the allegation itself than at the idea that the rumors reflected something shameful about him.

Brett Barnes

Brett Barnes first met Michael Jackson in 1987 when he was five years old. Barnes, his mother, and sister were among a group of fans waiting for Jackson at the airport when he arrived in Melbourne for his Bad tour. They handed one of his backup dancers a letter signed by Barnes and soon after, Jackson called him. Their friendship grew from there.

Barnes testified at Jackson’s criminal trial that he didn’t see Jackson again until he visited Neverland with his family in 1991, when he was 9. He said he visited there frequently and slept in Jackson’s bed “countless times.” When the Barnes family would visit, they would stay for days or weeks at time. Once, Barnes stayed for a whole month.

By 1992, Barnes was Jackson’s frequent companion. They visited London in January. In February, Jackson brought Barnes along on an 11-day humanitarian tour of Africa. That spring, Jackson brought Barnes to Chicago—along with Wade Robson, James Safechuck, and Macaulay Culkin—to visit him on the set of the music video for “Jam.”

Barnes joined Jackson on his Dangerous world tour, for which they travelled all over Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Australia. Barnes was always introduced to the press as Jackson’s cousin. Some photo agencies today still have Barnes listed as “Jackson’s cousin Brett.”

J. Randy Taraborrelli’s Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness, describes a scene in which Jordan Chandler and his family met Barnes for the first time when Jackson picked them up in a limo to take them to Neverland. Barnes, perched on Jackson’s lap, was introduced as Jackson’s cousin “Brett Jackson.” Wade Robson’s mother Joy testified at Jackson’s 2005 criminal trial that, while on the Chicago set of his music video for “Jam,” Jackson introduced Barnes to her son as his cousin. When Joy asked Jackson why he did that, she said he told her, “Because I don't want the kids to get jealous of each other.”

Among the tranche of the heavily-redacted FBI files that were released following Jackson’s death, one sticks out about Jackson and his “cousin.” A Canadian woman who worked in children’s services called in a tip, saying she and her husband were on a train in March 1992, from Chicago to the Grand Canyon. They had a compartment on the same car that Jackson had four compartments. Jackson had a young boy with him—fitting Barnes’ description—who was introduced as Jackson’s cousin. According to an FBI memo documenting the tip:

“Jackson was very possessive of boy. At night, [witness] heard questionable noises through wall. She was concerned enough to notify the conductor of her suspicions.”

According to transcripts from an October 1993 interview between Jordan Chandler and his therapist, Jackson would talk about Barnes whenever he was trying to coax Chandler into doing something sexual.

“If he wanted me to do something with him, he would say that Brett did that with him, so that I would do it. And, like, if I didn’t do it, then I didn’t love him as much as Brett did.”

According to Chandler, if Jackson was met with resistance, he would cry.

“I said, ‘I didn’t like when you put your tongue in my ear and grabbed my butt.’ Once again, he started crying and making me feel guilty, and saying there’s nothing wrong with it. [He] said, ‘Brett wouldn’t care if I did that to him.’ He was saying that all these kids masturbate and it feels really good.”

When the 1993 molestation allegations surfaced in the media, Jackson hired private investigator and celebrity fixer Anthony Pellicano. By the time the police tracked down and contacted Jackson’s young male friends, Pellicano had already gotten to them. He arranged press interviews for both Robson and Barnes in support of Jackson. It was, perhaps, an odd approach to public relations to have 10- and 11-year-old boys talking about sharing a bed with a 34-year-old man on the evening news. Barnes said:

“He kisses you like you kiss your mother. It’s not unusual for him to hug, kiss, and nuzzle up to you and stuff.”

Barnes also admitted on the stand at Jackson’s 2005 criminal trial that they slept in the same bed, and he has always maintained that Jackson did not molest him or behave inappropriately. However, several members of Neverland staff testified that they witnessed Jackson behaving inappropriately with Barnes.

According to court documents filed in 2004, Adrian McManus, a cleaning woman who worked at Neverland, saw “Jackson kissing Barnes and fondling his buttock area. Jackson's left hand was over the boy's clothing and on the child's bottom.”

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Former Neverland security guard Ralph Chacon said that, while working the graveyard shift in 1992, he saw Jackson molest a young boy. According to Chacon, Jackson and the young boy left the hot tub area and went into the bathroom of the recreation building. After quite a bit of time passed, Chacon became curious and walked over to the building. He says he peeked into the window and saw Jackson and the boy, who were both naked. Jackson was—as Chacon described—”passionately” kissing and fondling the boy. According to court documents filed in 2004:

Chacon described the boy as having dark, long, straight hair and dark skin. When recalling the incident, he thought the boy might be Chandler. However, when testifying at the criminal trial in 2005, he said he often couldn’t tell the difference between Barnes and Chandler.

“Well, to me, I always got them confused, because they looked the same, similar. I know one was a little bit shorter than the other. But, you know, I always got them confused. They looked alike.”

Indeed, Barnes and Chandler looked very similar. In fact, the media often got them confused, and would occasionally run photos of Barnes alongside stories of Chandler’s allegations. But because Chacon stated that the alleged incident occurred in 1992, it would appear to indicate that the boy was Barnes, as Chandler’s first visit to Neverland Ranch was in 1993.

According to the civil complaint filed by James Safechuck, he became jealous of Barnes because he felt as though Jackson had replaced him. Documents reveal that Safechuck spent a weekend with Barnes and Jackson at the Hideout. Safechuck began to feel as though he “was on the outs” with Jackson because Jackson had spent the night in his bedroom with Barnes, with the door closed, instead of with Safechuck, who spent the night on the couch, crying himself to sleep.

In 1993, Jordan Chandler and his father Evan created a document of the chronology of Chandler’s relationship with Jackson and the allegations. Barnes is mentioned quite a bit in it:

“Michael told Jordie that Brett was not circumcised so when he masturbated he had to do it differently than they did. He also told Jordie that he would have Brett bend over and he would put vaseline on his anus because when Brett would move his bowels his rectum would bleed. When Jordie asked why he would bleed Michael told him it was because Brett was little and the circumference of his feces was too big (because he ate too much) so it would tear him when it came out.”

There were times, like in February 1993, when Barnes and Chandler would both be at Neverland at the same time. On this instance, according to Chandler, he stayed in the guest cottage with his mother and sister, while Barnes stayed in Jackson’s bedroom. Like Safechuck, Chandler expressed feelings of jealousy toward Barnes, because he perceived that Jackson had a closer relationship with Barnes.

In a June 2022 interview with the podcast MJCast, Barnes again denied that anything sexual ever happened with Jackson and specifically denied Chacon’s allegations, saying, “If dude saw that, why didn’t he do anything at that time?”

Barnes also expressed that, from 1993 onward, he experienced “a lot of ridicule in the schoolyard” because of the allegations against Jackson.

Barnes and Jackson remained friends for years, but by the time that Jackson passed away in 2009, they were no longer in communication and Barnes didn’t have a way to contact anyone on Jackson’s team or in his family in order to attend the funeral.

Jordan Chandler

In 1993, Jordan Chandler became the central figure in the first major allegations against Michael Jackson—a scandal that would fundamentally alter the trajectory of the superstar’s career. Though the case was resolved with a civil settlement and no criminal conviction, it marked a turning point from which Jackson’s public image never fully recovered.

In Chandler’s declaration, executed under penalty of perjury, that was included in the 1993 civil complaint against Jackson, he describes how his relationship with the singer began in May 1992, when Chandler was 12 years old. They met after Jackson’s limo broke down, and he rented a vehicle from Chandler’s stepfather’s car rental business. After that encounter, Jackson began calling Chandler frequently, sometimes for hours at a time, including while traveling internationally on his Dangerous tour. According to the declaration, these conversations helped establish a close bond, with Jackson discussing his life, Neverland Ranch, and shared interests like video games. In early 1993, Chandler visited Neverland with his mother and half-sister as Jackson’s guest. During this initial trip, the family stayed in the guest quarters, and Chandler did not sleep in Jackson’s bed, though they spent most of their time together engaging in activities around the property.

The declaration states that the relationship intensified following a subsequent trip to Las Vegas, where Chandler and Jackson shared a bed for the first time—the boy had become too frightened to sleep alone after they watched The Exorcist. Chandler describes this as the beginning of a pattern that continued throughout their relationship, with the two sharing a bed during visits to Neverland, at Chandler’s home, and while traveling. He alleges that physical contact began gradually, progressing from affectionate gestures such as hugging and kissing to more intimate behavior, like lying on top of each other with erections. Chandler recounts instances in which he expressed discomfort, particularly when Jackson put his tongue in his mouth, and says Jackson responded by crying and framing the behavior as an expression of love.

According to the declaration, the alleged abuse “really got out of hand” during a trip to Monaco in May 1993, when Chandler and Jackson spent extended time alone together in a hotel room, due to them both having a cold. Chandler alleges that during this period, they saw each other naked for the first time, and sexual contact intensified when Jackson masturbated in front of him and then later masturbated Chandler. He also claims that Jackson referenced other children in an effort to normalize the behavior and encouraged secrecy, telling him that their relationship was private and should not be disclosed to anyone. The sexual contact escalated from there. Chandler states that the alleged abuse occurred on multiple occasions between early 1993 and July 1993, across various locations including Neverland, hotels, and private residences.

Chandler’s father Evan became increasingly concerned about his son’s relationship with Jackson, which seemed to consume the entire family. The last straw was when he learned that his ex-wife June—who had physical and legal custody—was going to withdraw their son from school so he could accompany Jackson on the next leg of his Dangerous world tour, beginning that August.

Evan’s lawyer drafted a petition for modification of custody and an order to show cause for restriction. In essence, the documents would forbid Jackson from going near his son or from visiting certain properties, including his school. In his signed declaration, Evan said:

“During the first half of 1993, I saw Jackson sleeping with my son in Jordie’s bed. It worried me greatly and I asked my ex-wife how she could let this happen. I later discovered that Jackson routinely spent the night with my son and they slept in the same bed. I then asked him directly if he was having sex with my son. Jackson refused to give me a direct answer. He told me that he would continue sleeping with my son and that he thought it was ‘cosmic’ and that he and Jordie were made to be together. I believe that my son’s relationship with Jackson is endangering his feelings, and that a psychological evaluation should be conducted immediately. I also believe that my son’s relationship with Jackson is being nurtured by my ex-wife who, according to what I know, receives expensive gifts, cash and vacations. She is also letting my son withdraw from school to go with Jackson on his world tour.”

June Chandler-Schwartz reportedly told Jackson what her ex-husband had done. Jackson responded by contacting his lawyer and celebrity fixer Anthony Pellicano.

On August 2, 1993, Chandler told his father that Jackson had touched his penis. Two weeks later, he told child psychiatrist Mathis Abrams that he had been sexually abused by Jackson for months, giving graphic accounts of masturbation and oral sex. The next day, he repeated the allegations to police and drew a picture of Jackson’s penis, which was apparently distinct, due to vitiligo.

In an interview for the 2020 BBC documentary, The Real Michael Jackson, former Deputy District Attorney of Santa Barbara County Ron Zonen said:

“Jordie Chandler was able to give a description of a particular anomaly on the underside of [Jackson’s] penis and what it looked like both in a flaccid state and erect state.”

(Jackson was later strip searched and photographed. Investigators said Chandler’s descriptions were accurate. Zonen said, “The photographs did corroborate the statement of Jordie Chandler. I always thought that was remarkable corroborative evidence.”)

On August 18, the Los Angeles Police Department’s Sexually Exploited Child Unit began a criminal investigation into Jackson. On August 24, the allegations became public—which also happened to be the start of the third leg of Jackson’s Dangerous world tour. Pellicano held a press conference, claiming that the Chandlers were trying to extort $20 million from Jackson. Pellicano also pushed the narrative that Evan, an aspiring screenwriter, wanted to force Jackson’s hand into helping him with his Hollywood career.

The facts don’t support the spin that Jackson’s camp put out in the press. Evan Chandler had already had his foot in the door in the movie business. He wrote the screenplay for Robin Hood: Men in Tights. The Mel Brooks film had just opened the month before and was a box-office success. Additionally, Evan was a dentist with his own practice in Beverly Hills and a roster of celebrity clients. (Carrie Fisher, Valeria Golino, and Christian Slater were patients.) Jordan’s mother, June, and stepfather, Dave Schwartz, were also independently wealthy. Schwartz was a millionaire who founded the car rental company Rent-a-Wreck which had franchised locations in 41 states and several other countries.

In September 1993, the Chandlers filed a $30 million law suit against Jackson for sexual battery. Over the next few months, several of Jackson’s former employees were deposed, saying they had seen Jackson behave inappropriately with a series of young boys. Police interviewed a number of Jackson’s young companions, focusing on four that Chandler mentioned specifically to police: Macaulay Culkin, James Safechuck, Wade Robson, and Brett Barnes. At the time, all four denied that Jackson had molested them. Since then, two of them—Robson and Safechuck—have come forward alleging sexual abuse.

In an interview with Katie Couric on Today in December 1993, La Toya asserted that she believed her brother had inappropriate relationships with young boys, that she had seen checks written out to the boys’ families for “a substantial amount of money,” and that her mother Katherine was aware and was “outraged over it.”

Katherine responded with an interview on CBS local evening news, grabbing the microphone from the reporter and saying, “La Toya is lying and I’ll tell her to her face she’s lying!”

La Toya claimed that her mother was compelled to defend her brother because she was being financially supported by him. She rhetorically asked Couric:

A warrant for a strip search of Jackson was issued in December 1993. A month later, after Jackson had settled with the Chandlers, media reports citing “sources” said Jackson’s genitalia did not match Chandler’s description. Law enforcement has since denied those reports and said that Chandler’s drawings were accurate.

Even Jackson’s own defense attorney implied Chandler’s description was accurate, calling it “the 300 lb gorilla” in the room. At a 2010 law seminar, Carl Douglas—who worked at Johnnie Cochran’s firm, and was also a member of O.J. Simpson’s dream team—discussed the imperative of settling with the Chandlers to avoid an indictment:

“There was a companion criminal investigation case going on by both the District Attorney’s office in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. There had been an occasion where Michael Jackson was examined, and his genitalia was recorded, which was part of an investigation. And that was part of the 300 lb gorilla in the mediation room. We wanted to do all that we could to avoid the possibility that there would be a criminal filing against Michael Jackson, and the reality was we were hopeful that if we were able to ‘silence’ the accuser, that would obviate the need for any concern about the criminal side.”

In January 1994, one month after the strip search, a settlement agreement was reached for $23 million—$15 million for Chandler, $1.5 million for each of his parents, and $5 million for his lawyers.

Rumors still persist that Jackson’s insurance carrier negotiated and paid the settlement over the protests of Jackson and his defense attorneys. Jackson did ask Transamerica Insurance Group to help cover the settlement, but according to documents obtained by the UK newspaper Today, the carrier refused. Russ Wardrip, a TIG claims analyst, sent a January 13, 1994 registered letter to Jackson’s lawyer, Howard Weitzman stating:

“...acts of sexual activity do not constitute [accidental] bodily injury. Further, acts of sexual activity, especially those against a minor, are inherently intentional, wrongful and harmful. Coverage for such acts is precluded by [the] California Insurance Code.”

The criminal case ultimately stalled when the Chandlers stopped cooperating with prosecutors following their settlement with Jackson. Despite several grand jury hearings, the DA’s office in both Los Angeles and Santa Barbara declined to bring charges.

Once Jordan Chandler was of age, he sued Jackson in 1998 for breach of contract, claiming that Jackson had violated the terms of their 1994 settlement when he and his then-wife Lisa Marie Presley told Diane Sawyer, in a Primetime Live interview, that the allegations made by Chandler were lies. The case was sent to arbitration, per the terms in the original settlement. The arbitrators ruled in favor of Jackson, finding that he did not breach the terms of the contract, since he did not explicitly call the Chandlers extortionists in the Primetime Live interview and did not name his accuser or any of his family members.

Despite the persistent claims online that Chandler recanted, there is no evidence that he ever withdrew his allegations. Today, he reportedly lives under an assumed name in New York state.

Frank, Eddie, Dominic, and Aldo Cascio

Michael Jackson befriended the Cascio family in the early 1980s. Their father, Dominic, was the manager of Helmsley Palace Hotel in New York City. Jackson allegedly asked to meet the boys when he saw a photo of them on the wall of Dominic’s office; they were babies at the time. The Cascio family—Dominic, his wife Connie, and their five children, Frank, Eddie, Dominic Jr., Marie Nicole, and Aldo—remained close to Jackson until his death, with Frank Cascio employed as one of his most trusted personal assistants. They vociferously defended Jackson from the various child molestation allegations made against him, even appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2010 to discuss the late singer, where they reiterated that there were never any improprieties on Jackson’s part. In 2011, Frank portrayed his relationship with Jackson positively in his book My Friend Michael: An Ordinary Friendship with an Extraordinary Man—A Candid and Loving Portrait of the King of Pop.

That changed after the release of the two-part documentary series Leaving Neverland, which chronicled the child molestation allegations Wade Robson and James Safechuck made against Jackson. The Cascio siblings say that the film prompted them to recognize their relationships with Jackson for what it was—child sexual abuse—and to begin processing its long-term impact.

According to a civil complaint filed by Eddie, Dominic Jr., Marie Nicole, and Aldo in February 2026:

(Their brother Frank was unable to join the lawsuit because claims involving him are currently subject to private arbitration after the Jackson estate sued him in Los Angeles County Superior Court last year, alleging extortion. You can read his declaration of allegations here.)

The siblings say they were approached by private investigator Herman Weisberg, who promised to help the family obtain fair compensation from the Jackson estate. Unbeknownst to the Cascios, Weisberg was hired by the Jackson estate to—as the complaint characterizes it—”neutralize the threat” that Leaving Neverland would trigger public disclosures from other Jackson victims.

According to the complaint, Weisberg and Jackson estate attorneys Bryan Freedman and Howard Weitzman engaged in deceptive practices to secure the siblings’ silence. They allege that after Freedman offered each sibling $100,000, Weitzman told them that amount was inadequate compensation for the harm they had suffered and promised to negotiate a higher amount, still without making it clear that he was working for the Jackson estate. Weitzman also advised the Cascios that they risked losing any reasonable settlement if they rejected whatever the Estate offered next.

The filing alleges that the 2020 agreement—described as a “life rights” deal—would pay each sibling five annual payments of $690,000, and contained provisions that effectively released the estate from liability, restricted the siblings from speaking publicly or pursuing legal action, and imposed financial penalties if any family member disclosed the allegations. The siblings claim they were not given a meaningful opportunity to review the document and were never given a copy of what they had signed. One of the more striking claims is that the agreement also provided for Weisberg and his agent to receive a “commission” of six percent of the payments made to the siblings—even though Weisberg was allegedly secretly working for Freedman on behalf of the Jackson estate, and against the siblings’ interests.

The Cascios allege that Freedman reached out to them again in 2024, telling them they needed to change the terms of their 2020 contract, and that they would need a lawyer for that. They say Freedman offered to negotiate the estate on their behalf, essentially working both sides of the aisle. The siblings later retained independent counsel and became aware of these alleged conflicts of interest and misrepresentations. The lawsuit further claims that when they sought to challenge the agreement and pursue compensation, the estate responded with public statements and legal actions that the siblings characterize as defamatory and retaliatory, including accusations that they were fabricating claims for financial gain.

And though they spent decades defending Jackson, all five of the Cascio siblings say that Jackson groomed them to protect him, telling The New York Times that they were his “soldiers.” Their complaint describes how Jackson normalized inappropriate behavior and conditioned the children to accept it. Allegedly, Jackson simultaneously fostered secrecy and fear, repeatedly warning the children that disclosure would destroy their lives and their family’s stability, and instructing them on how to respond if questioned by authorities.

The siblings further allege that Jackson exerted psychological control by isolating them from outside influences, encouraging distrust of others, and in some cases, persuading their parents to withdraw certain children from school thus limiting external oversight. The filing characterizes this as a sustained campaign of manipulation that extended beyond the alleged abuse itself.

The Cascio family’s story is so similar to those of Jackson’s other “special friends.” Jackson allegedly embedded himself in the family’s life, spending holidays, birthdays, and extended periods at their New Jersey home. This dynamic was reinforced through gifts, attention, and access to his celebrity lifestyle, including private travel, shopping sprees, and participation in tours and recording sessions.

The complaint alleges that Jackson sexually abused the siblings over a period of years across numerous locations, including Neverland Ranch, the family’s home, hotels, and international travel destinations during concert tours and other engagements. Eddie told The New York Times that when the abuse began:

In a 2026 interview with 60 Minutes Australia, the youngest Cassio, Aldo, alleged that Jackson drank his urine as a private show of devotion.

Where the pattern diviates is with the alleged abuse of Marie Nicole—Jackson’s accusers are typically boys. While the complaint doesn’t go into graphic detail, it alleges that she was sexually assaulted on interstate and international trips, and on one occasion, in front of two young boys under Jackson’s “care.” The complaint claims that Jackson estate attorney Weitzman told the family in 2019 that there had been at least one other girl accuser.

Indeed, in October 2016, Jane AA Doe filed a complaint against Jackson’s estate alleging sexual abuse, beginning in 1986 when she was 12 and continued for three years. The documents allege a similar modus operandi as described by other accusers—hours-long phone calls, love letters, gifts, visits to music video sets, and grooming. She alleges that Jackson made several payments to her through two different shell companies in the early 1990s in exchange for her silence. Her complaint includes photocopies of those checks, the sum of which are roughly $900,000. In May 2017, Doe’s attorney filed for a voluntary dismissal, which was granted without prejudice. In 2024, the court ordered that Doe’s case be consolidated with Robson’s (as was Safechuck’s), which is currently set for trial in November 2026.

And though the Cascios didn’t come to terms with their alleged abuse until 2019 and had always defended Jackson, there had been indications that his relationship with the children was troubling to his staff, advisors, and particularly his wife Lisa Marie Presley.

While Jackson had befriended the Cascios in the early 1980s when the two oldest boys were toddlers—and before the other three siblings were born—it wasn’t until 1993 when he invited the family to Neverland. Frank was 13, Eddie was 11, and Dominic Jr. was seven. According to Frank’s memoir, the family stayed in one of the guest bungalows on that visit. “For every subsequent childhood visit, I stayed in the main house,” he wrote.

The Cascios met Jordan Chandler during one of their visits to Neverland in 1993. Chandler was introduced to the family as Jackson’s cousin. Jackson brought all of them to Disneyland. Frank noted in his book that Chandler seemed particularly close to Jackson, but that Frank “wasn’t jealous.”

A few weeks after Jackson was publicly accused of child sexual abuse in 1993, Dominic Sr., Frank, and Eddie flew to Israel to meet up with Jackson on his Dangerous world tour and offer support. Frank wrote in his book that when the time came for the family to fly home to Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, so that Dominic could return to work, Jackson became upset.

“At first Michael accepted this, but when the time came for us to go, he went to my father and broke down crying. ‘I know you have to get back to work,’ he said through his tears, ‘but I am asking if Frank and Eddie can stay here with me. I would really love for them to stay.’”

Astonishingly, Dominic said that his sons could continue on the tour without him. Eddie now says that this was when Jackson first began to molest him.

In his book, Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness, Taraborrelli said that when Jackson was forced to return to California in December 1993 after a warrant was issued for a strip search, he disembarked from his private plane in Santa Barbara with Frank and Eddie by his side.

Frank wrote in his book that he and his brother were sleeping in bed with Jackson the night before his marriage to Lisa Marie Presley was announced to the press—news that shocked them:

“He told us that the next day the news was going to break that he’d gotten married to Lisa Marie Presley. I was incredulous. ‘What? You got married?’ I asked him. ‘We never even knew you were dating anyone!’”

According to Frank’s memoir, Jackson essentially told them that his marriage was a sham and he did it only for business reasons to appease Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. The two were partners in a newly formed company called Kingdom Entertainment. According to Jackson, the prince wanted to do business with a family man, and thought getting married would restore Jackson’s tarnished image. Jackson allegedly told the Cascios the same thing when he married Debbie Rowe a few years later.

Jackson’s closeness with the brothers became a point of contention in his marriage to Presley. Taraborrelli said she was “dismayed” that Jackson would still want to be seen in the company of young boys, given everything that had happened with Chandler. She thought it would only lead to more rumors, more innuendo, more trouble. It was embarrassing for her to constantly explain that he wasn’t a pedophile. Taraborrelli said that Jackson wouldn’t compromise on the issue.

Taraborrelli said that the relationship came to a head one evening after dinner, when Jackson let Presley know that he was considering going on vacation to France with the Cascio brothers. She was reportedly stunned. He didn’t seem to care how it would make her look that he would go on vacation with two young boys, Taraborrelli reported. He told her, “What I do is none of your business,” which supposedly “set her off.”

Jackson said that he was a “grown man” and didn’t need anyone’s permission to go on vacation “with my good friends.” He did end up going to Paris in July 1995, specifically Euro Disney, with the Cascio boys—and without Presley. According to Jackson’s personal assistant at the time, Scott Shaffer, he had lied to his wife about where he would be. Presley discovered he was in Paris with the Cascio boys because it was on the news.

According to Frank, when Jackson and Presley finally split, Jackson was barely even sad.

“When they split up at the end of 1995, Michael claimed that one of the main reasons was that Lisa was jealous of us and the relationship he had with us. He preferred spending time with us to spending it with her.”

One passage that particularly sticks out from Frank’s book was when he discusses his “early instinct” to protect Jackson’s reputation, even from his own actions.

“We were the kids, it was true, but when it came to Michael’s impulses, sometimes we would have to be the adults. We had to think of the consequences to his image and reputation at all times, even when he didn’t.”

When Dominic Jr. turned 10, he began to join his brothers on their trips with Jackson. All three of them accompanied Jackson on portions of his HIStory tour. When Frank was 19, he became Jackson’s personal assistant and was a constant in his life. They continued to share a bed, and Frank helped out with Jackson’s children, essentially operating as a nanny.

Frank talked about the secrecy that Jackson instilled in him, even if he didn’t put it in terms of sexual abuse.

“Living in Michael’s world was a rare and special opportunity, of course, and that was why I stayed there. But, without myself realizing it, the discretion affected me. From a very young age, I trained myself not to talk freely. I kept everything inside and suppressed most of my reactions and emotions. I was never one hundred percent open or free.“

In September 2001, Jackson was in New York City for a two-night concert event at Madison Square Garden celebrating his 30th anniversary in the music industry. Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Celebration was being filmed as a TV special for CBS. The morning after the second show was September 11. Jackson fled the city to the Cascio house in New Jersey. He stayed for three months.

In 2004, Frank and Jackson fell out over Frank not testifying at Jackson’s 2005 criminal trial. It wasn’t really Frank’s choice, as the prosecutor considered Frank a co-conspirator. That didn’t matter to Jackson. It also caused a rift in Frank’s relationship with his brothers:

“Eddie said that he and Michael thought that I had betrayed him when they heard I wouldn’t testify. Michael had doubted the very quality that I thought bound us forever: my loyalty. Eddie, in his own loyalty to Michael, had doubted me alongside him.”

Jackson iced Frank out for three years, but remained close to the rest of the Cascios. Allegedly, this is when Jackson was molesting the younger Cascio siblings. Frank and Jackson reunited in 2007, but were never able to get as close as they once were. The entire Cascio family attended Jackson’s private funeral. Prince, Paris, and Bigi née Blanket continued to spend Christmases in New Jersey with the Cascios, as that had become Jackson’s tradition, and Katherine Jackson didn’t want to disrupt the children’s lives anymore than they already had been.

Anton Schleiter

According to the Schleiter family’s website, they met Michael Jackson in 1995 at the taping of the hugely successful German variety TV show Wanna Bet?, on which Jackson was performing. Anton was 12. It was the beginning of, as they put it, “a friendship so normal yet so unusual and magical.”

Described as a “special friend” in Randy Sullivan’s Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson, Schleiter was a frequent companion of Jackson’s. In 1996, before embarking on his HIStory world tour, Jackson travelled to Germany and stayed with the Schleiter family in their home. They were photographed visiting Phantasialand, an amusement park in Cologne, about a four-and-a-half-hour drive from where the Schleiters lived in Hamburg. Given the distance from Hamburg, the outing likely involved an overnight stay in a hotel. It became a recurring destination for the friends.

A few months later, Jackson, Schleiter, Schleiter’s sister Franziska, and the Cascio children were photographed on the balcony of the Disneyland Hotel outside of Paris, France. Jackson returned to Disneyland, Paris in 1999 with Schleiter, Omer Bhatti, and the Cascio kids, where they stayed for a week.

In 1997, Jackson’s HIStory world tour included performances in eight German cities. Schleiter was his companion throughout the tour’s German leg. They were photographed shopping in Munich and going into a hotel in Bremen. For the next 10 years, Schleiter would be a constant in Jackson’s life. Whenever he went to Germany, he stayed in the Schleiter home. They spent time together at Neverland and took vacations in France, England, and throughout Italy, including Venice, Rome, Florence and the Amalfi Coast. Schleiter even visited Jackson in Bahrain, after a self-imposed exile following his 2005 criminal trial.

Frank Cascio doesn’t refer to Schleiter by name in his book, though he acknowledged that Jackson spent Christmas 2002 at Neverland with the Cascios, Bhattis, and “a family from Germany Michael befriended.” He also seemed to refute Jackson’s claim that he got the inspiration for his song “Speechless,” a romantic song which appeared on Invincible, “after a water balloon fight with some kids in Germany”—again, not naming Schleiter or his sister, with whom Frank spent holidays. Instead, according to Frank, Jackson told him that he was inspired for the song “during a walk in the mountains.”

It’s odd, considering Schleiter was very much present in Jackson’s life—alongside the Cascios—even appearing in home movies and receiving a shoutout in the liner notes of Invincible. In 2005, after his criminal trial, Jackson vowed to never return to Neverland. He reportedly asked his nephew Taj and Schleiter to stay at the ranch and pack up his belongings.

Though Schleiter isn’t in the habit of granting media interviews, he has always defended Jackson. The Schleiter family launched their website in the wake of Leaving Neverland to address rumors—like, “Anton was falsely portrayed in a German tabloid as having a homosexual affair with Michael”—and defend their friend.

“The utter shocking news of a new documentary that would portray Michael once again as a child molester. Even writing this sentence, putting his name and that word together, makes us feel sick to our stomach. Michael never behaved inappropriately towards us and we neither witnessed nor suspected him doing it to someone else ever.”

Omer Bhatti

Omer Bhatti is the youngest child of a Pakistani man and Norwegian woman. He grew up mostly in Oslo where he was a bit of a local celebrity, known for his impersonation of Michael Jackson. He won dance competitions, was featured on Norwegian talk shows, and earned money making appearances at shopping centres and festivals around the country, dancing like his idol. According to accounts later repeated by the family, he was visiting an uncle in Tunis when he met Jackson in 1996, while the singer was there as part of his HIStory world tour.

Bhatti, who was 11 at the time, had dressed up as Jackson and put on eyeliner, to wait outside the Jackson’s hotel, hoping to get a glimpse of the King of Pop. Jackson noticed Bhatti amongst the crowd of fans and invited Bhatti up to his suite. That night at Jackson’s show, Bhatti joined Jackson on stage, and afterward, Jackson invited the Bhatti family to continue on the HIStory tour with him—which they did, for several dates.

In his book My Friend Michael, Frank Cascio said that Jackson introduced Bhatti—who, at the time, “didn’t really speak English”—to him in Paris. Jackson told Frank to call him “Little Michael.” Bhatti was staying in Jackson’s hotel room. According to Frank, Jackson pulled him aside to reveal that Bhatti was his son. The confession confused Frank, who hadn’t heard anything about Jackson having a son in the 10 years he’d known him.

“Michael told me that once, on an earlier tour, he’d met a blond Norwegian girl and that he’d had an affair with a fan for the first time. This girl had gotten pregnant, but when she had the baby, she literally went mad, overwhelmed by the notion that she was having Michael Jackson’s baby. Now, the mother was in a mental institution. The baby was supposedly adopted by a woman named Pia, who was a nurse in the psychiatric hospital.”

Frank didn’t believe Jackson, but recognized that it was important to Jackson that he did. “I didn’t see the harm in it, so I relented and said, ‘Okay, that’s your son.’”

Jackson told everyone in his life this story. It ended up leaking to the press at some point, but Jackson never officially confirmed it, although he encouraged fans to believe the rumor. It appeared that Jackson’s own family members believed the story. In an interview with TV One—a sort of older-skewing BET—about a month after Jackson’s death in 2009, his father Joe asserted that Bhatti was his grandson. “Yes, I knew he had another son, yes I did,” Joe said. “He looks like a Jackson, he can dance like a Jackson. This boy is fantastic dancer—matter of fact, he teaches dance.”

Not long after he first told Frank that Bhatti was his son, Jackson confessed that he actually was not his son. The boy’s parents were Pia and Riz—the adoptive parents in the original story—which made sense to Frank because Bhatti looked just like the couple. Frank said that Jackson said he pretended Bhatti was his son to show the Saudi prince and the rest of the Arab business world that he had a family—the same excuse he’d used for marrying Lisa Marie Presley and Debbie Rowe.

After concluding the HIStory tour in 1997, Jackson was reportedly unable to part with the boy. He invited Bhatti to live with him. Bhatti returned to Norway to finish out the school year, his parents sold their home, and the entire family relocated to Neverland.

Jackson’s son Prince was born in February 1997, in between legs of the tour. He hired Bhatti’s mother Pia as Prince’s nanny, while his father Riz “ran errands and looked after the cars.” According to Frank, the Bhattis began to celebrate holidays with Jackson and the Cascios. Frank acknowledged that Bhatti was the first kid, besides the Cascio brothers, to spend an excessive amount of time with Jackson since the 1993 allegations.

Back in America, Jackson privately kept up the ruse that Bhatti was his long lost illegitimate son. The story also provided a public explanation for Jackson’s unusually close relationship with the boy in the years following the 1993 allegations. The Bhattis seemed to play along, refusing to answer questions about their son’s parentage.

Bhatti’s friend Ricky Harlow—whose band was signed to MJJ records in 1996—confirmed that Bhatti shared a bed with Jackson in an interview with People after the singer’s death in 2009.

“Omer would sleep over at Michael’s. They would hang out and watch movies and all that kind of stuff. His parents and his sister stayed in a cottage in a different part of the ranch. Omer sleeping in Michael’s bed would not have been a big deal. It would have been innocent.”

Bhatti’s parents returned to Norway in 2000 when he was 15, reportedly because his mother had a stroke and needed rehab. Bhatti remained at Neverland until 2003, though he was not featured in Martin Bashir’s documentary Living with Michael Jackson. Bhatti was, however, present when police raided Neverland in November 2003. The then-18-year-old was interviewed by police during their investigation. His name came up a few times during grand jury hearings.

Detective Jeffrey Ellis testified that when he “broached the subject of pornography,” Bhatti became nervous and “seemed to have trouble forming a sentence. It was almost like a stutter.” He added that when he asked Bhatti a series of questions about the consumption of wine and alcohol and references to “Jesus Juice,” he saw “that same type of uneasiness in him that I noticed when I started talking to him about pornography.”

According to Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson by Randy Sullivan, after Jackson vowed not to return to Neverland, Bhatti moved into Hayvenhurst, where he stayed for many years. He was still living there in 2009 when Jackson died. Reportedly, Katherine was genuinely fond of the young man, who by then was 25, and determined to look after him. He would travel to New Jersey with Katherine and the Jackson kids to celebrate Christmas with the Cascios.

Bhatti sat with Katherine at Jackson’s memorial at the Staples Center. He’s still close with Prince, Paris, and Bigi née Blanket, who consider him family. In a 2020 episode of the Facebook Watch series Unfiltered, Paris said, “Both of my older brothers are like my best friends. I love them so much.” Bhatti, who was also interviewed for the show, confirmed that he considers Jackson’s children his siblings.

Bhatti eventually returned to Norway, where he launched a rap career and is known as O-Bee. He served as a judge on the Norwegian version of the Got Talent franchise.

In an interview that appeared in the June 2015 issue of Elle Norway, Bhatti was asked about the molestation allegations against Jackson.

“I don’t wish to say too much about it, but I will say Michael in many ways was very innocent. But you can’t expect everybody to have the same view on everything…To him certain things was natural and completely innocent, things that not necessarily all people would view the same way.”

Aaron Carter

Michael Jackson befriended teen idol Aaron Carter in the early 2000s, when Carter was around 13 and Jackson was in his early forties. According to Randy Sullivan’s Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson, Carter had been a regular visitor to Neverland in his early teens, which Carter has confirmed in various interviews.

The friendship became close enough that in September 2001, Carter performed at Jackson’s 30th anniversary concert event at Madison Square Garden. A few weeks later, Carter was one of the many pop stars to perform on Jackson’s charity single, “What More Can I Give?” benefitting the victims of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Carter has given many conflicting accounts over the years about his friendship with Jackson. In a late 2004 interview with Access Hollywood, ahead of Jackson’s criminal trial, Carter’s mother Jane said she was “furious” that her son had spent an unsupervised night at Neverland Ranch without her permission. In the same interview, Carter’s 18-year-old sister Leslie implied that drugs may have been involved.

Carter, who was 15 at the time and known for publicly feuding with family members, responded with an interview in People, saying:

“I don’t do drugs. I didn’t do them with Michael Jackson and I don’t do them with anyone else…Michael and I have been friends for three years. We didn’t sleep in the same room, we didn’t share a bed. We have a normal friendship. There’s nothing sexual to it.”

On the second anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death, Carter gave an interview to OK! magazine in which he described his relationship with Jackson in more troubling terms than he previously had publicly. Like other boys before him, Carter said that he would spend “hours and hours” on the phone with Jackson. Carter alleged that Jackson gave him wine, cocaine, and marijuana when he was 15 years old, saying he “felt weird” about the experience and was disturbed by aspects of Jackson’s behavior, despite also describing him as someone he admired deeply. Carter framed the relationship as emotionally complicated, saying he had “incredible times” with Jackson, adding:

Carter—who said in the same interview that he wanted to protect Jackson’s legacy—explained away the late singer’s behavior by saying that drinking and doing drugs were his choice. “I wanted to drink…at 15, you want to do those kinds of things. I was experimenting.”

Carter then said that his mother Jane called the police on Jackson, but it’s not known what happened from there. The day after the OK! story was published, Carter, through his publicist, said that the interview was a fabrication. “Nothing was said that was reported.”

The interview had been recorded

After the release of Leaving Neverland in 2019, Carter, then 31, came out aggressively in Jackson’s defense, criticizing Wade Robson and James Safechuck in an interview with TMZ, saying, “You’re stomping on his grave.” However, a few months later, in a preview clip for Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars Family Edition, he said:

“Michael was a really good guy, as far as I know, a really good guy. He never did anything that was inappropriate…Except for one time. There was one thing that he did that was a little bit inappropriate.”

He did not elaborate further.

Carter passed away in 2022 at the age of 34. He was found in his bathtub and his death was ruled an accidental drowning after huffing duster and taking Xanax. His unfinished memoir, Aaron Carter: An Incomplete Story of an Incomplete Life, was published posthumously. The book was only 100 pages, but it included an “uncomfortable” encounter with Jackson at Neverland when he was 15.

“Michael and I went into the main house alone and headed to his bedroom area. After a while, I said I was ready for bed. I hadn’t really thought about where I would sleep. Obviously, there were tons of rooms in the house. But he pulled out this cot next to his bed that was already made. I never asked for the cot, but there it was. I didn’t care. I was tired. He turned out the lights and got in his bed, and we went to sleep. [A few hours later I awoke and] found Michael at the foot of my cot in his tighty-whitey underwear. I don’t know if he was sleepwalking or what, but he seemed to still be asleep. ‘What the fuck!?’ I shouted and shook him a little to wake him. ‘Go back to your bed!’ He just mumbled, ‘okay,’ then got back into his bed, and we both went back to sleep. I never asked him about it, and we never mentioned it. When I woke up in the morning, he was gone from the room.”

Gavin Arvizo

Gavin Arvizo’s allegations formed the basis of the 2005 criminal case against Michael Jackson. Arvizo first met Jackson in 2000 at age 10 while undergoing chemotherapy for an aggressive form of cancer affecting his kidney and spleen. They were introduced through the Laugh Factory comedy camp, which Gavin and his younger brother Star attended. Jackson began calling him frequently at the hospital and soon invited Gavin and his family to Neverland Ranch. According to the criminal complaint, Jackson gifted Gavin a laptop when they first met, and then showed both Gavin and his brother Star how to access pornography on the internet.

Prosecutors alleged Gavin and Star quickly became integrated into Jackson’s private world, often sleeping in Jackson’s bedroom while the rest of the family stayed separately in guest quarters. The children were allegedly showered with gifts, a car, shopping sprees, expensive electronics, and special access to Jackson’s celebrity lifestyle. Eventually, Gavin began to recover from cancer and the visits to Neverland tapered and stopped altogether by the time the boy was 12.

Jackson invited the Arvizo siblings back to Neverland in 2002, while he was filming the documentary Living with Michael Jackson, in which Gavin appeared publicly alongside Jackson, resting his head on Jackson’s shoulder while the two held hands. In a highly publicized clip from the documentary, Jackson revealed his custom of sleeping with children that weren’t his own. “The most loving thing you can do is share your bed,” he told journalist Martin Bashir.

In a subsequent scene, Bashir pushed back on the notion of sleeping with unrelated children. Jackson backtracked, saying he actually did not share his bed with Gavin, but had slept in a sleeping bag on the floor while Gavin and Star slept in the bed.

Prosecutors argued that after backlash from the documentary intensified, Jackson brought Gavin and his family back into his orbit and increasingly isolated them at Neverland. During this period, the boys allegedly spent most of their time with Jackson, away from their mother, immersed in the attractions and privileges of the ranch while normal routines like school and outside contact fell away.

According to the prosecution, the boys were exposed to alcohol, pornography, and sexualized conversations and behavior—Jackson allegedly offered to teach the boys how to masturbate—which Jackson attempted to normalize. Gavin alleged that Jackson repeatedly sexually abused him while the two shared a bed at Neverland. His younger brother, Star, testified that he twice witnessed Jackson masturbating himself and Gavin and stopped sleeping in Jackson’s room afterward.

Prosecutors also portrayed the family as increasingly controlled and manipulated by Jackson’s associates during their stay at Neverland. Gavin’s mother, Janet Arvizo, testified that she was pressured into believing the family needed to leave the country for their safety following the Bashir documentary. She testified at the 2005 criminal trial that she was told “killers” were after her.

In the 2026 ITV 4 docuseries Michael Jackson: The Trial, Christian Robinson—who served as Jackson’s personal videographer from 2001 to 2004—said that the intention of relocating the Arvizos was to keep Janet “as far away from tabloids and people with checks as possible.” The concern was that she would sell her story. He said that one of Jackson’s publicists, Vinnie Amen, got passports for the family—which he allegedly didn’t turn over to Janet—and would help facilitate their move to Brazil.

In his book, My Friend Michael, Frank Cascio characterized this event as “a vacation” to which he was looking forward. Cascio said that ended up not happening because Gavin had “too many doctors appointments.” Cascio—who, for some reason, was going by the name Frank Tyson at the time—was named as a co-conspirator in Jackson’s indictment. Prosecutors were considering charges of intimidation of witnesses and kidnapping.

Arvizo family friend Louise Palanker—who taught the boys at the Laugh Factory camp—said she received an alarming phone call from Janet, asking her to pick the family up from Neverland. “She was whispering,” Palanker said. “She sounded desperate and I felt her panic for her own children.” Janet told Palanker that she wasn’t allowed to leave the ranch without a chaperone and she feared Jackson was going to send the family to Brazil to disappear. Janet ultimately devised a plan to get the family away from Neverland by arranging for relatives to claim there was a family emergency.

While the Arvizos were at Neverland, Jackson’s employees had moved all of their possessions from their home into storage and refused to tell Janet where. After leaving the ranch, the family sought legal assistance regarding their belongings and the fallout surrounding the documentary. According to prosecutors, it was during sessions with psychologist Stan Katz that Gavin and Star first disclosed the alleged abuse, leading to the criminal investigation that culminated in Jackson’s 2005 trial.

Gavin testified in court that Frank Cascio showed him and his brother pictures of naked women and visited adult sites in front of the children. Jackson was allegedly sitting with them and made comments about the women who Gavin described as “young,” 15 to 25 years old. Gavin also testified that prior to being filmed for Living with Michael Jackson, Jackson instructed him about what to say on camera, specifically that Jackson cured him from cancer.

The trial became a spectacle. Jackson’s supporters were reportedly bussed to convene in front of the courthouse each day. One day he showed up to court an hour late in his pajamas. Another, he climbed on top of his SUV and danced for the crowd.

Jackson’s camp did what they could to undermine the prosecution and discredit the 13-year-old cancer survivor and his family. Jackson’s attorney Thomas A. Mesereau Jr. painted Janet Arvizo as a money-hungry grifter who convinced her son to lie about Jackson to secure a big payday. On cross-examination, he brought up a 2000 settlement in which the Arvizos were awarded money by J.C. Penney. According to court transcripts, he accused Janet of shoplifting from the store, and then suing security guards there for sexual assault. J.C. Penney settled for $152,000, of which the Arvizos received $70,000 after the lawyers took their cut. The defense brought in a welfare worker who stated that Janet had failed to disclose her receipt of the settlement days before filling out a welfare application. He accused her of defrauding the system of about $18,000 over the course of a year and a half—during the period she wasn’t working while her son was fighting cancer.

(According to documents from the Arvizos’ lawsuit against J.C. Penney, Janet had accepted a job, ironically, as a loss prevention officer at a nearby sporting goods store. She was there to submit a mandatory drug test before being officially hired. While Janet was inside the store, Gavin, who was nine, Star, who was eight, and their father, David, were stopped by security guards outside J.C. Penney. According to police, Gavin was holding "two school uniforms and two school uniform pants" that hadn’t been paid for. An altercation ensued and David and the boys were physically attacked by security. When Janet arrived, she yelled at them to stop. She alleged that the security guards turned their attention to her and called the family “fucking wetbacks.” According to her testimony, she was thrown on the ground and sexually assaulted by one of the guards who she alleged kept grabbing her breasts and squeezing her nipples in what she says was an attempt to humiliate her. Gavin sustained a broken elbow and black eye, Star got a concussion, and Janet had contusions.)

Ultimately, Mesereau was successful in getting the jury to believe that Janet was a scammer and a liar. Jackson was found not guilty on all counts in June 2005. Janet’s credibility problems were blamed for the prosecution losing its case. The Arvizos—who were living in a studio apartment in Los Angeles—did not sue Jackson for damages. They did not sell their story to any media outlets, despite being offered several six-figure deals.

Two months after the trial ended, Janet was charged with five felony counts—four counts of perjury for lying on the welfare form and one count of welfare fraud—by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office. The charges were the result of a probe launched by a tip from one of Jackson’s own private investigators to authorities at the start of the singer’s trial. Janet plead no contest to one count of welfare fraud and was ordered to perform 150 hours of community service and pay back $8,600 to the county.

Gavin put himself through community college and later earned a bachelor’s degree from Emory University, where he double-majored in history and philosophy. He got married in 2013, and continues to live a private life.

The allegations against Jackson span decades, involving multiple boys who often didn’t know each other, families from different countries and backgrounds, former employees, sworn testimony, civil complaints, police investigations, settlements, corroborating witness statements, and a pattern of behavior that remained remarkably consistent over time. And yet, Michael Jackson continues to occupy a uniquely protected space in the culture, where the normal rules of suspicion, power, grooming, and celebrity seem to dissolve on contact. In almost any other context, a grown man surrounding himself with an endless procession of unrelated young boys—sharing beds with them, traveling the world with them, calling them for hours at night, isolating them from their parents, showering them with gifts, and cycling through intense attachments that often faded as the children got older—would not be treated as mysterious or unknowable. But Jackson’s fame, talent, perceived fragility, and the sheer emotional force of nostalgia have allowed many people to reframe an overwhelming pattern as coincidence, misunderstanding, conspiracy, or persecution. The mythology surrounding Michael Jackson became so large that, for many, it eclipsed the reality directly in front of them.

On July 30, 2025, a hearse pulled up in front of The Warfield in San Francisco. Pallbearers carried a casket into the theater past a line of kids waiting for that night’s show. The kids were there to see d4vd. It was the opening night of the then-20-year-old singer-songwriter’s first headlining tour.

When doors finally opened, concertgoers were greeted in the lobby by an experiential memorial: the casket, along with funeral wreaths, a portrait of d4vd wrapped in gauze and blood, and a guestbook and pen. Fans were encouraged to leave “condolence” messages for the “deceased,” and were given red pins reading “RIP ITAMI”—d4vd’s lovesick, tormented alter ego. Inside the venue, the stage—which featured large props mimicking wrought-iron gates and mausoleum stonework draped in white roses—evoked a cemetery.

The funeral imagery was on brand for the guy whose music and videos lean into themes of death, murder, and dark romantic obsession. His work—notably viral hits “Romantic Homicide” and “One More Dance”—includes references to killing a lover. “I killed you / And I didn’t even regret it / I can’t believe I said it / But it’s true / I hate you.”

The crowd sang along, not knowing that the night before, d4vd’s Tesla had been left on the street in front of his rented house in the Hollywood Hills, its trunk containing the dismembered body of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, a 14-year-old girl alleged to be his girlfriend.

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Last week, d4vd, born David Anthony Burk, was arrested for her murder and is currently being held without bail. In hindsight, d4vd’s macabre performances on his tour seem brazen and pointed, considering what was in the trunk of that car. But that’s not even the half of it. A timeline of d4vd’s online activity and artistic output, when paired with court filings from Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman, goes beyond a compelling argument for his guilt—it makes him seem like a total fucking psychopath (allegedly and in my opinion).

We haven’t seen life imitate art in such a morbid way, perhaps, since the early 1990s Norwegian black metal scene. It’s incredibly disturbing.

Before fans embraced his alt sad boi artistry, he was a lonely homeschooled teenager in the suburbs of Houston, TX, whose only socialization came through the internet. “I had to learn to be my own friend because after I left public school, nobody hit me up. It was a learning curve, and I had to learn to be alone and become my own person,” Burke told Dazed.

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[Ramona Singer voice] Well, Natasha Lyonne is back at it.

Earlier this week, Page Six reported that the actress was removed from a Delta flight after she was too “out of it” to follow flight attendants’ requests to stow her laptop and fasten her seatbelt. Initially unresponsive, she eventually woke up and asked where she was. A Delta staffer explained that they were still in LA and that the plane wasn’t going anywhere until Natasha deboarded. This is my favorite part:

Can’t you just imagine her, one hand in her pile of hair, the other waving away the gate agent, telling them to hush with her Columbo affect?

To be fair, it was a redeye flight to NYC. It’s quite possible that her Xannie kicked in a little too early—particularly if she’d had a few drinks. She was, after all, freshly off the red carpet celebrating the season three premiere of Euphoria. (Natasha has joined the cast as a guest star.) The problem, though, is that our girl shouldn’t be celebrating with a few drinks or any pills because she’s supposed to be sober.

After emerging from a life-threatening addiction in her 20s, she managed to rebuild a solid career, not only as an actress, but as a producer and director. The only other time an actor was able to claw themselves out of such a ditch of despair to the top of the world was Robert Downey Jr. Her comeback was triumphant. It instilled hope—maybe Tinseltown can deliver happy endings for those it once devastated.

In January—following rumors that she’d been behaving oddly at the Golden Globes—Natasha announced, in a now deleted tweet, that after “nearly a decade” of sobriety, she had relapsed: “Took my relapse public more to come.” (Three days later, she announced, in another deleted tweet, “#comingout #queer.”) In March, she tweeted that she was “back on her feet,” and thanked her recovery community before adding, “Aiming to keep the journey somehow private, but look forward to sharing my experience.” And according to her, this week’s plane incident had nothing to do with the aforementioned relapse—she had been detained by ICE after taking Lunesta, which made her sleepy. But footage of her on the red carpet earlier that evening seemed to tell a different story. It looked like she was having difficulty walking, even though she was in flats.

@cleklockNatasha Lyonne na premiere de Euphoria Season 3

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This recent turn of events is a bit scary for those of us who remember her dark days on the streets of New York in the 2000s. And when I say “dark” I mean absolutely fucking down-and-out bleak. She was homeless. At one point, she turned up in Bellevue with a bevy of drug-related illnesses, including hepatitis C, infective endocarditis, and a collapsed lung. She was arrested for threatening to molest a dog. I personally saw her struggling downtown multiple times, and thought for sure I’d be reading her obit sometime soon.

Honestly, you probably wouldn’t get the seriousness of her situation if you didn’t experience it in real time. This wasn’t like Lindsay or even Britney. Those girls were big-time earners, with blockbusters and endorsement deals. American Pie aside, Natasha was mostly doing cool, lower-budget indie films. Plus, she didn’t have a large family nor a large team looking out for her, motivated by protecting their own livelihoods. She was on her own.

To give you a better understanding of what a feat she accomplished in getting clean, I’ve dug up decades-old news stories and waded into the archives of Gawker Stalker, the former site’s weekly roundup of celebrity sightings in NYC submitted by readers. Natasha was regularly featured—I even submitted one!

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It’s important to me that you understand that I’m not trying to kick someone while she’s down. In fact, Natasha doesn’t seem down at all. She’s tweeting and posting to Instagram like nothing has happened. She worked a red carpet the next day in a killer LaQuan Smith look, having a ball.

I’ve always felt an affinity for Natasha. She’s exactly one month older than I am, and as fellow native New Yorkers, our lives have often seemed to wind like vines around the same trellis. As a little girl, she was dancing around on Pee-wee’s Playhouse while I watched from my living room floor. She was on the cover of Bust magazine when I got hired there out of college. Though technically a Hollywood actress, Natasha has always stood apart from the glossy pack of L.A. ingénues; she carries herself with that distinctly East Coast toughness, that quick, sharp wit that makes her feel less like a manufactured starlet than a lovable misfit. She was cool in a way that California girls could never be. She picked interesting projects and hung out with other indie darlings. And when she was sinking into the lowest depths of her addiction, I happened to be in the throes of my own, too. Mine never reached the same calamitous extremes as hers—my struggles were brief and limited to cocaine, and I never found myself in quite so deep a hole—but still, I recognized something of myself in her.

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There have been so many relaunches this week that I’m sure an astrology girlie could cosmically explain how it’s no coincidence. Some returns are welcomed, some not so much, but I’m here for it all.

Jen Shah

Convicted felon and current Real House Arrest of Salt Lake City Jen Shah has broken her silence for the first time since leaving federal prison in an exclusive interview with People. She talked about the three years she served at FPC Bryan, a minimum security prison for female inmates, after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Originally, Jen was sentenced to 78 months for running a nationwide telemarketing fraud scheme, but was granted early release due to good behavior and participation in prison programs, allowing her to finish her time at home. Along with her new ankle monitor, she wore a $6,000 white Gucci pantsuit—but it was from the Pre-Fall ‘19 collection, so she likely already owned it or perhaps got it for a song off The RealReal.

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Last weekend Chappell Roan was involved in a controversy with Jorginho (a mononym soccer star), his wife (a contestant from The Voice UK), and her daughter (Jude Law’s bio kid), after an incident allegedly took place in the breakfast room at a five-star hotel in São Paulo. What could have been a C-story on an iteration of The White Lotus erupted into intense backlash for the Midwest Princess and fed an online discourse cycle about whether she’s bristling with entitlement when it comes to her offstage interactions or if she was the target of a coordinated misogynist smear campaign.

I’d first like to disclose that I’m a fan. I love her music and, like many women in their 40s, took my child to see her perform live while we belted lesbionic, sexually graphic lyrics in unison at the top of our lungs. Also, I’m the type of feminist who will believe a woman over a man until presented with substantial proof to change my mind. Pro-woman by default; evidence-based in practice. Which is to say, I might be a little biased. But, like, also, I’m correct.

Along with the memes—which were immaculate—I love this stupid scandal because of how tangled and wide-reaching the lore is. It’s like a mycelium network—on the surface you see a mushroom, but beneath that, out of sight, are these intricate threads that connect that mushroom to other living organisms, extending for vast distances that often span thousands of acres. You’d never guess that a little cluster of fungi at your feet is connected to a tree eight miles away. The same way you’d never guess that a little controversy in Brazil is connected to Kim Kardashian, the Lolita Express, and Jude Law. So let’s get into it.

First up is the soccer player. (I’m saying “soccer” because I’m American and because sports is confusing enough already for me.) So, in a Mariah-Carey sense, I don’t know him. But also, in a regular person sense, I’d never heard of him. However this guy is like, extremely famous. He is 34 and has been playing professionally for 16 years—his entire adult life. He’s originally from Brazil, but was always on Italian or English teams until 2025 when he finally returned to his homeland to join Flamengo, which, as far as sports team names go, is fruity as all get out. His name is Jorge Frello but he’s known simply as Jorginho.

Last weekend he posted an Instagram story for his 5 million followers—first in English and then in Portuguese—about an encounter between his wife, his step-daughter, and a man he alleged was Chappell Roan’s bodyguard, an incident for which Jorginho himself was not present. Here’s the post in its entirety. As you can see by the tiny text, he was rip shit.

He was incensed that a security guard would speak to his wife and Jude Law’s child in such a manner. So incensed that he said Chappell Roan is not deserving of the affection of her fans, and he wanted her to know it. So he tagged her. Anyone with a substantial Instagram following knows that when you tag someone—especially when it’s negative—they will be deluged with angry messages. They will be harassed. And when you tag someone for being a meanie to children? It’s curtains for you. Don’t even bother to open that app for like a week. I’d bet dollars to donuts Chappell received rape threats. I’m telling you, it doesn’t take much.

Speaking of rape…you would think that if Jorginho takes exception to pop stars with overzealous security, then surely he would be downright disgusted with a colleague who’s been charged with rape. But that’s not the case. I don’t have enough time to dig into the myriad sexual assault allegations against sports players, but a cursory search let me know Thomas Partey—Jorginho’s teammate from 2020 to 2025—was charged with five counts of rape and one count of sexual assault, relating to alleged incidents involving three women between 2021 and 2022. Jorginho never posted a story about that. In fact, he still follows Partey.

But also, why is Jorginho even giving a play-by-play on a game he didn’t see? Like, come off it, guy. This is not your story to tell. It leads me to believe that his wife wanted him to do it to put Chappell on blast, because his 5 million followers trump her paltry 166k. The story took on a life of its own.

After learning about the incident, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro—many hundreds of miles away from São Paulo—tweeted that Chappell was banned from performing there, even though she was not scheduled to do so. I’m only mentioning him here because I simply can’t get over the fact that he did this on his second day in office. Fucking stunt queen.

The next day, Chappell Roan posted a story to her more than 7 million Instagram followers in which she’s laying in bed after her performance at Lollapalooza, totally chill, with pupils the size of dimes. She says she didn’t even see a lady with a kid at breakfast, but feels bad if they had a negative experience. She also said the security guard was not on her team.

It was easy for people to immediately believe that Chappell Roan would instruct a bodyguard to yell at a child because she has a reputation as a curmudgeon. She’s barked at paparazzi and has complained about fans approaching her in public. Many people are like, “Boo hoo, then don’t be famous.” I mean, I guess, but like, the paparazzi have been disproportionately horrible to female celebrities for ages, hounding and chasing women until they cry or die or literally go insane.

Some people find her attitude about these issues annoying. But that’s mostly because people’s tolerance for annoying behavior is considerably lowered when the annoying person is a woman—more so when she’s a lesbian. Sean Penn has repeatedly been in physical altercations with the paparazzi, and his ass just won an Oscar. Chappell wanted to eat her breakfast in peace and she’s a witch to be burned at the Twitter stake.

But to be honest, she does have severe witch energy. I say that as someone who likes witches. Let’s be real, she looks remarkably like the cast of Hocus Pocus, and their whole thing was consuming the souls of children. She frequently wears exaggerated nails that, in theory, could be used to gouge out the eyes of babies to eat like olives from a martini.

And her makeup is extreme—like Aunt Gladys extreme. Again, another redhead whose livelihood relies on sapping the energy of children. So yeah, people were more than willing to take this opportunity to believe the very worst of the flaming-haired sorceress known as Chappell Roan. But beneath all the ugly makeup and violent manicures is a girl named Kayleigh (tragic spelling, I know), who just wants to sing her songs and not talk to strangers.

Wait’ll you get a load of this lady. After Chappell posted her response to Jorginho, his wife Catherine Harding posted a six-minute—six fucking minutes!—video to her stories, doubling down on the original version she told her husband. She pronounces Chappell as “Chappelle,” like Dave Chappelle, the entire six minutes. That is wild. Without a doubt, she had been saying the singer’s name repeatedly during the prior 24 hours as the story took on a life of its own, presumably in front of her daughter who is supposedly one of Chappell’s biggest fans. Either her daughter never corrected her (if you have children, you know that’s doubtful), or this mom doesn’t listen to her kid. Anyway, you can watch here if you have that kind of time on your hands.

Catherine began dating Jude Law in 2014, and by October of that year, it was confirmed that they were no longer a couple, but were expecting a child together. Ada was born in 2015. But get this: Catherine—who is Irish—adopted the stage name Cat Cavelli and was a contestant on The Voice UK in 2020.

She sang “I Put a Spell on You” for her blind audition. I bet they wished they were deaf instead. She was confident, if not traditionally melodic.

It’s gonna be a no from me, dawg. After watching that, I honestly feel like I could go on The Voice UK and do kind of well. I think any of us can.

Back in 2024, Cat wound up in the British tabloids after she began harassing a makeup artist she believed was having an affair with Jorginho, even showing up to the woman’s house late at night, to confront her. It was caught on a Ring camera, which was obtained by The Sun. And she takes issue with a bodyguard establishing boundaries?

But anyway, this is how I found out that Jude Law has a whole grip of kids. Three with his first wife Sadie Frost, then one with an American model after a “brief relationship,” one with Cat, and then, after remarrying in 2019, had two more with his second wife.

Hot. I wouldn’t make him pull out either.

The last time I heard about a Jude Law child was when his toddler had to go to the emergency room after she swallowed an ecstasy pill off the floor at Soho House in 2002.

Two days after Catherine insisted that the bodyguard did work for Chappell, Pascal Duvier announced in an Instagram post that he was the security guard in question at the five-star São Paulo hotel. He basically called Cat a liar and alleged that her statements were defamatory. He took full responsibility for what went down in the hotel dining room. He confirmed that he was not part of Chappelle’s team and was there on behalf of another artist. He decided to speak to Cat of his own volition and said their interaction was “calm and with good intentions.”

Now, I already knew all about Pascal.

He’s famous, as far as celebrity bodyguards are concerned. He began working with Kanye in 2012, and continued to work for the Wests for the next four years. You can see him pretty often on Keeping Up with the Kardashians, most notably when he accompanied the family and Khloé to Armenia. He was their bodyguard in Paris the night Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in October 2016! He wasn’t with her at the time of the heist. Kim had sent him to escort her sisters to a nightclub while she went to bed. Nevertheless, he was let go a month later.

But wait, there’s more!

Throughout the discourse, there was a (very vocal) minority who believed that this attack on Chappell was part of a coordinated smear campaign. Some cited the reason as plain old misogyny. Others got a little more tinfoil-hat with it.

I’m averse to conspiracy theories. They reward speculation over evidence, which feeds delusions that generate misinformation. That being said…as it turns out, there might actually be evidence that there was a coordinated effort to add fuel to the dumpster fire happening on social media.

Buzzfeed spoke with research company GUDEA that looked at a sample of about 100k posts across seven platforms. They found that 4.2% of those users were likely bots, which accounted for nearly 25% of the posts. They said:

“The incident prompted intense personal attacks on Chappell Roan, calls for boycotts, and significant misinformation (including satirical/fictional embellishment spreading as fact). Discourse ranged from legitimate fan criticism and debate about celebrity privacy vs. fan treatment, to coordinated attack campaigns and considerable satirical/humorous content that blurred the line with misinformation.”

I’ll be straight up with you: that involves an awful lot of math, which isn’t my strong suit, so I don’t know if this actually proves much of anything. I thought it was worth mentioning though, because it really amped up the aforementioned tinfoil-hat crowd.

A theory began floating around that the motivation behind an outside smear campaign was tied to something that had happened a month prior. In February, Chappell had cut ties with her talent agency Wasserman, whose founder and CEO Casey Wasserman is mentioned several times in the Epstein files and flight logs of Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane known as the Lolita Express. In a statement she posted to Instagram announcing the split, the singer said:

“I hold my teams to the highest standards and have a duty to protect them as well. No artist, agent or employee should ever be expected to defend or overlook actions that conflict so deeply with our own moral values.”

Shortly after her announcement, Wasserman announced that he would sell his agency—which has been renamed The Team—though as of today he is still serving as CEO. And despite calls for his resignation, he is still chair of the 2028 LA Olympics.

The theory is that perhaps Wasserman was taking a page out of the Harvey Weinstein book of PR when it comes to accusers: turn the public against them by discrediting them so nobody listens to what they’re saying. I mean, I guess that anything is possible. I haven’t seen enough evidence to suggest that this is true.

The mentions of Wasserman in the Epstein files make no suggestion that he did anything illegal. Still, people are super crazy when it comes to the whole subject of Epstein, and are fully going with guilt by association, no matter the facts. Many of them believe that Epstein and his billionaire friends were eating babies. That’s the kind of logic and reasoning we’re dealing with here.

Not to brag, but I consider myself a bit of an Epstein files scholar. I have a pretty good grasp on Wasserman’s involvement.

In September 2002, Bill Clinton took a two-week, five-nation tour of Africa as part of the Clinton Foundation’s HIV/AIDS initiative using Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane. You’ve probably heard or read about this trip in recent years—Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker were part of the group traveling with Clinton, along with his staff, Secret Service, and Casey and his then-wife Laura Wasserman. Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were also part of the caravan, as well as four young women who were introduced to the group as models, ballerinas, and a masseuse.

Aside from the young women, everyone else on the manifest had a reason to be there. Epstein because it was his plane; Ghislaine because she was the connection between Clinton and Epstein (and because she was allegedly and in my opinion a social climber who loved a freebie). Spacey and Tucker were asked to join the trip, with the idea that their celebrity would help get the tour press coverage and raise awareness of the Clinton Foundation’s work. The Wassermans were there on the invitation of Bill Clinton.

Casey Wasserman has a long-standing, close personal relationship and philanthropic partnership with the Clintons. Casey—much like Ghislaine—was a nepo baby. His grandfather Lew Wasserman was a successful Hollywood agent who introduced Casey to the Clintons.

As far as I could tell, this tour of Africa was the only time Casey Wasserman interacted with Jeffrey Epstein. He was there with his wife, not to mention a bunch of non-profit employees and allegedly and in my opinion two closeted homosexual actors. That’s just not the vibe of a PJ orgy with underage girls. It’s highly unlikely he was involved in anything like that during that trip.

While it doesn’t seem like Casey maintained any sort of correspondence with Epstein following the trip, he did keep in touch with Ghislaine. According to emails sent between the two in March and April 2003, it appears that they were carrying on an affair. That’s my read of it, anyway. I’ve put their emails in chronological order and will share the contents of them here so you can form your own opinion. First, Ghislaine emailed him something boring about a helicopter she was learning to fly and thanking him for introducing her to someone she was set to have lunch with.

Ghislaine: Thought of you at inappropriate moments.

Casey: I think of you all the time...So what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit? I am in NY tonight, youre not, what am I to do? xoxo

Ghislaine: I’ll be back in NY tom - I should land early afternoon - Don’t we we need to meet and have a very important meeting? Are you sure that a breakfast meeting is out of the question - an early breakfast meeting?

Casey: well then why don’t you come over!

Ghislaine: Tease! I don’t often wish I was in NY on a Sunday evening

Casey: room 604 at the regency...

Ghislaine: Casey - I will be coming back to NY torn late afternoon. I shall be wearing a tight leather flying suit...PS Whilst in NY without me - What would you like to do.. What time do you land?

Casey: i am here...very quiet without you... :( what do you suggest?

Ghislaine: What should you do? Miss me...

Casey: Where are you, I miss you. I will be in nyc for 4 days starting april 22...can we book that massage now?

Now, this is where people might start to think that Casey actually did use Epstein’s services. But as you’ll see, his boner was only for Ghislaine. So, she responds to this message with an image that is unavailable for us to see.

Casey: Well I thought we would start at that place that you know of, and then continue the massage concept into your bed...and then again in the moming...not sure if or when we would stop. I am interested in the Cigar concept, and am glad you got all those hours before you fly me!

Ghislaine: Umm - all that nabbing - are you sure you can take it? The thought frankly is leaving me a little breathless. There are a few spots that apparently drive a man wild -I suppose I could practise them on you and you could let me know if they work or not? + just for the record the cigar concept currently has pride of place in my bedroom!

And it goes on like that for about six weeks. She flies out to LA, she tells him she’s at the Peninsula, etc. And then it just stops. I’m not sure if that’s because they simply stopped communicating or if they moved it over the BB messenger or they got T-Mobile Sidekicks or something like that. And he sucks, too. I don’t know if he’s a criminal, but he sure as shit has a cheating heart.

So…they were fucking, right? It seems clear to me. Ghislaine is so vile. She spent two weeks touring Africa with this man’s wife—in the close quarters of a plane and likely around many dinner tables—and yet had no compunction about getting all horny with him in that ugly, embarrassing way that seems to be a hallmark of British upper-class flirtation.

One last thing!

After Cat posted photos and videos of her daughter at Lollapalooza, people on social media couldn’t help but notice the 11-year-old’s purse.

People thought it was this very expensive ass-ugly limited edition Chanel bag. And I believed them—at first. But I know enough to fact check what I learn on Twitter. Turns out it’s from Aldo. I’m sorry to Jude Law’s daughter. I’m not sure which indignity cuts deeper: the internet’s scorn for one’s Chanel-clad privilege, or to possess, in earnest, an Aldo bag.

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[Jerri Blank voice] I’ve got somethin’ to say!

But seriously, I spend an inordinate amount of time consuming media—articles, posts, TikToks, TV, art, memes, you get the picture. The only way that I can legitimately justify my screen time is if I make it my job.

Twelve years ago, I was desperate to escape the grind of blogging. It was really so incredibly difficult, but that’s a story for a different installment. I thought something better was waiting out in the world for me. Turns out I was wrong. JK…sort of. I went on to a do a bunch of stuff—I launched another new media property, then I worked as a television executive, made documentaries, then got into podcasting—but to my chagrin, Taylor Swift by way of Hannah Montana was correct. You’ll always find your way back home. For me, that’s writing—specifically, on the internet.

(An aside—it really vexes me that em dashes are suddenly considered the hallmark of AI. That is bullshit. I have been an em dash enthusiast throughout my career. Get used to seeing them here.)

Anyway, part of this will be simple curation—what I’m reading, watching, noticing. These are things that are flagged. [Valerie Cherish voice] Jane!

But I’ll also go a little further: tugging on a thread until things start to unravel into the kind of mess I love to slop around in. These are the things that are reported. Get it?

I’ll be publishing at least once a week. Maybe more if I can’t shut the fuck up about something. I’ve finally broken this decade-long writing block I’ve had. I did piss off some witches back in 2016, so I can’t exactly rule out that it was a curse, but I think it was more likely burnout. It actually feels good to finally be excited to write again. In fact, I’m currently working on a book, the progress of which I’ll share here.