Leaving Neverland | Was Michael Jackson Guilty?

welcome to my scientifically informed insider look at mental health topics if you find this video to be interesting or helpful please like it and subscribe to my channel this is dr. grande today's question asks if I can give my thoughts on the documentary leaving Neverland which is really a movie about these accusations against Michael Jackson so this is a really controversial topic a lot of people were upset by this movie and we know that strong emotions tend to interfere with critical thinking so this is one of those areas where it becomes hard to kind of figure out what happened and it can be hard to even conduct the analysis again if people have strong emotions now of course Michael Jackson and all the people featured and leaving Neverland are real people so it's important to mention here that I'm not diagnosing anybody only speculating based on what could be happening in a situation similar to what we see here so I watched the documentary a while back a few weeks ago and it was for hours I found it to be one-sided like they were trying to convince the audience of a particular occurrence or a set of occurrences rather than just presenting evidence and letting the audience decide and whenever I see documentaries I'll loosely call it a documentary it's really just just a movie I guess whenever I see movies like this I really get skeptical because it feels like there's an agenda now on top of this this movie was exceedingly boring you have about one hour of really interesting content spread out over four hours now this doesn't speak to the validity of a the statements made in the series just something I like to point out was really boring I'm not a big fan of boring things now we see a lot of interviews in leaving Neverland that are really just people talking about what someone else said even though that someone else is also in movie so again just a lot of wasted time so I don't necessarily recommend watching it but then again this video wouldn't really make a lot of sense if somebody didn't watch it I guess it helps to have watched it before watching this video but I found it to be kind of a waste of time and I think some of the summaries on the internet that are available do pretty much just as good a job at talking about what's mentioned in leaving Neverland and I'll put those links to those sources in the description for this video so we see a lot of reviews of this movie right a lot of people have opinions about it we see reviews like it's overwhelmingly powerful and convincing you know a pretty significant review there we see another review that says it's a devastatingly and undeniable persuasive film so interesting right now I didn't just cherry-pick these two there's a lot of reviews like this we see in one review the word convincing and another review the word persuasive so again the skepticism alarm really goes off loudly when I see well a movie like this and I see reviews like this so people are having an emotional and not necessarily a logical response to the movie so something else important here to mention before I get into the timeline and my other thoughts in terms of what this shows us or doesn't show us about Michael Jackson I've been around for a while right so I was relatively young when Michael Jackson was becoming really famous like I guess mid 80s or so and he was of course exceedingly popular even back then but it's one thing to see kind of all this information crammed together now like in leaving Neverland and other sources we see but they might not be presented in order and we don't really see it unfold in real time but throughout my life not that I've tracked the Michael Jackson case closely or anything but throughout my life I've seen this unfold in real time and it's really something else to live through all those stories in real time as opposed to having everything just put in front of you at once it gives me I think anyway a perspective in terms of the whole history of Michael Jackson and all these different things we see that are said about him and his behaviors and other things we see over so all right moving to the timeline so I'm gonna go through kind of a quick timeline it's not gonna take four hours like it did in a movie it's just going a quick timeline and then I'm going to get to kind of my thoughts about guilt or innocence here so I'm gonna start my timeline 1987 we see two players kind of emerge here one is James safe Chuck he was born in 1978 so he was about nine years old in 1987 when he met Michael Jackson on this set of a commercial they were doing it was a Pepsi commercial I still remember that commercial from years ago this started a friendship and a lot of giving of gifts and a lot of time spent together so essentially in 87 Michael Jackson befriended this nine-year-old James safe Chuck James safe chuck was from the United States and of course Michael Jackson was from the United States as well we see in 1987 another person and this was the other person featured in the movie Wade Robson now he was from Australia he was born 1982 so he was younger than James safe Chuck he met Michael Jackson Australia because Wade had one like a dancing competition there and they also started a friendship which was somewhat similar to the one we see with James both had the families involved and most prominently featured would be the mothers of both James and Wade so they were going places they were spending time at Neverland Ranch which is the estate Michael Jackson's estate and all these other things going on tour with him and all these other things so it was unusual I guess to say the least but this is what we see and both of these relationships started in 1987 we see in 1991 that Wade Robson moves with his mother and sister I believe to Los Angeles to kind of work with Michael Jackson in 1992 we see that James safe Chuck made his last visit the Neverland Ranch just becomes important later on in 1993 we see a criminal investigation and then a civil suit that was eventually settled for 22 million dollars so there was a civil suit filed against michael jackson alleging that he abused another child and this made michael jackson kind of look guilty because of the settlement but if you look at the facts around the case it was very unconvincing case there was a lot of problems with it but either way this kind of got the ball rolling in terms of accusations now also in 1993 under oath we see that both Wade Robson and James safe Chuck said that Michael Jackson never did anything to them now this is 1993 so if you look at leaving Neverland of course they're saying a lot of things happen prior to 1993 so this becomes a problem for their stories in 1994 the police announced they're gonna be no charges in terms of that criminal investigation that went along with that civil suit and we see in 1996 that Wade Robson spends his last night with Michael Jackson so he alleges that he was abused from age 7 to age 14 now in 2003 we see that criminal charges are put together in a case involving a 10 year old named Garvin Arvizo and again he alleged and his family alleged that Michael Jackson abused him now this was 2003 but it took until 2005 for the trial to take place and by then there were 14 charges filed against Michael Jackson in this case Wade Robson who was 22 during the time of this trial in 2005 testified for Michael Jackson and he said that nothing happened we also see other people that testified including an actor named Macaulay Cochran now James safe Chuck did not testify in that trial he was actually disallowed by the judge in terms of being a prosecution witness and the defense never called him to testify now he says he refused to testify so we get two different stories here now at the end of this we see that Michael Jackson was found not guilty of all 14 counts and we see that the allege victim's mother Janet Arvizo was actually charged with fraud and perjury related to statements she made at the trial and eventually she accepted a plea agreement and was convicted in 2009 at age 50 Michael Jackson dies of cardiac arrest and we see in 2013's of four years after Michael Jackson died we see Wade Robson Sue's now alleging that he was abused and in 2014 James safe Chuck does the same thing both of their lawsuits were thrown out they weren't allowed to continue with them but as I understand it they have both appealed so their hopes if you want to put that way of suing the Michael Jackson estate are technically still alive that's important to keep in mind as well when watching leaving Neverland so now getting to my thoughts on this case well of course when we look at a situation like this again leaving Neverland wants us to believe that Wade Robson and James safe Chuck are telling the truth and Michael Jackson was an offender well no one will ever know whether he was or he wasn't now if we look at the evidence critically related to Michael Jackson's behavior we can I think draw some conclusions that are fairly definitive and there's other areas again there's kind of still murky it's important to mention before I get into each of these areas that Michael Jackson was extremely famous and people tend to want things from celebrities so he wasn't just like an average famous person again he was off-the-charts famous there had never really been another recording artist like Michael Jackson so just important to keep in mind as I go through kind of elements that stand out that make him look guilty and those illnesses stand out that I think speak toward him looking more innocent so in terms of the factors that we see in leaving Neverland and the other evidence we have that stand out in terms of exciting with guilt that make it look like Michael Jackson was guilty I think one of these components is he formed friendships with young boys and children in general but I think specifically the boys kind of look suspicious Michael Jackson these boys would sleep in the same bed and this was of course big bed he had a large bed at the Neverland Ranch but still was the same bed and this is something that would not be tolerated if he was a normal person right I mean Michael Jackson was able to do this because of his slippery status I think part of this too speaks to the trust he was able to gain of the family specifically the mothers and again I think his Sluttery status and his money probably helped a lot with that so just this idea of being a grown man and having friends who were boys and then spend the night with them this makes Michael Jackson look guilty the next thing is just the sheer amount of time he spent with them we're talking about day after day week after week and sometimes a month after month sleeping in the same bedroom and spending time with them we see in leaving Neverland that he sent faxes to Wade Robson when his in Australia when Wade Robson was in Australia and a lot of phone communication like there's just a lot of time invested and it just looks suspicious the next thing is we see a number of photographs just photographs and video of Michael Jackson with these boys and he has his hands on them they seem very friendly it just again it looks suspicious I don't think there's any way of getting around it it doesn't look good and you can also view it another way though maybe he had nothing to hide and he wasn't really thinking about it so he just did whatever he wanted in terms of getting photographed and having video taken of him but I think overall this kind of makes him look guilty another element here and I didn't really see great support for this but there's some evidence available that he had like bowels and alarms on the way to his room at Neverland Ranch as I understand it we'll call like Auckland testified to this so okay that looks a little bit suspicious right why would you have like devices that make noise as people approach your bedroom so again I'm not sure that was really something that happen but if it was true that looks a little bit suspect the other element of course and this is kind of all over the leaving Neverland film would be this component of Wade and James telling their stories right they told stories of horrible heinous abuse and they seem credible to many people and their stories are consistent with the behaviors of offenders so we don't know if their stories are true but I have a lot of clinical experience working with offenders and victims and in terms of their consistency with what I've heard in other stories they again do seem to be consistent so this could be a product of telling the truth or proactive good research but either way we had that consistency piece so in terms of the elements that I found that did seem kind of believable we see the mental health issues that Wade and James allege that they have like depression and anxiety these would be consistent with victims of this type of offending now they could also be explained from the industry right they worked when they were young and Hollywood that's a lot of pressure but either way I found this element to be believable in light of what I've heard before they're conflicted feelings about Michael Jackson they seemed to kind of love him and be angry with them at the same time I've seen that before lying for him including testifying under oath possible yes I think this is consistent at least with again other stories I've heard and the lack of physical evidence and these types of cases with offending there isn't always a lot of physical evidence and of course we didn't really see any physical evidence in the case against Michael Jackson so all those elements don't look good for Michael Jackson because they kind of support this idea that maybe Wade and James we're telling the truth now that's not actually the worst thing I think in terms of what looks bad for Michael Jackson here I think what looks really the worst in my opinion from leaving Neverland and just my understanding of the case would be after 1993 when Michael Jackson was accused and then settled whether he was guilty or not why didn't he stop right so he must have had attorneys other people advising him saying look we understand that you like hanging around these children and we understand your reasons but this just cost you 22 million dollars and could have resulted criminal charges so if you keep doing it you're making yourself an easy target so it makes sense that even though he enjoyed spending the time of the children it makes sense that he just would have stopped I think it would have been a reasonable course of action just to never do that again and yet he does it repeatedly for many many years so that's what stands out in terms of him looking guilty how about what stands out in terms of him looking innocent so the other side of the coin here well in the 1993 case we see that case was weak and once the idea is out there that you're going to settle for twenty two million dollars was never actually released but I believe that's what it is according to the evidence I've seen but either way was a large sum of money so you're gonna settle for that kind of money and that's going to kind of lead to false accusations right once that gets out there that you settle cases that's not to have a good result so it was a weak case and it may have started everything bad for Michael Jackson we also see that the FBI investigated Michael Jackson for over ten years we generally view them at least I do as competent there are competent law enforcement agency and they didn't find anything it seems like if something was going on they would have found it we also see that in leaving Neverland the defenders of Michael Jackson really weren't featured his children other children not related to him they're credible and they've never changed their stories and again the movie doesn't really mention them in any significant way in the 2005 trial you see 14 charges and not guilty vert on all the charges this really cannot be downplayed in terms of his significance the prosecutors brought a case and they failed to prove their case so he was found not guilty and I think that has to matter at some level we also see that in this trial of course I mentioned Wade raphson testified and his story now has been that he didn't understand what happened as being abusive right so he knows what happened the whole time they didn't interpret or perceive it as abuse now if this were true why wouldn't he have answered differently in this in terms of questions he was asked about behavior not just his interpretation of the behavior and he's still maintained that nothing happened also Wade Robson was an adult he was 22 years old he spent a lot of time with Michael Jackson's attorney Tom Mesereau there's no reason to believe that Tom Mesereau was unethical or do anything wrong and it seems really inconceivable to me that Tom Mesereau would call a victim of Michael Jackson to the stand as a key witness so we're supposed to believe that Michael Jackson did not tell Tom mezrab the truth so I just find this hard to believe if Michael Jackson was like a master criminal and got away with all this offending he would certainly tell us attorney what was going on why would he hide information that could help him in his defense right it just it doesn't make any sense so if Michael Jackson really had that poor an understanding of what he was doing and the law then how did he function well in other parts of his life like having a successful career it just seems like it doesn't line up for me I think that Tom Mesereau would have known the truth and if he knew the truth he definitely would not have called Wade Robson to the stand that really just makes no sense so that whole thing and with wade raphson just doesn't make a lot of sense and I think it actually speaks to Michael Jackson's innocence now in terms of James safe Chuck I mentioned that of course he didn't testify but he claimed that Michael Jackson called and threatened him basically threatening him because he wanted to become testify on his behalf well that doesn't make a lot of sense either you're gonna threaten somebody and then have them on the stand where they can say anything also there's really no corroboration for this particular type of behavior in Michael Jackson we don't see anyone else reporting that he was ever threatening or aggressive so I think this component kind of weakens James's story now we also see kind of a key error in leaving Neverland James alleged that the abuse happened from 1988 to 1992 andwell locations was the Neverland Ranch he indicates that some of the abuse occurred in the train station during that time the only problem is the train station wasn't built until 93 94 the permit was pulled in 93 and it was completed in 94 now the director Dan Reid says that the date they have wrong is the end of the abuse so what he's really saying is the abuse went from 1988 to 1994 at least now I find this unusual for a few reasons one is of course it's technically inaccurate right they got caught with all the train station thing but second offenders if Michael Jackson was an offender offenders don't like transitions between stages like they don't like it when children go to being adolescence and this would mean that the abuse of James ended when he was 16 instead of 14 so he would have looked more like an adult at 16 than 14 now this doesn't mean that some offenders wouldn't do that but if we're going to talk about like what I have typically seen in my clinical experience and I'm gonna talk about that in terms of what makes Michael Jackson look guilty then I have to mention it as well in terms of what makes them look innocent and offending against somebody who transitions from being a child to an adolescent is somewhat unusual again it does happen but speaks more towards Michael Jackson's innocence now I mention this before but it's worth mentioning again that James also said under oath that Michael Jackson never did anything to him not the 2005 trial but before that so again something that's important so what it comes down to for Wade and James I think is this they may be telling the truth and we should hear them out but they are in my opinion discredited right victims can do bad things too they may be victims but they are discredited because if you say something under oath in the justice system at least the United States I'm sure in many other countries that means something it's a foundational concept Wade Robson desperately wanted us to believe he was telling the truth in 2005 when he testified and now he desperately wants us to believe the truth in 2019 the time when leaving Neverland was released so was he lying then or is he lying now that's the problem here if they are telling the truth then this is tragic if they are lying this is tragic so what we know for sure here is a tragedy occurred that's all we really know from watching leaving Neverland so why did they do it if in fact they were lying well they could be lying to themselves or they could have done it for the money or maybe a little bit of both I don't know that they were lying again just if they were lying those are some reasons they could have been lying so what do we learn from leaving Neverland and really this whole story with Michael Jackson well one of the first things we learned here is it's important to tell the truth and this is I guess really specifically related to like Wade Robson and James safe Chuck you have to tell the truth if you want to be believed throughout your life if you want to have credibility it takes a lifetime to build up a reputation and credibility and only a split second to have it all go away another thing we learn is in terms of Michael Jackson don't even give the appearance of wrongdoing and unfortunately for Michael Jackson he did give that appearance through his behavior we can also learn a little bit about the power of celebrity status whether Michael Jackson was guilty or not guilty we see that the mothers have weighed in James really appeared to demonstrate terrible judgment I'm not sure how else to word it I mean they more or less say as much in the movie but if you just look at the examples they just didn't seem to exercise good decision-making by leaving their children alone with Michael Jackson having him sleep in the same bed without them there or even with them there it just doesn't make a lot of sense so what do I think given all the evidence here both for and against Michael Jackson well the leaving Neverland special kind of leaves us with more or less anyway I two options anyway this is how I see it one is Michael Jackson was a master criminal who evaded law enforcement for years and years and offended against many children now that could have happened I don't know but that's one of the theories that were left with from this movie the second one would be that Michael Jackson had odd behavior perhaps even his own mental health struggles I don't know he had incredible Fame and wealth and all these things combined to make him an easy target so those are the two theories that I think you walk away with from leaving Neverland of course I believe they want you to believe the first theory right the master criminal theory but either way those are two possible conclusions so my thoughts well I really thought about this a lot and kind of deliberated over the evidence I actually went back and forth a few times watched different segments of that excruciating ly boring movie again and in the end after reading a lot as well I think here's the position I kind of came up with when Michael Jackson died in 2009 he had the presumption of innocence and the right to face his accusers because he died he can do neither leaving Neverland is an interesting story it raises awareness about abuse and that's good but it cannot be used to decide whether Michael Jackson was guilty or innocent because we don't know how Michael Jackson would have responded and we really need his side of story and others that would defend him and we really didn't get that either and leaving Neverland just like at a trial if you only heard the prosecution you would tend to think someone's guilty it's when you hear the case put on by the defense that you start to think mm maybe they didn't do it I'm interested in hearing the case put on by the defense leaving Neverland is the prosecution and it's only one side of the story so if I'm to weigh everything at this point I would have to lean more toward that behavior combining with wealth explanation Michael Jackson had so odd behaviors that made him look guilty and made him an easy target but it's important to note here that I don't know Wade Robson and James safe Chuck and all the other accusers could be telling the truth we just don't know so is a very challenging kind of case and situation and it's unfortunate that these accusations could not have occurred when Michael Jackson was alive if in fact the accusations are true now I know whenever I talk about famous cases including cases like this where it's really controversy on hard to figure out they're gonna be arriving opinions people who agree and disagree with me please put those opinions in the comment section they always generate really interesting dialogue as always I hope you found this description of the leaving Neverland movie to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 785,244

Rating: 4.6619558 out of 5

Keywords: Leaving Neverland, Wade Robson, James Safechuck, Dan Reed, Michael Jackson, abuse, Tom Mesereau, trial, garvin arvizo, macaulay culkin, criminal charges, guilt, innocence, under oath, mental health, counseling, janet arvizo

Id: h_bCSbPAzk0

Length: 27min 31sec (1651 seconds)

Published: Mon May 13 2019