Michael Jackson remains an itch that lots of people still can’t quite scratch. There was a brief period after Dan Reed’s startling documentary Leaving Neverland dropped in 2019 when Jackson’s music and pop-cultural presence looked destined to go the way of Gary Glitter. But he never quite became fully taboo, partly because of the essential intangibility of the accusations against him but also – and this is something many of us might be uncomfortable admitting – because permanently discarding his sparkling back catalogue would represent an incomparably more profound sacrifice than simply never listening to “I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am)” again.
But for his accusers, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, that documentary was merely a staging post in a lengthy battle to hold Jackson (and the companies who now administer his posthumous legal and financial affairs) accountable for the sexual abuse that they alleged Jackson inflicted on them and other children unlucky enough to find themselves in Jackson’s inner circle.
