Michael Jackson’s Biopic Blinds Us From the Truth

OMG, way to ruin a fantastic movie. I suppose I'm supposed to throw out my Bill Cosby records now.

Michael Jackson’s Biopic Blinds Us From the Truth

I covered the Michael Jackson saga for over a decade. Here is what I know.

By Maureen Orth

May 1, 2026 10:00 pm ET

Michael Jackson’s celebrity is so blinding, his music so compelling, that it cloaks him with an almost impenetrable shield from the truth: He was a stone cold pedophile.

Over 12 years from 1993 to 2005, I investigated and chronicled accusations of Jackson’s serial pedophilia, acute drug addiction and bizarre behaviors in five major articles for Vanity Fair.

I interviewed hundreds of people, both defenders and detractors, covered two trials, and combed through myriad legal documents in an effort to make the public aware of how Michael Jackson really conducted his life behind closed doors, behind the funhouse facade of Neverland.

I found credible evidence that he committed crimes against children—crimes I believe he got away with. He was never criminally convicted, he and his estate have paid $43.5 million in settlements to the families of children who accused him of abuse. And now, in a movie that is supposedly an examination of his life, it isn’t even a footnote.

But this is what I know: His tactics to silence were violent and cruel; his ego and sense of entitlement so inflated that he demanded humanitarian awards be presented to him before personal appearances, frequently invoking his devotion to emulating Christ-like purity.

Outside at Neverland were the zoo and Ferris wheel. Inside were cameras and listening devices throughout the house; anyone approaching his locked bedroom would be detected and announced by loud ding-dong sounds before reaching the bedroom door.

Michael Jackson hosts a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday party at his Neverland Ranch.

Michael Jackson hosts a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday party at his Neverland Ranch. Associated Press

Wade Robson in a scene from 'Leaving Neverland.'

Wade Robson in a scene from 'Leaving Neverland.' HBO/Everett Collection

The tide turned for a while after the two-part documentary “Leaving Neverland” was released on HBO in 2019 and two little boys I first knew about in 1993, but who said they had previously lied to protect their idol, came forward as grown men, fathers themselves, to tell of their seductions.

One, Wade Robson, said his molestation began at age 7. But “Leaving Neverland” was abruptly pulled off HBO after Jackson’s estate sued using a creative legal argument. And now the estate’s sanctioned box office success story, “Michael,” an absurd, sanitized musical biopic, has audiences dancing in the aisles during the concert numbers. This at a time when R. Kelly and Sean Combs are behind bars in jail for their sex abuse, and when Jeffrey Epstein’s victims are part of our daily conversation.

Jackson’s victims are no less real.

Is this cognitive dissonance frustrating? Yes, especially because Michael Jackson never hid the fact he liked to sleep with little boys.

When I was first assigned the story, the mega superstar, then age 34, had slept more than 30 nights in a row in the same bed with 13-year-old eighth-grader Jordie Chandler at Chandler’s house that he shared with his mother and younger sister in Santa Monica Canyon.

When a criminal investigation began and then a civil suit was filed, I read documents in which Jordie described encounters with Jackson in explicit sickening detail, including oral copulation and Jackson masturbating him and having him aid Jackson’s masturbation, along with scary admonitions never to tell anyone, a pattern Jackson was accused of repeating over and over with other young boys before discarding them around age 13 or 14 when puberty set in.

A cunning groomer, Michael’s practice was to seize on largely dysfunctional star-struck families and ply them with expensive payoff gifts. James Safechuck’s parents got a house; Robson’s mother, a noncitizen, got a fancy car and a permanent U.S. resident visa.

Over the years, Jackson and the estate have paid out millions to settle various claims, with some lawsuits still pending without ever admitting wrongdoing. A significant reason for the large settlement totaling about $25 million made by Jackson in 1994 to the Chandler family and their lawyer was the drawing of specific markings Jackson had on his penis caused by the skin condition vitiligo.

Jordie Chandler drew the markings and the drawing was put into a sealed envelope. During the criminal investigation, Jackson was so resistant to having his genitals photographed that he slapped one of his doctors. It didn’t matter for the civil suit. My reporting showed that when Jordie’s drawing was unsealed, it matched the photos.

In the first version of the “Michael” film, shot before Jackson’s team discovered the settlement enjoined them from portraying anything about the case on either TV or in film—costing them millions in reshoots and causing the release of the film to be delayed for a year—the aforementioned photography scene was to be pivotal. According to reporting by Puck, it would have emphasized Michael’s “traumatizing” strip search, thus doubling down on a strategy that has worked so far: Making him the victim.

Michael Jackson‘s bodyguard covers the lens of a camera to avoid being filmed as he enters the Santa Maria Courthouse in April 2004.

Michael Jackson‘s bodyguard covers the lens of a camera to avoid being filmed as he enters the Santa Maria Courthouse in April 2004. Hector Mata/Press Pool

That strategy was on full display in the 2005 circus trial I covered that acquitted Jackson of sex abuse charges brought by the Santa Barbara district attorney in the case of Gavin Arvizo, a 13-year-old cancer survivor who bore a striking resemblance to Jordie Chandler.

Jackson even gave them the same nickname: Rubba. Jackson’s lawyers were able to make Arvizo’s hotheaded mother the offender while the prosecution contended with witnesses who, pretrial, had told them any number of damning things they were willing to disclose under oath—only to have them melt on the stand while facing Michael a few feet away.

“We always knew this about the jury,” Ron Zonen one of the Santa Barbara prosecutors told me recently. “Am I going to be responsible for sending this man to jail?”

It is small comfort to me to realize that in our post-truth besotted celebrity industrial complex today, we probably no longer have showbiz superstars who are capable of warping reality in the sustained way Michael Jackson continues to do.

When he overdosed and died in 2009, Jackson was about a half-billion dollars in debt, but today, thanks to his intimidation tactics of yore and the money he and his estate are raking in they are able to keep shelling out the settlements.

Next step for the profiteers of the “Michael” movie is its no doubt inevitable sequel. His tenacious cult of millions of fans worldwide can keep their eyes wide shut and audiences will have another chance to see Michael moonwalking right over his victims.

Michael Jackson waves at fans following his arraignment in January 2004.

Michael Jackson waves at fans following his arraignment in January 2004. Kevork Djansezian/Associated Press

Who wants to know his evil while dancing at a wedding to “Billie Jean?” Personally, I hate it when people come up to me and say, “Did Michael Jackson really do all those things?”

I spent a long time investigating and wrote 50,000 words to be able to say the answer is yes—but even in death, Michael can still control the narrative.