Fan attacks on alleged Michael Jackson victims are ‘vile’ and ‘absurd’, says ‘Leaving Neverland’ director

“Beyond absurd and quite vile”

The director of Leaving Neverland has called-out Michael Jackson fans for attacking the late singer’s alleged victims.

Dan Reed said a number of fans have set about to discredit his film – which hears Wade Robson, 36, and James Safechuck, 41, claim that they were sexually abused by Jackson as children – in retaliation for what they say has besmirched Jackson’s name.

“To prosecute men you have the courage to say they were raped as children by this powerful god-like individual, to make them into the scapegoats is beyond absurd and quite vile,” Reed told AFP today (March 18) in response to the fans’ backlash.

He continued: “It is a kind of blasphemy when you accuse somebody who is a pillar of the community of such a grotesquely horrific act, so bad in fact that people do not want to hold that image in their heads.”

Last week, three Jackson fan groups sued the singer’s alleged victims for making sexual abuse claims in Leaving Neverland.

The lawyer of The Michael Jackson Community, the MJ Street, and On The Line fan clubs, Emmanuel Ludot, told AFP that they are suing Jackson’s accusers for “sullying his memory” and for “lynching” the late star. The groups, he added, “want to discredit the accusations of paedophilia”.

Meanwhile, Reed has denied claims from a lawyer who represented Jackson during his 2005 trial for child molestation that footage included in his controversial documentary was taken “out of context”.