“At the train station, there is a room upstairs, and we would have sex up there too. It would happen every day.” That is what Michael Jackson’s accuser James Safechuck said in the film Leaving Neverland. The New York Times described this as one of the most disturbing scenes in the film. But investigative journalist Mike Smallcombe revealed information that proves Safechuck’s story cannot be true. His reporting made a direct hit to the core of Leaving Neverlands credibility. It appears the train station story has become an ongoing example of how basic fact-checking was not done before making the film.
Safechuck said the alleged abuse by Jackson occurred between 1988 and 1992. In ’92, he was 14 years old. This is when he claims the abuse stopped because Jackson lost interest in him. This four-year timeline is exactly what Safechuck said while under oath, and in Leaving Neverland. However, construction permits prove the Neverland train station was not built until 1994.
On Twitter, Leaving Neverlands director Dan Reed acknowledged there was no disputing Smallcombe’s findings. Reed said, “There seems to be no doubt about the station date. The date they have wrong is the end of the abuse”.
Before Smallcombe’s findings, television personality Oprah Winfrey embraced Leaving Neverland. She immediately gave it her stamp of approval. In an interview, she was asked about the train station and if it caused her to second guess her total belief in Reed’s film. Despite deleting all Leaving Neverland content from her YouTube and Twitter accounts, she maintained still supporting the film. She referenced young girls that were allegedly abused at her school in South Africa. Oprah said, “When you put a girl on the stand and she can’t remember, was it Thursday or Wednesday, it’s automatically discredited. When you’re in the midst of trauma, you might not remember the time”.
In another interview with the Hollywood Reporter Oprah said, “I didn’t even have to be in it. I didn’t have to take on all of that. I said to myself the other day, why did I do that”? She continued, “This is what happened, I saw it and I was shaken by it. I wasn’t shaken by the fact that it was Michael Jackson, I was shaken by the fact that [Director] Dan Reed had done a really good job of showing the pattern, and for years I had been trying to show people the pattern… I said to Gayle [King], you’ve got to get those guys [Jackson’s accusers] on CBS This Morning”. Oprah said, she then sent a text to HBO’s chairman asking how she could get involved with the promotion of Leaving Neverland.
Oprah saw Dan Reed’s film and Michael Jackson’s enormous fame as an opportunity to bring her personal issue of sexual abuse to a large audience. She mentions being “shaken” by the film, but did she ever question it? According to her own words, at no point did she ever research to see if the claims being made against the late pop icon were actually true.
Like Oprah, there are many who are personally invested in having total belief in the film. They argue that Safechuck must have been abused at the train station after 1992. But trying to extend the timeline creates additional credibility problems. First, extending the timeline would mean accusing James Safechuck of not telling the truth while under oath. In addition, when the train station was completed, Jackson was not present. In 1994 he was living in New York recording his album titled History. He also got married that year. The pop star did not return to Neverland until 1995. That is a three-year difference. And by that time Safechuck was 17 years old. Claiming that Jackson molested an almost grown James Safechuck goes against the whole narrative of the film. The following are a few examples of this contradiction.
“When the boys aged, they saw themselves being replaced by younger models.” — LA Times Review of Leaving Neverland
“The two were slowly phased out of Jackson’s life as younger boys were introduced. ‘You’re no longer special,‘ James said”. — The Guardian Review of Leaving Neverland
“They aged out and were replaced by younger boys. It was noticeable when they fell out of favor and felt jealous.” — Forbes Review of Leaving Neverland
The film alleges that Macaulay Culkin and Brett Barnes became Jackson’s new “special” friends. But both of them maintain Jackson’s innocence, and say nothing inappropriate ever happened. Additionally, Barnes threatened to sue over his name being included in the film.
Despite glaring inconsistencies, most journalists believed everything about Leaving Neverland. Ironically, everything they have written about the film demonstrates why so many have been backed into a corner. The timeline proves the alleged abuse at the train station could not have happened when Safechuck says it did. But claiming he was molested at 17 changes the films whole narrative.
Undeterred by plausibility issues, the film was hyped and heavily promoted. Imagine being sold a book with a few chapters missing. Or a puzzle with improper pieces. Hype does not suffice for selling a faulty product. According to the American Press Institute, a journalist first obligation is to the truth: “Good decision making depends on having reliable accurate facts… investigation”.
Mike Smallcombe has given a lesson on investigative journalism. Most journalists have demonstrated the opposite. They took whatever the film said and just reported it. No questions. No fact checking. But even worse, it appears the people behind the film took the same approach. We have evidence that Dan Reed and Oprah pushed this film without doing any research. By taking this approach, it is likely they will encounter more problems down the line. But the “train station” allegation cannot be true, consequently, Leaving Neverland took a major hit to the core of its credibility.
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