“This is a film that’s not about Jackson. “You know the Jackson family disagrees with everything that is being said here today,” Winfrey said, and asked Reed about a criticism from the estate: Why didn’t he interview anyone in the Jackson family? Winfrey read the scathing statement that Jackson’s family released when the documentary premiered at Sundance this year, which called the film “a public lynching” and read in part, “We are furious that the media, who without a shred of proof or single piece of physical evidence, chose to believe the word of two admitted liars over the word of hundreds of families and friends around the world who spent time with Michael, many at Neverland, and experienced his legendary kindness and global generosity.” Robson said he first started to think about the behavior being abuse when he had a son of his own, and began to learn about how children think Safechuck said his process started when Robson first spoke out, and he realized he wasn’t alone. It wasn’t even an option to think about it.” If I was to question Michael and my story with Michael, my life with Michael, it would mean I would have to question everything in my life. When Winfrey asked Robson about his testimony, he reitereated, “I didn’t think about it, as far as that concept…I couldn’t even go there, I couldn’t even question Michael. “It takes a lot of work to sort through that.” Safechuck echoed a similar experience and said that there was “a lot of panic” in talking about Jackson: “Michael drilled in you, ‘If you’re caught, we’re caught, your life is over, my life is over.’ It’s repeated over and over again, it’s drilled into your nervous system,” he said. “He told me that he loved me and God brought us together…anything Michael would say to me was gospel.” “From night one of the abuse, of the sexual stuff that Michael did to me, he told me it was love,” Robson said. Robson responded that both times he testified (he made the same claims in Jackson’s 2005 molestation trial), he had “no understanding that what Michael did to me sexually was abuse. This is a moment in time that allows us to see this societal corruption, it’s like a scourge on humanity… if it gets you, our audience, to see how it happens, then some good would have come of it.” But for me, this moment transcends Michael Jackson,” Winfrey said. “I know people all over the world are going to be in an uproar and debating whether or not Michael Jackson did these things and whether these two men are lying or not lying. Winfrey, who revealed on her talk show decades ago that she was sexually abused when she was young, said Reed’s documentary did an excellent job of illustrating what she had always tried to explain - child sexual abuse is also about seduction. The studio audience was made up of sexual abuse survivors, as well as their supporters and family members. Winfrey, in conjunction with her network OWN, hosted the hour-long special “Oprah Winfrey Presents: After Neverland,” in which she interviewed the two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, and director Dan Reed. This time, it was anchored by Oprah Winfrey. On Monday night, as soon as HBO finished airing “Leaving Neverland” - the two-part documentary in which two men detailed allegations of childhood sexual abuse by Michael Jackson - the network continued its Jackson coverage. Oprah Winfrey airs interview after “Leaving Neverland” – The Denver Post Close Menu