Latest news with #LeavingNeverland2
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Freddie Flintoff Reveals Healed Face Ahead Of Disney+ Documentary Detailing His ‘Top Gear' Accident
Andrew Flintoff shared a picture of his healed face to mark the announcement of his forthcoming Disney+ documentary. Flintoff – better known by his nickname Freddie – was seriously injured in a motoring accident in 2022, during filming of the BBC car show Top Gear. More from Deadline 'Leaving Neverland 2' Director Details Thousands Of Death Threats From Michael Jackson Fans Richard Hammond & James May Make "Slightly Traumatizing" Return To 'Top Gear' Studio O'Canada: Mark Carney To Be Next PM; Ex-Bank Of England Boss Will Continue Fight With "Voldermort" Trump Over Tariffs The former England cricketer crashed in a Morgan Super 3 car, and was left with severe facial injuries as well as broken ribs. Filming on the long-running show – whose previous hosts include Jeremy Clarkson and his Grand Tour castmates James May and Richard Hammond – was immediately suspended, and it has since been reported that there are no plans to reboot the programme. Now, Flintoff will explore the ramifications of his accident in a Disney+ documentary titled Flintoff, to premiere in the UK and Ireland on April 25. Publicising the film, the TV presenter said: 'Cricket's always been a massive part of my life, shaping who I am. 'Looking back on the highs and the lows, including the challenges I've faced since my accident, has been a real reminder of why my career in the sport has meant so much.' Flintoff returned to screen last year for the second series of Field of Dreams, following his experiences taking a group of schoolboys and inspiring them with a series of cricket tutorials. The second series saw the group travel to India, and included Flintoff opening up for the first time about his accident. The BBC made an apology to Flintoff following the crash, and it was later reported that he settled for £11million in damages. He reported suffering nightmares and flashbacks after the accident, which saw him trapped in his car for 45 minutes before being rescued. Best of Deadline 2025-26 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Tonys, Emmys, Oscars & More A Full Timeline Of Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni's 'It Ends With Us' Feud In Court, Online & In The Media 'Hacks' Season 4 Release Schedule: When Do New Episodes Come Out?
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Leaving Neverland 2 Michael Jackson Documentary Released for Free on YouTube
The post Leaving Neverland 2 Michael Jackson Documentary Released for Free on YouTube appeared first on Consequence. Director Dan Reed has released a second documentary surrounding the Michael Jackson sexual abuse allegations. Titled Leaving Neverland 2: Surviving Michael Jackson, the 53-minute film follows the two alleged victims from the first miniseries (Wade Robson and James Safechuck) as they come to terms with their grooming and sexual abuse, begin their decade-long attempt to file lawsuits, and handle the vitriol and support that stemmed from the initial documentary. Both Leaving Neverland projects were directed and produced by Dan Reed. Leaving Neverland was released in 2019 on HBO, which led the Jackson Estate to file a $100 million lawsuit against the network. With HBO choosing not to air the sequel, Leaving Neverland 2 is instead available to stream for free in the US on YouTube.) In Leaving Neverland, Robson and Safechuck both allege they were sexually abused by Jackson as children. The two had previously defended Jackson during his 1993 child molestation allegations, publicly denying any claims of abuse or inappropriate behavior at the time. The sequel follows the same two alleged survivors as they attempt to bring their sexual abuse allegations against Michael Jackson to trial over 10 years. Throughout the film, the pair recalls each time they were denied legal standing due to time restraints, lack of evidence, and other obstacles. The documentary also includes appearances from the pair's two lawyers, LAPD detectives, prosecutors in Jackson's criminal trial, MJ fans, and podcast hosts. The film concludes by revealing the pair's appeals are finally moving forward to a trial which will likely occur in November 2026. Near the end of the documentary, Robson expresses his belief that going to court will allow him to be transparent in a legal setting. 'If I get the opportunity to return and take the stand, to tell the truth in a way I wasn't able to for decades, that's a win for me.' The Michael Jackson Estate has strongly denied the sexual abuse allegations presented in the 2019 miniseries and has yet to comment on the upcoming sequel film. In 2003, Jackson was the focus of Living with Michael Jackson, a documentary interview conducted by Martin Bashir. This led to the People v. Michael Jackson trial in 2005, where Jackson faced 14 charges, including child molestation and the intoxication of a minor. He was acquitted on all counts. In January, it was revealed that the forthcoming MJ biopic Michael may undergo reshoots after violating an agreement not to feature Jordan Chandler—the child involved in Jackson's 1993 case—or his family. Watch Leaving Neverland 2 here. Note that Leaving Neverland 2: Surviving Michael Jackson contains graphic descriptions of sexual assault that may make some users uncomfortable. If you or someone you know needs help, you can contact the RAINN-operated National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673 or chat online at Both are confidential, free, and open 24/7. Leaving Neverland 2 Michael Jackson Documentary Released for Free on YouTube Jaeden Pinder Popular Posts JD Vance Booed at Kennedy Center Dropkick Murphys Make On-Stage Wager with Trump Supporter Over Where His Shirt Was Made Documentary Claims Jim Morrison Is Alive, Living in Syracuse In 2025, Lollapalooza Has Shed Its Rock Past for Good j-hope of BTS Makes Triumphant Return with Solo Tour "Hope on the Stage": Review American Pie Actress Jasmine Mooney Spends Two Weeks in ICE Detention Facility Subscribe to Consequence's email digest and get the latest breaking news in music, film, and television, tour updates, access to exclusive giveaways, and more straight to your inbox.
The Independent
19-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Can Michael Jackson's music survive the accusations against him? It's complicated
It is now six years since the release of Dan Reed's documentary Leaving Neverland, a film that cast the late megastar Michael Jackson as a serial paedophile. Over four hours, Reed profiled two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who allege Jackson abused them when they were young children. The details were harrowing — the lavishness of their seduction, the closed doors and elaborate warning systems, the spare telling of the acts that took place. The response, among critics and film festival audiences, was commendatory, and the film seemed then part of the wider groundswell that led to the toppling of a number of monolithic men – among them R Kelly, Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby. Their work has duly been tarnished as a result. The fact that the same has not happened to Jackson is intriguing, and certainly attributable to more than the absence of a conviction. But in some fierce quarters, Leaving Neverland was denounced; Jackson's estate called it lurid, outrageous, pathetic. Furious fans rallied outside screenings. Even the less fervent wondered whether perhaps the allegations were rooted in some great misunderstanding. Others accused Robson and Safechuck of being little more than opportunists, in search of fame and fortune. Reed received death threats. That the three would be prepared to re-enter the fray for Leaving Neverland 2 might seem surprising, but this sister documentary, broadcast on Tuesday night, is an important work, one that follows both the men's 10-year legal journey, and the fallout of the original film. It explores how speaking publicly can lead to an almost excavatory trauma, and forces us to question, once again, why we remain so in thrall to Michael Jackson. In the immediate aftermath of the original Leaving Neverland broadcast, data analysts Nielsen Music reported a dip in both streaming and airplay for Jackson's catalogue. But by the end of that year, the singer saw growth again, with 2.1 billion streams compared to 2018's 1.8 billion. He ended 2019 at the top of Forbes' highest-earning dead celebrity list. Again. In the years since, Jackson's streaming has continued to grow – last year, Thriller became his first album to surpass five billion streams. It is worth saying that Jackson has not, to date, ever been convicted of any charge. In 2005, he was acquitted of molestation charges. Lawsuits filed by both Safechuck and Robson were dismissed for technical reasons. The closest admission of anything came in 1993, when the singer reached a financial settlement with an underage boy he was accused of molesting. Still, for the last 15 years of his life, the accusations hovered. They were even addressed, vaguely, in Martin Bashir's famed documentary, Living with Michael Jackson. Jackson shrugged the suggestions off with an innocent question: 'What's wrong with love?' The darkness lay in our minds, he suggested; the impure thoughts were our own. There was an attempt to understand or account for the strangeness of a grown man sharing his time and his bed with young boys: Jackson was such an oddity, a Peter Pan, a preserved child, a product of his own abusive upbringing. He was also a global superstar who had never lived in the normal world. Perhaps the usual rules did not quite apply? Somewhere along the line, we began the intricate process of untangling the art from the artist; of creating a world where we could watch a documentary like Leaving Neverland, but still admire 'Billie Jean'. He was not the only artist who prompted this conundrum and contortion – fans were already attempting similar tricks for Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. But this urge to forget seemed somehow more pronounced in the case of Jackson. A 2016 documentary by Spike Lee explored the artistry of Jackson, but lacked the filmmaker's trademark interrogation, seen in films such as 4 Little Girls or When the Levees Broke, choosing instead to simply bask in a celebration of Jackson's back catalogue. And, of course, in purely technical terms, the music remained immaculate, undimmed, irresistible. As the actor Andy Serkis, discussing cancellation culture in this newspaper, summed it up: 'When Michael Jackson's music starts to come on, I defy anyone not to tap their foot to it… And if your body won't let you cancel it…' In this way, we made it the music's fault; ascribed to ourselves a kind of powerlessness in its presence. When MJ the Musical opened in London's West End in 2022, the world stood unruffled. There is a John Jeremiah Sullivan essay about Jackson that I often revisit. Written in the wake of the singer's death, it is an exceptional and iIlluminating piece of writing; one that attempts to make this global megastar, this cartoon figure, human. Sullivan traces Jackson's lineage back to an Alabama cotton plantation slave named Prince Screws (and so, Prince, the name he gave his oldest son, which we took for a flourish of egotism, becomes understandable). He documents the childhood menageries, the relentless racism that made the singer speak so much more candidly to the black music press. He is victim, genius, 'the greatest work of postmodern American sculpture', and of course, a complicated figure to love. Time, and repeated reading, has made the piece more complicated, too. But at its heart are truths I believe – that hurt people hurt others, that good people do bad things, and bad people make good music. That, above all else, few people are wholly good or wholly bad. We contain multitudes. Sullivan is most tender in his discussion of Jackson's approach to music, detailing how the singer was interested in the 'anatomy' of a song, how he studied the work of his peers, how he recorded in the dark, illuminated only when he drew close to the microphone. It's an image that has long stuck in my head: Jackson, sublime in the act of musical creation, doing who-knows-what in the darkness beyond. I think often of another detail in Sullivan's piece. How, in the early demo for 'Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough', Jackson worked his way into that famed voice, from a relaxed, high-pitched man's voice, through something softer, quieter, and on until he finds 'a full-on girlish peal'. It is conscious artistry, of course; an illustration of his gift. But it is also the reason I find it so hard to listen to his music these days. This is the act of a man who knew how a line, a vocal tone must land for maximum impact. This is a man who, through his music, succeeded in seducing us all.
The Guardian
18-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Leaving Neverland 2: Surviving Michael Jackson review – the shocking exposé of the megastar is a hard act to follow
Leaving Neverland, Dan Reed's 2019 film, which laid out accusations that the singer Michael Jackson sexually abused children, is among the most impactful and important documentaries of the past 10 years; the view of one of the 20th century's biggest stars irreversibly changed, as rumour and innuendo were replaced by a detailed narrative that was hard for all but Jackson's most committed fans to doubt. As well as altering Jackson's reputation for ever, Leaving Neverland offered a wider look at how abusers groom their victims, why those victims can choose to protect their abuser, and how and why the parents of victims might fail to protect their child. It was also about the extremes of fame. His celebrity allowed Jackson to bewitch young fans, and disarm families who would otherwise have balked at an adult stranger befriending their child. It gave him the drivers, bodyguards, hotel suites and mansions he needed to spend time with young boys. (Nobody denies that a series of children were alone with him for long periods, and shared his bed, although his estate strongly denies all allegations of sexual abuse.) And his fame gave him the power to settle lawsuits. It helped Jackson deflect public suspicion too, since it was just about plausible for his eccentrically childlike persona to include being seen with a string of pre-pubescent companions. The mega-famous can hide in plain sight. Leaving Neverland 2: Surviving Michael Jackson is another film about life in the public eye, but this time the world's gaze is on Jackson's two accusers from the original film, Wade Robson and James Safechuck. The story starts in 2013 when Robson appears on US television to make his claims, and extends for the next decade and beyond as Robson and Safechuck seek redress in court, a process made more complicated by the lag between the alleged abuse and the accusation – about 20 years – and by the fact that Jackson died in 2009. The two men have to overcome legal arguments, which are initially successful, that their claims are beyond the statute of limitations and that they cannot be directed at Jackson's estate or at the company that still handles his affairs, MJJ Productions. When Leaving Neverland is released in 2019, they also face a wave of vitriol and misinformation from Jackson supporters and media agitators who know nothing about the facts of the case, but earn a kick or a buck from posing as experts. The reaction to Leaving Neverland forms the most memorable section of Leaving Neverland 2: there is an extraordinary clip of Robson and Safechuck appearing on a show hosted by Oprah Winfrey, herself an abuse survivor, who praises them for their courage while warning them of the negative reaction they are about to endure. The new film, however, struggles to deal with how comprehensive the old one was. Although Safechuck talks movingly here about reconnecting with the younger version of himself, fighting for that boy's interests and wondering what he would say to him, the obvious topics for a film about the aftermath – the difficulty survivors of abuse have with forming adult relationships, the pain of maintaining a relationship with the parents who didn't step in, the lifelong anguish of those parents – were all covered in Leaving Neverland. So we are left with the somewhat dry legal battle. Robson and Safechuck have their case thrown out, so they appeal, helped by the release of Leaving Neverland contributing to a change in the law regarding abuse victims belatedly speaking out. The tale culminates in a recording of a Zoom hearing – luckily a split-screen video call is as visually engaging as courtroom footage would have been – in which the MJJ Productions lawyer is dressed down and tripped up by visibly annoyed judges. But we've gone through a lot of arcane legalities to get to this point. The film's closing caption tells us that the big trial, as opposed to these pernickety preliminaries establishing whether there is a case to answer, will take place in 2026. Leaving Neverland 2, which has arrived six years after the original film, might as well have waited seven. We also feel the absence of the other side of the debate. While Leaving Neverland could be forgiven for setting out the accusers' testimony without peppering it with denials from their more powerful opponent, it would be useful now to hear from MJJ Productions. Reed shows us a letter where he begs them to participate in this new film – he highlights a paragraph where he literally writes: 'I'm begging you.' Their refusal means the question of who knew what within Jackson's staff can't properly be explored. Reed has done fine work in telling us a highly significant story, but at this stage there is not enough more of it to tell. Leaving Neverland 2: Surviving Michael Jackson is on Channel 4 now.
The Independent
18-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
The Michael Jackson child abuse allegations will never go away – Leaving Neverland 2 is proof
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. This new film functions as both an update on this process and an insight into what pursuing these allegations has cost the pair. In purely narrative terms, it's slight and inconclusive – Robson and Safechuck's legal case has stalled several times since 2019, seemingly on the basis of technicalities. Jackson's team have successfully argued that the late singer's sole ownership and control of his affairs mitigated against anyone else being held responsible for his actions. Which seems convenient, not to mention breathtakingly cynical given that bodyguards, gofers and other general lackeys were apparently in Jackson's presence at all times. Pressure is clearly coming from everywhere. For example, Reed's original film was an HBO co-production. But after its release, the Jackson estate hit HBO with a lawsuit accusing the broadcaster of breaking a 'non-disparagement clause' in a contract dating back to 1992. Anything that might affect the reputation of the singer was off-limits. And so this follow-up film will mainly be available via YouTube. It will still be widely accessible of course. But the scrutiny is endless and the stakes, even a decade and a half after Jackson's death, remain incredibly high. Vince Finaldi, who has been Robson and Safechuck's chief litigator throughout this process, is a constant presence here. And he offers a bleak insight into how it feels to be at the heart of such a battle. 'Generally speaking, I lose one client a year,' he says. 'Either to suicide or to the ill-effects that come from abuse, like alcoholism and drug abuse. It takes a toll on you and it takes a toll on your family.' Finaldi is retiring from this case but for Robson and Safechuck, that isn't an option: the fight goes on, with a new case scheduled for November 2026. This ongoing – in fact, seemingly endless – legal dance is central to Leaving Neverland 2 's most interesting implicit theme. However it might feel for the two men at the heart of the allegations, the Michael Jackson child sexual abuse allegations are now a cottage industry. They are, of course, an absolute bonanza for a fleet of prosecution and defence lawyers. But the case is now big and intractable enough to support any number of vested interests alongside them, regardless of good faith or otherwise. Take YouTuber and podcast host Andy Signore. Andy is a sceptic. 'They've changed this case so many damn times,' he says of Robson and Safechuck. 'I think they're financially motivated.' He pauses and addresses Dan Reed: 'And I think you are.' There's an easy response to this accusation, which Reed leaves hanging. Andy Signore, too, is financially motivated. He's also part of this circus. This story now represents a world of opportunity. Given the thousands, if not millions of obsessive fans who are unwilling to accept the accusations against Jackson, being a prominent public defender of the singer is potentially a very lucrative and completely open-ended niche to occupy. It could be a job for life and in today's media landscape, that's not nothing. For obvious reasons, Jackson's guilt or innocence will never be definitively established. But nor will we ever stop discussing it. Lawyers, broadcasters, YouTubers, film directors and even TV critics; we're all in this up to our eyeballs. But finally, the more that is at stake legally, and reputationally and emotionally, the sadder the whole story becomes. In the end, there's no reading of this story that doesn't circle back to the sadness of it all. It's deception and suffering. It's tainted dreams and destroyed innocence and confidences violated and memories poisoned. It's songs that will never sound quite the same again. Whether or not we're still willing to accept the musical presence of Michael Jackson in our lives, his creativity is now weighted down by something more profoundly upsetting than any comparable body of work in musical history. If this update achieves anything, it's to act as a reminder of the bleak power and ongoing impact of Reed's original film. We all left Neverland; we can never go back.
