SANTA CRUZ (CA)
Santa Cruz Sentinel
March 9, 2019
It is both harrowing and infinitely sad to see “Leaving Neverland” and “Surviving R. Kelly,” two cable television documentaries about the crime of child sexual abuse, its perpetrators and victims.
R. Kelly currently sits in a Chicago jail cell for failure to pay child support, while at the same time, years of allegations about his sexual abuse of underage girls, have finally caught up with him. The R&B star says he is unfairly accused and that his career has been ruined by the allegations.
“Leaving Neverland” aired last week, profiling two men who say Michael Jackson sexually abused them when they were children.
Jackson died in 2009 and his family has filed a lawsuit against HBO which aired the documentary.
That Kelly and Jackson face these accusations is hardly shocking, considering previous allegations both have faced, but the depravity of the alleged acts described by the victims — who come off eminently believable — is shattering. Much of the same debate has also been heard during the Roman Catholic Church’s repeated scandals of child sex abuse and in the #MeToo movement.
One of the questions asked of the two latest Jackson accusers is why they took so long to come forward and why they first denied they had been repeatedly molested by the pop star.
Both Wade Robson, who testified for Jackson in the singer’s court trial, and James Safechuck still suffer guilt and shame over what happened. Both men say they will spend the rest of their lives trying to come to terms with what happened, and about the feelings they still harbor.
They were groomed — or manipulated — by Jackson when they were little boys and considered him, in their words, like a “god” who turned them against anyone who might want to intrude into their twisted world. Both said they didn’t consider it “abuse” until relatively recently.
Safechuck, in particular, seems to remain traumatized at age 40, three decades after he met Jackson during the filming of a soda commercial. Jackson, in addition to allegedly repeatedly assaulting the child, also bought him a “wedding ring” that Safechuck still possesses.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.