Michael Jackson’s bizarre 2003 documentary: The clues we all ignored

Sixteen years before Leaving Neverland, another fly-on-the-wall doco painted a truly disturbing picture of Michael Jackson’s personal life.

The explosive new documentary Leaving Neverland, which details child sexual abuse allegations made by two men who befriended Michael Jackson as children, has had an immediate effect on the King of Pop’s legacy.

Across the world, Jackson’s fans have been forced to reckon with the allegations against their idol. Radio stations have black-listed Jackson’s music. The classic Simpsons episode with Michael Jackson’s voice has been removed from circulation, the show’s executive producer Jim Brooks saying “It feels clearly the only choice to make.”

Celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Sia and Ellen DeGeneres have stood up in support of the accusers, Wade Robson and James Safechuck.

Even a formerly outspoken Jackson supporter like actor Corey Feldman has adjusted his position, conceding he can “no longer defend” Jackson in the face of the “horrendous” accusations.

Jackson’s family has continued to refute claims he was a paedophile, with his estate now suing HBO — the cable channel that aired the documentary in the US — for $100 million for a “posthumous character assassination”.

But those who choose to believe Mr Robson and Mr Safechuck’s exhaustive, compelling account of the abuse they say they suffered at Jackson’s hands must now wrestle with an uncomfortable question: How were we so blind, for so long?

That question becomes even more difficult to answer when casting a critical, post-Leaving Neverland eye over one key late-career Jackson pop cultural artefact: The frequently bizarre 2003 Martin Bashir documentary Living With Michael Jackson.

A PEEK BEHIND THE CURTAIN

Bashir accompanies Jackson on a US$5.76 million shopping spree. Picture: AP Photo/PA/Granada TV

British journalist Bashir was given unprecedented access to Jackson for eight months, the results screening in the form of a 90-minute TV special in early 2003, which is still available to watch in full on YouTube.

It made for a textbook exercise in giving your subject enough rope to hang themselves.

Much of what viewers saw in the program paints an expectedly eccentric picture of the King of Pop: Bashir trails Jackson as he enters an upscale antique store, breezily spending more than $US5 million in minutes to buy up just about everything in stock.

Jackson tries in vain to soothe his baby ‘Blanket’, his frantic energy doing nothing to placate the infant, whose head is covered in a sheet so as to shield him from public view.

Bashir and Jackson walk the grounds of Neverland.

Bashir raises the subject of cosmetic surgery, only for a visibly upset Jackson to insist he has only ever had “two operations” on his nose, both in order to help his singing.

But it’s a scene late in the program involving Jackson and a young male companion that sent shockwaves around the world.

‘IF YOU LOVE ME, YOU’LL SLEEP ON THE BED’

“I, like everyone, knew that 10 years ago, children were being invited to sleep over at Neverland. One of them, a 13-year-old boy, accused Jackson of sexual abuse, a claim that cost him millions of dollars,” Bashir tells viewers, referring to Jackson’s 1993 child sexual abuse case, which he had settled out of court.

“I’d assumed he’d be more cautious — but to my utter astonishment, I discovered that children were still sleeping over, sometimes in his house, sometimes in his bedroom.”
Bashir then meets 12-year-old child cancer survivor Gavin Arvizo, who is visiting Neverland with his siblings after first connecting with Jackson two years earlier.

“He’s really a child at heart. He knows how a child is, he knows how a child thinks,” Arvizo says, sitting by Jackson’s side on a sofa as Bashir interviews the pair.

Arvizo describes a sleepover he had in Jackson’s own bedroom — although he and Michael are both keen to emphasise that Jackson had slept on the floor.

Michael Jackson and Gavin Arvizo in Living With Michael Jackson.

“There was one night I asked him if I could stay in the bedroom. I was like ‘Michael, you sleep on the bed.’ He was like ‘No, no, no, you sleep on the bed.’ He finally said: ‘If you love me, you’ll sleep on the bed.’ I was like, ‘Oh man!’ So I finally slept on the bed. It was fun that night,” Arvizo says.

Jackson explains he slept on the floor in a sleeping bag.

An incredulous Bashir pushes Jackson on the issue: “Michael, you’re a 44-year-old man now. What do you get out of this?”

Jackson stands firm — all while tightly holding Arvizo’s hand, as the young boy rests his head on his shoulder.

Jackson and Arvizo hold hands during their interview.

“Why can’t you share your bed? That’s the most loving thing to do, to share your bed with someone. You say, ‘You can have my bed if you want it. Sleep in it. I’ll sleep on the floor. It’s yours’.”

Pressed by Bashir, the young boy says that “most of the time (at Neverland) I wasn’t really with my parents — I was with Michael.”

THE FALLOUT

Jackson had insisted in the documentary that his bedroom arrangements with children were “Not sexual; we’re going to sleep. I tuck them in … It’s very charming, it’s very sweet.”

But many viewers saw that one brief scene with Arvizo very differently: The intimate displays of physical affection, the admission that Jackson had coerced a child with the chilling line “If you love me, you’ll sleep on the bed.”

Four months after the documentary aired, the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s Office reopened their previous 1993 investigation into Jackson.

Jackson’s 2003 mug shot. Picture: Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office via Getty Images

By November 2004, Arvizo would claim to police that Jackson had molested him several times in early 2003 when, according to his mother, the star had held the family captive at Neverland.

The case went to criminal trial, a public 18-month process that ended with Jackson being acquitted of all charges. At the time, the Guardian described Living With Michael Jackson as “the fuse that ignited the case and the trial.”

Jackson waves to supporters outside court in 2005. Picture: AFP

And yet, weathering his second very public child molestation scandal did not seem to hurt Jackson's career. While he largely retreated from the public eye after the documentary, hurt by what he saw as Bashir’s unfair treatment, in March 2009 Jackson emerged to announce This Is It, a mammoth concert residency at London’s O2 Arena billed as his last-ever concerts.

Tickets sold out almost instantly, but just two weeks before the first show was due to open, Jackson died of cardiac arrest aged 50, his body weakened by a cocktail of prescription medications.

Jackson announced a mammoth new concert residency — but died just before it was due to open. Picture: AFP

And now, a decade after his death, millions of Michael Jackson fans across the world grapple with a difficult question: Do we believe the alleged victims? And if so, do we owe it to them to take a fresh look at what’s been in front of us all along?

— The extended and unedited version of Leaving Neverland is now available on 10 Play and 10 All Access.

Originally published as Michael Jackson’s bizarre 2003 documentary: The clues we all ignored