Simpsons pulling episode with Michael Jackson from streaming/future box sets - Sensationalist Headlines

Yeah, that's the general narrative. But it's very clear, from listening to his victims, that it went a lot further than friendship with children. Yes, I am choosing to believe the victims. But if you listened to them, I think you would too. So much of it makes so, so much sense. It's clear that they're telling the truth, and that there is a clear pattern of behaviour from MJ that all points to one thing. And the recent evidence from the maid that worked for him perfectly aligns with their stories. I am choosing to believe them. It's the most compelling thing I've ever seen. It's not sensationalized at all. I'd implore you to watch it before you say there's no way we can know for sure.

The unfortunate reality is that our court system doesn't work in guilt and innocence, but guilt and not guilty. We can't make a decision on someone's fate because of an emotional testimony, but physical evidence. If we did then the prosecution would have an inherent advantage as the jury would hear from them first and not the defendants. I realize you have a deep emotional attachment to this and I'm not trying to diminish that in any way, but your argument of believing the testimonials wouldn't hold up in a court of law as the defendants could claim that you're a biased witness. Does that mean you're wrong for feeling the way you do? Absolutely not, and I hope sincerely that you find, or have found, peace in it all. The thing that irks me about the two in question is that there's not much we can do for them. I hope people hear their message because for all we know they're being honest. However, their attempts to receive some financial compensation is weird to me. Jackson is dead, no further justice can be carried out. I don't feel like his estate should have to pay for something that wasn't and is not in their control, unless evidence arises to show their was a conspiracy to hush the actions of Michael Jackson and that the family actively knew about any criminal acts that went on.

The documentary is people saying "yep he did it" How can that possibly be "beyond a shadow of a doubt" What material evidence does the documentary provide? (People saying "he raped me" with emotionally-manipulative music in the background does not count.)

I'm an hour into the documentary and I literally have to take a fucking break. This is really tough to watch. The claims are heavy, and the audio and video that goes alongside it breaths alot of reality into the situation. It's hard to reserve my judgement at even this early on, it's not looking good for MJ.

I can't believe people are still stupid enough to believe a video just because it was emotionally compelling.

Let's just make this absolutely clear that you are implying that these 2 guys, known favorites of Michael, are lying through their teeth, and that their testimony is entirely based on greed. I'm not saying it's not possible, but you seem awfully sure that these 2 absolutely balls to the wall testimonies are bullshit.

The two options are not "it's 100% true and Michael Jackson is a rapist" and "it's 100% false and these people need to be imprisoned for lying" The position is that there is not sufficient evidence whatsoever to say he did it but that doesn't mean there is evidence they are lying. "You're either with us or you think we're EVIL LYING LIARS" isn't really a good way to get people on your side

You're right, I read it a little differently the first time round. As I said even I'm not 100% sure, but this is a testimony from 2 people, not just a documentary.

Just a question, have you watched it?

There was clearly something wrong with Jackson and it was clearly centred around children and the ideal of youth. Whether that stretched to real abuse or not I can't say for sure but I honestly think his conduct around kids was unfathomably inappropriate regardless of whether or not it stretched into abuse (which I honestly think it probably did but I wouldn't say that as fact.) There's plenty of evidence, anecdotal and documented, of Jacko being an absolute shark business-wise and being very brutal in his financial dealings so I honestly think there's an under-layer there that's very disturbing and says, to me, he had the capacity to do it and to hide it. As we saw with Jimmy Savile. But to say whether or not that equals kiddy-fiddling? I don't honestly know. I'm inclined to believe the victims, but I am also unsure of the end result of that, beyond them being validated. As it stands I think pulling the ep from airing is a good move. Boxsets and streaming is too far and bizarre, though. A disclaimer, at most?

Just to preface I went into this thread kind of being undecided about this whole MJ topic. I never admittedly applied any critical thought to it, so reading through this thread was a good way to see both sides being expressed. This shit: is some of the most obnoxious posting/arguing I have ever seen. Made me want to tear my hair out reading it. From where I'm standing, it really does feel like those lumping against MJ are resting more on emotional factors than the hard facts - but I only say this because plenty of people have pointed out thorough investigations and testimonies that clear Jackson's name, whereas the other side has only really come down to one thing (when AK'z wasn't rambling about how weird MJ is): watch the documentary. I feel like I gotta watch that documentary, now! I'm downloading it. But it doesn't sit right with me, having this one piece of media be the end-all of this discussion. If I'm being honest, until recent times, I didn't actually know Jackson's guilt was contested. I honestly did think it was an OJ situation, where it was clear he did it, but using money and influence, had avoided justice. Now? I don't really know what to think. There's been good points drawn on each side, but the more I learn about the case and the people surrounding it, the more inclined I am to believe he might actually be innocent. Are there any other obvious, go-to resources - like that documentary - where I can read up? Googling this topic isn't the easiest thing in the world (lots of polarizing results).

It's absolutely absurd to say things like "The documentary is very convincing, he definitely did it!" - the entire point of the documentary is to convince you that it's right, that's its goal. It doesn't care about the actual truth one way or the other, it's intent is just to convince you that what it says is right regardless. That it's been made specifically by leaving out any other view points other than those that support the claims it makes, because they would contradict the story they want to give, shows that it shouldn't be trusted fully. Pushing their specific narrative in a way that relies on emotion (which can't be argued with or tested) while omitting information that don't fit that narrative is what conspiracy documentary's about the moon landing and such do. It's a documentary that focuses on depicting things in a biased, emotional-based way without any actual evidence, for that reason you really shouldn't take it at face value no matter how "believable" what it says is.

No it isn't. The point is to give these two men a platform to tell their story. Please watch it before you start saying what it is

Haven't watched it yet because I have work to get done. That said two men telling 'their stor(ies)' isn't proof of anything. I'll watch it at some point but I highly doubt it'll prove anything.

I also want to say - so much of what's in the documentary is indisputed fact - the fact he slept in the same bed as young boys for decades. How he traveled everywhere with them. How he actively tried to separate them from their families. The hours and hours he spent on the phone with them. The bizarre, endless fax messages to the kids. Flying them and their families to his ranch. Spending untold amounts of alone time with them. Putting his families further and further away from their room. All of this provable with witnesses, evidence, photographs, videos, this is stuff everyone would have to agree happened. What gets me is that people can see the evidence of decades of grooming - but not the obvious conclusion to it. Anyone who knows how abusers operate can very clearly identify the textbook behaviour. The other thing is that to admit to this, you have to put your living mother through knowing she utterly failed to protect you, that she has failed as a mother and actively put them in harms way for years. Nobody would do that just for... fame? Money? Things Wade already had? Either their entire family is in on the hoax, the filmmaker is in on it, all those other victims who came forward, steadily over more than a decade, they're all in on this hoax. Or it's the occam's razor. Michael really did abuse boys. The documentary is so much more than a lot of people think. These men are so clearly, truly, damaged. No acting in the world is that good. They've been abused. Everything lines up. Please watch it before you discount it.

Haven't watched it yet because I have work to get done. That said two men telling 'their stor(ies)' isn't proof of anything. I'll watch it at some point but I highly doubt it'll prove anything. Well the only thing you and others who have watched it have said about it is that it's very emotionally compelling and that that is 'proof' that he did it. Which it isn't. If the documentary has actual proof I'd love to hear it. There is a world of difference between saying he was innocent and saying he wasn't found guilty. At the same time it's ridiculous to expect people to believe an obviously biased documentary over a court ruling which used evidence from a no-knock FBI raid that found no evidence of wrongdoing. Except literally no one has said that. What is it with people who believe MJ is a rapist and putting words in other people's mouths? I don't care how emotional or convincing his alleged victims are, if they have no proof I have no reason to believe them, especially when he was already found not guilty and multiple others came to his defence on the matter. Am I supposed to believe the accusers but not the defenders who knew him? Why? Aren't you doing the same in the opposite direction? He must have done it because these two say he did. He must have done it because he was strange. He must have done it despite testimony that he didn't and no evidence to prove it. And if the accusations are false they've painted MJ in a horrible way and are equally nasty. It's 'nasty as hell' to accuse someone of being a child predator with no evidence too. Just like it basically destroyed the life of Michael Jackson? Or how it tuned his kids already unstable lives into a fucking circus for the media? What the fuck are you even trying to say here? The burden of proof is high because ruining a person's life on accusations and with no proof is morally wrong. This whole sentence is a train wreck. Of course the chance of proving something happened is going to be lower if it didn't fucking happen. Are you having an aneurysm? Considering the first accuser got a multi-million dollar settlement I'd say there are plenty of people willing to take the chance. Not saying these men are doing that, but I'm also not going to pretend the possibility doesn't exist. Their truth? No one should care about "their truth" they should only care about the truth. Prosecutions can, and should, only be made on facts, not emotional pleas. Absolutely. This is why it took so long for people to come forward and accuse Bill Cosby. But just because things like that have happened and people came forward to talk about it doesn't mean everyone who comes out and accuses a celebrity of abuse is telling the truth. Rusty, I suggest you reread your posts before you make them because that one was a word salad. I'm genuinely worried about you here, you seem to emotionally invested in this to even post coherently. As far as celebrities go Michael Jackson is a fairly safe bet to accuse of wrongdoing, guilty or not, because his weird personality and reclusive life make it very difficult to determine what he actually did behind closed doors, and people who see him as a freak are all too ready to jump on the "He must be a predator" train. Sure MJ's family and fans would defend him, that applies to any celebrity, but that doesn't mean there aren't others willing to tear into him at the drop of a hat. It's not my place to decide whether or not Michael Jackson was guilty of everything he was accused of, but I am more inclined to believe the findings of a court case with FBI investigation than a documentary made 10 years after the man's death. Especially when the only arguement for the documentary's conclusions is that it was very emotionally convincing.

I would ask that you actually do watch it first. If my posts come across as word salad then I'm sorry, it feels very personal for me. But this & the aneurysm stuff just seems mean spirited to say to me. You can say two mens testimony isn't proof of anything as many different ways as you want. You should actually listen to it first. Don't listen to me. Listen to his victims.

No, I'm legitimately serious. Those parts were gibberish. I'm actually concerned that you weren't able to make those points. I get what you were going for, but you didn't write what you intended to write at all. What is this supposed to mean? Someone fabricating abuse knows they have no evidence because it didn't happen? How does this support the two men who were supposedly actually abused? "It's hard to prove it happened if it didn't happen", like seriously. What are you trying to say with these sentences?

What I was trying to say was, that these kinds of things are extremely hard to prove so many years after the fact. You are already operating from a place which has very little evidence, other than being able to tell the truth about the events. Were you to make it up, you would have no evidence and no solid foundation for the claims. The risk you would be exposed is so great, that it doesn't seem worth it to me, especially since the consequence of coming forward with these claims is destroying your family and friends, causing you to be a pariah, getting untold amounts of hate from strangers. All of that because of a lie just makes no sense to me. Especially since there's no chance of a settlement from MJs estate. MJ may have made one while he was alive, but you'd have to know there's no way his family would do the same, after his death, considering how vehement they've been about his innocence and berating those who accuse him. Sorry if initially it didn't make sense - but you don't have to try and hammer me down about it and call me incomprehensible.

iirc they never slept in the same bed, that shit was made up by tabloids. He stayed at his house a few times but MJ's bedroom at the time was spanning over two floors and they were each staying in a different floor. That's like saying you molested your friend because he slept on your couch once while you were nextdoor in your bed.

A lot of the arguments defending MJ are very similar to how Jimmy Saville was defended. And we all know how that went. And all that was testimonials with very little physical evidence. I don't want to judge now, but so many of these stories end in everyone going "it was so obvious, how did we never notice?" The documentary is very RAW, and very compelling. Give it a watch before tarring everyone with a brush who are arguing in favor of the testimonials presented in it.

Given that MJ is dead, what is it that the victims want? Wouldn't it be better for them to move on than to have to deal with all this media attention again? Now there are tens of thousands of people arguing about whether they're telling the truth or not, which must be hard for them to deal with.

The documentary does not lay out any additional evidence, and one of the guys had a great friendship and relationship with Michael for decades before he had a nervous breakdown brought on by his "need for success" before suing for 1.5b and making this documentary.

Money. Wade sued the Jackson estate for 1.5 Billion (that was thrown out by the judge) and has been shopping a book he wrote about the sexual abuse. He supposedly wasn't compensated for the interviews he gave in Leaving Neverland however him being compensated for the home videos and photos he provided that the documentary used extensively is likely, especially considering the success and profitability of the doc based exclusively on Wade and Safechuck. There are little to no libel laws for the dead so it's actually safer to come out with allegations after someone is dead.

The court that found him not guilty relied on old testimony from people in the documentary. Now they are saying that it was falsified because 1) they didn't see a sexual relationship with an older man as abuse at the time, they still 'loved' him and have complicated feelings about the matter even to this day and 2) he reached out to the witnesses before the trial to prep them on how to handle the questions. Witness testimony IS evidence and they are providing new testimony within the documentary. I'm not saying that he's absolutely guilty now but I don't it makes sense at this point to dismiss people who question his innocence just because he had a legal trial that relied on the word of these kids. all that said however, even if he was guilty removing the Simpsons episode was a dumb idea.

Jimmy Saville never had over 10 years of the authorities investigating him including a 70 man strong raid on his home, unannounced. Nor did he ever go to court over anything. Jackson never had mountains upon mountains of evidence stacked against him. Saville never had his victims saying he was a great man shortly after he died before changing their narrative. Saville's victims came out in floods as soon as he died and we quickly found out he was a total fucking monster who raped for decades. This is so much different to Saville. Had Saville had 1/100th of the hounding from the media and authorities Jackson had while he was alive had he'll had died in prison after a year long investigation.

If MJ is guilty it means that at least part of the MJ estate are also complicit in covering it up for decades.

I think its worth pointing out that after the better part of 3 full decades worth of intense scrutiny and investigation the strongest evidence is still "okay but you know what if MAYBE he did?"

Having a really hard time figuring out how @Rusty100 can claim there's "nothing in it for them" and yet there was a $1,500,000,000 lawsuit filed by one of these people recently. Nothing in it for them, indeed. A whole 1.5 billion nothings.

It really is absurd how "The documentary is very convincing/believable/compelling!" keeps getting said as if it being a well-made documentary alone is enough to determine the validity of its claims. How well it tells things is utterly irrelevant to the credibility of a documentary. In this case their story may be true, but whether the claims are true or not isn't really what's in question by the people defending MJ here - it's that the documentary is not substantial in terms of actual evidence or credibility that you should just go "Well this documentary says so, must be true!" and take it all at face value. The documentary has an agenda to push this specific narrative, as shown by the director refusing to include others in it because they might "contradict or compromise" the story it wanted to give. That means it's very heavily biased. That alone should be enough to question it as that means it's not an impartial documentary that just wants to let these people tell their story and you make up your own mind, it clearly has a goal is to convince you it's right by only showing you one side of things and leaving out things that might show its not as they claim - the same sort of thing moon landing hoax documentaries do.