Netflix dropped its three-part docuseries ‘Michael Jackson: The Verdict’. Directed by Nick Green, it revisits the 2005 criminal trial that acquitted Jackson on all 14 counts of child sexual abuse. Here is what the documentary lays bare, without the softening that Jackson’s admirers prefer.
1. The Bashir documentary triggered everything
Former BBC journalist Martin Bashir’s film ‘Living With Michael Jackson’ put the spotlight directly on the entertainer’s relationship with 12-year-old Gavin Arvizo, who would go on to accuse Jackson of molesting him. In the BBC documentary, Jackson appears clutching Arvizo’s hand and speaking joyfully about sharing a bed with the boy on multiple occasions. Jackson invited Bashir into Neverland specifically to rebuild his battered image. It destroyed what was remaining of it instead.
Also Read: He spends money on a date, she goes home without sleeping with him: What India’s ‘favourite’ stand-up comics call content
2. Jackson never recovered from the 1993 settlement
Jackson never really recovered from the 1993 child molestation accusations when he settled with 12-year-old Jordy Chandler and his family for $23 million. The documentary shows this payment was not closure. It was a shadow that followed him into every courtroom argument, undermining any claim of innocence with jurors who knew the history.
3. He admitted to sleeping with children
In an archival footage’s most controversial moments, Jackson openly admits to sharing his bed with young boys, insisting that sleepovers involved nothing more than fun, games, sleep. He said this on camera, to a journalist, while holding a child’s hand. No spin from his legal team or inner circle could undo it.
4. Pornography found behind locked doors
At best, Jackson engaged in a historic pattern of taking young children who were not his own into his bedroom behind a locked door, sleeping in bed with them, and showing them pornography. There is no dispute here. It is a statement of documented fact that the documentary does not shy away from, even as it also presents his defenders.
5. The prosecution self-destructed
Jackson walked free because the prosecution’s case was undone by unreliable witnesses, namely Gavin’s mom Janet, and major blunders like putting Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe on the stand, where she flipped. Rowe was called as a prosecution witness and ended up helping the defence. That is not bad luck. That is a catastrophically ready case.
6. Jurors swayed by fame, not just facts
The real uphill battle was simply convincing admirers that the man behind ‘Thriller’ could be a monster, particularly when the likes of child actor Macaulay Culkin were willing to take the stand to proclaim him a harmless saint. The fact that accusations from multiple kids that they were groped and raped was not enough to convince a jury to put Jackson behind bars speaks volumes about who is and is not believed in matters of justice.
7. No cameras in court meant the public was kept blind
No cameras entered in court. And so the public’s view of the facts at the time were filtered by commentators and presented piecemeal, the filmmakers themselves acknowledge. For years, people judged the trial on whatever fragments television chose to air. The documentary argues this distorted the public understanding of how strong the prosecution’s underlying evidence actually was.
8. The accusers were completely absent from the documentary
Viewers hoping for a balanced examination of the allegations against the singer may keep waiting to hear from at least one of the accusers or their families. That testimony never arrives. A documentary about child abuse allegations that does not include the alleged victims’ voices is a significant editorial choice. Critics have called it a glaring gap.
9. The timing is nakedly commercial
It is hard to separate the timing of this documentary from the renewed interest in Michael Jackson. With the biopic ‘Michael’ currently drawing a lot of attention, the pop star is once again dominating headlines. As a result, ‘Michael Jackson: The Verdict’ often feels like a project designed primarily to capitalise on that renewed interest. The documentary arrives over a month after the theatrical debut of the Michael biopic starring Jaafar Jackson, which grossed around $850 million. This is content riding a money wave, not justice-seeking.
10. The documentary offers almost nothing new
Green’s docuseries is a rather linear affair that is heavier on rehashing than on revelation, and those familiar with this headline-making chapter will come away with scant new information. The series relied heavily on interviews that rarely go beyond information that has been publicly available for years. For a trial that ended 21 years ago and left so many questions open, Netflix had the access and the platform to go further. It chose not to.