Refutation of “10 Undeniable Facts about Michael Jackson” Part 1
In the aftermath of the film “Leaving Neverland” in 2019 which presented an undeniably one-sided narrative of abuse allegations against Michael Jackson, an article by Maureen Orth was published on Vanity Fair, promising to deliver 10 undeniable facts, which it largely failed to do. Given Orth’s lengthy history in journalism and prior reporting on Jackson, many would assume she knows what she’s doing.
Trust should only reasonably be given when earned and deserved, which you do through accurate research and reporting. In this 7-part series, I’ll use the court testimony of some of Jackson’s accusers, family members of the accusers, law enforcement, depositions of some of Jackson’s former employees, statements from those who knew Jackson, legal documents, etc to demonstrate where Orth went wrong.
The difference between her article and my series is that I won’t be asking you to take my word for it, I’ll show you the evidence point by point. In this article, I’ll address points 1 & 2.
- There is dispute about the length of time Jackson spent staying at June Chandler’s house. June herself testified at Jackson’s 2005 trial on April 11th that consecutively, he could have stayed there for a week or two at a time. She stated that he’d stayed there more than 30 times.
In his 2016 Deposition, Jackson’s former driver Gary Hearne spoke about dropping Jackson at the Chandler’s house and that he remembers a headline about the claim of every night for a month. He says he thinks he was asked his estimate of the number of times. Hearne says he’d commented that it could have been, 20 or 40; he didn’t know and was working 7 days a week, so the days just ran together. It appears that the media ran with the guess, and it was then touted as fact. (Credit to @MJJRepository on X for supply of deposition)
Jordan’s parents were divorced; however both had remarried. His mother married David Schwartz and had a daughter named Lily. Jackson met David when his car broke down. Schwartz ran a car rental business. Evan had married a woman named Nathalie and had two other kids.
Of Evan Chandler’s other children, Nicky is the oldest and Emmanuel is the youngest. June says their approximate ages at the time were 7 and 4. She says Lily is 17 when asked her age, which would make her around 5 years old in 1993. This means Jordan’s parents had been in relationships with their spouses for years. Dave and June were apparently estranged around 1992, but it’s said that Dave called June to bring the kids in when Jackson ended up at the car rental business.
2. It’s true that the 5 people mentioned accused Jackson of abuse. Jason Francia claimed to have been in Jackson’s bedroom twice, once with other kids, and he wasn’t asked about the other occasion. He did however, explicitly state that he never slept in a bed with Jackson.
“Rubba” was a nickname those who knew Jackson say he used as a term of endearment and it was used for adults as well as kids. Quincy Jones says Jackson referred to Frank DiLeo with that name. Mary Coller said in her 2017 deposition that he called everyone this.
“Applehead” was a name used for multiple people, not just Safechuck. It was also a name people called Jackson, for example, his sound engineer/technical director Brad Sundberg referred to him by this name. Brett Barnes says in a podcast episode of The MJCast (Timestamp: 25:58) it was everyone’s nickname including Jackson’s.
Jackson’s niece Yashi spoke of it, as did his nephew Taj. His driver Gary Hearne also mentioned that he would use Applehead as a general nickname for people, as well as calling multiple kids “Rubba” (Credit to MJJRepository for supplying the deposition)
The mentioned nicknames between Jackson and kids don’t appear to have been specific to particular kids, and the same names were used for him, as well as those close to him using them with each other. Here’s a tweet with some footage of the Applehead name being used in The 3 Stooges.
