Oprah Winfrey knows that she's courting controversy with her new special "After Neverland," an interview with two men who have accused Michael Jackson of sexually abusing them when they were young boys.
"I'm gonna get it," the talk show host predicted during a taping of the broadcast on Wednesday at the New York Times Center. But, Winfrey argued, the issue of sexual abuse is too important to remain silent no matter how much her program angers the "gloved one's" fans.
"This movie transcends Michael Jackson," she told an audience of more than 100 abuse survivors. "It allows us to see societal corruption."
"Beware of people who just want to be around your children," Winfrey added at another point during the hour-and-a-half-long taping.
The program will air on March 4 after the second and final episode of the upcoming HBO documentary "Leaving Neverland," a four-hour investigation into the claims of Jackson accusers, Wade Robson and James Safechuck. Winfrey was joined on stage by the two men and by director Dan Reed for a talk that mixed moments of uplift with tears, stories of horror, and a series of final cathartic hugs.
Winfrey made it clear that she finds the men's allegations credible, but the Jackson estate has pushed back aggressively against Robson and Safechuck, dismissing them as "opportunists" and "perjurers." Before going public with his abuse claims in 2013, Robson was one of Jackson's most vociferous defenders, denying the pop star had ever behaved inappropriately and serving as a key defense witness in Jackson's 2005 child molestation trial. Safechuck testified that he was never abused as part of the singer's 1993 molestation trial, but declined to testify on his behalf in the follow-up trial. Both men say they were groomed by Jackson to stay quiet — he repeatedly told them that their lives would be ruined if they broke their silence.
"He told me it was love," said Robson. "He told me God brought us together."
https://pagesix.com/2019/03/01/oprah-knows-shell-get-backlash-from-hosting-after-neverland-interview/
