*As we previously reported, James Safechuck is being heavily been criticized for “inconsistencies” he made in the “Leaving Neverland” documentary about the alleged sexual abuse he endured as a young at the hands of Michael Jackson.
Director Dan Reed has also come under fire for allegedly trying to flip the script and manipulate details about the accuser’s version of what went down between him and MJ.
In the doc, Safechuck recounts how Jackson abused him in an upstairs room at Neverland’s train station, but Jackson’s biographer, Mike Smallcombe, shared evidence that contradicts his timeline of events.
Safechuck claims he was abused from 1988 until 1992.
Construction permits show that the station was built two years after the accuser said the abuse ended.
The train station was opened in 1994 but received permits in 1993.
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Evidence from Michael Jackson’s bodyguards seems to back up alleged victim’s #LeavingNeverland train station sexual assault claims https://t.co/EbX7KwEdwV pic.twitter.com/KcQIcmSn7A
— NME (@NME) April 9, 2019
Smallcombe, who uncovered the permits, notes that the station didn’t open until early ’94. But now, accounts from two of Jackson’s former bodyguards seem to confirm the dates in Safechuck’s story.
Via NME:
Writing in the 2014 book Remembering The Time: Protecting Michael Jackson In His Final Days, Bill Whitfield and Javon Beard said: “In 1990, Michael Jackson opened the gates of his Neverland Valley Ranch to the public for the first time.
“Neverland’s visitors entered the ranch at its train station, boarding a steam engine that took them up to the main house.”
Randall Sullivan also corroborated that account in his 2012 biography Untouchable: The Strange Life And Tragic Death Of Michael Jackson. “Reporters invited to tour Neverland at the 1990 public unveiling most often began by inspecting the towering statue of Mercury (the Roman God of profit, trade and commerce) in the drive of the mansion,” he wrote.
“Then climbed a hill out back that led to a near replica of the Main Street train station at Disneyland, with a floral clock that was more magnificent than the one Walt Disney had designed for his own park.”
Reed previously admitted that there was a discrepancy in Safechuck’s account, saying: “Yeah there seems to be no doubt about the station date,” he tweeted after Smallcombe shared the construction permits. “The date they have wrong is the end of the abuse.”
In a statement to NME, the director said “James Safechuck was present at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Valley Ranch both before and after the construction of the train station there.”
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