r/movies • u/Bullingdon1973 • 15d ago

Article LEAVING NEVERLAND, the 2019 Michael Jackson documentary that shook the world, has effectively vanished after HBO-MAX removed it due to a non-disparagement clause

https://slate.com/culture/2025/03/michael-jackson-leaving-neverland-2-documentary-max-youtube.html
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u/CombatGoose 15d ago

Was the evidence not first hand accounts by “victims”?

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u/sidekickman 15d ago

Witness testimony needs corroborating evidence. Other witness testimony can be one of the weakest forms thereof.

That is virtually all this doc had. Are there any reasons someone might want to lie to produce and market a product? 

Michael Jackson smears are like, the bottomless well for hacks.

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u/Samiel_Fronsac 15d ago

Witness testimony needs corroborating evidence. Other witness testimony can be one of the weakest forms thereof.

Yep. My favorite criminal law professor talked a lot about how lay people think of witness testimony as a kind of "checkmate" when it's mostly unreliable.

People suck at remembering stuff that happened under stressful conditions, but even under a routine, brains gloss over so many details and fills so many of those with random stuff when called upon later...

Testimony in a vacuum is meaningless without corroboration.

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u/Jenstarflower 15d ago

It's extremely easy to manipulate people into remembering things that didn't happen. Brains do weird things. That was my favourite subject in psyc. 

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u/BretShitmanFart69 15d ago

Wade Robson admitted at one point that his therapist kept pressing him on MJ and saying he must have been molested and then helped him “remember” it as repressed memories.

He stopped telling that story when people pressed him on it, but there’s a lot of shit like that if you look into it that makes these claims less than a slam dunk for me.

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u/deisukyo 8d ago

Ah yes, false memories. I liked that topic in psych class as well