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Leaving Neverland: Music video producer believes 'almost every word' in damning Michael Jackson documentary

'If the Michael Jackson legend is destroyed by this, the person responsible is Michael Jackson,' says Rudi Dolezal

Clémence Michallon
New York
Tuesday 19 March 2019 15:33 GMT
Trailer for new HBO documentary about Michael Jackson abuse victims Leaving Neverland

A music video producer who had a working relationship with Michael Jackson says he believes “almost every word” of the Leaving Neverland documentary, in which Wade Robson and James Safechuck share detailed allegations of child sexual abuse against Jackson.

Rudi Dolezal, an Austrian director and producer, has worked on many music videos as well as several documentaries throughout his career, and got to know Jackson during his 1992 Dangerous tour in Munich, according to Page Six.

Speaking about Leaving Neverland, Dan Reed’s four-hour documentary, Dolezal told the publication: “I believe almost every word. It’s brilliant work.”

Dolezal referred to Jackson as a “predator”, adding: “If the Michael Jackson legend is destroyed by this, the person responsible is Michael Jackson – no one else.”

In Leaving Neverland, Robson and Safechuck both share their accounts of being groomed by Jackson as children and abused by him over the course of several years.

Jackson’s family has denied the accusations against the singer, who died in 2009, and denounced the film.

Leaving Neverland, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, was released in the US and in the UK earlier this month.

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