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The Leaving Neverland documentary hasn’t been removed from HBO’s programming line-up as recent reports have suggested.
The cable network is debunking rumors that it pulled the controversial documentary that centers on two men who made damning sexual abuse claims against Michael Jackson.
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“That report is untrue. Leaving Neverland is available on HBO through April 16th and then will continue to be available on HBO NOW and HBO GO,” the network told Complex. “It is now the second most watched [documentary] on HBO in 10 years having reached 7.5 million people for Part 1.”
The rumors likely rose after HBO’s official website listed one TV program slot for the documentary, which many assumed it meant the documentary had been canned.
There has also been some controversy surrounding one of Jackson’s accuser’s, James Safechuck’s. Mike Smallcombe a Jackson biographer pointed to an inconsistency in the story.
Safechuck claims he was molested by Jackson between 1988 and 1992 and said one such incident took place on the in a room above the Neverland’s train station. However, Smallcombe pulled the construction plans and found that the station wasn’t built until 1993 and didn’t operate until 1994.
“Suddenly the end of Safechuck’s abuse was when he was 16/17 rather than 14,” Smallcombe wrote in a tweet. “It’s a three-year discrepancy. Just hold your hands up, don’t change the story. This is what happens when you don’t investigate properly.”
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Smallcombe even tweeted an image of the construction permit issued by Santa Barbara County on September 2, 1993. But in interviews and in his lawsuit against the Jackson estate, Safechuck claimed that he was abused for four years until the age of 14 – which would fall between 1988 and 1992.
In light of this evidence, filmmaker Dan Reed says he accepts that one may be a detail is incorrect. But instead of discrediting Safechuck entirely, he explains he simply got the date when his abuse ended wrong.