When it premiered in 2019, Leaving Neverland seemed like it would completely altar the way everyone thought about Michael Jackson forever. The two-part, four-hour film centered around Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who accused Jackson, in often excruciating detail, of sexually abusing them over many years when they were children.
The Jackson estate was quick to denounce the film as “yet another lurid production in an outrageous and pathetic attempt to exploit and cash in on Michael Jackson.” They also called Robson and Safechuck’s claims “dated and discredited.” (Jackson denied all allegations of abuse against him when he was alive.) But, released at the height of the #MeToo movement, the documentary seemed to prompt a serious reckoning with Jackson: His music was pulled from some radio stations abroad, brand collaborations were nixed, and even an episode of The Simpsons Jackson guested on in 1991 was taking out of circulation.
Seven years later, though, Jackson is arguably as popular as he’s ever been. The recently released biopic Michael is projected to be a blockbuster smash. And Leaving Neverland — a genuinely consequential work of documentary filmmaking that won an Emmy and was nominated for a Peabody — is no longer available to watch on any official streaming platform in the United States.
Ahead of its arrival on HBO, the Jackson estate sued the cable network, claiming the film violated a non-disparagement clause in a 1992 contract between Jackson and HBO over the Michael Jackson in Concert in Bucharest: The Dangerous Tour. The estate wasn’t able to stop the film from premiering, but their case did gain traction in the courts as they tried to compel HBO into arbitration.
The case dragged on for several years, but eventually settled in October 2024. The two parties agreed to drop the suit, and as part of the deal, HBO said it would remove Leaving Neverland from its streaming platform. At the time, an HBO spokesperson told Puck, the matter “has been amicably resolved.”
Since then, the film has been unavailable, and it will remain unavailable for at least a few more years. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Leaving Neverland director Dan Reed called the doc’s removal “painful” and “a gut punch.” The filmmaker was obviously aware of the legal dispute, but wasn’t really involved. He credited HBO for financing the film and fighting the estate’s claims for several years, but said the ultimate result reflected certain themes in Leaving Neverland.
“[P]ower, influence, and cunning lawyers can achieve almost impossible feats of repression,” Reed said. “They suppress anything. They suppressed Jackson’s child abuse while he was alive. Even when he was taken to court in the criminal trial. He shouldn’t have got away with that, but he did… It shows that you can ride roughshod over the truth if you have aggressive, resourceful lawyers and an immense amount of social capital. Even [HBO owner] Warner Bros. were unable to stand up to them in the end.”
Though effectively blacked out for now, Leaving Neverland will likely be released again. The rights to the film revert back to Reed in 2029, and he said he intends to “make sure” that it “can be seen in North America.” He stressed that there’s ‘no problem or issue’ with the film,” saying, “The integrity and truthfulness of the film hasn’t been challenged or undermined in any way. This is a technical legal settlement to do with a contractual dispute between HBO and someone HBO signed a contract with a long time ago.”
In March 2025, not long after the original film was pulled, Reed released a Leaving Neverland sequel that found Robson and Safechuck discussing the latest developments in their legal battle against the Jackson estate, as well as the response to the film. (After years of appeals, Robson and Safechuck’s combined suit will go to trial this November.) Reed released the film on YouTube, but admitted to being unsatisfied with the results: YouTube’s algorithm doesn’t exactly prioritize films dealing with issues like child sexual abuse, and the film was vulnerable to mass downvoting from Jackson’s devoted fanbase.
As for his thoughts on the biopic, Reed was forceful and blunt. He said the film will likely leave a new generation of young viewers with a picture of Jackson as “a very talented performer who was rather nice to children.” Reed called that “a travesty of the truth.”
He continued, “Young people are familiar with the trope of the movie star or pop star whose private life is unsavory. They’re not stupid or naïve. But it’s a testament to the power of the estate and its heft in Hollywood because there’s this reality distortion field where, ‘It’s Michael fucking Jackson. What are you talking about? None of your child abuse stuff. Fuck that. It’s Michael fucking Jackson.’ This is pure money. It’s pure influence. It’s pure fucking Hollywood glory. And you look at these people and go, ‘Don’t you have a spark of… Do you have children? Have you ever met any children?’”
