I've been going through this a lot.
First of all, I'm a huge MJ fan, been one since I saw Thriller when I was about 4-5 years old. That video made me interested in music, movies and horror, and made me a major Michael Jackson fan. So there definitely is a big part in me who'd love this to be 100% a lie.
I have been going back and forth since the first accusations in the 90's. Didn't quite know what to believe but would always end up thinking he's innocent. Especially after the 2005 trial I became increasingly more positive he was innocent what came to sexually abusing children.
With this documentary I first thought this is really kinda as if there would be a trial and people would be brought in to testify, but that there wouldn't be any cross examination or any chance to even look at those accusations and that both the audience and the jury would have to take all the accusations at face value. This isn't a documentary. This is a chance to prosecute without an actual trial.
Then I looked at the H3H3 discussion about it and gave the first real thought of Michael actually being guilty. I thought he had lots of good points in his video.
Then I checked out some videos that tried to show the documentary is false and I took a few steps back into thinking, "hey, there's a lot of things wrong in the documentary - maybe MJ still was innocent."
And sure as hell, what comes to Safechuck there really is a lot of inconsistencies in his and his mother's story.
But now as I'm watching the documentary, I'm again taking a few steps into thinking, damn, this could be true. At least for Robson's part it could be.
With Safechuck's story there's the train station problem and his mother claiming she danced with joy when she learned Michael was dead REALLY rubs me the wrong way, and knowing they've changed their story several times doesn't help it at all.
That said, Robson's story on the other hand is mainly "unbelievable" just because of him continuously defending Michael. When I started to think about that more I realized that if there are people who are willing to rape kids and hide it for the rest of their lives, it's isn't hard to believe there could be people who would lie about being sexually abused for the rest of their lives either. People have gone to their graves with far tougher secrets before. If one thinks some secret is too big of a secret to reveal even under oath, they will continue keeping it a secret. I mean, people do lie in the court all the time with bigger and smaller secrets.
What comes to Safechuck, I think there is a chance that he is completely lying and trying to take advantage of the situation, but then again it's not unheard of that people would exaggerate true things that have happened to them because they might want to make the reality sound more exciting/terrible than it is or if they are afraid the real story doesn't make as good of a case. So it could be Safechuck tells the truth in that Michael abused him, but has decided to try to make his story more credible and/or interesting by peppering it with a bunch of lies.
Then I have to think that if I know suddenly believe the victims, could there be a chance that Jordan and Gavin were in fact real victims too. Every combination is possible. It's possible Michael never did anything to anyone. It's possible he did it to Jordan but not Gavin, Wade and James. It's possible he didn't do it to Jordan and Gavin but did it to Wade. Who knows. But I have to think about the possibility of Michael doing it to them all. I know the evidence and counter evidence from the 2005 trial and I have believed Michael was innocent in that case. But then again, maybe the prosecutors and the Arvizo family just went way overboard trying to put everything on the table with a pinch of pure fantasy and deliberate included in order to try to convince the jury of the crime he did. Maybe Michael really did abuse Gavin too but their case was destroyed because of them being too cocky about it. While I still believe he didn't do it to Gavin, it's really tough to think that if he and Jordan really were victims after all, it must've been really really REALLY tough life after being told they are liars for the things they know are true.
So now I'm starting to think Michael really had this one huge skeleton in his closet even though I kinda also still hold my judgment because of lots of inconsistencies.
From the start I have thought it's bullshit when people said "Michael did this and that good thing so he couldn't have done this" and when Michael himself said "if I'm guilty of something I'm guilty of helping children." If there's something I know for sure about people it's the fact that people who do a lot of good can do bad things too, and people who do a lot of bad things can do good things too. Appealing to people's past good or bad deeds to prove a current situation doesn't work because of our human nature that is a mixture of good and evil in each one of us. A child molester might also very well believe he isn't doing any harm to anyone if he really believes it's a showing of love to share sexual experiences with others. So sure, when Michael said he would never harm a child, he might've actually 100% believed it himself even if he had just had a sexual encounter with a kid an hour ago.
I really hope Michael wasn't guilty but I'm not sure about that anymore. That's a hard pill to swallow not just because as a huge fan of his but also as a person who has to go through the years of believing the accusers have had to be liars. Not only I would have to come to grips with one of my entertainment and art heroes be a massively troubled predator but also with there possibly being kids who never got justice but instead were blamed as liars.
But then again, the thought still lingers in my head that when someone is as famous as Michael was, things will be different all around and it would not be a surprise if there were people who were willing to lie about subjects this sensitive either. People have made false claims to regular people too so it wouldn't be a wonder if someone would do that to a megasuperstar too.