Caption: US singer Michael Jackson waves as he arrives at the Santa Barbara County courthouse on June 3, 2005, in Santa Maria, California.

 

Summary

• A new UK documentary, “Michael Jackson: The Trial,” airs Wednesday on Channel 4 and revisits Jackson’s 2005 child sexual abuse trial, in which he was acquitted.
• It includes previously unheard audio of Jackson discussing children (“Children want to just touch me, hug me”) from recorded interviews with a rabbi who provided him “spiritual guidance.”
• The series uses interviews and unseen footage to re-examine the case and broader issues of fame, race, and justice, amid renewed public attention ahead of the April biopic “Michael.”

 

LONDON – A new Michael Jackson documentary airing in the UK on Wednesday features previously unheard audio of him sharing his thoughts on children, including that he believed they wanted to touch him.

The four-part “Michael Jackson: The Trial”, produced by London-based Wonderhood Studios, looks at the pop star’s 2005 criminal trial where he was charged with and later acquitted of sexual abuse of a minor, Gavin Arvizo, at his Neverland Ranch in California.

In a trailer of the film on Wonderhood’s website, Jackson can be heard saying: “Children want to just touch me, hug me”.

“Kids end up just falling in love with my personality,” he is also heard saying. “Sometimes it gets me into trouble.”

The documentary, which airs on the UK’s Channel 4, uses interviews, previously unseen footage, as well the unheard audio of the singer, to step “beyond the media circus” of Jackson’s infamous 2005 trial to ask “profound questions about fame, race, and the American justice system”, Wonderhood said on its website.

The audio comes from interviews with a rabbi who Jackson turned to for “spiritual guidance”, Channel 4 said in a statement.

“In hours of recorded interviews, Jackson confesses intimate secrets,” the British broadcaster said.

“The tapes, most of which have never been broadcast before, deliver an unprecedented insight into Michael’s mindset and his troubled childhood,” adding they also show his “fixation” with Arvizo.

The man dubbed the King of Pop who died in 2009 has been the subject of numerous films focusing on allegations that he abused young boys, including “Leaving Neverland” (2019), also broadcast on Channel 4, which prompted an angry response from his family.

“Michael is not here to defend himself, otherwise these allegations would not have been made,” the family said at the time.

The airing of the new documentary comes just days after the release of the trailer for the Hollywood biopic “Michael”, which stars Jackson’s nephew, Jaafar, as Michael, due to open in cinemas on April 24.

Jackson, who died on June 25, 2009 after being given an overdose of the anaesthetic propofol, faced multiple allegations of child sex abuse during his lifetime.

In addition to his 2005 acquittal the performer paid a $15 million court settlement in 1994 over allegations involving another child. (AFP)