\nPhoto \/ Dave Hogan, Getty Images<\/p>\n
Another audio clip sees the Thriller singer claim that \u201cchildren … wanna just touch and hug me\u201d.<\/p>\n
The new series includes commentary from Jackson\u2019s former PR adviser Vincent Amen, according to the Telegraph.<\/p>\n
\u201cI absolutely believe that Michael Jackson is guilty of child abuse and molestation. I believe there was a cover up for so many years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The star had several high-profile friendships with minors at the height of his fame, including Home Alone child actor Macauley Culkin.<\/p>\n
Reports of molestation first arose in 1993 when the Los Angeles Times reported local authorities were investigating allegations Jackson had sexually abused children.<\/p>\n
He was known to share beds with underage guests at his Neverland Ranch, including 13-year-old accuser \u201cJamie\u201d, whose family he settled out of court with to the tune of $20 million (NZ$33 million).<\/p>\n
Michael Jackson famously maintained friendships with several children during the height of his pop stardom, including subsequent accuser James Safechuck.
\nPhoto \/ Dave Hogan, Getty Images<\/p>\n
According to the Guardian, he was criminally accused of sexually assaulting Gavin Arzivo in 2005, leading to a highly publicised trial that involved testimony from talk show host Jay Leno and actor George Lopez.<\/p>\n
Jackson was acquitted of all 14 charges that year and had never been criminally convicted when he died of cardiac arrest in 2009.<\/p>\n
Rumours about the nature of Jackson\u2019s relationships with children have lingered in the years following.<\/p>\n
Despite testifying in the pop star\u2019s defence at the time of his trial, Wade Robson later accused Jackson of sexual abuse in the HBO documentary Leaving Neverland.<\/p>\n
Jackson estate lawyer Howard Weitzman vehemently denied the claims, pointing to Robson\u2019s repeated denials anything untoward had occurred during his friendship with the former Jackson Five member.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a young man who has testified at least twice under oath over the past 20 years and said in numerous interviews that Michael Jackson never did anything inappropriate to him or with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robson defended his story but said he understood why fans might struggle to believe him, explaining \u201cwe can only accept and understand something when we\u2019re ready\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another audio clip sees the Thriller singer claim that \u201cchildren … wanna just touch and hug me\u201d. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1903,1554,95,1061,181,8912,156,16718,151262,78,30641,9066,5494,117,111,139,69,6289,312,1963,17703,544,427,1961,61,66557,1455],"class_list":["post-264925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-abuse","tag-alleged","tag-and","tag-children","tag-details","tag-distressing","tag-entertainment","tag-him","tag-hug","tag-in","tag-jackson","tag-loved","tag-michael","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-readers","tag-says","tag-series","tag-sexual","tag-some","tag-story","tag-this","tag-to","tag-touch","tag-warning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}