In early 2019 the world was captivated by the Leaving Neverland documentary, which paints legendary singer Michael Jackson as a child abuser.
The controversial HBO documentary debuted on March 3, but information about it had been leaking to the public over the course of many weeks.
As a result, some radio stations around the world have decided to stop playing his hits.
Three stations in Canada have made the decision to pull songs like ‘Beat It’, ‘Wanna Be Starting Something’, ‘Thriller’ and ‘Billie Jean’ (just to name a few) from their repertoire.
Cogeco spokeswoman Christine Dicaire says the move was made based off of listener requests.
A similar decision has been made in New Zealand, with any station owned by MediaWorks and New Zealand Media Entertainment reported to have stopped busting out tracks from the King of Pop.
MediaWorks Group content director Leon Wratt said: “We aren’t deciding whether Michael Jackson is guilty of paedophilia, we’re just making sure our radio stations are going to play the music people want to hear.”
He was interviewed by radio station Magic Talk, where he added: “You’ve got 500 songs on a playlist and you have to make the decisions which 500 are the ones people will want to listen to.”
One of the shocking claims made in Leaving Neverland was that Jackson married one of the boys who’s accused him of abuse.
James Safechuck says he was just 10 years old when he married the King of Pop, then 30, in a ceremony in the singer’s bedroom and says he still has the jewellery to prove it.
Safechuck says: “I was really into jewellery at that time and he would reward me with jewellery for doing sexual acts to him.
“He would say that I need to sell him some so I could earn the gift.”
Now a father of two, computer programmer Safechuck says it wasn’t long into their relationship when Jackson decided to take things a step further.
He says: “So we were like this married couple. I say ‘married’ because we had this mock wedding ceremony.
“We did this in his bedroom and we filled out some vows, like we would be bonded forever. It felt good. And the ring is nice, it has a row of diamonds, the wedding ring.”
The pair had met a year earlier, on the set of a Pepsi commercial in 1987. Just a few months later however, Safechuck says he was being abused by the star, but says he still feels some guilt.
Source: LadBible
The Documentary Behind the Decision
Leaving Neverland was directed by British filmmaker Dan Reed. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2019, then aired on HBO in two parts on March 3 and 4, 2019, and on Channel 4 in the UK a few days later. Reed described the four hour film as a study of the psychology of child sexual abuse, told through two ordinary families. Its two central interviewees, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, both said they had been abused by Jackson as children. Jackson, who died in 2009, was never convicted of any crime, and his estate has always rejected the allegations.
Which Stations Pulled the Music
The Canadian stations mentioned above were owned by Cogeco, and in New Zealand the decision covered stations run by MediaWorks and NZME, with Radio New Zealand also reported to have pulled his songs. A station in the Netherlands made a similar call. Elsewhere, most broadcasters chose to keep playing the music, arguing that the songs and the allegations were separate matters and that listeners should decide for themselves.
What Happened Next
The bans turned out to be less permanent than the headlines suggested. Cogeco later put Jackson’s tracks back on air, and some of the New Zealand stations restored them too, citing positive results from listener surveys. The music, it seemed, was still what a large part of the audience wanted to hear.
Sales and streaming told a similar story. Rather than collapsing after the broadcast, Jackson’s music sales reportedly rose by about 10 percent, and streams across platforms went up by around 6 percent. Controversy, as the music industry has seen many times, often sends curious listeners back to an artist’s catalog rather than away from it.
The Legal Fight Over the Film
Even before the documentary aired, the Jackson estate sued HBO on February 21, 2019. The estate argued that the network had breached a non disparagement clause in a 1992 contract signed when HBO broadcast one of Jackson’s concerts, and it said potential damages could reach 100 million dollars or more. The case dragged on for years. In October 2024 both sides dismissed it, and the documentary was removed from Max, HBO’s streaming service. Reed has said the distribution rights will return to him in 2029.
The story did not end there. A follow up, Leaving Neverland 2: Surviving Michael Jackson, premiered on Channel 4 on March 18, 2025, following Robson and Safechuck through their continuing legal action against Jackson’s companies.
The Bigger Question: Can You Separate the Art From the Artist?
The radio bans were only one part of a much wider debate that has never really been settled. Some listeners felt they could no longer enjoy songs they had loved since childhood. Others argued that switching off the radio punished nobody and that music, once released, belongs to the people who grew up with it. Many landed somewhere in between, uneasy but unwilling to erase an entire era of pop history.
What the episode showed clearly is that radio no longer holds the power it once did. A playlist decision in Montreal or Auckland could make headlines around the world, but it could not stop anyone from pressing play on a phone. In the streaming age, the audience decides what gets heard, and in this case the audience kept listening.