Michael Jackson: The Verdict

Sheriff's Department. We need to talk to you a minute.

We're basically shutting down the gate.

We're gonna be controlling who comes and who goes, okay?

- It's out of your control. - What is the nature of…

That's not your business. We're serving a search warrant.

430, can you copy?

Now we're through the gate.

The subject, I repeat, the subject is not on property.

Do you copy?

Here's the bridge we gotta go over.

And the house is right there.

You guys see a uniform?

- Hi. - How are you doing?

Sheriff's Department. We have a search warrant.

This is a Fox News alert.

Police right now

searching Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch in California…

We are told this is part of an ongoing investigation.

…alleging criminal misconduct on the part of Michael Jackson.

Come this way.

- Copy. - Okay.

And this is Mr. Jackson's main area?

Sheriff's Department.

Yeah, go ahead.

Whose office is this?

This is his office.

This is Michael's?

Mr. Jackson's office.

Are there any secret rooms?

- Secret rooms? - Yeah.

Behind a wall or something like that?

- Just the bathroom. - Only behind doors.

No hidden doors or anything?

No.

The phone rings, and he says,

"Brian, the police are raiding Neverland Ranch."

I go, "What are they doing there, Mr. Jackson?"

"I don't know. I don't know."

He says, "Get your leads. Find out."

Wow.

Okay.

There could be something in here.

Somebody needs to go through it.

Hey, Jeff? We have an upstairs.

The search warrant indicates that there is an accusation

by a 12-year-old boy who says that he was molested.

It appears that they think there's some kind of forensic evidence

which would be available to them,

which would include DNA, hair samples, blood samples.

We don't know.

We don't know the identity of the child.

We don't know the specifics of the accusations.

When you're investigating an allegation of child sexual abuse,

you rarely have witnesses to it.

We're looking for anything that we could find

that tell us that this child is giving us accurate information.

He's the most famous man in the world,

who's being accused of the most heinous crime in the world.

An arrest warrant for Mr. Jackson has been issued

on multiple counts of child molestation.

Finally, we're going to get some answers.

Is he guilty, or is he not guilty?

Hm. Um…

I met Michael Jackson in, uh, 1970.

He was 12. I was 14.

- And we became friends. -

- I told you that I love Michael. - Uh-huh.

You love Michael.

As a musician, you can see the genius of Michael Jackson.

On stage since the age of five…

Michael Jackson is a superstar.

…for the outstanding example you have set for the youth of America…

The album is still number one after 57 weeks.

Thriller is still, to this day, the biggest-selling record of all time.

His album Thriller, the winner of seven Grammy Awards,

was still selling a million copies a year 15 years after its release.

Without exaggeration,

I think Michael was the most famous person in the world.

All the amazing talent.

But then, you know, you began to see the changes in him.

I mean, let's face it, he's a little weird.

You know? He's just a little weird.

The media was terrible to Michael Jackson.

With all the Wacko Jacko stuff, which was horrible.

"What's with the hyperbaric chamber?"

"What's with the plastic surgery?"

And Michael, he felt like he was lonely and isolated.

But he was determined to live his life his way.

Michael became friends with all these kids.

You know, he didn't think it was strange, but other people did.

A 13-year-old boy alleges a sexual relationship with Michael Jackson.

The idea of Michael Jackson being a pedophile was, like, mind-blowing.

It was the most far-fetched, ridiculous thing you could have imagined.

The pop star angrily rejected accusations he molested a young boy,

and lashed out at police and the media.

There have been many disgusting statements made recently

concerning allegations of improper conduct on my part.

These statements about me are totally false.

After all these terrible allegations about Michael,

he had a hard time not just artistically, but personally too.

I saw the hell that it had inflicted on him.

He was so traumatized by that time.

He needed, like, a reset,

where he could actually tackle some of these issues

and his image in the public eye.

- -

The first time I met Michael, in London, June 2002…

his face is very heavily made up.

His hair's kind of messy.

He looks as though he hadn't slept for very long.

And it had been some years since he was the King of Pop.

And yet, there's nobody comparable

to the size and magnitude of a Michael Jackson.

And the other thing that obviously caused an enormous amount of interest

were the scandals that surrounded him

and allegations of child sexual abuse some years previously.

I said, "I'd love to make a film with you if you were interested."

He said, "Okay, come and see me in California."

Talking about it with Michael,

I came to understand the reason Michael was interested in Martin Bashir

was because of his interview with Princess Diana,

who was somebody Michael really kind of idolized.

He wanted to be portrayed in a more human way

by the guy who did it for Princess Diana.

But Michael didn't do enough research

because if he had, he would have realized

that the Martin Bashir/Princess Diana interview was kind of a disaster.

Do you think Mrs. Parker Bowles was a factor

in the breakdown of your marriage?

Well, there were three of us in this marriage,

so it was a bit crowded.

That was the interview in which she talked about three in a marriage,

and it really set her at odds with the Royal Family,

and it… it… it was a public relations disaster.

But Michael didn't follow the story all the way to that.

He just stopped at the point where he wanted to do it

because Princess Diana did it.

Michael trusted Martin Bashir, and then Martin Bashir,

he was looking for a great story.

And Michael sort of handed him this opportunity on a silver platter.

We didn't think that Neverland was going to be the place

where this whole thing unraveled.

When I got onto Neverland, I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

It was extraordinary.

There was this Ferris wheel, a massive fairground.

And then I rode towards the zoo,

and I can remember seeing elephants, giraffes, and a bear.

I made it clear that I wanted to understand his life.

I thought he had a strange relationship with children.

There had been allegations before. There had been settlements.

Do you come out here on your own?

- Yeah. - How often?

- All the time. - You just come out on your own?

- Yes. - What, and go on a ride?

Yup.

Usually the carousel. I'll play music.

I love playing classical music on the carousel.

And what about the Ferris wheel?

I like the Ferris wheel. It makes you wish and dream and…

- Can we go on it? - Sure.

Let's go on it.

When I met him,

he was increasingly isolated as a figure.

There was none of the kind of lawyers and PR and publicists

that normally surrounds a major global superstar.

He was in control.

It was his idea that we film in the dance studio.

I knew I had to ask him certain questions that were going to be quite difficult.

But it was quite intimidating.

When you're dealing with someone like Michael Jackson,

you don't tell him what you're going to film.

But if we behaved appropriately, and if he liked us,

then things would happen.

Use your heel to slide back.

- That is not easy. That is not easy. - Really?

- That's not easy. - That's very good, though.

- That's the idea. - You're a very kind man.

I bought these.

- These. Right? - You got enough space for it all?

- Yeah, I do. - You do?

Yeah, and these we bought.

Okay, let's have a look at these ones.

They're beautiful.

That's only 275,000 each.

I was getting on well with him.

The filming had gone really well. He seemed to have enjoyed it.

Yet I knew that for this section of the film,

I actually had to put all of that aside

and behave as if I was confronting him for the first time.

I had to ask him about the allegations of child sexual abuse.

I was anxious about what was going to happen

when I put these difficult questions to him.

But as we moved towards the end of the filming,

he said, "I want you to meet somebody."

So I said, "Right, who do you want me to meet?"

He said, "He's a little boy, and we've healed him of cancer."