From Hollywood to Home: Black Voices in Entertainment
- Michael Jackson trial controversy persists 20 years later; filmmakers promise a forensic look at what was largely a closed event.
- The Santa Barbara Superior Court trial lasted 14 weeks; the 12-person jury deliberated over 30 hours across seven days.
- Michael Jackson was acquitted on 10 felony charges including child molestation and conspiracy; he had faced more than 20 years in prison.
- Produced by Candle True Stories and directed by Nick Green, the film arrives amid renewed interest after the biopic Michael omitted allegations.
Netflix is dropping a three-part docuseries that revisits Michael Jackson’s 2005 trial in which he was acquitted on charges of child molestation.
“Michael Jackson: The Verdict” drops June 3 and features archival footage and interviews with key players involved in the trial including jurors, figures from both the defense and the prosecution, journalists who were inside the courtroom and other eyewitnesses who saw the events unfold firsthand.
“It has been 20 years since the trial of Michael Jackson in which he was found not guilty. Yet, to this day, controversy still rages,” the filmmakers said. “No cameras were allowed in court, and so the public’s view of the facts at the time were filtered by commentators and presented piecemeal. It was time to take a forensic look at the trial as a whole.
“Anyone interested in the Michael Jackson story should feel this documentary gives them a window into what was largely a closed event and a chance to feel closer to what happened.”
The Santa Barbara Superior Court trial lasted 14 weeks, and the jury, which included eight women and four men, deliberated for more than 30 hours across seven days.
Jackson was acquitted on 10 felony charges: four counts of child molestation, four counts of plying a minor with alcohol in order to molest him, one count of attempted child molestation and one count of conspiracy to hold the boy and his family captive at the Neverland Ranch. He faced more than 20 years in prison.
Produced by Candle True Stories, the production company behind Netflix’s “Untold: The Liver King,” and directed by Nick Green, “Michael Jackson: The Verdict,” comes at a time of renewed interest in the “King of Pop.”
The Jackson-estate-approved biopic “Michael” hit theaters last month, and depicts the origin story of the hitmaker from childhood through his upward trajectory to superstar status in the 1980s. Notably, the movie omitted the slew of allegations that followed Jackson from the ’90s until his death in 2009.
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