Leaving Neverland: HBO urges appeals court to throw out lawsuit over Michael Jackson documentary

Star’s estate claims that the network’s 2019 documentary broke a contractual agreement made in 1992

HBO has requested that an appeals court throw out a lawsuit over the network’s Michael Jackson documentary Leaving Neverland.

The star’s estate is suing HBO for $100 million (£75.4m). The case argues that the network broke a “27-year-old promise” not to denigrate the late singer, reports Variety.

Jackson’s estate also claims that Leaving Neverland’s two subjects who attest to Jackson’s alleged crimes – Wade Robson and James Safechuck – had a financial incentive to fabricate their stories.

Given that the “Man in the Mirror” singer died in 2009, the network cannot be sued for defaming him. The estate, however, has invoked a non-disparagement provision from a contract that was signed over a 1992 film of Jackson’s Dangerous world tour, which HBO produced.

In September 2019, the case moved forward after a judge granted the estate’s request to take the suit to arbitration.

The estate said the film was a 'tabloid character assassination' 

On Thursday (19 November), Theodore Boutrous – arguing for HBO – asked the Court of Appeals to overturn the previous judge’s ruling.

Boutrous claimed that the Leaving Neverland dispute is a distinctly separate matter from the 1992 contract.

According to Variety, the lawyer argued that the suit had been filed as a “publicity stunt”. He also said that HBO would never have granted Jackson and his estate an everlasting veto over the network’s First Amendment rights (freedom of speech).

Boutrous said: “That is, on its face, absurd. There is nothing that suggests HBO intended that.”

The opposing lawyer Jonathan Steinsapir retorted that given Jackson’s huge profile at the time, it would have been plausible for the star to bargain for a strong non-disparagement provision.

“It’s not crazy that he would want that in an agreement,” said Steinsapir.

Released in 2019,  Leaving Neverland centres on two men, Safechuck and Robson, who claim that Jackson sexually abused them as children. At the time of its release, the Jackson estate called the documentary a “public lynching”.

Ofcom received 230 complaints alleging that the film presented claims of sexual abuse claims against the late singer as fact despite not being proven in court. The complaints were rejected by the media watchdog.

It argued that the allegations were balanced by references to the singer’s family denying the accusations, and viewers would not be substantially misled by the programme.