Here’s Why the New Michael Jackson Documentary Will Force Millions to Cancel Netflix

He was found not guilty in court, but guilty in Netflix’s search for drama.

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Last night, I finished watching all three episodes of the new MJ documentary series on Netflix, which is ironically called ‘The Verdict’.

I get it, it’s a great bait to snatch a ton of viewership, but in my opinion, and many others’, it falls big time on the moral grounds. And this isn’t the first time a big streaming corporation like Netflix has crossed the line.

There have been many such incidents where the production houses have gone too far to make money. However, no one has ever felt a serious backlash like this before.

Netflix has set an example of what could go wrong if a streaming platform tries to mess with the loyal fanbase of the most popular artist in the world.

A few weeks ago, I called Netflix ‘the best streaming service we currently have’ in one of my stories, comparing it to Amazon Prime.

I was desperately hoping that Netflix’s success would positively impact Prime Video to take their viewers seriously and put a halt to their greedy practices. But after looking at the latest screwjob, I doubt if that’ll ever be the case.

Moreover, Netflix has been giving its users enough reasons to cancel their memberships. They had already pushed users to the edge when they rolled out aggressive password crackdowns, under which you could no longer share your accounts with anyone else.

People needed one final excuse to actually pull the trigger and walk away. That excuse officially arrived on June 3 with the release of this absolute garbage documentary.

Now, I usually only stick to writing tech-related stories, but this one is an exception. As a filmmaker by profession and an MJ fan, I had to do this.

Here’s everything that went wrong with the documentary and how it affected Netflix:

The backlash is very real

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Netflix made a huge mistake by underestimating our intelligence. They thought that modern consumers (basically, us) are stupid people. Huh, bad move, I guess.

We are no fools. We have access to the internet, and we can read actual court documents. The days of spreading false propaganda no longer work when ‘cancel culture’ is at its peak and boycotts are highly organized on social media.

If you go on Reddit right now, specifically the r/MichaelTheMovie subreddit, the entire page looks like a graveyard of Netflix subscriptions. It is just a massive page of cancellation confirmation screenshots.

Now, Netflix always hits you with that desperate little exit survey asking why you are leaving. To make the protest clear, thousands of users have manually typed “misleading information about Michael Jackson” into the final cancellation box.

And this isn’t just limited to Reddit. YouTube and Instagram are also flooded with videos from fans showing you step by step exactly how to cancel your account.

The ‘BoycottNetflix’ hashtag is trending globally, and the ‘innocent’ glove picture is popping up on every single social media feed.

Huge, organized Change.org petitions demanding the immediate removal of the series have easily crossed the 100,000-signature mark.

Now, if you’re unaware of this controversy and why Netflix is being canceled globally, let me paint the full picture for you.

Jumping the trend wagon for profit doesn’t always work

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In April, I saw Michael (the movie) on the largest IMAX screen in my city. It was a 70-by-40-foot screen, and the recliners were in the second row. It was the best immersive movie experience I’ve ever had.

No, the credit doesn’t go to the large form factor or the seat placement. I’ve watched plenty of movies on that screen in the past. What made this one special was Jafar Jackson’s Oscar-level performance and the smooth plot.

Moreover, I felt super inspired watching MJ’s passion for his art and finally making it big time. The fever latched onto me for several days.

But can I really say that after watching this docuseries? No chance in hell!

Now, I understand that both are at different stages of his life. I also get that one is an inspired work of fiction, and the other is…never mind.

Anyway, my point is, we all know why the docuseries dropped on Netflix at this time.

Antoine Fuqua’s biopic of MJ became a cult classic. So, what did Netflix do?

They looked at the massive search volume for the name ‘Michael Jackson’ and their stagnant subscriber growth and decided to cash in immediately.

On June 3, they finally made a smart move, or at least that’s what they thought!

They marketed it as a hard-hitting docuseries revisiting the 2005 trial to reveal an alternate truth. But in reality, it was only a cheap way to generate negative buzz around something that’s already trending.

But that’s not the actual reason why people are canceling their subscription. It contributes only a tiny fraction.

The main reason for this digital revolt is what it contains. Let me break it down with facts.

Building a narrative on proven lies

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If you suffer through all three episodes of this docuseries, you get a very specific, carefully constructed storytelling.

In case you haven’t watched it yet, let me tell you what exactly it’s all about.

The series covers the entire 2005 trial, a trial where a jury of regular people found MJ not guilty on all fourteen counts.

But Netflix edits the footage and the interviews so heavily that they paint the picture of a monster who somehow managed to slip through the cracks of the justice system

Now, people who have watched it are rightfully pissed off because the series heavily favors the prosecution while intentionally ignoring massive pieces of crucial defense evidence from the actual trial.

To understand how fake this narrative is, you have to look at the people Netflix hired to tell the story.

First, it’s the man who put this entire circus into motion. Martin Bashir. He is the British journalist who created the infamous Living with Michael Jackson documentary back in 2003.

That specific film is the exact reason the 2005 trial even happened. Netflix brings Bashir in, gives him great lighting, and frames him as a highly credible, respected journalist who finally got the real story.

Netflix casually mentions that Bashir interviewed Princess Diana in 1995, implying this huge career milestone is the reason Michael trusted him. But they completely hide the truth about how he got that interview.

In 2021, a massive official BBC investigation proved exactly how Bashir operated. He literally faked bank statements. He hired a graphic designer to mock up completely fake documents to make it look like people close to Diana were being paid to spy on her.

He took those forged documents and used them to manipulate her brother so he could get his foot in the door.

He was a complete fraud. He played the sympathetic, caring guy in the room, earned her trust, and then turned around and sold her out in the editing bay. He used the same shady tricks on MJ.

Netflix knows Bashir is a proven fraud who creates fake documents. However, they still present him as a reliable narrator because acknowledging his lies would completely destroy the foundation of their viral release.

The one-sided narrative continues…

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Since Bashir only made the 2003 film, Netflix needed someone else to narrate the rest of the story.

They needed someone to walk us through the day-by-day events of the 2005 trial. And who better than a reporter who was actually on the ground?

Hence, they went out and hired Diane Dimond.

Calling her an objective journalist is a complete joke. Why? Because this woman has been on an unnecessary, relentless, and incredibly personal witch hunt against MJ since 1993.

Back when the very first allegations broke, Dimond went on national television to broadcast this scandalous story to the world.

She claimed there was a secret videotape that caught Michael doing terrible things. She confidently stated that investigators were closing in on him.

The tape never actually existed. The entire story traced back to a single random guy named Victor Gutierrez, who just claimed he had seen it.

Dimond took a baseless rumor and treated it as a hard fact. MJ actually sued her for defamation over this stunt.

Luckily for her, she only avoided major legal trouble because the court ruled she was just reporting on a claim. They said she was not stating a scientific fact.

But she clearly held a massive grudge ever since, and it’s pretty evident in this series.

Now, Netflix gave her a giant platform to push her bias. She even brought up a completely unverified story from her own book.

She claimed she saw Michael in a Las Vegas hotel room partying with random German boys, drinking, and smoking. There were no photos and no witnesses.

The story made zero logical sense, but Netflix presented it as an unquestionable truth.

The secret romance angle

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If the reporters are terribly biased, the legal experts are even worse. Enter Ron Zonen.

He was one of the lead prosecutors on the 2005 case. He worked right under the district attorney.

In the docuseries, he sits there giving his own heavily skewed opinions and interpretations. He desperately tries to paint Michael as an evil mastermind.

He claims Michael faked being a father figure just to make kids fall in love with him so he could take them to bed. That is the guy who is telling the story.

But Netflix completely hides a massive, scandalous conflict of interest involving Zonen. During the trial, the prosecution called a witness named Louise Palanker.

She was a woman who had known the accuser’s family for years. She met Gavin when he was around nine years old. She actually gave the family money and gifts over time.

So you have Ron Zonen trying to put a man in prison. And you have Louise Palanker financially supporting the accuser’s family.

Somewhere in the middle of the trial, the prosecutor and the witness started a romantic relationship. They literally got married a few years later.

This relationship was completely hidden at the time of the trial. If the judge had known the lead prosecutor was dating the prosecution’s witness, things would have changed instantly.

Zonen could have been immediately removed from the entire case. Netflix hides this huge ethical violation completely. They present Zonen as an impartial hero of the court instead of a guy secretly dating his own witness.

Hmm…good job, people at Netflix. I wouldn’t be surprised if you guys shift from entertainment to corporate filmmaking in the near future.

Bless the trash bag…Amen!

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If biased narrators aren’t terrible enough, Netflix also puts physical objects on the screen and desperately tries to make them look like hard evidence.

To make it further miserable, they bring in a guy named Vincent Amen.

I guess, if they couldn’t get the job done by a man, the last resort is ‘A Men’.

Bad joke, I’m sorry. I take full responsibility for it, unlike Netflix.

Anyway, Amen was a former publicist who knew MJ through his assistant Frank Cascio.

Amen claims that after the police raided the Neverland Ranch, Frank Cascio gave him a bag. It was supposedly filled with items from the house.

Inside this random bag, Amen claims he found a naturist magazine. It had a section in the back for ordering videos of nudist families. The listings were circled.

Amen dramatically tells the camera that this was his defining moment. It was the exact second he changed his mind and realized Michael was guilty.

Let us look at the actual courtroom reality of this claim. That specific magazine was never tested for fingerprints.

It was never entered as official evidence in the trial. It did not even come directly from the police raid.

It came out of a random bag that another guy supposedly handed over. Nobody has any clue who circled those listings.

On top of that, police raided the Neverland Ranch in 1993 and again in 2003. They tore the entire place apart looking for anything incriminating.

They never found a single one of those supposedly ordered videos. The entire story relies completely on the trust of Vincent Amen and Frank Cascio.

And let me tell you about the Cascio family. They spent the last thirty years fiercely defending Michael.

Right now, they are conveniently switching their story. They are currently trying to extract millions of dollars from the Jackson estate. It is always about the money.

Netflix also leans heavily into the magazines actually found during the raid. Police found a stash of standard adult magazines.

There was absolutely nothing illegal in the stash. But they make a huge deal out of one specific magazine.

It had both Michael’s fingerprints and the accuser’s fingerprints on it. The prosecution used this to argue that Michael sat there and physically handed the magazine to the kid.

But Netflix completely ignores the sworn testimony of multiple staff members. Under oath, the staff stated that the kids would constantly snoop through Michael’s private belongings.

They did this constantly whenever he was not at the house. A fingerprint only proves the kid touched the magazine at some point.

It absolutely does not prove MJ handed it to him. Obviously, this does not confirm or deny what happened.

But the documentary completely ignores the staff testimony. They present the fingerprint as something out of this world and ask how anyone let this slide.

The timeline that makes zero sense

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To make their case look stronger, Netflix reached back to the 1993 allegations to focus heavily on the $20 million settlement paid to the Chandler family and label it hush money.

Anyone who understands the law knows a civil settlement is just a lawsuit for money and cannot legally shut down a criminal investigation. But the most disgusting lie they pushed is about the 1993 strip search.

They claimed the accuser’s description of Michael’s anatomy was a perfect match. That is nothing but a verified lie.

Some law enforcement sources from 1993 confirmed that the descriptions didn’t match, which is exactly why they didn’t arrest him on the spot.

Netflix then centered their 2005 trial narrative on the Arvizo family, painting them as sad victims.

They even mentioned the mother got caught in welfare fraud after winning $150,000 in a fabricated lawsuit against JCPenney.

For those living outside the US, JCPenney is an American-brand department store.

Anyway, what they conveniently hide is that the family made a literal career out of targeting rich celebrities.

They ran the exact same scam on comedians like Chris Tucker and George Lopez before ever meeting MJ.

Tucker even testified that the family aggressively played the cancer card to milk him for money and VIP perks until he had to ban them from his movie sets.

Even if you ignore the obvious financial scam, the prosecution’s official timeline of the abuse makes absolutely no sense.

The entire situation exploded in February 2003 when the Bashir documentary aired, putting Michael under intense global scrutiny from child services and the FBI.

The prosecution actually stood in court and claimed the abuse began after this intense monitoring started.

Let’s be real, it defies all basic human logic to think the most famous man on the planet chose that exact moment to do whatever he is accused of.

The jury saw exactly how ridiculous this broken timeline was. I only wish Netflix could see this, too.

“Cause Netflix can scare you more than any ghost would ever dare try.”

Jokes aside, the docuseries has left a double negative impact on my brain. The first time was when I watched it. The second time was when I had to revisit the chunks of it to write this story.

Seriously, I’m done with this point.

If only I could cancel my subscription twice, Netflix could compensate for my suffering.

Now, if you have any opinions on this matter, feel free to share them in the comments.

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It’s time I sing Billie Jean in the shower and alert the street cats with my low-pitch howling.