Inside Michael Jackson’s abandoned Neverland – from drones to love-notes as home laid bare

Neverland Ranch, the star of the new big-budget biopic about the singer’s life, is once more in the spotlight thanks to its opening.

The Mirror visited the site, which is located 40 minutes north of Santa Barbara. Discreetly nestled among the hills, it has a new name: The Sycamore Valley Ranch

From his devoted fans all over the world, love notes to the singer are dipped in chalk on the walls. “You are not alone”, says one, while a love-heart balloon placed there on Valentine’s Day flutters in the wind.

Following his child sex abuse trial, which claimed he had molested children there, the site was abandoned in 2005. Before being abandoned, it was left in pieces before being purchased for a whopping £11 million by a billionaire friend of the Jackson family.

The site has 24/7 security, which it has since Jackson’s arrival. It is manned by a security post despite the singer’s death, even after all these years. Given the ranch’s interest, Neverland security has now set up special drones to patrol the 2,700-acre site’s perimeter.

Over the course of the last 12 months, Neverland had opened its doors yet again for filming the biopic, called Michael. Colman Domingo plays Jackson’s abusive father, Joe, while Miles Teller, is John Branca, Jackson’s manager. Jackson’s nephew Jaafar plays Jackson.

“We filmed at Neverland, it was wild…we dressed it up”, Teller said recently. As part of the filming, work was done to spruce up the inside, with the Ferris wheel, merry-go-round and circus tent all being done up.

Extras were drafted in to act as balloon sellers, ride operators, and food stall vendors. The 12, 000-square-foot mansion also has a 50-seat movie theater, a basketball court and several guesthouses.

Dan Reed, the director of the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, criticizes the decision to film there. Wade Robson and James Safechuck allege that Jackson had abused them as children.

“It’s a return to the scene of the crime in order to whitewash and rewrite history”, Reed told the Mirror. He says he’s even read the script for the film, whose producers include Branca, who is also a co-executor of Jackson’s estate. He claims that the Jackson story was retold with compassion.

According to Reed, “the estate has envisioned the biopic as a sort of grand rebuttal to all of their allegations of child sexual abuse.” The film is said to feature Jackson being accused of molesting Jordan Chandler, 13, whose family he had befriended. However, some reports claim that Chandler’s scenes have been axed because the estate has a written agreement to not show the family on screen.

Lawyer John C Carpenter, who represents Robson and Safechuck, told the Mirror that while he hadn’t read the script he had “heard that this is a piece of propaganda”. The estate is attempting to massage Michael Jackson’s reputation in a way that maximizes profits, he added.

When asked what he thought about some of the famous actors agreeing to be in the movie despite all the controversy, Carpenter responded, “I find it sad and disappointing that they would do that.”

In 2016 the singer’s estate earned $825 million, which was said at the time to be the largest figure recorded by a celebrity estate. It generated an estimated $600 million in revenue last year through music and merchandise streams.

“These people don’t want to face the truth because they’re so invested in Jackson”, Reed says. And certainly, he makes them money.

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Source: Mirror