Leaving.Neverland Michael Jackson Sexual Abuse part 1 **MUST SEE**

Video Transcript:

I think when I was with him he was happy. He was at the peak of his creativity and he was at the peak of his success. And everybody wanted to meet Michael or be with Michael. He was already larger than life and then he likes you. He was one of the kindest, most gentle, loving, caring people I knew. He helped me tremendously, helped me with my career, he helped me with my creativity, with all of those sorts of things. And he also sexually abused me for seven years. I'm Wade Robson. So I was born in Brisbane, Australia and I am the third of three kids. My dad, he worked in construction for a while and then he got into like the fruit business. So when I was young he had a couple of fruit shops and my mother used to work with him with those businesses. I'm Joy Robson, mother of Wade Robson. We were middle class Australian family. We lived on three acres. We had horses and angora goats and a dog named Sally. Where's Bustby going? It is. Shane was quite a bit old, he's nine and a half years older than Wade. And he was already well into elementary school when Wade was born. It was just a three bedroom, single story house. We had a pool, there was always like a family of, I had parties there and pool parties. Pretty good memories from that place. Shantel was very close with him being three years apart. They played together a lot. Wade was always a very sensitive boy. He wasn't really a guys guy. He wasn't into like, you know, he played basketball for fun as a little kid. But if you, he had a choice of doing anything, he was going to read a book or listen to music or dance. You know, versus going outside to play football with his friends. He was the youngest in the area, so really had nobody to play with. So he and I were very close. We spent a lot of time together. One, two, three, go! I remember one day coming home with the video of the making of thriller. Someone had told me that it would be a collector's item. I really wasn't a fan of his, but I did like some of his music. Once I saw that tape, you know, everything changed for me. The music, I couldn't help but move to it. It kind of set me on fire. You know, just made everything tingle and it was so exciting. I remember just watching the tape over and over again, pausing, rewinding. I would just try over and over and over again to really perfect the complexities of Michael's movement. I slowly but surely started plastering my walls with images of Michael. They literally became like the wallpaper. So going to sleep, waking up in Michael Jackson land. Jackson's world tour coincides with the release of his latest album entitled Bad. Sales are good. A half million copies were sold the day it went on the market. Not since thriller five years ago has the record industry been so focused on a single album. He would have just turned five. And people kept telling me, you know, he's really good. You should do something with him. That week a friend of mine came to me and said, you know, Michael Jackson's here on the bad tour. I said, yes, actually, I thought about buying tickets. I thought he's so young. I don't think I was. She said, you should go. She said, there's a dance competition. You should enter him. First prizes to meet Michael Jackson. The competition was only like a week before the concert. And he went into the heat and he were held in the target store. He had his little hat on, his little bed out fit. My hairdresser had made it for him. I was actually too young. It was like seven or eight and up. And I was five at the time. So he said, well, you know, he can't compete because of his age, but will let him perform as a special guest. He's one of those little things that he got on stage and everything changed. He just wasn't that shy little boy and he got on stage and brought the place down. Everybody was screaming for him. I, at the end of it, the store manager was the judge and he said, well, I want to get out of here alive. So I'm going to clear Wade Robbs and the winner. Michael Jackson's people were there to interview and asked him if he could speak to Michael, what would he say? I'm going to ask him if he might come over to dinner. Coming over for dinner. Why would you want to come over for dinner? I want to come over for dinner. Going to miss any Harry dancing. Well, that should be real. You're going to see the show, you know that. You're going to be able to see the dance dance. If it gets going to be nice, yeah? Why is that going to be so nice? Because I get the same. You know, this complete impossibility, this being from another world. Michael, I suppose it was going to happen and we were actually going to meet now. I was just excited beyond measure. I remember getting this glow that sort of started in my heart and went to all my extremities. It was an amazing feeling and something magical was going to happen. I would get that feeling. I'm James Safechuck. I grew up in a little town called Seamy Valley. I was pretty happy. I'm pretty outgoing. Kind of a performer, I guess. My father worked at a rubbish company. So we had a family rubbish company that my grandfather started. My mom, she had a hair styling business. And I remember being in the beauty salon as a kid. I'd hang out there while she was working and just sweep the floors. My name is Stephanie Safechuck. I'm James Mother. When I married Jimmy's father, he had two children. He came with a marriage. At the time my husband had had a vasectomy and I didn't think I could have any children. About three, four years into the marriage, I really wanted a baby. So my husband had it reversed for me, which back then they guaranteed nothing. I was so fortunate to have a baby. I just remember having him and being overwhelmed, just crying over his crib. That he'll always be alright. He's my love. I have a older brother and older sister. They are much older. They left home early also, so I was alone. It was actually a friend of ours. Her daughter was in commercials and ran into my husband and Jimmy. And the grocery store and said, you ought to get him in commercials. He is so adorable and gave my husband the agent's card. So I called the agent and when she met him, she said, he's money in the bank. I'll take him. So he did very well right away. Michael? Mr. Jackson? I met Michael on the set of the Pepsi commercial. I don't remember being a huge fan. I was at the time. I was probably more into like, Voltron and Transformers. This kid wanders around backstage and he discovers the dressing room. And he goes in there and he sees the jackets and the hats and the glasses and all that. And I'm trying it on. And then Michael walks in and he says, looking for me. They were trying to get my reaction on camera the first time I saw him. So the first time I see him is actually the shot that they use in the commercial. He invited me into his trailer. This was exciting for Jimmy and I didn't want to be in his way. I wanted Jimmy to have fun and have a good day. So I led Jimmy going his trailer, Michael's trailer with Michael's hair stylist, make a bard as Karen. And I stayed outside, what she said to me was, he's like a nine-year-old little boy. So that made me feel comfortable. How do you explain Michael Jackson? He's larger than life. There's no stars like that now, that kind of mega star. When everybody wanted to meet Michael or be with Michael. He was quiet and he laughed a lot at me and he was giggly. The stand-in, we became kind of buddies. I looked at him and I said, oh, we're the luckiest boys in the world. He was performing two nights in Brisbane. I went to the first night of the concert just to watch. And that was the first time I'd seen him perform live. I remember my mind just being blown, experiencing his energy magnified through all those thousands of people. And through all those speakers, you know, and that energy just kind of shaking my whole body. We went to the concert the Friday night and we had amazing grace with Michael. Here he was now. As, you know, a seemingly real human being, he kept commenting on my bad outfit. How great he thought it was. And Michael said, we went to the concert tonight. And we said, yes, he said, I wish I had known I would have put him on stage with me. Stage mother and me kicked in. I said, we'll be there tomorrow night because we'd they had given us tickets as well. As a winner. So he said, I'll see what I can do. Wade won a dancing competition this week on Thursday night at Intro Pilly. He won the Dancing Competition. These are some of the photos of him in action. I know the next day I was on a TV show, like a morning TV show. Wade, come on over. I'm going to keep it. Because we're going to tell everyone this is a secret, OK? This is a bit of a secret. Net tonight, what's going to happen tonight? When I saw him, I thought he was going to tell me to go and stage with him and dance. Or best of luck, I hope you do dance with him tonight. So if you're going to Michael Jackson tonight, keep an eye out for Wade, OK? Music is still blaring and all the lights are going. This intensity is a wild sensation. Then all of a sudden this huge black man came out of nowhere with a big top hat and took Wade out of Dennis's arms and told us to wait there and took him backstage. You know, the curtains being pulled back, right? Of kind of just the whole world behind the scenes, his world. Michael came up to me and grabbed my hand and just sort of gave me a signal like, you know, come on, like let's do it. I kind of look out at this sea of people and then something clicked and I grabbed my hat and threw it off and just started going, started dancing. Like I was him almost for a moment. I mean, you know, the center of his stage with his audience. Music is still blaring and he's just going to be a little bit more of a man. Music is still blaring and he's just going to be a little bit more of a man. You got all these other kids and Stevie Wonder was on stage as well. He was singing with Michael. Music is still blaring and he's just going to be a little bit more of a man. Music is still blaring and he's just going to be a little bit more of a man. And then it was time for Michael to leave. It was the end of the concert so he called the kids to follow him off stage. But Wade was so into what he was doing. He didn't see that and he's still dancing. So Michael sort of got walked away and realised Wade wasn't coming. Michael just clapped and walked off and Wade suddenly realised everybody was leaving. So he followed them out. It was very cute. Each moment of that actual kind of eye connection was like a bit of a shock to the system. That performance, that meet and greet, was such dream-like experiences and kind of sensory overload, emotional overload. I remember then coming home after the concert and I remember that day I came in my bedroom and he was all excited because Wade had danced with Michael Jackson. I remember that day kind of getting like Tariya telling the story about it, you know, dancing with Michael Jackson. The next morning I wanted to bring in a thank you letter for Michael because this was his last concert he was leaving Australia. There are a lot of fans around. They all recognised Wade. So he was a little celebrity. They were all taking photos with him and talking to him. Michael had heard that we were in the lobby and he wanted us to come up to his room. And I can remember Wade's face just lighting up. I'm going to meet a real superstar. He was so excited. I mean, this was, who gets to meet the hero? This is the little boy getting to do it twice now. I'm in upspending about two hours with him in his hotel suite. He was in some sort of editing process for his moonwalker film. It's like there he was on the TV screen as I was used to seeing him. And then there he was sitting right next to me on the bed. Michael's hand was rubbing up and down on the sheets right beside my elbow as he was talking to us. And I can't remember thinking, oh my god, I'm on a bed with Michael Jackson. I can't remember thinking that. There's no one's ever going to believe this. It was pretty overwhelming. We all had an overwhelming weekend. That is for sure. This little Australian boy who had had this otherworldly, impossible experience of having this meeting with my idol and my mentor and my god, and like I'd been anointed, you know, some kind of way. One day, the phone rang, I picked it up. Hi, this is Michael. I'm calling from Australia. I saw Jimmy's commercial. I thought, how touching. He doesn't think it's his commercial. He thinks it's Jimmy's. So I put Jimmy on the phone and I could hear Jimmy say, people tell me it's school that you're weird. Michael said, don't listen to what anybody says. You know me. You know I'm not weird. And that started the relationship. So Michael was still in Australia and asked if he could send a crew to our house to film Jimmy. So a crew came, Jimmy didn't have any posters of Michael. So they put up posters of Michael all through Jimmy's bedroom. So when they filmed it, you know, it was more appealing. It was exciting for all of us, for the whole family. And I was thrilled like, wow. It's like, it's hard to believe that I can see Michael Jackson when people just dream about him. It's not stuff. It's really neat. I sat on the bed and put all his memorabilia there and they just interviewed me. And then I did a little dance performance and they filmed that. Now that I look back on it, it's almost like an audition for him, he sends his film crew out. He didn't explain it. I just figured his far away, this is part of how he can be with people. And he made it clear that he was very lonely. He didn't have any friends. And then his secretary or somebody called and asked if we would like to go to dinner at the Haveners house. Going to Haveners, it felt magical. The house is beautiful. I think I had the recording studio. So we went in there and I think we saw his brothers, who just said hi. We had dinner and watched batteries not included. He gets movies before they come out. So he has a little movie theater there. I remember seeing his dance floor for the first time. Kind of a magical thing to see Michael at the dance floor, like his private dance floor. We were so excited. This was big for me. I was really excited. We were so excited. This was big for us. Nobody can befriend him. He has to befriend people. He's unapproachable. So for him to want to be our friend was, oh my god, how lucky are we? Mom and Dad, I think they were in awe. You're just star struck. You know, it's like... And then at the same time, he's becoming a real person. He's not this sort of like two-dimensional icon. He gives you focused attention. And I think at that age, you want to be important. And you want to be noticed and loved. So it was a powerful attraction. We went into the closet and we're looking at a stuff and told me I can pick out a jacket. I could have that, would be mine. I picked the thriller jacket. Of course, go big. And I took it home. I wore it to the grocery store. As I was leaving, he gave me like an envelope full of cash. Several hundred dollars, which at the time was a lot. But it's still a lot. He had our phone number and he called the next day. And he was going to be by himself. And I couldn't believe how can this man be by himself. And so my parents offered to go pick him up. We got in the car and we drove to the Havenares house. And there's always like reporters and fans. So we had to sneak him out. Michael was ducked with me in the back. Some people gave chase and we had to like lose him. So I think my father was excited to like lose the reporters. He had to like drive fast or something. And he came to our house and went through Jimmy's closets, went through everything, acted like a little boy, Gigling. He watched movies and he weed popcorn. He loved popcorn. Michael would come to our house a lot. Michael and I would take walks around my neighborhood. Just talking and walking. And it would be at nighttime of course. So he could sort of hide. As soon as somebody noticed them, then the newspapers would be there. I think I went to Havenares a few times. The more I would visit, the more sort of a long time you'd get with him. So I brought him some toys and he gave me some gifts. It's more like hanging out with a friend. That's more your age. So it feels natural. I came to feel like he was one of my sons by how he behaved. I loved him. He was a son I started to take care for. He would spend the night I'd wash his clothes. At the time when I was thinking about should be get to me in commercials. I prayed to the Lord that if this is good for Jimmy, open the doors for him and let this happen. And if it's not, don't let it happen. Well of course the door is open so quickly. And then when Michael would come to our house, I told this story to Michael about how I prayed about this before it happened. Michael tells me I prayed too. I prayed that I could have a friend and then I met Jimmy. Well to me the two prayers came together and this was a friendship that was meant to be. I went to Hawaii with Michael for the Pepsi Convention. The trip felt like an adventure. I rented out an amusement park for the night and everybody went there and played. I went to Hawaii with Michael for the Pepsi Convention. The trip felt like an adventure. I rented out an amusement park for the night and everybody went there and played. We were treated very nicely there. We went on a helicopter ride which was nice. And I remember they were dolphins and you could just go see them. I mean we're from a small town. So this is bigger than I think anybody's expectations. I wanted them to have fun and I wanted my son to be happy and have a good time. So I stayed my distance there in Hawaii during the day. The hotel was beautiful of course. And I remember really wanting to stay in the room with him and my mom wouldn't allow it at the time. I didn't think it was appropriate to stay in Hawaii. I didn't think it was appropriate for my son to go sleep with him. I knew he was a kind man and he was doing everything to make our trip there as good as it could be. But you know that didn't feel right. You don't go sleep with somebody else that you don't really know. Jimmy was, please mom, please, you know, because he loved Michael. But no, I wouldn't let him. But made sure I had my meals with him and that Jimmy slept with me. That's how it was the first trip. I remember the plane being quite empty. And I did this mock interview with him. He said I could ask him anything I wanted. I was in the air when I went home from Hawaii. Thousands of feet of me out on this DC-10. I've had a wonderful time with Jimmy. Are you TV? Sure. Can I ask anything? I was just playing reporter. And he never gave interviews. So it was kind of like, sure you can interview me. But nobody else got interviews. So it was also a big deal. How did you like to drive what was your life just doing? My best thing about Hawaii? Being with you? I've been still about, um, transforming and stuff. Do you like it? I love performing. It is the greatest thing in the world because, um, I fell at home on stage. I could live on stage. I'm the most happiest when I'm on stage and when with Jimmy, it's safe to show. But the best commercial of all the Pepsi commercials is the one that you and I did. No, not just saying that. That's the best one. Because it has heart. Every time I see it, it makes me smile. And I hope to be US friends forever for long. Goodbye, signing off. Bye. And it's hard to listen to. You can hear like the infatuation and then how much I was attracted to him. And then also his, like, really his attraction to you. I feel like making you feel special. It's Michael. I'm trying to be a part of the show. I love you all. I'm looking forward to your very, very much. I feel like you belong to me. I'm trying to love you all. But... A lot of our conversations were on the telephone. My son would be on the phone hours with Michael, hours. And he talked to me. He would call just to talk to me during the day. And that was long conversations. That's how he got to know people, I think. You know my voice, right, everyone? I jumped out today and it was fun. You know my voice, right, all? We were talking on the phone pretty regularly. I was dancing and taking dance seriously. And it was like, come join me on tour. And he said, you can choose wherever you want to come and stay as long as you want to come. So as soon as school ended, I joined the tour for the summer. My mother went. My father would join whenever he could. But he wasn't there the whole time. He flies your first class. You have a limo waiting for you at the airport. Amazing. You know, it's a life of the rich and famous. I came on at the end of the song, Bad. And they would pick kids out of the crowd during the show. And then I'd lead like 10 or 12 kids out. I had a bad outfit on that was just like his. And so I would dance. We, like, side-mong walked and did a few moves together. It's hard to explain to people what tour is like. It's pretty crazy. The excitement of him just walking from his car from hotel to the car is insane. People are shoving you and snapping pictures and holding on to the door handles and being dragged by the car. They're crying and it's a unique experience. That level of star power. I'm 10 on the tour, you know, having shows every night and it's a bit overwhelming. There's all these sort of amazing moments on tour that you don't get in normal life. And none of us were living a normal life when we traveled with Michael. I got to meet Sean Connery. That was a big for me. It was like, oh my god, Sean Connery. And then at the shows, their stars come in to meet him. I met Harrison Ford and George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. And we even went to the set of the Indiana Jones movie. And Harrison Ford took me outside and showed me how to use his bullwhip. And then he gave me the bullwhip. I was on a bus with Tina Turner. They bused the VIPs back and forth to the hotel. And I heard her teller boyfriend at the time. I was sitting close. That little white boy sure can dance. Well, I knew she was talking about Jimmy. And that was like, oh, I know he can dance. Thus, so proud of Jimmy, it was always a proud moment to see him on stage. By that time, you were already best buds. So it's like two friends going on an adventure or something like that. You're not going off and doing normal things people do when they travel. So you spend a lot of time just in the hotel room with him. And the hotel rooms are, you know, the president's suite. So they're quite large. So there's lots of room to play. And you just grow closer. I remember we would fall asleep together. And then when I wake up, he would be in another room. And I would be hurt that he was in another room until I'd ask him to stay. And it seems like it was a natural thing that happened. My husband and I had to have said, yes, you can go sleep with Michael. In Paris, he introduced me to masturbation. And that's how it started. Michael and I were in his room. He set it up like I'm going to show you something that everybody does. And you'll really enjoy it. It was like he was teaching you something new. And I remember my penis swelling up because I did it so much that first time. I must have done it a few times. I remember dipping my penis in warm water. Michael filled the cup up with water so I could pee. It was hard to pee. I don't have any unpleasant memories other than not being able to pee. It felt like you were bonding, in a way. The tour was the start of this sexual couple relationship. He was with Michael 24-7. I would go visit Jimmy, make sure he was okay, but Jimmy was always. You can go, mom, you can go, mom, he didn't want me there. I missed him. I really missed my son not being with him. Michael would like it if you would bend over and like spread open your cheeks. That's what he liked. And then he would masturbate. And he liked if I rubbed his nipples. So we would do stuff and then in the end when he wanted to ejaculate, he would finish himself. Our room started to get further and further away from Michael's room. And when I asked about it, we weren't even on the same floor now. I asked in Paris and I asked about that and they said, we couldn't get you a suite close to Michael. No suites available. This is where we could get you the nicest room. That made sense to me. So I, okay. But in Germany, we were like really far away from them. And same thing. Same thing. We couldn't get you a suite near them. He would run drills with me where you'd be in the hotel room and he would pretend like somebody was coming in and you had to get dressed as fast as possible without making noise. So not getting caught was a big, like just kind of fundamental. Yeah, it was very much a secret. And he would tell me that if anybody found out his life would be over and my life would be over. And that's something he tells you over and over again. And French kissing. He said, I introduced that to him. And it evolved from like French kissing and then kissing different parts of the body. And then finally like kissing the genitals. He started with like kiss it. Can I kiss it? I remember one time I was sleeping and I woke up and Michael said that he had performed oral sex on me while I was sleeping. And I was like, okay. I wanted to know what's going on in the room. My son doesn't know this. But I would go to the door, try to listen, hear what conversation was going on and then sneak away. I wasn't worried that anything was going on. I guess it was more curious. What are they doing in there? Playing, reading. Michael was reading a bottom line of nice good books. And he'd read poems to him. Just kid things. They were just doing kid things. So I wouldn't actually like ejaculate. It would be this kind of lubricant without anything in it. And that would sort of leak out. For me, Michael would ejaculate. He said that I was his first sexual experience. And he would say that all the time. He's the biggest entertainer and he's a creative genius. And that creative genius thinks that you're special. Well, it's not to like, right? Go, Rick. Go, Rick. Michael would always hold Jimmy's hand. And he said, would you talk to Jimmy about holding my hand? If people are going to get the wrong impression, you know how people think. It's a really special. Michael, check. They're going to think something nasty about it. Nothing's going on. But this is going to look like something's going on. My cell for Michael would scratch each other here on the palms of it. You're holding your hand. And that meant like you are thinking of them sexually. There's no thoughts of this is wrong or anything like that. It's just a very accepted way of expressing your feelings. Expressing your love on what he would say. He was very close to us. Seeing us every day staying at our home. We were the first guest he had to go to Neverland. I actually have the brochure that they used to market it to sell it. And he said, I'm going to purchase this house and it's going to be yours like this place is for you. Me and Michael would be there a lot together like for a week at a time. His property was massive. So nobody was narrow. You know, the next ranch was quite a ways. They have the most beautiful guest rooms. This was the room I chose. I loved this room. We could stay at any guest room you wanted. And Jimmy stayed with Michael in the big house. We had people cooking for us. He had a beautiful wine cellar. You know, really good wine, champagne, that was just something I enjoyed. It was a fairy tale every night. The routine was we would get a blanket and lay it down on the floor inside of the closet. Next to his main bed, we could close the doors and have like several sort of doors people had to get through. It was just a hall that leads to his room. So there were bells so you could have a moment of hearing them trip and at least it alarmed him to when people are coming. There was like kissing and I think just kind of rubbing on each other. And then... Horal sex. And then he would want me to suck on his nipples and then he would finish himself. He also had like an Indian fort with TPs. And so we would lay down sleeping bags, have snacks and then have sexual relations there. There was also a game room and then upstairs in the arcade there was another room. And I had a bed in there. We would go into that room and have sex there. There's this attic, there's a third floor attic. It was kind of secluded. Like you could only really get to it from these steeps there so you could tell if somebody was coming. So we would go in there and have sex. There's toys everywhere, things to do. So they just kind of mix together. He had another house far away from the main house and then there he had a lot of memorabilia and his jackets from like the Grammys, the rhinestone ones and his glove. I know it was far away from people and you could see somebody was driving up his narrow road. And we would have sex in there too. The movie theater had these two like private rooms. I had big glass windows so you can see the theater. And so we would have sex in those rooms. That was a bit dangerous. But there was a bit excitement there. So I didn't tell him I was coming and the door was locked. And so you have to knock loud because the movie's on. And he made some excuse. He came down and locked it and did make some excuse. He didn't mean to lock the door. He didn't know the door was locked. That's what he told me. He was in there with Jimmy. They were in the bed. They were clothed. Still didn't think anything. There was a castle in the theme park and upstairs had a bedroom. You could see if somebody was coming. It had just a small bed. So upstairs, up there we would have sex. The pool in the jacuzzi. A coral sex. Like holding your breath and then going down. Kind of like a game. At the train station, there's a room upstairs. And we would have sex up there too. What happened every day? It sounds sick but it's kind of like when you're first dating somebody. You do a lot of it. So it was very much like that. At the same time, the sexual relationship is growing. He's working on pushing you away from your parents. Or pushing you away from everybody else. And it feels more like... Like it's just you and him. My husband and I are still together. However we have separate bedrooms. But our marriage was so bad. The whole situation. And I don't know that I don't even think my son knew. Because my son was so busy having fun. He didn't know that Jim and I were in separate bedrooms. Barely getting along. We would listen and non-people's phone calls. Eves dropped on my parents when they were fighting. And he would tell me, like how mean your mom is. And how evil women are. But at the time you just hear your mom yelling at your dad. And Michael feeds into that. Your love for him is growing in your relationships with other people are getting less. Your success is an American dream come true. It's constantly reinforced too by everybody else in the world. So it's a really intense feeling. Because everybody else is loving him. It's like everybody's on board. So it's very powerful. You start to think that your parents are bad. And Michael is good. We may not have Michael Jackson on the program tonight. But we have the next best thing, Wade Robson. Joy and Dennis Robson are suitably proud of their son. It's really amazing because everything he does, we haven't told him anything. The whole, the act that he does, he's old himself. Not everybody has told him anything. I started to like Michael. I started coughing the moods and I started dancing. I mean, if he wanted to stop, there'd be no pressure. If that's what he wants to do, that's fine. What do you want to do when you grow up? I want to be a star and keep everybody happy while I'm doing it. I auditioned for a dance company in Brisbane. Called the Johnny Young Talent School. I mean, this was, you know, a jazz dance company. But I showed up as Michael Jackson in the full outfit again. And they wanted me in the company and I got in the company and I became their Michael Jackson. You know, we start performing at malls and all that sort of thing, pretty constantly, every weekend at least. What's on point the hair got punged? That was taking it to a new level for me. You had the full curls and yeah. It's like a kid with a superhero being obsessed with a superhero taking on up three or four notches. It was kind of weird. Every show they did was based around Wade. And it was amazing how this one would work bad into every scenario, or smooth criminal even Christmas. And then they announced that they're all going to dance in Disneyland for Australia Day. Because it was a big America trip, obviously my mom and my dad were going to go and then my grandparents came as well. My name is Lorraine Jean-Cullin and I'm Wade Womson's grandmother. He used to copy all the latest steps that Michael Jackson did for ever dancing, wouldn't matter where he was. It wasn't my sort of dancing in social. But we just all went on the plane together and went over to Disneyland. There was like hundreds of kids, like all in our red sweatsuits that said Johnny Young talent school like going to America for the first time. Michael had said that last time we saw him if you ever come to America, look me up. I was like, oh sure, you just look him up in the white pages and find him. I started calling around some of the television shows that Wade had been on trying to find a number that would record contact Michael. And we got past around, passed around, passed around, and finally somebody gave me a number of Michael's personal assistant. So we called her and she said, oh, let me talk to Michael and I will call you back. So she did. She called back and said, Michael, remember Wade and what it to me to us and asked if we would meet him in Sherman Oaks at record one where he was recording his new album. Be impossible. You don't just come to America and start calling some numbers and getting contact with Michael Jackson somehow and then you're going to see him again. That was just not a normal scenario. My mom, Wade, myself and my dad all went to record one and that's the first time that I actually had met Michael. He was doing some sort of photoshoot in the lobby area. My mother and father and sister got in for a sort of group photo with Michael and then he and I took some shots alone. I was in a full custom smooth criminal outfit. We showed him some tapes of dancing performances, things I've been doing over the last two years that he wanted to see. I think it was a Friday and he said, you know, do you and the family do you guys want to come to Neverland for the weekend? I'm not going to come to Neverland for the weekend. I'm not going to come to Neverland for the weekend. I'm not going to come to Neverland for the weekend. Michael asked if me and my sister wanted to drive with him. Of course I did. And my parents and grandparents were all behind. I remember him playing us some music, like some unreleased music, just getting this like secret access to him and to his world. It was sort of surreal for us, for all of us. You know, Hollywood and this whole entertainment business was on another planet from where we were. As we were getting closer and closer to Neverland and, you know, Michael telling us, you know, only about 15 more minutes or 10 more minutes and just the excitement, really building. He had to pull up at the gate and the guards came and wanted to make sure you didn't have any cameras or anything like that. It was a little bit intimidating. I hadn't met any celebrities ever and I did quite a lot. But I had my husband there, so, yes. It's like a fairyland. It's all fairy lights and there's beautiful lakes that are all lit up and the house is all lit up. It was just amazing. As soon as you pull down, there's music going. There's flowers everywhere. It felt like you were driving into this little heaven, you know? The car pulls up and there's everybody that works at the ranch kind of lined up ready to greet you. I've never been in that type of world before and such a big house and it was magical. I mean, we're all tripping out, yeah, on this place. Yeah, it's just out of a story book, right? Out of a fairy tale. Michael showed us all around the house and at that time he only had the theatre. They didn't have all the other things. It's like a child's dream come true. There's this candy stall there that you just help yourself to and shop sov ice cream and all the chocolates in the world and popcorn and then a beautiful theatre. To the left was a dining room and then kitchen, living room. Tons of beautiful paintings and statues everywhere is more than just going to someone's house that was beautiful. You know, it felt like a lot more than that, a lot different than that. It felt like traveling to another planet. And then we all came back to the guest units and Michael came back with the children and they'd been looking at some other things. And they came in and they asked if they could stay with Michael for the night. The guest quarters is a separate building, essentially kind of a cross from the main house. With about, I think, four like hotel rooms. You can stay in the guest quarters with your parents or front or if you want, you can stay with me in my room. And I was like, you know, I want to stay with Michael. So we thought, okay, we didn't seem to think anything of it. We just thought that's fine. And Chantal was with him as well. Like for me to look back on the scenario now, what you'd think would be standard kind of instincts and judgment seemed to go out the window. Even if we knew him, which we didn't at all, and we'd known him for, I don't know what, four hours maybe. Not known him, we met him four hours ago, you know. That's the trippy part is because it felt like we knew him. Like he had been in my living room every day. In my ears via his music and his posters. Like, I'd known him, I thought. And for some reason it didn't feel strange to let, you know, me a seven year old and my sister a 10 year old sleep in this man's bedroom. Michael had an extra guest bed that was above his bed. It was basically like a staircase that just kind of took you up to this other room in his room. And so he said that we could stay in his room in that guest unit if we wanted to. And of course we were like, please can we, you know, we went to his bedroom and sat on his bed and talked to him. And he had a train running around the bed, a electric train running around the bedroom. And he was just like a child, yes. There was pillow fights, we just having a blast. Like no rules. You can't get in trouble, you know. We were just kind of all hanging out in Michael's bed in the same bed like me, Wade and Michael. And just watching movies and watching videos. And then at some point we just knocked out all three of us on his bed. Yeah, and this is much as I remember that first night. The next morning waking up and looking at the lake and the flowers were just amazing. And my mother said her first thought was, oh my God, I've died and gone to heaven. It was just so beautiful. Here we go, like a day of adventure, right? You know, it was a lot of just silliness, sort of like that chase each other and, you know, big water fights. It seemed right away like he was family. It was like being with like a brother. We kind of loaded up in a couple of golf carts and him driving around and showing us everything, right? So this is the first time of seeing the arcade. We walk in and flip a switch. And boom, the whole room comes alive, right? One of the most amazing things that I could ever experience and have total access to to just go play whatever I wanted to. How excited Michael was to kind of watch me and watch me react. He was fascinated with Wade. He said that it's like looking at myself in a mirror. I'd see myself all over again. So that was something to hear that. That was pretty impressive. And this little boy was just living the dream. He really was. The theme park, which wasn't as extensive then as it became, but still a theme park in someone's house, you know? You know, seeing my mother kind of just high and giddy and playful and like children. And then onto the animals, right? I mean chimpanzees, giraffes, elephant, tiger. You know, that it was bedtime. And it was just kind of unspoken like it was set up already as to how it, you know, how he slept last night. At some point I had fallen asleep. And I woke up. I could hear crying, sulking and sobbing. And could see a figure over in the corner kind of scrunched up sort of sobbing. It was kind of hard to get words out. Because we were supposed to leave the next day, the whole family. I'm just so sad that you guys are going to leave me. You know, I don't want to be alone. I don't want you guys to leave. I mean, I felt the same way. I feel like I almost had this kind of burden and guilt to like, if I leave, like what's going to happen to him? Like he was so upset, you know? Then the next morning, the plan was that we were going to go on this kind of trip to the Grand Canyon and that sort of thing with an RV. I remember going into Michael's room to talk to him about it. And he said to wait, we can stay here, we can go Los Angeles, we can go wherever you want, do whatever you want. Wait, it won't stay. Never land. I actually didn't have a problem with it at the time. I didn't actually have a hesitation. So then that's when I left with my mom and everybody and we went to the Grand Canyon. We had like a motor home and we went and camped and did all that and then weighed, stayed with Michael. I was ecstatic about this. Michael was ecstatic about this. So my whole family left and I had, you know, five days ahead of me, which is me and Michael doing whatever the hell we wanted to do. There were no cell phones or anything like that. So, you know, my parents had, once they left, they had no direct access to me at all. They were really far away in many ways. We went right through the canyon. First time I'd ever seen snow. That was exciting too. And it was thought that Michael was teaching him all these dances. And that's, we thought hell lucky he was to have somebody to take their time and do in his position to have somebody like that to teach him what to do. I somewhat regretted it as we were traveling. I became a little anxious at times about it and I remember calling once and I couldn't get through. I remember being absolutely hysterical on the phone at one point because I couldn't get through and I couldn't find them. First day at Neverland was Michael making physical contact with me. Like, his hand on my thigh, hugs, you know, it felt great. And out of all the kids in the world, he chose me to be his friend. And he's holding my hand. Within the context of what was going on, it seemed normal, you know. The days were filled with playing tag, watching movies. He taught me how to do the moonwalk. This contrast began between the day and the night. We were going to sleep in his bed. The first thing I remember is Michael sort of, you know, moving his hands across my legs were both clothed and PJs. And then his hands would have got to, you know, my crotch area. He needed sort of fondling there. I was seven, seven years old when this began. Fondling my penis over the top of my pants. And then his hands went underneath my pants. And started touching my penis underneath my pants. And, you know, there was nothing aggressive about it, nothing abrasive. I never felt scared or anything like that. It just didn't seem that strange. And then him guiding me to do the same thing with him. So moving my hands to touch his penis, which, you know, was erect. Him talking to me, you and I were brought together by God. We were meant to be together. You know, and this is us showing each other that we love each other. This is how we show our love. I mean, it escalated rapidly. So taking showers together and, you know, fondling and kissing. So him kissing me, I mean, like full open mouth, tongue in mouth kissing. He would put my fingers on his nipples and like tell me to squeeze them. And he would moan and react to that. He felt good. And I liked the feeling that was making him happy, that was pleasing him, you know. And then Michael pulling my pants and my underwear down, pulling them off. And going down and starting to, you know, perform oral sex on me. And I remember him putting my hands on his head when he was down there. And I forget the feeling of his hair. I was almost like a, like a brillo pad, like this roughness. And he's down there. You know, with his mouth on my, you know, seven-year-old penis. You know, quickly it turned into having me perform oral sex on him too. I mean, to be honest and to be graphic about it, like, you know, a full adult grown man, size penis in my mouth, you know, in a little seven-year-old's mouth. He didn't ejaculate when he had me perform oral sex on him, but he used to, he would masturbate in front of me. He would have me kind of go to like the corner of the bed, like a far corner of the bed. So he'd be laying, laying back on a pillow and have me go to the far corner of the bed and, and, um, beyond all fours. And have me sort of just bend over my knees, you know. So he could look at my anus while he was masturbating. And I was just kind of on display. And then periodically through that, he would kind of come up and stick his tongue in my anus. Right in front of me, there was this big kind of elaborate Peter Pan cardboard cutout. So it's like I was either looking back at him masturbating or looking forward at, uh, at Peter Pan. Yeah, then we'd get up in the morning, like nothing had ever happened, and go have another day filled with childhood, magical games and adventures. Yeah, when my parents came back at the end of the week, I definitely remember a feeling of us and them, you know, our relationship had evolved in so many ways. And he had done so much, um, so much talking to me about, uh, not trusting people. Any people, especially women. He started calling me son. And for me, the idea of Michael Jackson being my dad was the most like incredible idea in the world. You know, I didn't have anything against my dad. That's for sure. But Michael was just, it was just too big. That fantasy was just too good to turn down. And then the following week, we were supposed to be going to San Francisco and where he didn't want to go, he wanted to stay. Michael was actually going back to Los Angeles for the week, um, but he invited us to go with him. So Wade and Chantal and I went to LA with Michael and Dennis and my parents went to San Francisco for the week. He was living in Westwood at the time. He had a condo in Westwood, which they called the hideout. I remember walking in there and there was statues of Shirley Temple and posters everywhere. It was a really interesting place. Childlike. Shopping. I think that's when that really started. We would go into like the record stores. And I remember like, Michael just filling up like a whole cart full of records and CDs and we were allowed to put whatever we wanted in there. Every time we enter a place, like, look around and get anything you want. Get everything, you know? Normally the experience was you go into a toy store and it's like, you can get one thing, you know? And now this was like grab a cart and fill it up. Me and mom slept in the living room. Wade slept in the room with Michael. I don't remember any sort of comment about me staying with my condo sleeping in his room. When we were in Los Angeles, Chantal and I spent quite a bit of time alone. We went to Westwood, we walked down there and do things. Wade and Michael would stay in the room a lot. Just playing up, presumed playing games and they did a lot of that sort of thing. Watching cartoons, he was a big cartoon watcher. Once the abuse started, within that first week, you know, every night that I was with him, there was abuse while my mother was, you know, next door. You know, he started talking about how much he loves me. What this is is us, how we show our love for each other. The other people are ignorant and they're stupid. They'd never understand. If they ever found out what we were doing about this sexual stuff, that he and I would be pulled apart. Then we'd never be able to see each other again. And that he and I would go to jail for the rest of our lives. You do feel sorry for him. You honestly believe that this is a lonely man and that we can help make him happy. Us, us who are just nobody's. We couldn't believe that he would want to hang around us in this tiny little house. And he'd walk in the house and he'd walk in the front door and he'd go, The safe chucks, like he was at home, you know, full armed up acting. Oh, the safe chucks. That's how he felt about us. You go from a normal lifestyle, day after day, everything's the same to this big star calling your house. Wanting to come to your home and have dinner in your home. Wanting to spend the night in your little house. He could be anywhere with anybody in the world and Michael wanted to be with our family. This was all so overwhelming and like a fairy tale. And I got lost in it and I know my husband got lost in it too. He was just like fully in love at that time. When I was at Wythamau's always thinking about him. It just feels like the greatest thing when he calls. He'd come over, we'd spend the day shopping and hang out, read, spend the night. Or I would go to the hideout in Westwood and spend a few nights there. So we were like this married couple. And I say married because we had this mock wedding ceremony. We did this in his bedroom and we like filled out some vows. It's like we're bonded forever. It felt good. And the ring is nice. It has a row of diamonds with a gold band, the wedding ring. It's hard to go back to that moment. I was really into jewelry and he would reward me with jewelry for doing sexual acts for him. He would say that I need to sell him some so that I can earn the gift. You know, I like jewelry and I liked it as a kid. And I think that something that I enjoyed was used against me. So I think that that causes discomfort. It's still hard for me to not blame myself. This piece of jewelry is like a Rolex ring with a diamond in the middle. My hands are shaking just holding them. We would go buy them at jewelry stores. And we would pretend like they were for somebody else and like for our female. But we would pretend like my small hand fit whatever female we were buying it for. Yeah. Yeah, I don't like looking at the jewelry. You know, I left Australia as this young fan of Michael Jackson and came back. Michael Jackson's best friend. His lover. Yeah, and his lover. Trying to adjust back to reality was hard. I was back in school the thing that I think made it okay was that the contact with Michael was constant. We used to spend hours and hours and hours on the phone. He called every day for two years. Every blue moon, I would talk to Michael like if he called I get on the phone and I'd say hi. How are you? We talked for a couple of seconds. But it's not like I can, you know, I didn't stay on the phone with Michael for hours or have big conversations. My brother did that. He would call to talk to Wade. He would talk to Wade for sometimes six, seven hours of time. I would say what on earth do you talk about for all that time? I would try to listen. But they seemed to be very innocent phone calls. He told me that I was going to be this massive film director, you know, bigger than Spielberg. He was telling me to keep working on my dancing, keep training. You know, you're going to come back out here soon and you know, you got to be ready for us to do. For us to change the world. If I was at school, it's hard to focus on the work because it was like when I got off a school, when I got home, I was going to get on the phone with Michael Jackson. He just called me Applehead. I would call him Applehead sometimes. And then he started calling me little one. I don't know where it came from, but that became my name from him, little one. It came with a song that he would sing to me like this kind of lullaby. Has anyone seen my little one? And then he would say, my little one is here. I mean, it just felt really cozy. It felt really endearing. And at some point, we got a fax machine so we could communicate more. If I'm not mistaken, I think he bought it. So we were still having these really long conversations, but then now there would be these constant faxes back and forth. You know, I love you Wade. I love you little one. My best friend forever and all kinds of stuff like that. And I would send stuff back telling him how much I loved him. I would send stuff back to him. I would send stuff back telling him how much I loved him. We'd get home in the whole living room, would be filled with faxes all over the floor everywhere. I felt like he and I had a relationship outside of his relationship with Wade. I felt like we had something quite separate. I guess like a brother, a really close friend, he'd get really lonely when we talk about that. Michael, he used to ring her all the time. He was a forever ringing her and talking to her. She turned her life upside down because of Michael. His separate relationship with mom began. I don't remember him explicitly saying say hi to Dennis. It would be like, as my dad's name, it would be either the siblings or say hi to the family. He sent me back with some memorabilia like clothing of his that I could wear. He gave me the white Fedora hat that he wore in the smooth criminal music video. I was just looking at this and he said, do you want it? And I said, if you want to give it to me, I said sure. And this is the actual hat he used in smooth criminal clothing. He's still got his makeup on it. On the top here, yeah. Just put it on. Let's say here, look at it. Let's see how you go. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. And he gave me the gloves that he wore in the bad music video to the buckled gloves. And so I used to wear those now when I'd perform. My whole life was focused on him and leading towards him. This kind of fantasy began for me that, like pretty soon, I was going to end up living with him. You know, that I would kind of be with him like a father and son for the rest of my life. Basically, we were in limbo waiting to come back. And it took quite some time before we actually got around to bringing us back again. He was doing a photo shoot, a campaign for his new shoes for LA Gear. And he saw that as a great opportunity to bring me out and to put me in the campaign. So my mother removed me out of school. They turned into a six week trip. Our flights and everything we're paid for. Los Angeles was Michael Jackson for me. And just being so excited to be back in what felt like already home, like where I'm supposed to be here and with him. Also, anticipating the physical contact again, the sexual contact. Because that had become so intertwined with what our relationship was, what our love was. I have some really, really happy memories from Neverland. We drive in and forget about everything that was going on in your life. Forget about all your problems. You were in Neverland. It was a fantasy. He and Wade would avoid me. They could tell they were avoiding me. It was a big place. It was 2700 acres. And they'd take off for the day. And I'd spend all day looking for them. Couldn't find them. So I spent a lot of time alone there playing with the chimps. We became good friends. We're back and forth throughout the trip between Neverland and the hideout in Westwood. But my mother being in a different room. Michael and I sleeping in his bed. The sexual contact continued every night. We were together. I guess it sort of became a routine masturbating. The oral sex. Both sides. And touching in the fondling and the gyrating and the kissing. Me bending over with the masturbation and the tongue and all that. And then one of the kind of newer things that started to happen was he started to show me some pornography. Pretty graphic, heterosexual porn, you know, oral sex, full penetration, anal stuff. It seemed like he liked it. That Michael liked it. So I wanted to like it. It was the first time he showed me some video porn. And this was full oral sex and ejaculation in the mouth on the face, all that stuff. Full graphic. I remember that affecting me internally, even more than the photographic porn. I remember that feeling in my stomach being really heavy, like a nervousness. I just didn't really know. I didn't know how to deal with it, you know. So it was again, like him pulling back the curtain on this whole other universe. But this one wasn't so fun, you know. About seven, you know. He just came across as a loving, caring, kind soul. So it was easy to believe that he was just that. It was coming to time for us to leave to go back to Australia. And I was at the hideout with Michael in Westwood. And Michael said to me, will you leave little one with me for a year? I was on board with this. I wanted to. Are you kidding me? Like, be able to live with him for a year? It's like the most incredible idea I'd ever heard. I was stunned and said, absolutely not. He said, I would do wonders for his career. I could work with him. We could do so much together. I'd be just absolutely wonderful for him to stay here with me. I said, Michael, he's my child. He's seven years old. I'm not going to leave him with you. And I sort of like a tug of war started between mom and Michael. We went through this for a couple of hours where I tried to explain to him that it wasn't going to happen. And after it was all over, he looked at me and he said, I always get what I want. And I said, not this time. I said, I will share Wade with you, but I am not going to leave him with you. Michael asked, like, well, okay, then you've got to let me have him for four or five more days or a few more days to prepare him to leave. I remember at some point getting a phone call and mom saying, oh, we're going to stay longer. And it was like, what the hell is going on? You know, pretty kind of disturbing when your mom and brother just, you don't know when they're going to come back. He really amped up the dialogue and the lectures about being strong and being learning to shelf my feelings. You always said that. You had to learn to shelf your feelings. So you're not vulnerable. In hindsight, I know, let me just how much of my life in every way, shape, or form that affected, you know? Hello, Wade. Congratulations, little one. Today is your birthday. I don't celebrate birthdays, of course, but I thought I would take this moment to say congratulations on the day that you were born. And in my opinion, you should spend this day with your mother and your father who conceived you and you should be giving them the presents. And being thankful that they brought you into the world and the future is yours and you can do whatever you want. So congratulations. I love you. Bye. Things started to change with my father. My consciousness was just so full with Michael that there was less and less of my attention and consciousness for my dad. He enjoyed what Wade was doing. He loved it. And I think he would have liked to have been more of a part of it too, but I think I sort of pushed him out. Wade was doing a lot in Australia and I was more or less managing what he was doing there and I enjoyed that. And it just took us into a different world and Dennis was sort of excluded from it. So it did affect the marriage. Dennis was always in the background. He went to it as much as he could. But being in business, it was hard for him always to be away. She put Wade first, taking him to places where he danced. And he was a big thing for him. My mother in his relationship was changing over the next year or so. He started having all sorts of emotional trouble and anxieties. And he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. And I remember my dad fighting with my mom and I remember my dad at one point saying, you know, you're talking to lawyers and you're trying to get out of here, I know you are. Wade had been working pretty regularly in Australia, but there was only just so far he could go there. He could be the big fish in the small pump, but I felt if he was really going to succeed, he needed to move to the United States. So this was happening at the same time that my father's, at a mental and emotional health was really declining. His mood being more unpredictable, it's like he was just drifting further and further away from me. It kind of become like the Wade and mom show. That's what I really know. His dad started to go downhill with his mental state. She definitely was not the mom that I grew up with at that point. She was very determined to go in this new life. It wasn't so much about the family anymore. It was about getting over there, starting this new opportunity for Wade, which in reality was opportunity for mom as well. When I kind of look at things in perspective, it was probably mom's chance, the easiest way for her to maybe get out of her marriage. And I had a diary that had just a quote for every day and it said something like today is the first day of the rest of your life, something like that. And suddenly I thought, you know what, I'm just going to go. I'm not going to wait any longer. Michael, he encouraged her to go over there. Yes, it was his decision. He made the arrangements for where they could stay. When they got there, he did all that. Yes, he was so blame. He used to blame for a lot of things that happened in our life. I had a choice, but it was sort of obvious that I was going with my mom. And I remember my dad just saying, please don't leave to me. And he just said, please don't go, stay with me. And I remember I was saying, Dad, just don't ask me that. Like, Dad, don't make me choose. That it was just obvious that I was going with mom, you know. Beyond whatever was going on with him mentally, almost his whole family was about to leave him. I'm sure for my father, it felt like, you know, there's no way we were ever coming back. These two have dreams, or nightmares, or my family dying. I remember going to Brisbane Airport. I remember my grandmother, my mom's mom, standing at the window. She was just like, morning and crying. I remember being at the airport with Dennis. It was so sad. The system all going on the plane, knowing that we wouldn't just be able to pick up our pepag and go and visit them. Yeah, it was sad. Dad was just, I think he was crying, but he was just, he wasn't really there. Yeah. Yeah, that was a top day. You know, they're excited. They're going off on a big adventure. Yeah, I guess that was really like the end of the family. I left my eldest son, Shane. My husband, my parents, two brothers, cousins, and family. And funny at the time, I really did not think about any of the long-term renovations I was so caught up in everything. I remember my father looking me in the eye at the airport and said, have you lost your mind? And that has stayed with me for 26 years because there's many times I look back and think, yes, I think I had. You know, I definitely had some sort of idea in my head of the way this was all going to go down once we moved to Los Angeles. It really was going to be life with Michael. So I remember being shocked when the first place we went to live was like an awkward apartment, which is kind of like a part-time residence sort of thing. And it was at least a week, maybe a couple of weeks after we moved before I saw Michael. And that was really hard for me. Here I was in this new place in America and in Los Angeles, but now it's like we were alone. I knew straight away that things were different. First up when we got there, they said that the oakwoods had not been paid for, I needed to give them a credit card. And I'm like, no, they said, well, you have to give me a credit card till we can sort it out tonight. That was unusual for them. They usually had us pretty well looked after. Michael had talked about bringing him to do the black or white video. And then they called and said, we're going to rent your car so that you can drive yourself to the studios, which was unusual as well. And then when we got to the studios to do this, then we realized why. I believe the first time we saw each other after we moved was his black or white music video, which I was going to dance in. That experience was really hard for me. This was the first time I came up against the new friend, McCauley-Colton. McCauley was where I was, you know, and my previous trips right by Michael's side every moment. Okay. And now I was kind of on the sideline as far as being Michael's friend, you know, I'm being his favorite. And that was really confusing. What did I do wrong? Like he and Michael had all of the connection and kind of secret things that Michael and I had before. Like I could recognize that. So there was definitely a lot of jealousy from me. I mean, hurt, confusion. It was very obvious to me that McCauley had taken away its place in Michael's best friend category. So that was a very hurtful, broke way tart. But it made me realize that if things were going to happen,