Madonna says Michael Jackson is “innocent until proven guilty” in her eyes, despite the new allegations of child sex abuse that have been made against him.
The 60-year-old pop icon insisted in the wake of ‘Leaving Neverland’ – Dan Reed’s two-part documentary in which Wade Robson and James Safechuck accused the late musician of sexually abusing them after befriending them as children – that she doesn’t have a “lynch-mob mentality” and always demands proof when she hears a serious accusation has been made against someone, as she knows what it’s like to be lied about.
In an interview with British Vogue, she said: “I don’t have a lynch-mob mentality, so in my mind, people are innocent until proven guilty.
“I’ve had a thousand accusations hurled at me that are not true. So my attitude when people tell me things about people is, ‘Can you prove it?'”
The Queen of Pop – who took Jackson as her date to the 1991 Oscars and even shared a kiss with the King of Pop – admitted that she hasn’t yet seen the film, which the Jackson Estate branded a “public lynching” as well as taking legal action against makers HBO and Channel 4.
Madonna insists that while considering the truth of certain events she would always think about an individual’s “agenda” and what they would gain from the situation before making up her mind.
Asked what would constitute proof of Jackson’s guilt, she said: “I don’t know, I haven’t seen the film. But I guess it would be people recounting actual events – but then, of course, people sometimes lie.
“So I always say, ‘What’s the agenda? What do people want out of this? Are there people asking for money, is there some kind of extortion thing happening?’ I would take all of those things into consideration. I guess I’ll get around to seeing it. I haven’t seen it yet.”
Jackson went on trial in 2005 after being accused and charged for allegedly molesting teenager Gavin Arvizo but he was acquitted of all charges.