Wade Robson wrote in an obituary in 2009 when he was 29:
“Michael Jackson changed the world and, more personally, my life forever. He is the reason I dance, the reason I make music, and one of the main reasons I believe in the pure goodness of humankind. He has been a close friend of mine for 20 years. His music, his movement, his personal words of inspiration and encouragement and his unconditional love will live inside of me forever. I will miss him immeasurably, but I know that he is now at peace and enchanting the heavens with a melody and a moonwalk.”
Wade Robson with Oprah Winfrey:
“When the abuse started, when I was 11, and even when I was 22, and later, I had no understanding that what Michael did to me sexually was abuse,” Robson shared. “I had no concept of it being that.”
“From night one of the abuse, of the sexual stuff that Michael did to me, you know, he told me that it was love,” Robson continued. “He told me that he loved me and that God brought us together. And I was this little boy from the other side of the world in Australia, and Michael was a God to me. And now, who was God to me was telling me, ‘I love you, God brought us together. And this, this sexual stuff, this is how we show our love.'”
“When I testified when I was 11…from the first night on, started training me right away for what ended up happening when I was 11, when I was 22, with the trials,” Robson said of Jackson.
When asked if he could see the pattern of abuse as a little boy, Robson replied to Winfrey, “Absolutely not.”
In 2013, Robson stated that Jackson had sexually abused him on two visits to the US and after he moved with his family to the US, when Robson was aged between seven and 14. Robson said his earlier denial was due to Jackson’s “complete manipulation and brainwashing”, and that his change of story was provoked by becoming a father and experiencing nervous breakdowns in 2011 and 2012. In 2015, Robson’s case was dismissed by a Los Angeles judge, ruling that Robson had missed the 12-month statutory deadline after Jackson’s death. The judge did not rule on the credibility of the allegations. The allegations by Robson and another man, James Safechuck, are the focus of the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland. On 13 August 2019, pieces of Wade Robson’s 2016 video deposition were leaked online in a video which argues that Robson has contradicted the allegations that he and his mother Joy made in Leaving Neverland.