Michael Jackson’s family blasted Leaving Neverland after it won a Creative Arts Emmy.
The Dan Reed documentary — which details sexual abuse allegations made against Jackson by James Safechuck and Wade Robson — picked up the award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special on the first night of the Creative Arts Emmys on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2019, but was slated as “complete fiction” by Jackson’s estate.
The estate told “Entertainment Tonight” in a statement: “For a film that is a complete fiction to be honored in a nonfiction Emmy category is a complete farce.
“Not one shred of proof supports this completely one-sided, so-called documentary, which was made in secrecy and for which not one person outside of the two subjects and their families were interviewed.”
However, Reed believes that the five nominations and one win helped to “validate” the documentary, explaining: “It does help to validate the film, [which has] been so controversial. The increased awareness confronts people with a crime that they don’t really want to know about and wish didn’t exist.
