In the four hours of the HBO documentary, Leaving Neverland, two men who spent their childhood in Michael Jackson’s orbit detail the sexual abuse they say they suffered at Jackson’s hands.
In addition to the on-camera admissions from Wade Robson, James Safechuck, and their families, the film made brief mentions of other people close to Jackson who spoke out about his alleged behavior. In the second portion of the four-hour–long documentary, a woman named Blanca Francia is briefly mentioned.
According to Vanity Fair, from 1986 until 1991, Francia worked at Jackson’s Neverland estate as one of his housekeepers. During her time there, she claims to have witnessed Jackson behave inappropriately with Wade Robson; in a 1993 deposition, she said she saw Jackson and Robson taking a shower together.
The Los Angeles Times originally reported on her comments in 2005:
“Once, when she was cleaning Jackson’s bedroom, she said, she saw Jackson and a child she believes was the Australian boy in the shower. The boy’s neon-green Spider-Man underwear was on the floor near Jackson’s white briefs, she said. She said she was familiar with their undergarments from doing their laundry.
On two other occasions, she saw Jackson and the boy in bed together watching television. They were partially under the covers and ‘both were nude from the waist up,’ she said.”
Francia’s story doesn’t end there. It was later revealed that her own son, Jason, was also allegedly abused by Jackson. Francia claims that Jackson used to request that she bring Jason to work with her, and that her son later told her that Jackson fondled him during these visits. After each instance, according to the Times report, her son told her that Jackson handed him a $100 bill.
Like many others who spoke out against Jackson, Francia’s allegations were discounted by many of Jackson’s supporters and Jackson’s family. Some pointed to the fact that Francia had accepted two payments — $2 million from the Jackson estate, and a reported $20,000 from the old news program Hard Copy — as proof that her motivations were financial. It didn’t help that Robson had initially denied that Jackson preyed on him — which he’s since recanted, saying that as a child, he didn’t fully understand that what he was experiencing was abuse. In Leaving Neverland, years later, some of his claims mirror Francia’s.
Jackson denied all allegations at the time, and his estate continues to do so. Following the release of Neverland, his family repeatedly told the media that Jackson’s accusers were not telling that the truth, and that the film was “all about the money.”
