Inside Michael Jackson’s abandoned Neverland – from drones to love-notes as home laid bare

Inside Michael Jackson’s abandoned Neverland – from drones to love-notes as home laid bare

Singer Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch is once again in the spotlight after it opened its doors to allow filming for the new big-budget biopic about the singer’s life.

The Mirror went down to the site which is just 40 minutes northwest of Santa Barbara. Discreetly nestled among the hills, it has a new name: The Sycamore Valley Ranch

Love notes to the singer are daubed in chalk on the walls from his army of fans all across the world. “You are not alone,” says one, while a love-heart balloon placed there on Valentine’s Day flutters in the wind.

The site was abandoned in 2005 after his child sex abuse trial which alleged he molested children there. It was left in tatters before being bought by a billionaire friend of the Jackson family for a cut-price £11million.

The site has 24/7 security and has had ever since Jackson moved in. Even all these years after the singer’s death it’s manned by a security post. Neverland security now have special drones patrolling the perimeter of the 2,700 acre site such is the interest in the ranch.

Over the course of the last 12 months, Neverland had opened its doors yet again for filming the biopic, called Michael. Colman Domingo plays Jackson’s abusive father, Joe, while Miles Teller, is John Branca, Jackson’s manager. Jackson’s nephew Jaafar plays Jackson.

“We filmed at Neverland, it was wild…we dressed it up,” Teller said recently. As part of the filming, work was done to spruce up the inside, with the Ferris wheel, merry-go-round and circus tent all being done up.

Extras were drafted in to act as balloon sellers, ride operators, and food stall vendors. The 12,000-square-foot mansion also has a 50-seat movie theater, a basketball court and several guesthouses.

Dan Reed, who made the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, which featured claims from Wade Robson and James Safechuck that Jackson had abused them as children, has hit out at the decision to film there.

“It’s a return to the scene of the crime in order to whitewash and rewrite history,” Reed told the Mirror. He says he’s even read the script for the film, whose producers include Branca, who is also a co-executor of Jackson’s estate. He says it was a sympathetic retelling of the Jackson story.

“The estate has envisioned the biopic as a sort of grand rebuttal to all of their allegations of child sexual abuse,” Reed says. The film is said to feature Jackson being accused of molesting Jordan Chandler, 13, whose family he had befriended. But reports claim those scenes depicting Chandler have now been axed because the estate have a deal in place not to depict the family on screen.

Lawyer John C Carpenter, who represents Robson and Safechuck, told the Mirror that while he hadn’t read the script he had “heard that this is a piece of propaganda.” He added: “It’s not unexpected that the estate is trying to massage the reputation of Michael Jackson in a way that maximises profits for the estate.”

Asked what he thought about some of the big-name actors agreeing to be in the film despite all the controversies, Carpenter added: “I find it sad and disappointing that they would do that.”

In 2016 the singer’s estate earned $825 million, which was said at the time to be the largest figure recorded by a celebrity estate.Last year it made an estimated $600 million via streams including music and merchandise.

“These people don’t want to face the truth because they’re so invested in Jackson,” Reed says. “And certainly the money that he makes for them.”

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