All credits for this blog go to Helena from vindicatemj.wordpress.com. This blog is reposted here with her specific permission.
Amid the avalanche of sex abuse accusations shattering Hollywood many people are wondering what is going on and why now. The scandal is indeed huge and the latest attempt of RadarOnline and National Enquirer to channel this process in the direction desirable for them, by implicating Michael Jackson in other people’s actions, makes me express my views which I refrained from voicing for quite a long time. If one day we manage to get to the bottom of it you will probably understand why I hesitated for so long.
However first we need to look into the new fake story smearing Michael Jackson that was published by RadarOnline and National Enquirer under the guidance of a certain Dylan Howard, their editing director and editor-in-chief respectively.
The story alleges that in 2008 a certain producer was told by Corey Haim that he had been assaulted by Michael Jackson. No exact moment of the ‘assault’ is specified, so the general public assumed what was meant to be assumed – that not only Michael Jackson was Haim’s abuser, but that the whole thing took place when Corey was a child.
This fantasy piece was also printed and elaborated on in the National Enquirer, however both were refuted by Michael Jackson’s fans just within hours – by means of a short quote from Corey Feldman’s book “Coreyography” which says that Corey Haim met Michael Jackson for the first time only in 1994 when he was actually 22.
“Over the next several weeks, I made a few informal comments to the press and declared that Michael was innocent of the charges. (I was still living in Encino at the time; the paparazzi often made the two-minute drive to my house once they’d grown tired of staking out Hayvenhurst.) Michael was appreciative that I had spoken out on his behalf, and as a thank-you several months after he settled the case out of court he invited me up to Neverland Ranch.
I took Corey Haim with me, since he had never actually had an opportunity to meet Michael face-to-face. We rode go-karts. We giggled as Michael told us stories about Madonna, his date to the 1991 Academy Awards. (I think she intended to make a man out of him, but Michael wasn’t ready for all that.) We ordered movies to watch in his theatre. Together, the three of us screened Dream a Little Dream.”
– Corey Feldman: Coreyography
Corey Feldman has first-hand information about the events and it shreds the tabloid story into pieces – firstly, he was Corey Haim’s closest friend and the one who introduced Corey Haim to Jackson and, secondly, he can’t be suspected of any bias – when he was describing this episode there was no way to know that one day it would become so instrumental in refuting new lies about Jackson.
Seeing the fake story falling apart and evidently facing the need for damage control the Daily Mail came running to help their US tabloid colleagues and updated the story with a suggestion, sounding more like a hope, that “the offense had to happen some time after that point”. On their own part they also added a couple of inaccuracies about Jackson.
Here are some extracts from the Daily Mail version.
‘I have a problem with Michael Jackson’: Corey Haim said the King of Pop and Charlie Sheen assaulted him, claims producer – and the confession was allegedly caught on tape
By Chris Spargo For Dailymail.com
PUBLISHED: 12:47 EST, 23 November 2017
<>There is no date given for the offense, but if Feldman is to be believed it would have had to have happened when Haim was an adult.
In his memoir Coreyography, Feldman writes that after he publicly defended his friend during his sexual abuse trial he was invited to spend a weekend at Neverland Ranch.
Note: In 1993 there was no trial. The police didn’t even bring charges against Jackson after a year-long investigation, during which Michael Jackson fully cooperated with the police up to undergoing a strip search of his private parts. And Corey Feldman defended MJ in an interview with the Santa Barbara police in December 1993, when he was 22 and fully aware what real molestation is like – he actually gave the police the names of his abusers, but they were not interested and were after Jackson only.
(continued)
That case was settled in January of 1994, with Jackson paying the family of his 13-year-old accuser $25 million, and soon after Feldman headed to the King of Pop’s estate with his best friend Haim. This was just around that time that Jackson married his first and only wife in May 1994, Lisa Marie Presley.
With every new paragraph it gets more and more surprising. Not only does the settlement sum rise with every new publication, but it also turns out that Michael Jackson’s two children were born out of wedlock. Has the Daily Mail ever heard of Debby Rowe?
(continued)
He writes in the book though that Haim, who was 21 at the time, had never met Jackson face-to-face until that day. That would mean the alleged assault had to have occurred some time after that point.
‘We rode go-karts. We giggled as Michael told us stories about Madonna, his date to the 1991 Academy Awards,’ writes Feldman.
‘We ordered movies to watch in his theater. Together the three of us screened Dream A Little Dream.’
Feldman admits however that he and Jackson lost touch after that weekend, and he only saw him a handful of times after that date.
The Daily Mail seems unable to report accurately even a small thing like Haim’s age – Corey Haim was born on December 23rd, 1971, so in the year 1994 he was definitely older than 21.
Their story is illustrated by a couple of photos to show Corey Haim and Michael Jackson in 1993, which is another proof of the Daily Mail sloppy job or their deliberate attempt to distort the picture by hinting at a big age difference between the two guys. In reality Michael was photographed on his crutches on March 21st, 2001 when he gave a speech in Oxford, and Corey Haim was an adult in 1994 and no longer looked like a teen.
Is there anything at all the Daily Mail can report accurately?
The correct photos for that period are provided below. These are the screenshots from Corey Haim’s home videos dated 1994 and the photos of Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley as newly weds in May 1994.
As regards the essence of the Daily Mail version and their attempt to portray the ‘offense’ as something occurring after 1994, someone should remind these guys that the original RadarOnline lie was decidedly different. The initial allegation was that MJ ‘attacked Corey Haim as a child’, thus leaving no room for other interpretations.
Look at the headline and the full text:
Corey Haim Claimed Michael Jackson Attacked Him As A Child
Producer says late actor confided he was ‘assaulted’ by the singer.
By Radar Staff
Posted on Nov 22, 2017 @ 9:00AM
Another villain who may have attacked child star Corey Haim has been unmasked — pop star Michael Jackson!
In a world RadarOnline.com exclusive, film producer Ed Meyer has broken an almost ten-year silence to reveal what Haim confided to him in 2008 — just two years before the troubled actor died of pneumonia at 38.
“Corey said, ‘I have a problem with Michael Jackson and with Charlie Sheen. I was assaulted by these guys, and a few others,’ ” Meyer told Radar. “I didn’t feel it was appropriate to say, ‘Who are the other people?’”
Although Haim never described the assaults as sexual, Meyer said his meaning was all too clear.
“Oh yeah, definitely,” Meyer told Radar. “He didn’t use the word sexual in either case. [It was just], ‘I was assaulted by these guys and a few others.’ It was also clear Sheen turned him on to drugs. That was 100 percent clear … He sounded like he was calling Charlie a pimp.”
As Radar reported, former actor Dominick Brascia, a close friend of Haim, said the Lost Boys legend told him Sheen sodomized him on the set of the 1986 film Lucas.
“Haim told me he had sex with Sheen when they filmed ‘Lucas,’” Brascia said. “He told me they smoked pot and had sex. Haim said after it happened, Sheen became very cold and rejected him.”
At the time, Haim was 13, and Sheen was 19.
Brascia’s stunning account was backed up by a longtime Sheen confidant, who told Radar the Platoon menace, now 52, admitted to a sexual tryst with Corey, but insisted it had been consensual.
Meyer told Radar Haim made the explosive revelation about Jackson, who died in 2009 at age 50, while filming the reality show The Two Coreys. The scene was eventually deleted.
Haim co-starred in the show with fellow former child star Corey Feldman.
In the deleted scene, filmed at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles, a down-on-his-luck Haim asked Meyer and casting directors for help in reviving his career.
One of the directors happened to know Sheen, and Haim was startled to see him, Meyer said.
“You could see he was shook a little bit,” Meyer told Radar. “He didn’t expect it, and I started kicking him under the table, like, ‘Back off!’”
That’s when Haim ripped into Sheen and Jackson for assaulting him, Meyer said.
Note: The link takes you to a story about “a Hollywood A-list star who raped tragic ’80s child star Corey Haim and has brazenly gotten away with the abuse for almost three decades.” Not a single word is said about Michael Jackson there.
(continued)
“[Corey] was basically saying it was a dark time in his life, but he felt he was over that, and he was moving on and looking for work, and that played into what we were doing on camera,” Meyer said.
Ultimately, Meyer said the scene was cut because Haim had gone “overboard” about Jackson and Sheen.
“A&E filmed the video, and they did not air our piece because Corey was going overboard, venting,” Meyer said.
“If it had aired, I think you would have had law enforcement looking into Charlie!”
We pay for juicy info! Do you have a story for RadarOnline.com? Email us at [email protected], or call us at (866) ON-RADAR (667-2327) any time, day or night.
http://radaronline.com/celebrity-news/corey-haim-accused-michael-jackson-attack/
Well, it seems that the only true point in all of the above is that RadarOnline.com pays for juicy information. The rest of the story is fiction too.
The scene about A&E allegedly cutting the footage of Corey Haim going “overboard” about Jackson is a 100% fake. Back in 2008 nothing was more important to the media than dragging Michael’s name through the mud, so if the tape had existed they would have never missed the chance. Never. A juicy video like that would have cost a fortune if taken to tabloids, so for those who remember those times this lie sounds the silliest of all.
Another of their tabloid little secrets is a method to put the innocent and the (possibly) guilty into one mix. I mean their allegations concerning Charlie Sheen and Dominick Brascia who accused Sheen of abusing Corey Haim when he was a teen.
I’m aware of the gossip about Charlie Sheen, but over here they are most probably telling a lie too. Corey Haim’s mother revealed on a recent Dr. Oz’s show that the person who accused Charlie Sheen was actually the one who molested her son himself. The name of that person is Dominick Brascia.
“This guy Dominick is the guy that abused my son,” she said. “My son said so.”
“He said so on The Two Coreys,” said Judy. “If you ever go back and watch any interview that my son ever gave, you would understand what I’m talking about. He hid nothing.”
https://people.com/tv/corey-haim-mother-names-his-alleged-abuser/
Nicole Eggert, who was once engaged to Corey Haim and was on the set when the respective episode of the ‘Two Coreys’ was filmed, said that she also heard the name of Haim’s abuser. In 2010 when she spoke about it she didn’t disclose the name, but when asked whether it was Michael Jackson was adamant that that it wasn’t. In fact Corey Haim had only “amazing things to say about Michael Jackson” according to Nicole.
Nicole Eggert Remembers Corey Haim: ‘We Loved Each Other So Dearly’
March 11, 2010 11:47 AM PST
….Nicole also addressed Corey’s statements during “The Two Coreys” that he had been molested.
I know who he is because I was there with them. I was friends with them at this time,” she said of Haim’s alleged abuser.And she denied the rumor that it had been Michael Jackson. “He always had amazing things to say about Michael Jackson.”
Of the alleged molester, Nicole said, “I hope he’s having a horrible life.”
http://www.accesshollywood.com/articles/nicole-eggert-remembers-corey-haim-we-loved-each-other-so-dearly-83256/#FTXdfZ1B74QM2bET.99
So what’s left of the original story told by our beloved tabloids?
Nothing is left. And the truth turns out to be the exact opposite of what they are claiming:
- Corey Haim was not a child, but an adult when he met Jackson.
- Haim had only amazing things to say about Michael.
- Corey Haim never named Michael to the RadarOnline source who said he was on the set of that reality show. There was no tape either, at least about Michael Jackson, and no cuts in it related to him. If someone wants to prove otherwise, produce the tape please.
- The abuser Corey Haim named to his mother was Dominick Brascia, a big fat character actor and producer born in 1956. Brascia was 16 years older than Corey Haim.
- So it was probably Dominick Brascia who was mentioned during the filming of the “Two Coreys” episode. Nicole Eggert was a witness to that scene. However no one paid attention and since the name never appeared on air that episode was indeed cut from the original footage. Of course, none of it had anything to do with Michael Jackson.
- If the studio had aired the full tape where Corey Haim had the courage to name his abuser, law enforcement could have followed the lead and this could have changed Corey Haim’s life.
- Dominick Brascia is now a favourite source of information for RadarOnline and National Enquirer. They boast getting lots of ‘exclusive’ information from this guy.
Dominick Brascia then and now
Now that we see that everything in the RadarOnline and National Enaquirer reports is entirely false, it is time to look at their publisher Dylan Howard and wonder how come this tabloid veteran may be vice-president of American Media Inc. in charge of the news? Wiki says about him:
He is currently the vice president of news at American Media, where he holds the roles of editorial director of RadarOnline.com and editor in chief of the National Enquirer.
American Media, Inc. (AMI) is not to be confused with American Media Distribution, the international news coverage firm. AMI is publisher of magazines, supermarket tabloids and books based in New York City including National Enquirer, National Examiner, OK!, RadarOnline.com, Soap Opera Digest, Star, Us Weekly and others.
The above reminds me of a saying “Like father, like son”, only in this case it would be more pertinent to say “Like the vice-president of news, like the news” if you allow me to reword the phrase.
And how very interesting it is that Dylan Howard – the big media shot, vice president, editor-in-chief, editing director, etc. etc. etc. – is actually the same Dylan Howard who is mentioned in Ronan Farrow’s ground-breaking report about Harvey Weinstein’s army of spies as a media executive who was trying to help Weinstein to silence his most outspoken accuser, Rose MgGowan!
“A December, 2016, e-mail exchange between Weinstein and Dylan Howard, the chief content officer of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer, shows that Howard shared with Weinstein material obtained by one of his reporters, as part of an effort to help Weinstein disprove McGowan’s allegation of rape. In one e-mail, Howard sent Weinstein a list of contacts. “Let’s discuss next steps on each,” he wrote. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/harvey-weinsteins-army-of-spies
More about that investigation later, but at this point let us simply note a surprising fact – in Weinstein’s case Dylan Howard was trying to help silence a real victim, and for Michael Jackson the same Dylan Howard is trying to create a fake one.
Does it mean that the chief content officer of American Media Inc. has some anti-Jackson agenda? Or is he motivated by money as may be assumed from Weinstein’s case?
My initial thought was that he has an agenda, however the idea had to be discarded as in November 2013 Dylan Howard had the decency to publish a fairly accurate report about Corey Feldman’s 1993 interview with the police when Feldman resisted the allegations and spoke of Michael Jackson’s innocence instead.
Secret Police Tape: Child Star Corey Feldman First Detailed How He Was ‘Molested’ In 1993… But Cops Did ‘Zero’ To Catch Sexual Predator
By Dylan Howard
Posted on Nov 1, 2013 @ 3:33AM
<> We have uncovered a recording of the Stand By Me actor’s interview with Santa Barbara sheriffs, recorded in December 1993 when he was aged 22, during which he told them: “I myself was molested.”
The grilling was part of the sheriffs’ investigation into his close pal Michael Jackson who, at the time, was facing child molestation charges brought by Jordy Chandler and his family.
Shockingly, Feldman actually named his alleged abusers — we have excluded them from the excerpt, below — but the detectives expressed little interest in investigating the monsters, instead lasering in on the “King Of Pop” instead.
“I know what it’s like to go through those feelings and believe me, the person who molested me, if this was him that did that to me, this would be a different story,” Feldman told Sgt. Deborah Linden and Detective Russ Birchim.
Corey: “Nothing ever happened with Michael”
“I would be out there, up front, doing something immediately to have this man given what was due to him.”
The frustrated star is now questioning why his report went nowhere.
“All names were given to police before statute had run out but they did zero,” he wrote to a fan on Twitter recently, who had asked why he did not report the men to authorities.<>
The above was published on November 1st, 2013, but since then RadarOnline has gone on a kind of a witch-hunt against Jackson by printing every single statement of Wade Robson’s lawyers and making up all sort of fakes about Michael – that he allegedly abused his nephews, possessed child porn and photos of tortured animals, abused Corey Haim when he was a child, and much, much more of similar trash (for details see here and here please).
In one of their messages the Michael Jackson Estate called these attempts ‘sleazy internet click bait’. But this would be correct only in part – there are lots of other, true stories about Michael Jackson which would be no less sensational if tabloids ever cared to look into them, so why don’t they publish the no less sensational truth about MJ? For example, the tragic story of treating his burns by stretching his scalp and placing balloons there which actually started his dependency on anaesthetics?
So the problem is not in the fact that Dylan Howard’s media are ready to pay for ‘juicy information’ about Michael Jackson. The problem is that his media are seeking only for negative juicy information about him and are always ready to tell a bad lie to smear his good name.
In Weinstein’s case Dylan Howard was working on the basis of a contract which required him to seek out anything that would undermine the women who had allegations against Weinstein. To explain his activities Howard said:
“Absent a corporate decision to terminate the agreement with The Weinstein Company, I had an obligation to protect AMI’s interests by seeking out—but not publishing—truthful information about people who Mr. Weinstein insisted were making false claims against him.”
However a contract is a contract, and Weinstein should have been paying him for these ‘obligations’ – by money, advertisements in his media or other means.
So it wouldn’t be a too big stretch of imagination to assume that in Michael Jackson’s case there might be a similar type of contract, only an anti-Jackson one, requiring the media to find anything that would undermine Michael Jackson, true or false alike. Really negative information about Michael is difficult to find, hence the need for false stories like their recent one about Corey Haim.
And if this hypothesis is correct, the question arises about who could be a partner in that contract and pay for it at least since 2013. In Weinstein’s case it is clear who the payer and beneficiary is – it is Weinstein himself. But who could be paying for the anti-Jackson media campaign?
To try and understand it we need to look into the technique employed by Harvey Weinstein for manipulating the media and go over the history of sex abuse revelations the way they evolved in the past few years.
There is a certain logic to the succession in which they emerged and this may be the key to the whole problem.
