Following all the controversy and chatter surrounding the HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, old alleged victims of Michael Jackson continue to be pushed to the forefront as accusers, defenders, and everyone in between tries to make sense of the flurry of allegations.
One of those old accusers getting a lot of attention right now is the man Jackson allegedly nicknamed “Rubba Rubba” — Michael Jacobs-Hagen, now an adult, who came forward first in January to The Mirror about how he joined Jackson on a string of concert tours back when he was just 14 years old.
Related: Corey Feldman Can ‘No Longer Defend’ Michael Jackson
It’s important to revisit Jacobs-Hagen’s account — and what he alleges about Jackson’s behavior — because it ties in so tightly with some of the other allegations that have popped up against the King of Pop, both from the documentary itself, and from others who have since come forward.
Take for instance how easily the now 35-year-old was then manipulated, as a young teenager, into sleeping in the same bed as the pop star — something Jacobs-Hagen only now recognizes as wrong after he was able to process the trauma in his adult life (below):
“He overstepped the mark with me and with other children. I’m almost the same age now Michael was when he met me. If I was to share a bed with a child, this would not be right. It is not normal and it’s not right. He was always asking me to sleep in his bed. I would say, ‘No Michael, I can sleep in my own suite’, but he was saying ‘Please, please… for Michael Jackson.’ Since I had a son, it made me look at everything in a different way and I realize now how wrong it was. Becoming a father changed my feelings.”
Oof… that’s tough to read.
Michael, who now works in public relations in Germany, was brave when he came forward to first detail his experience as “Rubba Rubba” and his alleged forays with Jackson — and considering now how seriously the broader world is beginning to take these allegations, it must seem like it’s been a long time coming for accusers like Jacobs-Hagen.
The emotional toll here was — and continues to be — almost too great to imagine. And when the accuser first stepped forward in January, he recalled all the negative fallout from his early experiences with Jackson, both emotionally on a personal level, and among his peers, classmates, and family members.
Jacobs-Hagen said (below):
“When I got back to school, pictures [of he and Jackson at concerts] had been in all the media. Other kids would say, ‘You make sex with Michael Jackson’ and ‘You’re gay.’ It affected me psychologically, but I never told Michael. It made me feel shame. Teachers warned my mother about allegations about Michael, but she said it was my decision if I wanted to keep seeing him.”
Such a tough thing for a 14-year old to deal with mentally and emotionally…
But now that he’s a father of a three-year-old boy himself, it’s easier for the 35-year-old to process what happened to him — and understand that, based on his allegations, the behavior was (obviously) highly inappropriate.
Jacobs-Hagen also recalls some not-so-appropriate moments between the pair when they would inevitably fall asleep in these hotel suites together.
It usually always happened when the King of Pop brought him on the road to other countries during his wildly popular musical tours in the 1990s (below):
“Michael invited us to other concerts, including the HIStory Tour, when I was 14. I travelled with him to other countries. When I slept in his bed, we wore just boxer shorts and he would put his arm around me and push his body to my body, like you would with a girlfriend. He would put our bodies on each other and kiss me on the head and cheek. I woke many times and his hands were on me… one hand on the top of my legs and one hand around me. When he was high on his medication he would get closer in the same way as when a man gets drunk. It disinhibited him. He’d pull me closer and be grabbing me more and kissing me more on the head and on the cheek, He would also stroke my hair. I didn’t feel comfortable with it, but I thought ‘I can’t say No’.”
He continued:
“When you’re 14 and you’re there with the biggest megastar in the world, you say ‘okay’. He never carried out an explicit sexual act on me, but there were sexual intentions. He must have been getting something out of it sexually. I feel now like he was testing me, seeing how far he could go.”
It continues to matter, not only because of the alleged abuse itself, but because Jacobs-Hagen never even came forward to his family about it until after Jackson’s death in 2009.
The public relations manager kept quiet and kept the victimization inside for decades, effectively protecting his alleged abuser all the while. To say it’s affected his whole life, then, would be an understatement…
Such a tough, sensitive, and ultimately tragic situation in so many ways.
What do U think, Perezcious readers? Revisiting the accusers doesn’t make the situation better, but it sheds much-needed light on the allegations and the victims, and maybe it’ll eventually force whatever form of justice there can be in this whole ordeal.
Reactions? Let us know in the comments (below)…
[Image via WENN.]
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