The visions started after Wade Robson became a father. His son, Koa, was roughly 18 months old, when the choreographer began having flashes. They were clear, intrusive.
Though Michael Jackson had died in 2009, a year before Koa was born, in Wade’s mind’s eye, he saw the pop superstar inflicting the same sickening abuse on the little boy that he claims to have endured more than two decades earlier.
As the now 36-year-old told documentary, Leaving Neverland, part two of which airs tonight on Channel 10, “my immediate emotional reaction to having those images is just this rage and disgust and violent feeling, like I would kill anyone who did anything like that to Koa.”
That rage, that disgust, were new feelings, ones his own alleged abuse had never stirred. “That was the first moment that I ever, ever thought in my life, ‘Maybe I need to tell someone about this.'”
LISTEN: The Quicky delves into Wade Robson’s shocking story. (Post continues below.)
Ten years on, Australian-born Wade Robson and the other subject of the film, former child actor James Safechuck, spoke to Oprah Winfrey about the alleged abuse and the burden of carrying that trauma into adulthood.
Both men claim Michael Jackson systematically groomed them, repeatedly sexually assaulted them during unsupervised sleepovers and coerced them into keeping silent.
Wade alleges the abuse, which spanned seven years, began when he was just seven, two years after he won the chance to meet Jackson backstage at his 1987 Brisbane concert. He would holiday at Jackson’s Neverland ranch in California, before his family eventually moved to the states to foster his fledgling dance career.
James, meanwhile, met Michael Jackson at the age of 10 when they starred together in a 1986 Pepsi commercial. He and his family were invited to join the popstar on tour, during which time Jackson and the boy shared a room.
Speaking to Oprah, the men said it took raising their sons for them to fully comprehend what had happened to them during those years, to break the stranglehold secrecy they'd been expertly manipulated into.
"If my son never would have been born, there's a really good chance that I would still be living in silence," Wade said during the interview, which aired on HBO during the week.
"Because I was so cut off from little Wade, that once my son was born, like, 'Oh my god, this is what a child looks like, this is how a child thinks, this is how a child behaves. That was me.'"
James Safechuck, 42, said he had a very similar experience as he got older; he had detached himself from his past, from the boy that had been abused.
"You don't connect with you as a child. You don't have any sympathy with your [young] self or empathy. There's a disconnect. I don't relate to that kid," James said. "But when you have your own kid - and this is me looking at it now - it's a way to, sort of, bridge that. You can see yourself in him. You see what kids are actually like."
Oprah, herself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, explained why she believes that occurs.
"When you spend your life holding the secret as a child, your whole childhood is a lie," she said. "All the decisions you make about anything, come from that space of a lie. The choices you make come from that space of a lie. That's why you have that feeling of disconnection, I think."
Leaving Neverland is available for streaming now on Ten Play. Part two airs Saturday March 9 on Channel 10.
Want to have your voice heard? Plus have the chance to win $100? Take our survey now.