Just as the Michael biopic hits theaters a new lawsuit against Michael Jackson‘s estate has been filed. The lawsuit claims that he molested members of the Cascio family who he was close with. The claim states that the children in the family were abused of a period of years beginning in childhood and as early as 8 or 9 years old.
The family is alleging that Jackson built a close relationship with them starting in the 1980s. He later used that to groom and manipulate them. His use of gifts and other lavish expenses made on the family’s behalf was his attempt to keep them quiet while the abuse was happening. Whether or not the parents knew the abuse was going on at the time is unclear.
Dominic and Connie Cascio, and their five children, say Jackson abused four of the kids at Neverland Ranch, on trips, and at tour stops.
The Hollywood Reporter
Previously this family defended the singer against allegations of abuse. Most famously speaking out on Oprah Winfrey‘s talk show in 2010. Describing themselves as Jackson’s “second family.”
Hush Money
So why make these allegations now? It appears that secret negotiations were happening behind the scenes. The Hollywood Reporter states that the family struck a secret agreement where the family would be paid around $16 million over the course of five years. When the payments halted in 2025 and the next round of negotiations fell apart they filed the lawsuit against the late singer’s estate.
Lawyers for the estate are of course claiming that this is a blatant money grab. The family is claiming that watching the 2019 documentary “Leaving Neverland” by HBO helped “deprogram” them and helped them to process what had happened.
Disturbing Claims
The family claims they were influenced (possibly in their contract for that secret negotiation) to publicly defend Jackson for years. They did this as allegations circulated, claiming his innocence when it came to child molestation.
The Cascio family says that those around Michael helped facilitate these “meetings” with the children. And that special code phrases were involved such as “Can I have a meeting” and “Go to Disneyland.”
He also would influence the children by putting a cute name on certain things. He would call wine “Jesus Juice” and hard liquor “Disneyland Juice”. They’re also claiming that he would give them “marijuana, illegal hard drugs, and prescription drugs, including Xanax, Vicodin and Viagra.”
What’s unclear is if the parents knew that this was happening all this time and just accepted the money anyway.
Leaving Neverland Director’s Comments on the Success of the New Michael Jackson Biopic
Dan Reid has stated that Michael Jackson was “worse than Jeffery Epstein” and that those who are boosting numbers at the box office just “don’t care”.
“people don’t care that he was a child molester. Literally, people just don’t care … So a lot of people, I think, will kind of swallow any misgivings they may have and just sort of say, ‘Oh well, it’s a great jukebox movie’ and just completely ignore the fact that this guy was worse than Jeffrey Epstein.”
Dan Reid
What Will Happen?
With these new allegations and the court case filed the family will likely see this through. With the public notoriety of the case it would be hard to come to an agreement behind closed doors. If the case is suddenly dropped by the Cascio family it’s almost certain that they cut a deal. But with them going back on their claims of Jackson’s innocence it’s not like they can just say, “oh my bad, just kidding.” The Jackson estate could turn around and sue them for defamation in that case and would likely win given the circumstances.
We’ll probably hear a lot more about this case in the future.
