'I just saw a lot of fondling': Michael Jackson's former maid claims
Michael Jackson’s former maid Adrian McManus has given a new interview on what she alleges she witnessed while working at Neverland Ranch.
McManus, who worked at Jackson’s sprawling Californian estate from 1990 to 1994, will appear on 60 Minutes in Australia on Sunday.
In a preview of the upcoming episode, she tells the Aussie version of the US news show that she witnessed ‘fondling’ and kissing’ between Jackson and underage boys while working for the late King of Pop.
“I just saw a lot of fondling, hugging, petting and kissing them,” McManus said, explaining that she caught glimpses of the intimate scenes from outside of Jackson’s bedroom window.
She added that while he was a kind employer to her, she also saw a ‘dark side.’
“There was a kind side to him, and yet there was a dark side,” she said.
The interviewer asks her why it took her so many years to come forward with her story, to which she replied she was told by Jackson’s handlers that they would kill her if she ever did.
“I was scared to say anything bad about Mr Jackson. They told me if I ever came up on TV that they could hire a hitman to take me out, slice my neck, wouldn’t ever find my body.”
But this is in fact not the first time McManus has told her of her experience. She appeared in court to testify against Jackson in his 2005 child molestation trial.
During the trial, for which Jackson was cleared of all charges, McManus said she had witnessed Jackson touch several underage boys inappropriately, including Macaulay Culkin.
She claimed to have seen Jackson touch Culkin’s bottom, to which the former child actor firmly denied during the same trial.
Jackson was legally accused twice of child molestation in his lifetime, once in 1993 and again in 2004, but he was never found guilty of any charges.
He allegedly paid his first accuser, Jordy Chandler, an estimated $20 million (£15.3 million) in an out of court settlement.
The late King of Pop is now the subject of an upcoming channel 4 documentary, Leaving Neverland, in which two new men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, accuse Jackson of molesting them as children from the age of 7.
Leaving Neverland will air on Channel 4 on March 6 and 7.
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