Coming up on 60 Minutes. The movie might be a blockbuster. Ready whenever you are, Michael. But it doesn’t tell the full story. We were under his spell. ; He’s a monster. He’s evil. ; Michael Jackson had a secret family. ; Love you. I was groomed since I was born. ; Who’ll forever be traumatized. ; This was the worst thing to live with.
By what he did to them. ; None of you knew the other was being abused. ; Made you feel like you were the only one. He’s tricked the whole world. That’s next on 60 Minutes. There’s no question. Michael Jackson sure could entertain a crowd. From the age of six until his death at 50 in 2009, he was the master showman.
The proof he could sing and dance is all through the Michael biopic currently screening in cinemas. But there’s a lot about Jackson’s life that’s left out of the movie. In fact, the omissions are so glaring, the film stands accused of attempting to rewrite history. Which is a terrible disservice to five children of the Cascio family, now adults who say Michael Jackson groomed and sexually abused them over a 25-year period.
Tonight, with a trove of never-before-seen photos and videos revealing the closeness of their relationship to the pop star, the Cascios want the world to know what Michael Jackson was really like. A warning though, unlike the movie, this story is not a sanitized version of events. So, viewer discretion is advised.
It’s the new slick film that has Michael Jackson fans in raptures, immortalizing the moonwalking megastar. But beyond this sanitized tribute is a darker story. The true nature of which can be found in the grainy home videos of the Cassio family. Very natural. In 1986, Michael Jackson was a late night surprise visitor to the Cassio family home in New Jersey.
That’s cute. It was the early days of an unlikely friendship between this humble Italian family and the biggest superstar in the world. A friendship so close, Michael Jackson called them his secret second family. ; ; My parents were young. For them to have a this such a big celebrity want to be friends with them and and want to know their children and visiting in in the in the middle of the night, it definitely felt special and SO DID WE.
; [laughter] [laughter] ; BUT NOW, 40 YEARS ON, THE grown Cassio kids want to expose the dark side of that secrecy. ; [laughter] ; Like, why is he playing with us? You know, he’s an adult. You know what I mean? Like Eddie and his sister Marie Nicole. There’s Marie. Oh my gosh. Baby Marie. ; ; And brothers Aldo and Dominic.
Yeah, this is before before any of the abuse started. Aldo. ; ; Watching their younger selves at Neverland. Easy. Michael Jackson’s theme park home, where he was the king of the kids. But in truth, it was a house of horrors. There was a like a private room. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that. Oh my god.
That’s up there, yeah. I went in that room. Tonight, the Cascio family’s shocking revelations. Each and every one of them say they were molested by the pop star. But incredibly, none knew of each other’s abuse. ; [laughter] ; What does that make Michael Jackson in your mind? A monster.
He’s evil. What he did was evil. And he’s tricked the whole world to think that he’s this innocent, perfect human being. And he’s not. I can’t believe how many photos there are of you guys together. ; Oh, and there’s plenty more. ; We have so many photos. ; So many more. No one’s ever seen these pictures.
These photos make up just a fraction of the private collection the Cascios have shared with me. Now, what does this stack of photos mean to you, represent to you? An innocent family getting conditioned and programmed by a mastermind. We are a close-knit family that he just took advantage of. Michael Jackson was a god. In his time, there was no bigger star.
And it was in the mid-1980s that he befriended hotel manager Dominic Cascio Sr., wife Connie, and their children, including Eddie. How old were you when you first met Michael Jackson? I’m going to say I was 2 years old. Yeah, it was 1984. My father used to manage the Helmsley Palace in New York City.
And um he took care of all the the celebrities, and Michael was one of those. I was just a little little kid wearing a red uh suit with white pants, and that was the very first time that I had met him. Soon after, every time Jackson was in New York, he’d catch up with the Cascio clan, often turning up late at night unannounced.
He would show up uh it was with uh Bubbles, his chimp, and I remember waking up, and all of a sudden there was Bubbles jumping from bed to bed. Bubbles, Has he ever been on stage with you? No, not with Bubbles. No, not with me. I don’t want to get hurt by It was wild. From that point, you know, he whenever he would come into town, like he was he he would come visit.
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Over the years, Jackson became a constant in the Cascio family. Dominic Jr. remembers how he drew them all in. He was like the kind of like the fun uncle. You know, like he just was always fun to be around. And it was always a good time. Um just going to toy stores and amusement parks and and this stuff with him it it was just always like a a a good time.
Well, we’re going to make a nice nice party. You can’t Oh, yeah. believe what we’re going to make. In the early days, for sister Marie and her brothers, being in Michael Jackson’s inner circle was pure joy. Yeah. ; [laughter and crying] ; As they grew, they took countless trips on tour as Michael’s special guests, flying by private jet, meeting world leaders, diplomats, and superstars.
What I remember, my first memories was being on the History Tour, traveling to many countries with him. Wow, I’m here with Michael Jackson, touring the world, seeing the mobs of the fans. It was a pretty extraordinary situation and and experience. Hi Mike. Hi Mike. Everybody wave. You must have felt like you were, you know, part celebrity yourself.
; Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah. I mean, that we definitely you had had a false sense of reality then because, you know, he made us feel like we were we were his, his family, his kids, his everything. What was also extraordinary was the bond built between Michael and the Cassios. As their lives became more and more intertwined, Dominic and Connie entrusted their children into Michael’s care.
Dominic Jr. was just nine when he had his first solo stay with the King of Pop. I spent the week alone with him at Neverland. How were your parents convinced to allow you to do that? When you have the biggest superstar in the world in the ’80s that wants to be your friend, you’re vulnerable, easily manipulated in that in in that sense.
But as you’ll see, the Cascios’ claim, grooming and manipulation, set the stage for grotesque and sustained sexual abuse. Not against just one, but all of them. God. This was the worst thing to live with. Imagine your kid, a little kid with a little backpack, go to school and on his mind is he’s having sex with the biggest entertainer in the world and he’s he’s abusing him and you can’t say anything about it.
; [laughter] ; Today, the close-knit Cascio family lives in quiet Greenville, South Carolina. Eddie, Dominic, Marie, and Aldo. A million miles away from their life growing up in New Jersey, where the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, showered them with gifts, trips, and all his celebrity attention.
; ; Very good, [applause] Bobby. Very good. Aldo Do which one do we We Are the World. He just learned We Are the World. I just remember being excited that that he was there, nervous at the same time. My father would say, “Oh, show Michael what you learned on the piano.” So, we would just play the piano that was the songs that we’re working on and, you know, the songs that I was learning were his songs.
Very good. What else, Pop? ; He’s got the chords down. ; ; Eddie first played for Michael Jackson 40 years ago. Today, his memories of that time remain painfully sharp. Eddie says, first, there was the sustained grooming. And then in 1993, during the Dangerous Tour, when he was 11 years old, the molestation.
; ; His trust and adoration of Michael Jackson cunningly turned against him. That’s when my my world started to change. What happened? ; [sighs] ; Well, we were on tour, and that’s when Michael started to get closer, started to maybe rubbing me on my legs, sitting I was sitting on his lap. And that’s when the first kiss happened.
Where he kissed me on the lips. And um that was the start of of my time with Michael of you know, being molested. ; [cheering] ; The world celebrated Michael’s devotion to children on show during his sell-out tours. But Eddie, seen here in black and by the star’s side, now reveals what was really going on. He nicknamed me angel.
He always said like, you’re my you’re my angel. And he would take baths before the show, and I would he would I would take baths with him. Everywhere we went, I was the one that stayed with him in in in his room and in his bed. And did he molest you every time you stayed with him? On tour, absolutely, yeah.
On the tour it was very frequent. Once once we started, it was very very frequent. Almost every night. ; [cheering] ; I love you. It was the same charm offensive Jackson used on all the Casio kids. Love you. Love you. Love you. ; [cheering] ; Making it clear to the world they were his favorites. What that meant in private was highly inappropriate as Dominic soon learned.
It started with what he would call the booty rumble. Where he was laying down on a bed and he would lay me on top of him with my genitals up against his and he would shake my my butt and while he would shake he would kind of like push up against me. How old were you then? I was like 8 years old. And what was he saying to you to make this okay? Uh well, he would kind of say like oh like you know, isn’t this fun? You know, did it feel good? Did you like it? You know, this is this is okay. This is fun.
He would do things like grab my butt and shake it and call it booty rumble and make me laugh. Five years on, Jackson did the very same to Aldo, the youngest child in the Casio family. He was seven when he was first abused by the singer. It was normal to be embraced and close because he framed it and disguised it as love, normal love.
Marie, the Casio’s sole sister, was not spared either. Like her brothers, she says she was brainwashed to believe what Michael Jackson was doing was perfectly natural. But it was so far from it. He just kept saying like this is normal. It’s normal between a man and a woman to be naked. And so he said, “Can you please undress for me?” So I did.
I was 12 years old. And he asked me to spread my legs and he asked to um look at my vagina. And he proceeded to go close to it and he sniffed it. He looked at it and he admired it and was like, “Wow.” Was he naked as well? At that time he just took out his penis. But showed it to me and then that was it that first meeting.
And then he proceeded to talk about how this is something special between myself and him. And that um I cannot share this with anyone. In my family or anyone for that matter. And how often did that type of encounter occur? It continued on um pretty for for a few years after that. We had a secret code that anytime he wanted to have a meeting with me um he gave me the signal.
Um [snorts] it was a snap and a point and that just told me, “Okay, he wants to see me again.” And he would masturbate while looking at me exposed. And um that occurred many times. ; ; Given how truly awful these acts were, it’s hard to fathom how these children could see them as normal or wish to be anywhere near the pop star.
But they say such was his magnetism and manipulation, all they could do was clamor to be by his side. His hold over them was incredible. The first time he really abused me, I was laying in bed with him, and I was just playing my Game Boy, and he just pulled down my shorts. Like real smooth. And he started giving me oral sex.
And he would right away, “Doesn’t that feel good? Doesn’t that feel good? See, I love you. I love you. You know, this is how much I love you. I’m you know, I’m I’m going to make you feel good.” And and and what did I didn’t know idea what sex was. I had no idea that this was inappropriate. He raped me. And and and masked it into the love into love this this fake love.
Over years and across dozens of cities, the unrelenting sexual abuse only escalated. Much of what the Cascio family shared with me here is too explicit to detail. ; ; But it’s clear the superstar shamelessly traded on their innocence to deliver the very worst of Wacko Jacko. At the same time, there was the shopping sprees, there was the amusement park, there was the gifts, like all this stuff that was so it’s it’s almost like they were tied together.
You know, the abuse was tied to to all that good stuff. And then he would then masturbate my me, and then it went into more, um the like kissing, um oral sex, and he would tell me that this was a special bond that we have. He would tell me that he would say, you know, I’m only doing this with you. Like, I love you so much.
And he did many things to prove that to me. You know, some of the things he did was he he would drink my urine and tell me that this is this is how much I love you. This is and and you know, I’m maybe 12 years old at the time. Like, I’m still I’m I’m a child who’s seeing this man do this and I say, oh, like I I guess he really does love me.
I mean, I would never want to drink someone’s urine. So, he must really you know, he must really love me. When you were in it and you were surrounded by his his aura, his his fandom, his power that he had, and you you were thinking that you’re the only person and you’re his soulmate and you’re his his special friend.
That’s how you were brought up. You were conditioned to to to to believe that. You’re conditioned. We were programmed to be his soldier. You know, that’s who we were. Such was his control, Michael Jackson abused Eddie on and off the 16 years. The longest of the Cascios to suffer Jackson’s warped attention.
As I got older, that I was you know, penetrated by him and I would, you know, have to perform oral sex on him and vice versa. I mean, there would it’s it it’s pretty tough because my manhood was taken away as well as my childhood. And now that I have children, knowing that they’re going to find out what happened to their father, it’s very very very difficult.
Coming up, how being a soldier for Michael Jackson meant you protected him at all costs. Do you have to role-play situations where somebody would question you about what was going on? ; He did pretend that he was a cop or a woman. 2 3 Ah, there he goes. That one’s nice. Nice. In 1993, at this photo shoot, a playful Michael Jackson was giving his young friends the full star treatment.
No, I belong right here. You belong right here. The Jackson’s focus was on 11-year-old Eddie Cascio, who at this time was his favorite special friend, not only touring the world with pop star, but also sleeping with the then 34-year-old. What did you think as an 11-year-old sharing a bed with this man? I thought nothing of it at the time.
You know, he he he made me feel comfortable. We were the Apple Head Club. Uh he called us either Apple Head or Doodoo. And um you know, he he uh he he framed it as love. Yeah, he’s got a nice eyes. There you go. There you go. 2 Get that we can look on his face out. 2 3 Get it. 2 3 No No attitude. No attitude. ; Apple Head.
; Loving it. There we go. Got it. Got it. Woah, woah, damn. He oozed innocence and ; Older brother Frank had already been initiated into the so-called apple head club. Now it was Eddie’s turn to join the highly coveted inner circle. Jackson was besotted with the young Eddie and he in turn was intoxicated by the star.
Did you feel love for him? Absolutely, yes. Yes, I did love him. One, two. I’m not a narcissist. Just trying this mirror effect, testing the camera, seeing how well it works. Dude. Apple head. What? Not yet aware of what it really meant, 8-year-old Dominic wanted to be just as close. How desperate were you to get into that club? I was very desperate cuz they always looked like they had such a good time.
You know, I was like, you know, I made it type of thing. But making it really meant access to the darkest recesses of Jackson’s world. Being a member of the apple head club for the Cascio children meant along with sexual abuse, Jackson plied them with recreational drugs, strong painkillers, sedatives, and alcohol.
He introduced me to alcohol at a young age, uh Jesus juice, which was wine, uh Disney juice, which was hard liquor. And also with the with the drugs, there was, you know, he would he always had like Vicodin and that he would give me or uh Xanax. So and then and then he would he he would say like, “Oh, like it’s going to make you float.
It’s going to make you float. You’re going to feel great.” And then he would be like, “Here, have a sip of this. This will make it work faster. Very strong painkillers with alcohol. Yeah. He was not going to steer me wrong. That’s what I thought. So, this is okay. He gave me Xanax and Vicodin at 11 years old and told me I’d be floating.
And I would love it. Like Marie, all the Cascio children were also confronted by Jackson’s frightening decline as his own drug taking and drinking got out of control. There were many times where Michael would overdose on drugs in front of us and we would have to run to get help and we would be panicking.
That sounds like a nightmare for a child to be in. It was so traumatic. So traumatic. I didn’t know what to do. We had to help someone as best we could because he was an addict. For Aldo, the family’s youngest, at times the fear was overwhelming. Did you find his appearance scary as a kid? Yeah. ; [sighs] ; Yeah, especially when you’re in bed with him at night and and he turns into the zombie and you don’t love me. You don’t love me.
His you know, his eyes were like this, all glossy and he was a monster. A literal monster to me. So, yes, he did scare me. Many times. They had long been suspicions about Michael Jackson’s true interest in the children who surrounded him. In 1993, he had been accused by another child, 13-year-old Jordy Chandler, of sexual abuse.
Jackson settled for 25 million US dollars, but denied the allegations, claiming it was a plot against him. I ask all of you to wait and hear the truth before you label or condemn me. Don’t treat me like a criminal cuz I am innocent. He just really put it in our heads that that family was just out for his money and none of that is true.
And did you think the world was out to get him? I did. I believed that at that time. We were warped under his spell and it was hard to de-program from it. ; ; In this childish fact sent to the Cascio kids, Jackson stated his case, vehemently dismissing the claim as a baseless money grab by the Chandlers.
It was all extortion, lies, lies. And the impressionable Cascios bought it. That’s right. All you kids give him a nice massage cuz he’s got ; Okay. No. No, I do you. Given the highly publicized case, it might seem inconceivable, but Mom and Dad, Connie and Dominic Sr., had so much faith in their friendship with Michael Jackson, they were blind to what is glaringly obvious now.
They just didn’t see what was happening under their noses. It’s my your turn, Rina. No. Yes. It’s my I didn’t get I do you. No. No, I do you. When he first abused me in New Jersey, my parents were home, but they were downstairs. And it was normal for him to be with us spending time. Yeah, but he was a man.
So, what was he doing with the kids? Have your parents discussed that with you since those days? So, you know there’s a lot of guilt there because we we and they they have asked us many times in the past and and we were very very adamant that nothing happened to us and that there was nothing going on that was abnormal.
My mom, she asked me “Is Michael doing anything to you? Anything inappropriate?” So, I had to say what he trained us to say and and and with the whole attitude, “No. No. No, Mom, what are you talking about? He would never do that. He does Obviously not, Mom, you know?” She’s like, “Okay.” There are photos of you where you are half-naked and you’re being held by Michael Jackson.
You do not look happy. I don’t. I feel so bad for that child that’s on his lap because I was definitely experiencing some type of trauma. You could see it in my eyes. Would you not have expected others to see that? I I don’t know cuz I didn’t see it in my brothers as well. I So, it’s I can’t judge. Michael Jackson was so good at convincing the siblings of the dire consequences of speaking up.
Each child independently vowed to never talk about it, suffering in isolation, unaware they all shared the same trauma. He would instill a fear into you about if this happens I’m going to be in trouble. You’re going to be in trouble. My life is going to be ruined. You and life and your family’s life is going to be ruined.
I’m going to go to jail, you’ll go to jail. He trained me to even if authorities or anyone asked me is something happening, to say no. Aldo says Jackson even played the role of interrogator to test and train the youngster to never break his pact. ; ; That was the the heavy lifting he did was was pretend that he was a cop or a woman.
What question would he ask you? Just is Michael Jackson doing anything appropriate inappropriate to you? Is he touching you where he does you don’t want to be? Is he Is he touching your peepee? He did role play of me getting dressed and saying you know see how fast I could hide hide any evidence or or or and act like nothing was going on.
So, there was a lot of sick brainwashing and role play that I that I remember and it was totally how he managed to do what he did with us and get away with it. And you know, I I just I just was left hopeless. Even with the overdose death of the pop star in 2009, none of the children could break the hold Jackson had over them.
I fell for it. I worshipped him. I idolized him and I looked up to him like a god. When he died, I was kind of [snorts] left alone and confused and wondering what’s next for me. Coming up, the shock revelation that led each Cascio child to finally share their own dark secret 10 years after Michael Jackson’s death.
I’m like, who got into my brain and put this out here? Like how are they saying this? How do they know this? ; ; For 25 years, Michael Jackson kept secret the terrible sexual abuse he was committing against every child of the Cascio family. And it was a secret they all faithfully kept, not just from the world, but from each other.
Today, Aldo, Marie, Dominic, and Eddie recall their life as kids. I think one of the really extraordinary things about your story is that none of you knew the other was being abused. How could that happen in one family? Well, I think that he just did a very good job of making each person feel that way and feel like and and convince them convince us that we’re the only ones that this was happening to.
Yeah. I think he was a pretty much a master of his craft of of knowing how to pull this off. So, no clue, no hints? Eddie? No. You know, I remember thinking like there’s no like there’s no way that he could do that with someone else. They would come out and say something. You know, there’s no way.
It’s total brainwashing. We were brainwashed to believe that way. This is the Cascio family. They have been reluctant uh to come here today, afraid that they might be betraying a friendship that they’ve held so privately and dearly for over 25 years. They say a mark of how brainwashed they were was their appearance on Oprah a year after Michael Jackson’s death in 2009.
The family went on the show to praise and defend the pop star. So, I have to ask you, Frank, Marie, Nicole, uh did were there ever any improprieties Never. ; with you ; and Michael Jackson. Never. Michael couldn’t He couldn’t hurt harm He couldn’t harm a fly. Your family went on Oprah really to support Michael Jackson to say that he didn’t hurt people, that he could never hurt children.
Why did you do that? Well, we were still under that same mindset that we had to continue to protect him. Nobody was ready to come out with the truth. We were all scared to come out. There’s so what other option do we have? We had to keep defending. That all changed in 2019 with the release of the Leaving Neverland documentary which detailed other explosive allegations against Michael Jackson.
He was one of the kindest people I knew. And he also sexually abused me. For the Cascios, Wade Robson and James Safechuck’s graphic revelations mirrored their own experiences. For a period of 8 years, the abuse was even happening at the same time. For Aldo, then 27, it was the critical turning point.
Learning there were other victims meant this was no longer just his secret to keep. And I was like, “Oh my god. He did this to other kids.” That was enough for my courage to just blossom. I was like, “No, no, no, no. This isn’t made up. This is real.” Aldo decided to tell his family of the abuse he’d endured, unaware he would also be opening the lid on the suffering of each and every one of his siblings.
I called everyone to meet at my mom and dad’s home and I said, “Just want you guys to know that everything that they’re saying is true because it happened to me, too. Aldo’s courageous admission led to all his siblings finally sharing what they say Jackson had done to them. The hardest thing for me to do was to admit it.
; Oh, yeah. I can’t describe the feeling, the range of emotions that I was feeling at the time and coming out. ; I’ll never forget my two parents uh that they they were very and very emotional and and they were like, “Did it happen to you, too?” And that’s when I, you know, I came and I said, “Yeah.” “Me, too.
” And that was it. That was That was it. Howard, you’re taking on a world-famous, a world-loved celebrity. How do you think you’re going to go? I think it’s going to be a long, hard fight, but in the end, we’re going to win and the family is going to get vindication. Wow, them’s fighting words. ; Them’s ears. Howard King is the Cascio family’s hard-bitten but passionate attorney. It outrages me. It angers me.
It pisses me off. So, this is a case about justice or is it about cash? It’s about justice, but justice always comes with a payment. Howard says this is a fight that started in 2019 when in the wake of the bombshell Leaving Neverland documentary, the family was offered hush money by the Michael Jackson estate.
The estate lawyers figuratively and literally put their arms around the Cascios and said, “You can trust us. You don’t need a lawyer. We’re going to treat you fairly.” But Howard says the family was tricked into signing this agreement, which saw them each receive $690,000 US dollars a year for 5 years in return for their silence.
He’s challenging the legitimacy of the contract and says the payout was woefully inadequate. If you believe that they were under-compensated, how much do they deserve? Whatever a jury of 12 people think is fair under the circumstances after that jury has given all the facts including the years of molestation and what the estate has paid out to prior victims.
But because they have received compensation, do they have a right to ask for more? Our basic case is that agreement that compensated is unconscionable, it should be voided and a court should determine a fair amount for the damages they suffered. In 2024 with the Michael Jackson biopic in the works, it seems the estate was in damage control and again approached the Cascio family.
They came to us to tell us that the contract that we signed back in 2019 was toilet paper and that they wanted to make it right with us. ; ; Since then and since the Cascios have recruited the legal muscle of Howard King, Michael Jackson’s estate has gone on the attack denying all allegations against the pop star and accusing the family of making a blatant grab for cash.
The estate lawyers are now suing the Cascios to try to enforce their silence. What threats have been made against you to keep you quiet? Well, they are threatening now to take everything back that they had already paid out to my family. And they are making us look like they don’t believe us. And that um we’re liars, we’re extortionists, and it’s far from the truth.
We were mistreated our whole lives with him, and we’re being mistreated even after his death by this powerful opposition. What is your response to the suggestion, the attack that the Cascios are extortionists, they are liars, and there was no molestation by Michael Jackson? Anybody who sees your interview with the Cascios or sees my 10-plus hours of sworn testimony of the Cascios could not possibly conclude they were lying.
That’s my response. 17 years since his death, Michael Jackson’s star is once again on the rise. There’s the new mega-hit movie. His music is back in the charts. And his estate has $2 billion in the bank. As you’ll see, it’s enough to make the Cascios sick. They don’t want to admit to themselves that the person that they admire is actually a pedophile.
The music, the fame, the man. Michael Jackson’s mega-successful new movie has brought the superstar back to life. But for Jackson’s secret family, ; ; the Cascios, the lavish biopic, which does not deal with allegations of child sex abuse, is very much a fantasy. And Eddie Cascio says it’s critical the truth be told.
Michael Jackson isn’t the man that everyone thinks he is. Michael Jackson is a child molester. He sexually abused me and my my family and many others. He had a problem. And I feel like it’s important for the world to know that the person who wrote those songs, Heal the World and We Are the World, was not that person at heart.
He truly was a monster. He truly was a a bad person. Younger brother Dominique says he’s spent his adulthood trying to overcome the trauma he suffered as a child. ; ; First abused by Jackson when he was just 8 years old. It’s a slap in the face that they are still making him seem like this innocent, amazing person.
His talent, unquestionable. His music, yes. There’s no denying that, but there’s more to him than that. And to see him being celebrated now, it’s frustrating. Because they don’t want to admit to themselves that the person that they admire is actually a pedophile. And from inside the close Jackson circle, Dominique has another secret to share.
He remembers when the pop star was arrested in 2003 following allegations of child abuse made by another teenage boy. And the claims Jackson made that police brutally manhandled him. What did they do? With the handcuffs, the way they tied them too tight behind my back. Yeah. ; When he got arrested, he showed a picture of himself with a bruise on his on his arm saying that it was because of the handcuffs that the police put on him.
Dominic says the truth behind his subsequent severe bruising is vastly different to what Jackson would have the world believe. Realistically, he had that bruise on his arm because he begged me and begged me to punch him in the arm multiple times to create a bruise so he can show to the world that he was abused by the police.
And that wasn’t the case. I didn’t want to do it cuz I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to punch him. I’m not violent. Like but he begged me and said if you love me, you’ll do do this. ; [cheering] ; The molestation case against Jackson finally went to trial in 2005. Right from the start, it was a spectacle fit for Hollywood.
The trial ended with a triumphant Jackson acquitted on all charges. And despite the persistent speculation since, he was never convicted of child abuse. But the Cascio children maintain their claims. Just because he didn’t get caught, it doesn’t make our story any less true. For for some people, they feel discomfort that there’s allegations are being made after Michael Jackson’s death.
That he’s not here to explain himself or defend himself. Can you understand that discomfort? Can I Yes, I I can understand that, but at the same time they have to understand the the the psych- the psychology of what it is to be a a sexual abuse victim. That we were kids. We weren’t able to come forward. He dies and we still have to suffer.
I think it’s not fair that he didn’t live long enough for me to put him in jail. The chairman of the board To understand how entrenched Michael Jackson was in the Cascio family, back in 2001, following the September 11 attack in New York, he stayed in their humble New Jersey home for 3 months. Come on, you don’t appreciate Put together you and and little monkey and Eddie.
That’s when he’s accused of molesting the then 12-year-old Marie for the first time, after years of grooming. Jackson continued with his depravity against Marie for the next 4 years. When did the abuse stop and why did it stop? The last memory I have is at Neverland. Um after the trial.
That was the last time he did attempt um to continue in Bahrain. I was 16 at the time. And I declined. And that’s all all it took. You just had to say no? ; No, he was persistent. And do you remember what he said to you? Oh, he he said, “Oh, come on, Rena come on. Come on. I love you.” And I just said, “No. No more.” Dominic says he was molested by Jackson for eight years, from 1995 to around 2003, stopping when he turned 16.
Today, he suffers deep anguish that his silence put his younger sister and brother into Jackson’s clutches. I didn’t protect them. I didn’t protect them. That is a big regret in my life because I see how it has affected them, and I feel horrible for that. And so, how do you feel about him now? ; [sighs] ; I despise him.
I’m angry at him because I think why did he do this to us? Like, why us? We are a close-knit Italian family that had nothing but but love to give. And why did you take advantage of that? The assaults on little brother Aldo started when he was seven and stopped when he was 14 in 2005. Though, Jackson propositioned him again shortly before his death in 2009, when Aldo was 18.
I actually did have the courage on the phone 3 days before he died. And I was just like, “No. I don’t want to do that anymore.” You didn’t want to be part of that club anymore. Oh, good. Oh, no. Oh, no. I I I hated him. Unable to break away from the control Michael held over him for 16 years, Eddie’s last encounter with the singer was just 5 months before he died.
My relationship continued into my adulthood years. Um And the the last time was in 2009. Ironically enough, in the house that he had passed away in. And that was the last time that it happened. So, how would you describe your feeling for him now? I am angry. I am sad. I am I’m disgusted. I would love to have the had the opportunity to face him while he was still alive and with this with this type of realization that I’m having now.
; ; For so long separated by their secrets, this is a family that now finds strength together. It’s nice to see them laugh, isn’t it? Nice to see them playful. ; It is. It but I think that it’s it is important now that we find more time Yeah. to have these moments. Have they fun? And having fun. Yes.
Why don’t you go and show them how to draw it? Okay. Cool. All right. Here she comes, guys. Okay. I’m joining in. Each has been damaged by their inconceivable experiences. But they’re speaking out, knowing that silence is the greatest enemy of all. Hopefully, this will give courage to other victims out there to come come out and and be strong with us.
Because at the end of the day, he was the monster, not us. ; These should be prized photos, prompting memories of an extraordinary and unique time. Instead, they’re a record of a family’s torment inflicted by a flawed and calculating superstar who took pleasure in preying on the innocent.
It’s actually kind of painful. Because you see the excitement in all of our faces. And it’s it’s sad because you feel bad for that family that was manipulated so badly by him. That’s your family. That’s my family. We were conned by this man. We contacted Michael Jackson’s estate asking for an interview, but no one wanted to speak.
A lawyer for the estate has provided a statement, however, which you can read on our website. Hello, I’m Nick McKenzie. Thanks for watching 60 Minutes Australia. Subscribe to our channel now for brand new stories and exclusive clips every week. Don’t miss out on our extra minute segments and full episodes of 60 Minutes on 9now.com.
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