Celeb news: New Michael Jackson child sex abuse claims.

New child sex abuse claims have emerged against the late Michael Jackson, as a man who worked alongside him in a 1987 Pepsi commercial adds him name to a lawsuit against the singer’s estate.

James Safechuck claims that he was groomed and sexually molested by Jackson, beginning from the age of 10 and continuing for four or five years. Safechuck made the commercial with Jackson when he was just a boy, and then travelled on a number of Pepsi-sponsored trips with the singer to locations like England and Hawaii.

Safechuck’s name first came up during Jackson’s criminal trial for paedophilia nine years ago, but he denied at the time at Jackson had done anything untoward towards him.

He has now added his name to suit filed by the Aussie choreographer, Wade Robson.

Here’s the Pepsi commercial in question:

The Daily Beast reports that a source told them Safechuck’s is “the same type of sex abuse claim as Wade’s, only with a different set of facts … and dates.”

36-year-old Safechuck is now married and a father of two children, and says that he only came to the realisation that he had been molested as a child after seeing Robson’s suit last year. After the realisation, he started undergoing therapy.

While Safechuck himself previously denied that Michael Jackson had ever molested him, witnesses in Jackson’s entourage at the time say differently.

One manager of Jackson’s Neverland estate said during the 2005 criminal proceedings that he had seen Jackson and Safechuck in a spa, and said that the singer had his hands “down the front of Jimmy’s underpants and was manipulating the boy’s genitalia.”

A maid said during the trial that he had seen Jackson and Safechuck in bed together, with no clothes on from the waist up.

Representatives for the estate of Michael Jackson have strenuously denied the claims. Howard Weitzman, the attorney for the estate of Michael Jackson, has told Radar:

Twenty five years after the fact and five years after Michael Jackson passed away Mr. Safechuck — who has many times over the years denied Michael Jackson did anything inappropriate to him — is now demanding money from Michael’s Estate by claiming he suddenly recalls life differently. His new story is that Wade Robson’s nearly identical lawsuit filed a year ago by the same attorney caused him to now recall certain events. Of course, Michael is not here to defend himself. Nonetheless, we believe these false and scurrilous allegations will not prevail.

The fifth anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death is coming up. The singer died on June 25, in 2009 at the of of 50. 

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