Brandi Jackson: 5 Things About Michael Jackson’s Niece Defending Her Uncle Against Sex Abuse Allegations

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Michael Jackson’s niece, Brandi, claimed she dated one of her uncle’s accusers but slammed his sexual abuse allegations. Here’s her backstory.

Brandi Jackson, 37, has been fiercely insisting that her uncle Michael Jackson is innocent in the wake of the Leaving Neverland documentary, in which Wade Robson, 36, and James Safechuck, 40, alleged that the singer sexually abused them as children. Brandi claimed that she dated one of the alleged victims, Wade, and accused her ex of lying about his allegations on Australia’s The Kyle and Jackie O Show on March 11 — here’s the breakdown of her accusations. News of their alleged relationship was news to some of the documentary viewers, so here’s what you should know about MJ’s niece, who now works as a freelance photographer.

1. Brandi said she dated Wade for “all” of their teenage years. According to Brandi, she and Wade met in “approximately” 1991 when they were both nine years old, and worked on the L.A. Gear photo shoot and MJ’s Black or White music video together. She then said it was her uncle who helped set up their relationship, claiming that Michael invited Wade and his family to his Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara about three years later. “[Wade] had asked my Uncle Michael if he would basically put us in a situation where we could get to know each other further. So my uncle invited Wade, his mom and his sister, as well as me and my brother, to the ranch. So we spent about five to seven days there, just getting to know each other…At the end of this trip, he asked me very kindly to be his girlfriend…I want to say maybe we were about 12 years old, at the oldest,” Brandi said on the March 9 episode of John Ziegler’s podcast. Then, on The Kyle and Jackie O Show, Brandi claimed this relationship continued until about 2000 to 2001, and added that they spent all their “teen years” together.

2. Brandi claimed that her ex never brought up the sexual abuse allegations while they dated. When asked if she heard “any of these accusations” from Wade as teenagers, Brandi told radio host Kyle Sandilands, “not at all.” Brandi even claimed that she was always at Wade’s house. “You get this impression from the documentary that Wade was always with my uncle for these long spurts of time. But I can tell you that from the time that I met Wade that wasn’t the case. My uncle was always traveling and working. Wade was here in Los Angeles — he wasn’t with my uncle. I spent a lot of time at Wade’s house with his family. I know where he was,” she said on The Kyle and Jackie O Show. After Michael was accused of child molestation in 1993 and 2005, Wade testified both times that the singer did not sexually abuse him. In the new documentary, Wade said he hid the alleged “truth” because his “whole life would be over” otherwise, and didn’t want Michael’s three young children to grow up fatherless.

3. Brandi is not mentioned in the Leaving Neverland documentary. Despite Wade’s alleged ties to Michael’s niece, he does not bring up Brandi once in the Leaving Neverland documentary, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 25. “Wade and I were together for over 7 years, but I bet that isn’t in his ‘documentary’ because it would ruin his timeline,” Brandi tweeted on Feb. 11.

4. Brandi accused Wade of breaking up Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. “I found out Wade cheated on me with multiple woman who he hoped would advance his career. You might know one of them, because it was a huge pop music scandal. Wade is not a victim, he’s an #Opportunist,” Brandi tweeted on Feb. 11, and went in-depth about this alleged “pop music scandal” on the aforementioned podcast with John (Wade was Britney’s choreographer). “I know that he was pursuing [Britney]…In my understanding, Justin brought Wade onto the project to do production, not just choreography, but production now. And that’s when Britney and Wade really got closer and began sleeping with each other,” Brandi claimed on the podcast. These rumors have never been confirmed.

5. Brandi is the daughter of Michael Jackson’s brother, Jackie Jackson. Jackie, now 67 years old, was a part of the Jackson 5 and is the eldest of the Jackson siblings.