The Missing Bed Blunder: MJ’s Fans Caught Napping on the Facts

Oct 23, 2022

I’m a big fan of the Snipping Tool built into Windows. It makes capturing screenshots from any website quick and effortless, and it’s brilliant for sharing interesting finds with others. But, like any tool, it can be misused — and when it is, it becomes a handy vehicle for spreading misinformation.

Take the Twitter user “Michael Jackson’s Fact Vault” (@MJsFact_Vault). She runs multiple accounts, including @RaspberryR3d, and regularly floods Twitter with edited videos and selectively cropped screenshots designed to “prove” Michael Jackson’s innocence.

If James, Jordan, Jason, Gavin or Wade have said anything publicly, chances are MJs Fact Vault has produced a thread accusing them of “lying”. These threads are usually lifted from other users, stripped of context, and show little sign of even the most basic investigative work.

I’ve already written a full blog post called “The Tell‑Tale Splotch: Debunking MJ’s Fact Vault.” It’s a direct response to her thread, where she tries to “expose” Thomas Sneddon’s comments about Jordan Chandler’s description of Jackson’s genitalia. If you fancy a quick refresher on basic English definitions, it’s worth a look.

Another thread that caught my eye earlier this year was “The Evolving Memory of Wade Robson,” which—predictably—relies heavily on cropped screenshots and selectively edited videos.

She tweeted:

The whole thread is chaotic and completely lacks structure. I honestly can’t work out what she’s trying to do, other than spark yet another round of victim‑shaming by nit‑picking over whether Wade said the abuse happened on the first, second, or third night, and so on.

A good example of how MJ’s Fact Vault fails to fact‑check its own “facts” — or simply hopes no one else will — is the CBS This Morning interview with Wade and James.

She tweeted:

Out of a 29‑minute video, MJs Fact Vault has clipped just one minute and 11 seconds in which Wade says “nothing particular happened that night.” This is then held up as supposed “proof” that he’s flip‑flopping and can’t keep his story straight.

Watch her version below.

If you watch the full video, Wade goes on to explain that Jackson did start touching him during those first two days — a hand on his leg, lots of hugs, kissing his forehead, and rubbing his hand. Setting aside any urge to idolise celebrities, it’s reasonable to recognise that a grown man behaving this way with a child he barely knows is clearly inappropriate and fits the pattern of grooming and abuse.

Watch the segment below.

You can watch the full CBS interview on YouTube.

The Missing Bed

Anyway, let’s move on to the so‑called “missing bed” thread, which once again is presented without proper context and even leans on claims made by Jackson’s former housemaid, Blanca Francia, and her son Jason.

She states:

And:

That’s essentially it — a rapid‑fire, two‑tweet thread that supposedly “exposes” Wade Robson yet again.

What’s odd is that MJ’s Fact Vault leans on the testimonies of Blanca and Jason Francia as if they’re unquestionably reliable. This is despite the fact that Jason accused Jackson of child molestation in the mid‑1990s, and his mother reportedly received a settlement of more than two million dollars shortly afterwards. You’d think that alone would land them both firmly on the Michael Jackson fan naughty list. But when you’re defending a man who shared his bed with boys, it seems you’ll scrape the barrel for anything that might help your argument.

Perhaps the biggest hypocrisy, though, is that the “missing bed” claim isn’t based on any original research by MJ’s Fact Vault at all. Its roots can be traced back to Vindicate MJ, a Michael Jackson glorification blog run by a Russian misinformation troll, who published a post titled “THE MISSING BED in Wade Robson’s crime story” back in February 2015.

Neither MJ’s Fact Vault—whose other account proudly displays the motto “in an investigation details matter”—nor Vindicate MJ, known for their sprawling posts, ever explain why Blanca Francia said there was no bed in Jackson’s Westwood apartment, or why she was asked about it in the first place.

And the real explanation is far more troubling than the idea of Wade Robson inventing a non‑existent bed.

Let’s Start from the Beginning

Blanca Francia, originally from El Salvador, moved to the United States in 1975. She began working as a housemaid for Michael Jackson in 1986, first at the Jackson family’s Havenhurst home, then at Jackson’s Wilshire Boulevard apartment known as “The Hideout”, and eventually full‑time at Neverland from 1988. When Jackson relocated permanently to Neverland Ranch, he could easily have hired local staff. Instead, he paid for Blanca and her young son, Jason, to move from Los Angeles to the Santa Maria area. Whether this was simple generosity or a sign of an unhealthy interest in a single mother and her fatherless child is a question that has lingered ever since.

Their full testimonies can be read here and here.

It’s also worth noting that Blanca’s first language is Spanish, and her grasp of the questions during the trial—both in understanding and in expressing herself—was not particularly strong.

With that in mind, let’s move on to the key points.

To spare you the tedium, we’ll go straight to the part where both witnesses state that there was no bed in Jackson’s apartment.

The questions were put to them by Ron Zonen.

Even her son, who gave evidence before her, said the same thing.

As previously mentioned, MJ’s Fact Vault has never attempted to explain why Blanca and Jason were asked specific questions about a bed in Michael Jackson’s hideout apartment in her tweets.

To understand why this matters, it’s worth recalling that a central part of Jackson’s defence regarding the sleepovers was his claim that they always took place in a super king‑size bed — supposedly the biggest bed in the world.

Before the trial, Wade Robson, Brett Barnes and Macaulay Culkin had all given similar accounts of these “sleepovers”.

In a 1993 video directed by Anthony Pellicano, both Wade and Brett state that they “slept on one side of the bed while he slept on the other.” Despite both being Australian and close in age, their own testimonies confirm that they never spent a single night in the bed with Jackson at the same time. The fact that their statements mirror each other so closely — and were recorded on separate days — is striking.

Just before the 2005 trial, Macaulay Culkin gave an interview to CNN in which he said, “I don’t think you understand. Michael Jackson’s bedroom is two stories with three bathrooms,” suggesting that the idea of any kind of intimate bed‑sharing was unrealistic. He added, “If somebody had done that to my kid, I wouldn’t settle for money, I’d want the guy in jail.”

When he later took the stand, Culkin testified that he had often slept in the same bed as Michael Jackson. He explained that, on some occasions, he simply fell asleep there from sheer exhaustion after spending long days enjoying the attractions and activities at Neverland Ranch. He also said he knew little to nothing about other boys’ experiences or the sleepovers that took place — sleepovers which, in Jordan Chandler’s case, reportedly included Jackson sharing his single‑bed at the family home.

So Why the Question about a Bed?

Jackson’s hideout apartment was never what you’d call a proper home. It was sparsely furnished and, in those early years at least, he didn’t use it as a full‑time living space.

Blanca, whose main job was to clean the family’s Havenhurst home, also took responsibility for tidying the apartment. Her young son, Jason, often accompanied her, usually at weekends. Jackson developed a keen interest in the boy, and before long the two were spending increasing amounts of time in close company. With no Neverland Ranch yet, and no vast super king‑size bed, Jackson invited Jason to share his makeshift sleeping arrangement: a pile of blankets on the floor and a single‑size sleeping bag.

Blanca Francia testified:

In short, Blanca Francia testified that, on at least one occasion, she saw Michael Jackson and her young son—no older than seven or eight at the time—together inside a single‑size sleeping bag. Even when she gently tried to coax her son out by telling him his dinner was ready, Jackson didn’t seem concerned or in any hurry to end what was, at the very least, an inappropriate situation.

So yes, MJ’s Fact Vault and others may feel they’ve successfully shown that Wade Robson was mistaken—or lying—about the apartment containing a standard four‑legged bed with a headboard, base, and mattress. But in doing so, they also appear to acknowledge that Jackson did, on at least one occasion, cuddle up with a seven‑year‑old boy in a single‑size sleeping bag.

Did Wade Robson Really Lie?

Many people around the world — particularly in poorer countries — sleep on nothing more than blankets and pillows laid directly on the floor, yet still refer to it as a bed. Even animals rest on a “bed” of hay, so the term can be fairly flexible.

But before demonising Wade for not being specific about what type of bed it was, we need to examine Blanca’s and Jason’s testimony more closely and explain why it is entirely possible that a traditional bed did exist during Wade’s first overnight stay at the apartment.

Blanca worked for Jackson from 1986 to 1991, but her period of full‑time cleaning at his apartment lasted only about a year before she moved closer to Neverland Ranch. All the questions about the lack of a bed relate specifically to the period when Jason spent time at the apartment, which was before Jackson relocated permanently to the ranch in 1988.

Questions by Thomas Mesereau.

Jason, born in 1980, says he was about eight or nine the last time he visited the hideout apartment. That fits with the timeline of him and his mother moving permanently to Santa Maria in 1988.

Blanca Francia has said that she continued to clean the hideaway apartment occasionally even after moving permanently to Santa Maria, but only for about a year. That would place her last visits around 1989.

Questions by Ron Zonen.

According to the documentation provided by MJ’s Fact Vault, the Robsons’ first visit to Neverland Ranch took place in February 1990.

The following Monday, the family stayed at Jackson’s Westwood apartment. Wade spent the night there, while his mother and sister stayed at the Holiday Inn across the road.

Although Blanca Francia’s last cleaning duties took place in late 1989, it had already been more than a month — and in Jason’s case, more than a year — since either of them had been inside the apartment. In practical terms, this means Blanca Francia had no real way of knowing whether a traditional bed was present when Wade Robson first stayed there. Some people have taken her earlier testimony — where she said “never” and then “the whole time you are cleaning there” — as a sweeping claim that there was no bed right up to 1991. But that interpretation doesn’t hold, because she later clarified that she was no longer responsible for cleaning the apartment during her final years of employment.

In conclusion, neither Blanca Francia nor her son, Jason, contradict Wade Robson. Neither of them knew whether a conventional bed was in the apartment in February 1990. And if there wasn’t one, then Wade — like Jason, and possibly many others before and after — simply curled up in a single‑size sleeping bag on a makeshift bed alongside Michael Jackson.