SANTA MARIA, Calif. – An ex-maid at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch dubbed the place “Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island” after she watched countless kids turn “wild” there and once saw the pop star dine with four or five boys who looked “intoxicated.”
And in testimony that can’t help a guy on trial for child molestation, Kiki Fournier said Jackson had at least nine “special friends” – all boys – in her 12 years of employment.
Besides the accuser, and another boy who won a multimillion dollar settlement from Jackson in 1992, the list of cozy over-nighters included former child actor Macaulay Culkin and Britney Spears’ cute choreographer Wade Robson.
Culkin and Robson deny they were molested.
Fournier did not report ever seeing Jackson molest or give alcohol to any child, but she did testify she saw kids who appeared intoxicated “a couple of times” over the years.
In one incident in September 2003, Fournier said she served dinner to Jackson and “four or five” boys.
“How many [children] were intoxicated?” the prosecutor asked.
“At least three of them,” she replied.
Asked why she thought the kids had been drinking, she replied: “They were acting differently.” She quit the job that month, but did not say why.
The ex-maid described life at Neverland as part “Animal House” and part PG-rated Roman orgy, where kids’ excesses included “eating too much candy, riding the rides until you get sick,” crashing golf carts and trashing the Neverland mansion with Silly String.
The no-rules atmosphere at the 2,800-acre ranch could make some kids turn rotten, she said: “They became very wild, sometimes destructive.”
Kids threw candy and popcorn in the theater, had food fights and broke things, she said. Occasionally, she said, Jackson “would tell them to behave” if he was around.
“In the absence of an authority figure, children became wild and without their parents there, this became Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island,” she said.
On cross-examination, Jackson’s attorney Tom Mesereau scored points when he got Fournier to reveal that the accuser, then 13, and his younger brother, 12, had behavior problems.
The boys grew “demanding,” showed “no respect” and trashed their room “like a tornado or a whirlwind” hit it.
Once the younger brother “stuck a knife in my back” she said, while she was washing dishes. He didn’t stab her and she he was likely “joking,” she added. But “Who wants a knife in your back?. … I didn’t like it.”
Despite the accuser and his brother’s claims that Jackson constantly gave them alcohol during their stay at Neverland in early 2003, Fournier said “I didn’t think so, no” when asked if she ever saw them drunk.
She also contradicted the boys’ testimony that their family was held hostage there.
“Didn’t you tell the sheriff’s deputies, ‘How hard is it to leave – just walk!'” Mesereau asked.
“Something like that,” she replied.