Mark Ronson said he re-examined a 1988 hotel encounter with Michael Jackson after years of public allegations of child sexual abuse against the pop star.
In his new book, the 50-year-old producer recounts being introduced to Jackson at age 13 by Sean Lennon and attending a Bad concert and a subsequent hotel-room afterparty. Ronson said he went to the meeting as a teenager eager to break into the music business, and while he described the event as strange, he insisted that nothing "weird or untoward" happened that night. He added that, in light of later accusations against Jackson, he has replayed the episode "a hundred times."
Ronson offers a vivid anecdote about Jackson's behavior at the hotel, saying the star amused himself by wetting toilet paper and throwing it out of the window at parked cars. The producer said he had hoped to impress Jackson as an aspiring DJ but found the singer more interested in playfulness than professional conversation.
Jackson's career was shadowed by allegations of child sexual abuse beginning in the 1990s. He faced criminal charges in a high-profile 2003 investigation and was acquitted at trial in 2005. Jackson died in 2009 at age 50 of cardiac arrest after receiving propofol as a sleep aid.
The issue re-emerged in public debate following the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, in which Wade Robson and James Safechuck detailed allegations of sexual abuse beginning in childhood. Safechuck, who has described being abused when he was 10, has spoken publicly about confronting the emotional fallout years later after having children of his own. In recent interviews cited by media outlets, Safechuck said he experienced a breakdown after the birth of his first child in 2010 and described a sense of self-loathing tied to his relationship with Jackson.
Safechuck and Robson have both said their alleged abuse began when they were very young; Robson has said it continued for seven years, beginning when he was five, and Safechuck has described a multiyear pattern. Safechuck said in media interviews that Jackson, who was about 30 years older, would reward him with gifts and jewelry. Legal actions tied to those allegations have had a complex history: Safechuck's case was dismissed in 2017 and, according to media reports, later revived after changes to statutes of limitation.
Ronson's reflections mirror a broader cultural reckoning over Jackson's legacy. For many in the music industry and the public, memories of Jackson's artistic achievements have been increasingly weighed alongside the allegations and legal battles that followed him for decades.
In his account, Ronson emphasized that the hotel meeting remained, for him, a strange but nonsexual episode. He said his recollections have been sifted repeatedly as subsequent revelations and legal claims about Jackson's conduct have emerged, and that revisiting the memory was unavoidable given the scope of the accusations and the public conversation that has followed them.