After watching the HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, the producers of The Simpsons decided to pull from circulation a 1991 episode of the show featuring the voice of Michael Jackson, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Leaving Neverland focuses on two men who say they were molested by Jackson as children, and removing the "Stark Raving Dad" episode from streaming services, television stations, and DVD box sets "feels clearly the only choice to make," producer James L. Brooks told the Journal on Thursday.
In "Stark Raving Dad," Homer Simpson meets a patient in a mental hospital named Leon Kompowsky, voiced by Jackson, who thinks he's the pop star. Brooks said this was one of his all-time favorite episodes, but it has to be pulled out of empathy for the alleged victims. Before he died in 2009, Jackson denied multiple allegations of molestation, and his estate sued HBO last month in an attempt to block the network from airing the documentary.
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