*Editor’s Note: This investigative piece was originally published on Medium in August 2024. It has been moved to our permanent archives as part of the lead-up to the August 2026 book release of “How Come Nobody Apologizes to Michael Jackson” *

Ladies and gentlemen, we have finally reached the point in this series where we start to tackle the false allegations against Michael Jackson. If you’ve been here since the beginning, then you already know I chose to spend the first five months of this series laying the groundwork by covering elements of Jackson’s childhood, relationships, and even certain things like his battle with vitiligo and the Pepsi burn as an introduction. For those familiar with Jackson, it might have seemed repetitive and tedious, but I did this for two reasons: so that those less familiar could have a resource, and to establish a reference point for when we address certain topics of the allegations in the future.

That said, we’re starting with where it started—the Chandler family. When it comes to any allegation as a whole, there are two questions you have to ask and evaluate: Is the accused individual capable of doing what they are being accused of, and are the accusers capable of lying? The latter is something that has always been a rather taboo question to ask.

To be frank, nobody wants to be the asshole that questions whether or not somebody’s abuse or trauma actually occurred. But, on the opposite side of the spectrum, false allegations and the resulting persecution/prosecution are something that has been happening practically since the beginning of time. People have been put to death, have spent decades in prison, and have lost their jobs, relationships, and livelihoods due to false allegations.

Just take a look, for example, at the tons of stories we’ve heard over the past ten or so years alone as far as people being imprisoned for decades, only to get released because evidence reveals they actually weren’t guilty at all, and their convictions are therefore overturned. The government cuts them a check, but money isn’t enough to make up for lost time and a lost life you can never get back. It’s even worse if the person died in prison or got put to death because…what now? And I want to make something clear here, I am absolutely aware of the opposite end, where justice isn’t served with individuals who did indeed commit the crimes they are accused of.

With Michael Jackson, however, there is plenty of information available to go through these allegations with a fine-tooth comb. Not only that, but these allegations have essentially gone through many different iterations of the court/legal process over the decades (including a five-month trial in 2005 where a not guilty verdict was returned 14 times). For the last decade and some change alone, these allegations have been in and out of court as it pertains to Wade Robson and James Safechuck. They have even been brought up in separate legal matters regarding Jackson’s life. Simply put, nobody, dead or alive, has had their allegations repeatedly investigated in the manner that Jackson has both in life and death. 

Not only that, but every single person within his life who has either accused him or said he was guilty has either been after money, has had issues with credibility/contradictions, or all of the above. Even the people who are against Jackson have had no choice but to admit these issues with credibility and contradictions, but what they typically do is make excuses for them, or come up with reasons as to why these individuals should still be believed in spite of this.

Now, before I get into this introduction of the Chandler family, I have to first address a couple of things that often get misconstrued from an accuracy standpoint:

1) While Evan Chandler did commit suicide a few months after Jackson passed away, there is no indication that it was because of anything as it pertains to Jackson or the 1993 allegations.

2) While some associates of Jordan Chandler have said he personally told them the allegations he made against Jackson were false, Chandler himself has never made those statements publicly.

Now that we have that established, let’s get into the Chandlers. The often untold story is, the Chandlers were a dysfunctional, problematic unit with questionable behavioral habits long before Jackson ever established a relationship with them, and long after.

Evan Chandler

We’ll start with Evan Chandler. While many have deemed Evan the “heroic father who stepped in to rescue his son from Michael Jackson,” that’s very far from the truth, according to, well…his own family and those who interacted with him directly. According to his former wife, June Chandler (whom he divorced in 1985), in her testimony for Jackson’s 2005 trial, Evan wasn’t spending a lot of time in Jordan’s life before the allegations, as he was apparently more focused on the screenplay he was writing.

As you can see from the court transcript above, June testified that she had been complaining to Evan about not spending enough time with Jordan, and that she was “happy” that Jackson had come around as a result. It also appears as though Evan wasn’t that good of a husband either, and had a bad temper, according to reporter Mary Fischer in her GQ article “Was Michael Jackson Framed.” In her piece, Fischer cited an unnamed family friend on the Chandler side who broke down the marital problems between Evan and June:

“By 1980, when their son was born, the couple’s marriage was in trouble. “One of the reasons June left Evan was because of his temper,” a family friend says. They divorced in 1985. The court awarded sole custody of the boy to his mother and ordered Chandler to pay $500 a month in child support, but a review of documents reveals that in 1993, when the Jackson scandal broke, Chandler owed his ex-wife $68,000 — a debt she ultimately forgave.”

While the source didn’t get into the specifics of what those actions of his temper looked like (against June at least), Evan having anger issues was something further documented in 2005 when he violently assaulted his son Jordan:

This document shows that the plaintiff (Jordan) proved to a judge that the defendant (Evan) hit him in the head with a weight, sprayed his eyes with mace, and tried to choke him. One of these acts alone could possibly be looked at as a “rare lapse in anger,” but all three of these in one go are indicative of somebody who has had a history of longstanding temperamental issues with the capability of turning violent.

Aside from his tumultuous personal life and screenwriting aspirations, Evan was a full-time dentist who began his career at Crenshaw Family Dental Center in 1978. According to Fischer, however, being a dentist frustrated him, as that wasn’t what he wanted his main profession to be. Evan’s troubles also bled over into his career:

Born Evan Robert Charmatz in the Bronx in 1944, Chandler had reluctantly followed in the footsteps of his father and brothers and become a dentist. “He hated being a dentist,” a family friend says. “He always wanted to be a writer.” After moving in 1973 to West Palm Beach.

Fischer’s report further documented two professional incidents that’d caused Evan some trouble:

“Chandler’s dental career had its precarious moments. In December 1978, while working at the Crenshaw Family Dental Center, a clinic in a low-income area of L.A., Chandler did restoration work on sixteen of a patient’s teeth during a single visit. An examination of the work, the Board of Dental Examiners concluded, revealed “gross ignorance and/or inefficiency” in his profession. The board revoked his license; however, the revocation was stayed, and the board instead suspended him for ninety days and placed him on probation for two and a half years. Devastated, Chandler left town for New York. He wrote a film script but couldn’t sell it.”

This document, uploaded by Turning the Tables on the Chandler Allegations, backs up Fischer’s claims of the 1978 incident in her article:

Also, according to Fischer, one of Evan’s patients later sued him for dental negligence acts committed in the early 1990s:

One of his patients, a model, sued him for dental negligence after he did restoration work on some of her teeth. Chandler claimed that the woman had signed a consent form in which she’d acknowledged the risks involved. But when Edwin Zinman, her attorney, asked to see the original records, Chandler said they had been stolen from the trunk of his Jaguar. He provided a duplicate set. Zinman, suspicious, was unable to verify the authenticity of the records. “What an extraordinary coincidence that they were stolen,” Zinman says now. “That’s like saying ‘The dog ate my homework.’ “ The suit was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

This document, also uploaded by Turning the Tables on the Chandler Allegations, shows this lawsuit against Evan. Interestingly, the patient in question (Suzanne Ager) also claims Evan touched her inappropriately, but did not recall these incidents until a couple of years later:

Ironically enough, some defenders of Evan don’t fully believe Ager’s claim of recalling abuse after a certain time/therapy, but wholeheartedly support Wade and James, who have similar claims against Jackson. As they would say, “we have to look at the bigger picture (which doesn’t amount to anything with Jackson).” In Evan’s case, another account from actress Carrie Fisher in her memoir documents odd behavior from Evan, along with not following proper protocol while performing her dental work:

Fisher further confirmed her association with Evan in an interview with the New York Times in 2012:

So far, the claims of Evan having anger issues have been confirmed through an incident handled legally by his son, and the 1978 suspension and ruling have secondary claims of not always abiding by proper protocol within his profession. Also, according to this report from 2009, Diane Dimond confirms Evan as having had bipolar disorder, which could have been a factor in the angry outbursts he would experience, according to those who knew him. For what it’s worth, Dave Schwartz (June Chandler’s second husband) also claimed Evan was violent with him as well, which was confirmed by Evan’s brother, Ray Chandler, in his book All That Glitters. In another irony, Ray seemed not to take Schwartz’s additional claims of Evan’s violence seriously, as he didn’t report it to the police first:

Ray also states Schwartz testified that while he had never personally seen or experienced Evan’s violent manner before that alleged encounter, he’d (meaning Dave here) heard from his then-wife June that Evan had “beat up” multiple people, including his own mother, his second wife, and June’s mother as well. June also testified that she’d heard of an incident where Evan had apparently gotten physical with his second wife. Now, I’ve also done some additional research into symptoms of bipolar disorder, and I’ll preface this, like I always do, with sensitive topics:

This is in no way meant to disrespect or make fun of those who suffer from this illness:

According to a May 2023 article written by William Moore and medically reviewed by Smitha Bhandari, MD, people suffering from bipolar disorder can sometimes experience episodes where they see or hear things that aren’t actually happening:

“With severe bipolar disorder, you may have hallucinations, where you see or hear things that aren’t there. You may also have delusions, where you firmly believe in something that just isn’t true. This is when it’s easy to confuse bipolar disorder for schizophrenia.”

Choosing Therapy also states that some manic cycles can last for as long as weeks, months, or years:

I’m only referencing this because based on Evan Chandler’s own words (we’ll get to this later), his “imagination” would often lead him into a state that was almost paranoia-like as far as people lying to him, going behind his back, ignoring/excluding him etc., and sometimes based on his own words, there would be no logical reason as to how he would wind up with the conclusions he did as it pertained to certain events.

So, now we move on to June.

June Chandler

June’s documented history isn’t nearly as extensive as Evan’s. We do, however, know that June enjoyed the benefits of a close relationship with Jackson as well, along with her children, as per her own testimony in 2005, and through documented pictures and appearances. According to Fischer’s article, June also did not originally believe any of her ex-husband’s suspicions, something that is supported by her and her second husband, Dave Schwartz (with whom she shared a child, Lily), originally working with Jackson’s private investigator, Anthony Pellicano:

At a graduation that month, Chandler confronted his ex-wife with his suspicions. “She thought the whole thing was baloney,” says her ex-attorney, Michael Freeman. She told Chandler that she planned to take their son out of school in the fall so they could accompany Jackson on his “Dangerous” world tour. Chandler became irate and, say several sources, threatened to go public with the evidence he claimed he had on Jackson.

Here is another excerpt from Fischer’s article that details Schwartz and Chandler’s interactions with Pellicano:

On July 9, 1993, Dave Schwartz and June Chandler Schwartz played the taped conversation for Pellicano. “After listening to the tape for ten minutes, I knew it was about extortion,” says Pellicano.

I’m going to stop here as the actual timeline leading up to the allegations is something I will be covering in-depth later on. As far as June goes, we also know that at the time of Jackson’s 2005 trial, at least, June admitted that she hadn’t spoken to her son (Jordan) in eleven years:

If you do the quick math and subtract 11 years from 2005, that puts us at the year 1994, which just so happens to be the same year of the settlement (don’t worry, we’ll get into that). This is where I will leave June…for now

Jordan Chandler

Much in the way of his mother, there isn’t a lot of documented information about Jordan, so we’ll stick with what we know. We know from June’s testimony in 2005 that Evan wasn’t the most present father, to say the least. While it wasn’t expanded upon what effect that might have had on Jordan as a kid, one can only assume June raised the issue of Evan spending more time with his son because she thought him not being as involved was a negative within Jordan’s life (otherwise she wouldn’t have even brought it up…right?). 

From June’s testimony, we also got official confirmation that she was having marital problems with Dave Schwartz by the time the family met Jackson. The effect of their dwindling relationship on their kids is also something that has never really been covered, and it’s not quite clear how close June, Dave, Jordan, and Lily (Jordan’s half-sister) were as a full unit. On the outside looking in, it certainly appeared June, Jordan, and Lily were close, but that’s only an assumption from the outside. As it pertains to Jordan’s claims and the timeline surrounding them, I will be addressing that later.

Now, as per June’s testimony that was cited earlier, Jordan had been estranged from his mother for 11 years by the time of Jackson’s 2005 trial. While Jordan was apparently reported to have legally emancipated himself from both June and Evan in 1995 (I haven’t found a document that backs this up), it appears from the divorce filing of Evan’s second wife that Jordan and his father continued living together post-settlement.

Once again, those documents were uploaded by Turning the Tables on the Chandler allegations:

Here is a cleaner version of her statements:

Evan is not a person who has a lot of friends. Since he decided to live with and off of his son Jordan, he has become either a nomad or a recluse. He does nothing to provide for his own living, or that of his minor children. He apparently is satisfied to allow his 18-year-old son to support him and has purposefully cut himself off from any other family members who disagree with his behavior.

As mentioned earlier, things came to a head with Jordan and Evan’s relationship in 2005, upon Evan physically assaulting him. Their relationship status at the time of Evan’s passing in 2009 is unknown. Additionally, Evan also reportedly sued Jordan in 2005 over what was said to be an issue over a trust. That lawsuit was apparently dismissed in 2007. This document, uploaded by a fan of Jackson, seems to support a filing of some sort from that period:

Dave Schwartz

David Schwartz is the second husband of June Chandler. As far as Schwartz goes, I’m going to start with his individual lawsuit filed against Jackson in August 1994:

Let’s specifically focus on Schwartz’s claim that “he did everything to protect Jordan from Jackson sexually assaulting him.” Well, if that was the case, then why was Schwartz originally working with Jackson’s investigator, Anthony Pellicano, when it became clear that Evan was trending towards the direction of accusing Jackson of at least something improper? Even if at that specific time Jordan hadn’t changed his stance on Jackson abusing him, why take Jackson’s side first if the main concern was Jordan? 

Why secretly tape Evan and hand those tapes over to Pellicano if he was “doing everything to protect Jordan from Jackson?” For all intents and purposes (which is also verified through tapes and documents), June and Dave started on Jackson’s side, which calls the validity of Schwartz’s lawsuit statement into question. We also now know through June’s testimony that their marriage was in trouble, and obviously those troubles had to have been there previously for June to tell Jackson about them to some extent (something June somewhat acknowledges to in her testimony…though she says she didn’t go into a lot of detail).

If you’re confused, you’ll understand completely soon.

That said, why did Schwartz seem to do nothing about June frequently taking their kids to see and travel with Jackson? What about the daughter they shared? Was he not “concerned” about her too? My point in bringing this up is that it once again shows how the narrative changed on that side when the opportunity to sue Jackson for millions came about.

The Meeting

So…how did Jackson and the Chandlers originally meet? It all started in May 1992 when Jackson’s car broke down while driving on Wilshire Blvd. Jackson then went to a local car rental agency that was owned by Dave Schwartz. A deal was made with Jackson by Schwartz that ensured he would get his rental for free if he made a phone call to Schwartz’s stepson, Jordan. And now we pause…

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Featured Photo: Sony Records

Author Bio

Jael Rucker is the founder of Decked Out Magazine. She has previously worked as the Associate Commerce Editor at PureWow, focusing on analytics and trends to pitch stories and optimize articles that build and engage their audience. Her work has also been seen in Footwear News and WWD. Prior to 2024, she was the style and pop culture editor at ONE37pm for over three years, contributing numerous product reviews, brand profiles and fashion trend reports, which included interviewing Steph Curry, Snoop Dogg and more.