Why I Never Put Gavin Arvizo on Air

By Rob Redding

Editor & Publisher

NEW YORK, June 8, 2026, 12 a.m.— Netflix’s “Michael Jackson: The Verdict” keeps circling this odd silence from Gavin Arvizo, the guy who accused Jackson of molesting him. The new documentary tries to paint his silence as some big mystery, but it is not mysterious to me because I actually know Gavin. We crossed paths in real life, worked together, and what I learned from him does not line up with what this documentary wants viewers to think.

We met on March 10, 2013, out of all places, at an Olive Garden. I never forget a face, and the minute he walked me to my table I knew I had seen him before. He seemed tense when I said he looked familiar, and a few minutes later he came back and told me who he was. There was no shock on my end because I already suspected it.

What happened after that stayed with me for years. Arvizo came to work at my company as an intern, and given everything he had been through with Jackson, we had him sign a nondisclosure agreement. I still have emails, the nondisclosure agreement he signed, and the résumé he submitted when he joined my company, and both documents confirm exactly what I am saying here. That was standard for us since we were syndicating talk radio talent at the time, and Arvizo sounded sincere about wanting to host his own show.

This is where the documentary glides right over something real. When it came time to talk about Jackson, I asked him directly if he still stood by those allegations. He told me he did, but I did not buy it then and I believe him even less now after everything Netflix left out. I asked if he would be willing to talk about it with listeners, and he refused without hesitation.

Let me tell you something from experience. I have been in talk radio for thirty years in markets like Atlanta, San Francisco, and later on Sirius XM. I have been named one of the 100 Most Important Talk Hosts in America. I have also been a program director at one of the top mainstream talk stations in America. I know the talk radio game inside and out and you cannot dodge the thing that defines you because callers will dissect your past and demand answers. If you tell them something is off limits, they will know you are hiding, and once the audience senses that, the trust is gone. And without the trust of your callers and audience, you do not have a show.

It is important to understand that what I am saying comes from decades inside the industry, not from personal bias. It is how radio has always worked. Look at Oliver North following the Iran-Contra and all the controversy surrounding it; he still faced the subject head on. He took calls, argued about it on air, and never tried to hide from it. His entire brand was built on the fact that he had been in the middle of a national scandal.

G. Gordon Liddy is an even stronger example. He was convicted for his role in Watergate and served more than four years in federal prison, yet when he got a talk show he talked openly about Watergate, prison, the break-in, and the Nixon era. He took calls on all of it and made it part of his identity. His show ran for twenty years because he never hid from the thing that defined him.

If Oliver North could talk about Iran-Contra, and if G. Gordon Liddy could talk about Watergate, then Arvizo could have talked about Michael Jackson. He simply chose not to, and that choice was the red flag.

A few months after we had that conversation, Arvizo told me he was getting married, and that was the last time we spoke. There is no bad blood on my end. I still have his number and his email, but I could not put a guy on air who would not even talk about the one thing that shaped his public life.

This is what the documentary will not tell you. Arvizo is not under a gag order, and he is not being silenced by anyone. He told me himself that he ignores the journalists who reach out to him. And let us be real about Arvizo’s claim, if Jackson did what they say he did, why stay quiet now? The man is gone. You would expect Arvizo to speak up, not disappear. If you truly believe you were wronged, you do not walk away from that story. Silence only makes sense if you know the story will not hold up under real questions.

This is why I never gave him a show, and I do not regret that decision. Good talk show hosts are open books with their audience because that is the only way the medium works. Gavin was not willing to be honest, and that was a red flag then and it remains one now.

(Rob Redding is the editor and publisher of Redding News Review, an award‑winning independent news site and daily commentary. He is also the author of the forthcoming book Graphic Graphite: Bucking as a Challenge to Racial Narrative.)