Strictly Come Dancing bosses have denied reports that they will be banning Michael Jackson songs from the new series.
Reports emerged on Sunday that songs by the US singer would no longer feature on the BBC dance show after the Leaving Neverland documentary was aired on Channel 4.
Jackson’s songs have featured regularly across the 16 seasons of Strictly, with former England cricketer Graeme Swann and partner Oti Mabuse performing the cha-cha-cha to his 1983 smash Thriller on last year’s series.
The Sun claims that bosses are pulling Jackson’s back catalogue from the next series of Strictly because of the sexual abuse allegations made by two men in the four hour documentary.
But a BBC spokesperson insisted that the corporation does not ban artists from its radio stations or TV programming.
“We consider each piece of music on its merits and decisions on what we play on different networks are always made with relevant audiences and context in mind,” a BBC spokesperson told HuffPost UK.
Channel 4 aired Leaving Neverland in the UK on Wednesday and Thursday this week.
The film features extensive interviews with Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who accuse the singer of molesting them when they were younger. The Jackson family have vehemently denied the allegations.
Since the documentary aired, radio stations in Canada, New Zealand and Australia have removed Michael Jackson songs from their playlists.
Canadian company Cogeco Media confirmed they had removed Jackson’s tracks from several French-language stations they own.
Christine Dicaire, director of communications and marketing at Cogeco Media said in a statement to CNBC: “We are attentive to the comments of our listeners, and the documentary released on Sunday evening created reactions. We prefer to observe the situation by removing the songs from our stations, for the time being.”
Australian Nova Entertainment Group also removed his tracks from stations including Smooth FM, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
New Zealand’s major radio stations, owned by NZME and Mediaworks, also took the star’s music off its playlists on Wednesday, according to the New Zealand Herald.