I'm a Michael Jackson fan. Frankly, I am torn on this whole issue. There is a lot of smoke, more smoke than would be necessary to bury pretty much any other public figure for life. Then there is the indisputable weirdness that was his whole life, culminating in his graceless and untimely death. I think most reasonable fans would concede that the man probably committed sex crimes against minors purely based on all of the circumstantial noise and that Bashir documentary, rife with unforced errors as it was, were it not for the strange and complicated history of the investigations, accusers and conflicting accounts. It is dissimilar to many prominent #metoo cases on the back of that history, but it does feel distasteful to vouch for a man we have only known through a public persona.
If the childlike, loving personality we saw on camera was in fact a facade, that would ultimately mean that all this time he was actually a shrewd, manipulative and deeply immoral person. And that's hard to swallow, because he seemed so good. If these allegations are true, it makes you lose faith in humanity.
Jackson wrote a song called "Do You Know Where Your Children Are" in the '80s, released postumously.
Lyrics:
Father comes home from work, and he's scared to death
Mother cries for the kid, and the note she read
Father runs to the table, he says "What's going on?"
Mother cries desperately, "Our little baby's gone!"
Do you know where your children are?
Because it's now twelve o'clock
If they're somewhere out on the street
Just imagine how scared they are
She wrote that she is tired of step daddy using her
Saying that he'll buy her things, while sexually abusing her
Just think that she's all alone somewhere out on the street
How will this girl survive?
She ain't got nothing to eat!
Now she's on the move, she's off to Hollywood
She says she wanna be a star, she heard the money's good
She gets off from the train station, the man is waiting there
"I'll show you where the money is, girl just let down your hair"
He's taking her on the streets, of Sunset Boulevard
She's selling her body hard, girl that will take you far
The police come 'round the corner, somebody there they told
He's arresting this little girl, that's only twelve years old!
______
If Jackson was indeed guilty, what kind of callous and duplicitous person would he truly have been to put up this front his entire life? Perversely, R Kelly used his music to shield himself by bragging about his proclivities, almost attempting to normalise his deviancy. It really shouldn't have been a surprise to learn he was a paedophile, yet with Jackson, his work always espoused a message of love. If these new accusers are indeed victims, they were manipulated by a cruel and twisted individual.
