Really, you have to say he's someone that became intoxicated with fame & money and abused his privileges to live a fantasy life, free from rules, including legal ones.
Doesn't seem very victim-like to me.
Was he really a vile character though? He did hold the Guiness Book of World Records for pop star with the most charity organizations donated to. Although that could be just be that he donated a little to a lot of charities. But don't tell me he wasn't a kind or giving person. I was just watching that documentary of Michael Jackson being interviewed by Martin Bashir, and they were interviewing these children with a terminal cancer that after MJ showered lots of attention to, got miraculously better. That story just made me tear up.
I might get in trouble for saying this, but I believe that "Michael Jackson did it."
While Bill O'Reilly has come down hard on Michael Jackson, which I agree is important, I disagree with O'Reilly's technique of innocently saying he won't assume that MJ sexually molested children.
I actually believe MJ did because why would he have to settle out of court? Read The Smoking Gun's Case Against Michael Jackson which was written in 2005, a time when we were collectively sober-minded about the whole thing.
Of course I can't say for sure that MJ did something to Chandler, but I'd say he's at least OJ-level guilty. Most likely Chandler was the only one to pipe up. But extrapolate the lines properly, MJ was hungry for getting close to children and sleeping with them, what in the world do you think his intentions were?
Now, I hate to do this racial game. But there is the thought, "what if he was white?" (ignore the fact that he bleached himself white). A friend-of-mine mentioned that Elvis Presley was having sex with Priscilla when she was 14 and nobody seems to mind that. But then again, I don't think it's as strong of a comparison, considering that many normal countries (like Canada, Brazil, and China) have an age of consent of 14. (Just a side-note, Chandler, the boy with whom MJ settled out of court, was 13 at the time. Although male-male sexual age of consent is usually a lot higher—although why should it be higher than male-female?)
I think the best comparison would be, "What would happen if Woody Allen died?" Would all these pundits be jumping over themselves to slam him for marrying his stepdaughter? Rather, I think they will mention it, say it was bad and shady even, but I don't think they'll kill themselves over it. Many will remind listeners that they do like a lot of Woody Allen movies, that he was talented, this or that.
By comparison Michael Jackson is an order-of-magnitude more famous and successful than Woody Allen and had a much wider impact, and we don't exactly know what Michael Jackson did with Chandler. Woody Allen on the other hand, the pundits will give a charitable assessment and won't assume he did any more, like maybe molest Soon-Yi Previn at a younger age. While as with MJ everybody assumes worse.
The pundits just are fussing about the whole thing because of scenes like this:
Maybe Bill O'Reilly and his crew aren't racists like racists in the 1950s, but I don't think he likes black people.
Also, Bill O'Reilly and the other wingnut pundits need to realize that they can learn a lot from black people. The biggest impression I got from the memorialization of Michael Jackson was how much emphasis they placed on celebrating the recently deceased's life. The Memorial at the Staples Center was just heart-warming and touching. It was an amazing display of solidarity and pride.
Fine, in all fairness, I'll pre-emptively concede that Woody Allen probably did some shadier things that just marry a young girl who happened to be his adopted stepdaughter.
After Allen and Farrow separated, a long public legal battle for the custody of their three children began. During the proceedings, Farrow alleged that Allen had sexually molested their adopted daughter Dylan, who was then seven years old. The judge eventually concluded that the sex abuse charges were inconclusive, but called Allen's conduct with Soon-Yi "grossly inappropriate". She called the report of the team that investigated the issue "sanitized and, therefore, less credible" and said she had "reservations about the reliability of the report." Farrow ultimately won the custody battle over their children. Allen was denied visitation rights with Malone and could only see Ronan under supervision. Moses, who was then 14, chose not to see Allen.(source)
I know, we live in a society where "innocent until proven guilty" is the norm, and that's how I believe it should be in the courts. But there are many many more guilty people than have been caught, and so it's important for us to have a gradient when describing the crookedness of a person's behavior. That's why I say that I believe Michael Jackson is OJ-Level guilty for sexually molesting children. It's like you can't say for certain, but damned if there's a mountain of evidence for it.
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