High profile abusers do ‘good work’ to facilitate their crimes, they aren’t good people who somehow took a wrong path along the way.
Just to be clear, I wasn’t stating that Jackson must be innocent because he did good. I was pointing out the irony of him being accused of hurting the people he helped. Which is why I find the Savile comparison irrelevant.
Whatever you think, ask yourself if you'd share your bed with little boys you've no relation to. Over and over again. That is not normal behavior.
I don’t think anybody, even his most ardent supporters, would say it was normal behaviour. But the question still remains around the sexual abuse and whether that happened or not.
My honest opinion is that I don’t think he was a paedophile, just somebody who wasn’t really living by the rules of what is normal or acceptable in the real world.
If he was sexually abusing children then I don’t think he would be going on television stating that he shared his bed with children in the blasé way that he did all those years ago. If he was guilty of it then surely he would be keeping that one very quiet, considering he had already faced accusations in years previous?
Because he full well knew that it could come out anyway from the children or parents, intentionally or unintentionally. So better to fess up to the behaviour yourself. Looks a lot more honest and genuine that way and therefore innocent.
Because he full well knew that it could come out anyway from the children or parents, intentionally or unintentionally. So better to fess up to the behaviour yourself. Looks a lot more honest and genuine that way and therefore innocent.
Not so sure about that. Bit of a stretch to think he had the mindset of “i’ll go out of my way to look like a massive weirdo on this documentary to get on the front foot of an allegation that might come out one day”.
As I said before, he’d already been accused years before. Why on earth would he bring that spotlight onto himself again?
Michael Jackson was a strange man, but I’d be amazed if that was his cunning plan.
You might be right in as much as it wasn’t a cunning plan, but more he didn’t actually think it was strange or wrong.
i thought those two men’s testimonies were pretty compelling, not only the vivid descriptions and details of these acts but also the impact on them and their families towards the end of the doc when it covered the time when they first spoke out to the therapist followed by the families.
maybe I’m naive and they’re world class actors but I was further convinced after watching it.
Whatever you think, ask yourself if you'd share your bed with little boys you've no relation to. Over and over again. That is not normal behavior.
I don’t think anybody, even his most ardent supporters, would say it was normal behaviour. But the question still remains around the sexual abuse and whether that happened or not.
My honest opinion is that I don’t think he was a paedophile, just somebody who wasn’t really living by the rules of what is normal or acceptable in the real world.
If he was sexually abusing children then I don’t think he would be going on television stating that he shared his bed with children in the blasé way that he did all those years ago. If he was guilty of it then surely he would be keeping that one very quiet, considering he had already faced accusations in years previous?
Because he full well knew that it could come out anyway from the children or parents, intentionally or unintentionally. So better to fess up to the behaviour yourself. Looks a lot more honest and genuine that way and therefore innocent.
I wonder whether another explanation is that he somehow wanted to cleanse his conscience without explicitly incriminating himself. I remember an interview Gary Glitter did, might have been with Russell Harty, some time after his initial fame as a glam rock teenybopper icon. He was discussing his excesses in a kind of I'm-back-on-the-straight-and-narrow way (this was long before his exposure as a pedo). Anyway, in answer to a question about this he answered, "oh yeh, I did everything - alcohol, drugs, abuse". When the interviewer pressed the point he repeated the phrase "alcohol, drugs, abuse" I remember saying to my brother, what does he mean by that. Everybody understands alcohol abuse and drug abuse, why is he saying abuse as though it were a separate thing. There was something about the way he said it that really bothered me. When he was later exposed as a pedo, I thought back to that interview and I genuinely believe he was "confessing" to that to appease his conscience
Just saw a 50ish year old woman walking through a major airport with a Michael Jackson T-shirt on. Amazing how certian one can be of another person’s virtues despite never meeting them. Smacks of arrogance and bloody mindedness . I like him so he is innocent. I Am a good judge of character !
The guys clearly a Paedophile in my view... A lot of people have strong attachements because they love his music and that can cloud peoples judgements, certain circumstances result in this kind of activity, if you reverse engineered Michael Jacksons life it's fertile ground for sexual irregularity.
Also coming out as being sexually abused is about the hardest thing you could do, horrific scenario.
MJ was clearly am extremely troubled individual - the drugs and the desire to change his appearance are indicative that he was trying to escape from his past. And make him something that he wanted to be rather than something that nature had created.
There have been rumours that he was abused (and sexually too) as a child with the finger pointed squarely at his father for this. If we accept that then it is easier to then conclude that the abused became the abuser. We also know that MJ always felt that he had his childhood taken away from him - was because he was thrust into pop stardom and non stop performance or because of something more sinister?
To me, if there was one episode in MJ's life that summed up his bizarre behaviour it was the dangling of his new born child over a balcony. Who in their right mind does that? Some will argue that it was him trying to share the new born with his fans. Others will say that it was his way of showing that he was demonstrating that he was in control of his son's destiny in the same way that his father controlled him.
The one aspect of the TV programme that did slightly concern me, regarding its validity, was the way neither of the mothers seemed, in the early part of the first episode anyway, to want to portray MJ as the vile individual that they ultimately indicated he was. Was this to absolve themselves from their negligence in allowing their child to stay, night after night, in MJ's bedroom? Was it their way of saying he manipulated them in the same way as he manipulated their son? Equally, were they upset at the way that MJ moved on to other children because it evidenced that he was a serial abuser or simply because he was no longer going to be the golden highway to the success of their loved ones?
The only people that truly know the answer are those that accuse him of doing that to him. And of course MJ himself. I suspect though that this story will still run and run.
I don't get why everyone suddenly thinks it's a fact on the basis of this documentary.
I used to think he definitely has a weird relationship with kids but wasn't sure if he was actually abusing them.
And now I think he definitely had a weird relationship with kids but I'm not sure if he actually abused them.
Probably did though.
That's where I am. I think he probably did but may not have. Where money comes into play, it clouds everything. As I said before, if one of the accusers did a lie detector, then it would change the game and open up compensation, so why don't they? I know it is not 100% reliable, but it would be a significant development.
Can you, should you, separate the art from the person! I think you can but know that this is a controversial view. So I won't be putting Gary Glitter on the jukebox anytime soon! Over the years there have been many artists guilty of the most appalling behaviour. Some get a pass and some don't. Some because of time that has passed and some for other reasons. I think Michael Jackson will, has, split opinion and camps are formed that will not listen to each other. For what it's worth I think he was a paedophile but as I was mainly indifferent to his music I won't have to decide whether to continue listening or not.
I was never a fan of him, I found his music ok but even as a young kid the adulation of him annoyed me.
When stories made it into press you have to really be objective however we are now very familiar with victims of Saville saying it was impossible to speak out against him due to the people he had around him, the good deeds he was doing to mask his crimes and desires and how popular he was. Being the age I am, I always saw him as a weird old bloke who did marathons in a gold tracksuit, I couldn't appreciate the popularity of him. With Jackson I could
In years to come we will look back and ask how on earth he was tolerated and in a lot of instances, facilitated. Nowadays an adult can't just be nice and play with a kid without some moron screaming paedo at them.
I'd like to think that people can differentiate between someone playing chase with a child and someone who is taking that child away to a locked room for hours on end. Best case scenario that is weird, worst and sadly most likely scenario, bad things are happening to that child.
Nope, sorry, MJ, like Saville was a child bender and one I'm glad the world is rid of.
I even hear people talking in interviews about Michael Jackson and they will say "I know there are all the questions and rumours about him, but..."
And that's the truth of it, if he didn't make the music he did and instead his back catalogue was akin to Gary Glitters or he didn't have the acolytes and financial clout he did, he would have been hung out to dry a long time ago.
I don't get why everyone suddenly thinks it's a fact on the basis of this documentary.
I used to think he definitely has a weird relationship with kids but wasn't sure if he was actually abusing them.
And now I think he definitely had a weird relationship with kids but I'm not sure if he actually abused them.
Probably did though.
That's where I am. I think he probably did but may not have. Where money comes into play, it clouds everything. As I said before, if one of the accusers did a lie detector, then it would change the game and open up compensation, so why don't they? I know it is not 100% reliable, but it would be a significant development.
Can’t really get my head around people not looking at those two documentaries and still thinking Jackson was innocent. There have been many other high profile sex abuse / child abuse cases over the years that through weight of testimonies have resulted in either prosecution or in the case of Saville vilification post his timely death. It’s weight of evidence as looked at in normal legal terms. Beyond reasonable doubt. There is rarely video if ever, evidence of an act of abuse taking place. Is that what is required before some people / fans believe Jackson was a paedophile ?
I would ask ask the question to those doubting his guilt. If Jackson was around today and it was your child in that situation with you now having seen those documentaries and other “evidence” would you let your child anywhere near him ?
I don’t own any MJ albums. I quite like Weezer’s Billie Jean cover, but not enough to deny child molestation.
@ShootersHillGuru - I wouldn’t have let a child anywhere near Jackson. He was weird as fuck. But that’s not the same as molesting.
I read the link provided by Algarve above and started to think “shit, this is bad.” But by the end realised the author had been a little disingenuous with at least two of the facts, and a little tenuous at best with others. Which makes me question the validity of the rest of it.
For instance, two of the fathers committing suicide years apart and for reasons the author doesn’t exactly define - how does that make him guilty? And the penis drawing - it wasn’t universally agreed to match the real thing. The author doesn’t tell us that.
Its that kind of disingenuous reporting that makes it makes it hard to believe the author was being objective.
I mentioned the Bashir interview in a post I had in draft and starting researching it last night, but it was getting late and so I didn't post it as couldn't remember exactly what MJ admitted to etc., but these 2 points from the Vanity Fair link that AA shared were basically what I was going to hit on -
# 6. Jackson had an extensive collection of adult erotic material he kept in a suitcase next to his bed, including S&M bondage photos and a study of naked boys. Forensic experts with experience in the Secret Service found the fingerprints of boys alongside Jackson’s on the same pages. Jackson also had bondage sculptures of women with ball gags in their mouths on his desk, in full view of the boys who slept there.
# 10. In a 2002 documentary, Living with Michael Jackson, Jackson told Martin Bashir there was nothing wrong with sharing his bed with boys.
Add those 2 points together and, for me, it says all I need to know about the bloke to be convinced he was a nonce, regardless of if I believe the victims or not (which I do).
I don't get why everyone suddenly thinks it's a fact on the basis of this documentary.
I used to think he definitely has a weird relationship with kids but wasn't sure if he was actually abusing them.
And now I think he definitely had a weird relationship with kids but I'm not sure if he actually abused them.
Probably did though.
That's where I am. I think he probably did but may not have. Where money comes into play, it clouds everything. As I said before, if one of the accusers did a lie detector, then it would change the game and open up compensation, so why don't they? I know it is not 100% reliable, but it would be a significant development.
I remember thinking at the time of that interview that I couldn't believe it wasn't taken further by the authorities and that more of the public didn't make more of a fuss about, but that's when the "manboy" c8mments started be banded about
I don’t own any MJ albums. I quite like Weezer’s Billie Jean cover, but not enough to deny child molestation.
@ShootersHillGuru - I wouldn’t have let a child anywhere near Jackson. He was weird as fuck. But that’s not the same as molesting.
I read the link provided by Algarve above and started to think “shit, this is bad.” But by the end realised the author had been a little disingenuous with at least two of the facts, and a little tenuous at best with others. Which makes me question the validity of the rest of it.
For instance, two of the fathers committing suicide years apart and for reasons the author doesn’t exactly define - how does that make him guilty? And the penis drawing - it wasn’t universally agreed to match the real thing. The author doesn’t tell us that.
Its that kind of disingenuous reporting that makes it makes it hard to believe the author was being objective.
Not what I asked though. I said after having seen those documentaries would you have let your child near Jackson ? I accept you’ve said no because he was weird but after those documentaries would you have thought I’m not letting little Jimmy85 near him because there are doubts about his potential to abuse ? They ( the documentaries) havn’t flavoured your opinion at all ?
People saying why would they wait this long? Well why did the victims of Saville wait until he was dead and Barry Bennell wait until he was old and frail?
As somebody that has never suffered any form of abuse I don't pretend to understand the mindset of a survivor, but those that were victims of Bennell talk about the fear of facing him in court. It appears the abuser maintains a great deal of control long after the victim has left their sphere of influence, it is possible that the delay is due to this slow understanding of the fact they are safe to come forward now. Also didn't one of MJ's brothers shoot up a car of someone questioning his morals a long time back?
I really don’t want to believe that he was a paedophile because I love his carpentry but having watched Leaving Neverland it pretty damning .
Horrible
Now I've changed it from music to carpentry, it seems ridiculous doesn't it.
And this is the problem with many peoples thinking because they love his music, and the denial they feel that someone who's music formed the sound track of their young lives could be a nonce, which means that they really cant listen to their favourite artist anymore, they have an idea of what this famous person is like so subconsciously they dont want to believe it, and this is the MO of many famous perps.
I watched the documentary last night with my wife, who is a professional who deals with child abuse as part of her job, when the two abused boys (now men) were being interviewed, we rewound it and she pointed out the triggers that she looks for when interviewing children and teenagers about their abuse, and wether they are telling the truth, most people including me would focus on the accounts of the horrific actual physical abuse (most people if they are lying could describe what they think would happen), however it is the manipulative and planned triggers that stand out that generally all perps follow, separating the child from its parents, showering the child with gifts, manipulating the child into believing that they would get in trouble if their 'secret' was revealed, putting in place physical barriers so they have a chance not to be caught (Jackson, had a serious of doors with bells that would warn him if any one was approaching the bedroom), telling the child that what they are doing isn't wrong its 'love'. There were more, but you get the idea.
There is absolutely no doubt in her mind and mine that Jackson was a perpetrator of the worse kind.
As for the parents actions and their lack of protection of their children, well that is another story.
Comments
As I said before, he’d already been accused years before. Why on earth would he bring that spotlight onto himself again?
Michael Jackson was a strange man, but I’d be amazed if that was his cunning plan.
i thought those two men’s testimonies were pretty compelling, not only the vivid descriptions and details of these acts but also the impact on them and their families towards the end of the doc when it covered the time when they first spoke out to the therapist followed by the families.
maybe I’m naive and they’re world class actors but I was further convinced after watching it.
I remember an interview Gary Glitter did, might have been with Russell Harty, some time after his initial fame as a glam rock teenybopper icon.
He was discussing his excesses in a kind of I'm-back-on-the-straight-and-narrow way (this was long before his exposure as a pedo).
Anyway, in answer to a question about this he answered, "oh yeh, I did everything - alcohol, drugs, abuse".
When the interviewer pressed the point he repeated the phrase "alcohol, drugs, abuse"
I remember saying to my brother, what does he mean by that. Everybody understands alcohol abuse and drug abuse, why is he saying abuse as though it were a separate thing.
There was something about the way he said it that really bothered me.
When he was later exposed as a pedo, I thought back to that interview and I genuinely believe he was "confessing" to that to appease his conscience
Also coming out as being sexually abused is about the hardest thing you could do, horrific scenario.
There have been rumours that he was abused (and sexually too) as a child with the finger pointed squarely at his father for this. If we accept that then it is easier to then conclude that the abused became the abuser. We also know that MJ always felt that he had his childhood taken away from him - was because he was thrust into pop stardom and non stop performance or because of something more sinister?
To me, if there was one episode in MJ's life that summed up his bizarre behaviour it was the dangling of his new born child over a balcony. Who in their right mind does that? Some will argue that it was him trying to share the new born with his fans. Others will say that it was his way of showing that he was demonstrating that he was in control of his son's destiny in the same way that his father controlled him.
The one aspect of the TV programme that did slightly concern me, regarding its validity, was the way neither of the mothers seemed, in the early part of the first episode anyway, to want to portray MJ as the vile individual that they ultimately indicated he was. Was this to absolve themselves from their negligence in allowing their child to stay, night after night, in MJ's bedroom? Was it their way of saying he manipulated them in the same way as he manipulated their son? Equally, were they upset at the way that MJ moved on to other children because it evidenced that he was a serial abuser or simply because he was no longer going to be the golden highway to the success of their loved ones?
The only people that truly know the answer are those that accuse him of doing that to him. And of course MJ himself. I suspect though that this story will still run and run.
I think you can but know that this is a controversial view. So I won't be putting Gary Glitter on the jukebox anytime soon!
Over the years there have been many artists guilty of the most appalling behaviour. Some get a pass and some don't. Some because of time that has passed and some for other reasons.
I think Michael Jackson will, has, split opinion and camps are formed that will not listen to each other.
For what it's worth I think he was a paedophile but as I was mainly indifferent to his music I won't have to decide whether to continue listening or not.
I was never a fan of him, I found his music ok but even as a young kid the adulation of him annoyed me.
When stories made it into press you have to really be objective however we are now very familiar with victims of Saville saying it was impossible to speak out against him due to the people he had around him, the good deeds he was doing to mask his crimes and desires and how popular he was. Being the age I am, I always saw him as a weird old bloke who did marathons in a gold tracksuit, I couldn't appreciate the popularity of him. With Jackson I could
In years to come we will look back and ask how on earth he was tolerated and in a lot of instances, facilitated. Nowadays an adult can't just be nice and play with a kid without some moron screaming paedo at them.
I'd like to think that people can differentiate between someone playing chase with a child and someone who is taking that child away to a locked room for hours on end. Best case scenario that is weird, worst and sadly most likely scenario, bad things are happening to that child.
Nope, sorry, MJ, like Saville was a child bender and one I'm glad the world is rid of.
I even hear people talking in interviews about Michael Jackson and they will say "I know there are all the questions and rumours about him, but..."
And that's the truth of it, if he didn't make the music he did and instead his back catalogue was akin to Gary Glitters or he didn't have the acolytes and financial clout he did, he would have been hung out to dry a long time ago.
He wasn't all bad, when i was 8 he fixed it for me to milk a cow blindfolded...
http://twitter.com/kyledunnigan/status/1103405202911227915
Some interesting facts in this article: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/03/10-undeniable-facts-about-the-michael-jackson-sexual-abuse-allegations?fbclid=IwAR0ax7YWzSh8xIYCK7MONNDtF8tpit9jqH0b-vqI-kHmGMQaTXXXNQcV2R8
I would ask ask the question to those doubting his guilt. If Jackson was around today and it was your child in that situation with you now having seen those documentaries and other “evidence” would you let your child anywhere near him ?
@ShootersHillGuru - I wouldn’t have let a child anywhere near Jackson. He was weird as fuck. But that’s not the same as molesting.
I read the link provided by Algarve above and started to think “shit, this is bad.” But by the end realised the author had been a little disingenuous with at least two of the facts, and a little tenuous at best with others. Which makes me question the validity of the rest of it.
For instance, two of the fathers committing suicide years apart and for reasons the author doesn’t exactly define - how does that make him guilty? And the penis drawing - it wasn’t universally agreed to match the real thing. The author doesn’t tell us that.
Its that kind of disingenuous reporting that makes it makes it hard to believe the author was being objective.
# 6. Jackson had an extensive collection of adult erotic material he kept in a suitcase next to his bed, including S&M bondage photos and a study of naked boys. Forensic experts with experience in the Secret Service found the fingerprints of boys alongside Jackson’s on the same pages. Jackson also had bondage sculptures of women with ball gags in their mouths on his desk, in full view of the boys who slept there.
# 10. In a 2002 documentary, Living with Michael Jackson, Jackson told Martin Bashir there was nothing wrong with sharing his bed with boys.
Add those 2 points together and, for me, it says all I need to know about the bloke to be convinced he was a nonce, regardless of if I believe the victims or not (which I do).
Horrible
As somebody that has never suffered any form of abuse I don't pretend to understand the mindset of a survivor, but those that were victims of Bennell talk about the fear of facing him in court. It appears the abuser maintains a great deal of control long after the victim has left their sphere of influence, it is possible that the delay is due to this slow understanding of the fact they are safe to come forward now. Also didn't one of MJ's brothers shoot up a car of someone questioning his morals a long time back?
And this is the problem with many peoples thinking because they love his music, and the denial they feel that someone who's music formed the sound track of their young lives could be a nonce, which means that they really cant listen to their favourite artist anymore, they have an idea of what this famous person is like so subconsciously they dont want to believe it, and this is the MO of many famous perps.
As for the parents actions and their lack of protection of their children, well that is another story.
incredible