To find it weird that people still give Michael Jackson Godlike status??

[happyend]

Is it just me? They have now found pornographic images of young boys at his home yet people still talk about him as if he is so great. One particular person I know gets her son to do his MJ dancing and he wears his hat everywhere and it makes me feel ill. I don't think people would find this acceptable if it was about Gary Glitter, would they?? I don't get it, can anyone enlighten me?

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

Lewis Carroll particularly rattled me,the documentary on him recently was very interesting ( for such an awful subject)

[SarcasmMode]

I see no point judging others for not boycotting his stuff. What do you gain from boycotting? As an individual you'll have your reasons but others don't have to agree.

[Toffeelatteplease]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll

The section on controversy covers the issues with Carroll. However there is no doubt the naked pictures of young girls exist. Some academics believe they exist solely for artistic interest....

[Pagwatch]

Presumeably people boycotting Michael Jackson also boycott David Bowie, Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, R Kelley etc etc.
because, you know

[LilacSpunkMonkey]

Steven Tyler from Aerosmith has a very dodgy past but I still love their music and have some of their songs on my ipod.

[Paperkins]

I don't really like Amy Winehouse songs or music and certainly do not get why people think she was so great. I think her behaviour and lifestyle is not one to emulate either, but every time she's played on the radio you'd think she was some kind of God.

MJ was prob not (I say this cos I have no actual proof myself) a great guy outside of music but his contribution to music was vast and he was a rare talent.

On the other hand....I couldn't name a single Gary Glitter hit.

I also find Robbie Williams positively creepy and would not want to be stuck in a lift with him let alone let a child of mine near him......but people think he's great too.

Could also debate the hero worship of England's footballers.....

[LilacSpunkMonkey]

Amy Winehouse and Robbie Williams have never been accused or taken to court for child abuse.

Not even remotely the same.

[BeckyMcDonald]

What kind of parent takes money instead of allowing their child 'justic'? He same kind of parent that allows their child to spend an unhealthy amount of time, alone, in the company of a dubious adult male who plies them with alcohol then encourages them to sleep in his bed. It's grooming, no doubt and would be a crime in this country now.

Let's face it, with a star of the magnitude of Jackson, with the climate at the time where victims of abusemwere assumed to be lying unless here was actual concrete evidence they weren't, here was never going to be a juror in the land that was going to convic him. He bought his way out of trouble countless times during his life. Probably many more times than we will ever know about.

And seeing how his alleged victims have been crucified publicly by Jackson fans, who'd come forward now, really, to say the same has happened to them?

[80schild]

pagwatch - primarily I am thinking of relatives, so maybe it is a bad comparison but I just don't think you can say because someone does this it correlates to child abuse. I think it says more about our society that we are prepared to stand in judgement without all the evidence available. We were not in the trial.

He was tried in a criminal court and found not guilty. No new cases have come forward in years. It is not like jimmy Saville, in that when he died the floodgates opened with hundreds of complants bring made. It is a whole lot greyer and the only person who has come forward posthumously is a dancer who fell on hard times. I don't understand why people can think they know without access to the facts.

The fact he settled out of court proves nothing either way. Lots of people settle out of court to avoid mounting debts and stress.

[AllMyBestFriendsAreMetalheads]

He was an incredibly fucked up individual, whatever the truth is. I don't think it's right to put him in the same category as Savile. Savile knew what he was doing was so far beyond wrong, that's why he kept it so hidden.

[Sunnymeg]

I always thought MJ's crotch grabbing dance moves to be disturbing and odd. It was as if he could get away with it only because he was Michael Jackson, whereas it would have been seen as wildly inappropriate if anyone else had done it. I expect he was surrounded by a coterie of enablers and his behaviour was never questioned.

[Pagwatch]

80schild.

I don't pretend to know for a fact whether or not he was a paedophile and my opinion, like everyone else's on here, matters not a jot. I'm not standing in judgement, I'm musing on a chat board.

very clearly he was a damaged individual and my point was that comparing the actions of a loving parent with his having sleepovers was not really relevant.

Of course it is just about possible that an obviously fucked up adult male sought out the company of children to sleep with, unchaperoned, without there being anything untoward. Is that likely though? In my opinion no, not really.

The unwillingness of people to consider him guilty, the fact that people are prepared to create an accept a weird 'Peter pan' narrative about him because he was famous is more to do with our very strong desire for all paedophiles to look like Saville. Because if a paedophile looks like Saville
or Sidney Cooke then we can kid ourselves that our children are safer, because we will know what they are just by looking.

If my child had been abused by Jackson I can quite imagine I would take the money and run. If my child had already been abused no way would I want to expose them to the additional abuse of a trial.

[justilou]

My nine year old son loves him.... I certainly can't bring myself to let him know why it totally squicks me out, so I have to hear about him all...the...damn...time!

[Brahumbug]

Jordan Chandler's police statement regarding his abuse at the hands of Michael Jackson is available online. It makes for sickening reading

[Toffeelatteplease]

justilou

I'd start talking now about how people aren't wholly good or wholly bad. With DD I have said his music and dancing was incredible and influenced a lot of people in the way they danced and made music, but there are a lot of questions over his behaviour outside of the music and it is possible he was not a nice person at all

[WannaBe]

He was a talented musician, and he also indulged in some very questionable practices, the truth of which will never really be known. But the two things are not mutually exclusive.

Recognising a talented individual for the talent they have does not make one a paedophile sympathiser

It's easy to boycott the likes of Gary glitter because his music was shit anyway. Ditto Jimmy Savile - he was repulsive regardless of the things he did.

But the reality is that most of the artists in the 60's/70's had encounters with young under-age girls. they still had talent though...

[trafalgargal]

Ive always felt the one person who probably understood Michael Jackson's messed up childhood was Donny Osmond who has never had any accusations against him and has stayed married to the same woman has kids, grandkids but lived the same non existent childhood and was exploited as a cash cow since toddlerhood. He and Michael remained friends . I don't believe that would have happened had he believed the accusations ......although he has come out and said some of the things he did were unwise. My feelings are he was a sexual caused in part by emotional abuse in childhood and lack of trust for adults in general. If I'd had a father who put me on the stage at 5 , beat me and refused to let me live a normal childhood in any way I'd probably have grown up mistrusting adults too and wanting to try to restore my lost childhood. Overall I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt. Definitely damaged but that doesn't mean he was definitely a predator.

[trafalgargal]

I always thought the crotch grabbing more confirmed the a-sexual possibility as it was always so unsexy.

[80schild]

Pagwatch - I agree with most of what you say. Up until a few months ago I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you. I am just looking at the same thing from a slightly different perspective, having read a lot about his life and music.

The answer is that it is definitely not normal for a 40 yr old man to share a bed with a child but he was not a normal person. His whole moral compass had been messed up by his lack of childhood and abusive father (in one interview he also talks about how his brothers used to bring groupies back to their room when he was 9 and he had to listen to the sound of them having sex).

He was really damaged and I think he was looking for a) the childhood he never had when he had the sleepovers and built neverland.

One other thing we do know is that he had adult relationships with women - Lisa Marie (she claims even after they split he would call her), Tatum O'Neil (apparently his first crush) and the rather odd Debbie Rowe (definitely being a marriage of convenience).

[80schild]

Brahumbug - you do know Jordan Chandler , as an adult, denies the abuse happened don't you?

[BeckyMcDonald]

When people are accused of child abuse all their mates rock up to say how they wouldn't do such a thing, they're not like that etc. I've seen it in court a million times. That doesn't mean anything.

And the majority of men who abused children are in adult relationships too. Again, that doesn't mean they're not capable of abuse.

[Pagwatch]

Sure 80s. I completely understand that.

My perspective is from being abused by someone who had a terrible childhood, lost his wife and then just really liked being around kids. Totally loved kids, would do anything for them. Totally a go to babysitter.
People who knew him still don't believe it because he was just 'so lovely' .
Many many paedophiles and child abusers have perfectly normal relationships with adults.

[80schild]

Nothing I can say to that pagwatch. Maybe I should be a bit more cynical. Although the retraction from Jordan Chandler is what really cast a big question mark for me.

[Pagwatch]

Sorry - I'm not trying to say you are wrong. No one can know for sure unless they were directly involved . I just wanted to give a context to my comments.

[redshoeblueshoe]

Didn't Tatum threaten to sue MJ for saying they had had sex?