Blazing row about Michael Jackson

[PLP432]

I know it sounds ridiculous on the face of it but hear me out.

I was in a shop with DP last night and they were playing Michael Jackson music. I commented that I don't like hearing his music as I can't get past everything he did. Yes, I know he wasn't convicted but he openly admitted to sleeping in bed with random children, showering together and whatever else.

DP said "we have different opinions on that, he's a really good artist" to which I replied something about Rolph Harris being a good artist and Jimmy Saville being a good fund raiser.

DP then goes on to say he doesn't think MJ did anything untoward with the children and he thinks it's all innocent and because he had a "childlike mind" due to not having a proper childhood.

I said that was no excuse and plenty of people have bad or unusual childhoods and don't groom children.

He was getting defensive and talking about how he was found not guilty in court, to which I pointed out how few rape and sexual abuse cases even make it to court let alone conviction.

I asked whether he'd listened to anything the men on Leaving Neverland said before he formed his opinion that MJ wasn't guilty of anything. He said no, and refused to look it up.

It descended into a row and I was very hurt by some of the things he said, as I have a history of child sexual abuse and rape - which he knows all about.

I asked him whether he would have gladly left our DS in the company of someone like MJ unsupervised and he took a while to answer before saying "I don't know"

I said how that concerned me from a safeguarding perspective to which he took huge offence, started shouting and told me to return all of the presents i'd bought him as he doesnt want them anymore, the immature dickhead.

Now we're not talking.

Was I being unreasonable here?

This was 1993, 1994 , u do realise they did not even indict him .

These books as well, were proof off nothing, as they kept em for 12 years.

The photos did not match.

They had nowt to indict

There are recordings of MJ drugged up on whatever his doctor was giving him saying how he wanted to use the money from his 2009 comeback tour to help children and to build a hospital etc.

This is about as ridiculous as avoiding Volkswagen cars or thinking the autobahns should be ripped up just because you know who was involved in the creation of both.

@Lambiriyani that is a very charitable impulse but what exactly did Jimmy Savile do when he wasn’t abusing children? Raise money to rebuild a children’s hospital.

Plenty of people are raped and abused by their own parents and have a relationship with them. Plenty of people are beaten by their partner and stay with them. A woman's husband was recently convicted for attempted murder on her and she tried to defend him. Victims arent always easy to understand. Doesnt mean an abuser can abuse because of a perception of victim agreement.

Exactly. I don't believe for a minute that MJ would have been acquitted if there had been enough evidence to convict him, and his accusers had tried a similar grift on with other celebrities.

Really? Evidence in historic sexual abuse is one person’s word against another. In this case a child against a rich and powerful celebrity.

The rape conviction rate in this country is under 6%, lower for historic crimes, and you think justice is achieved for every complainant?

Was justice ever achieved for the victims of abuse of the Catholic priests world wide? Some of them received compensation in the long run - do you call them all liars too?

It should be said that Jordan Chandler never testified against MJ. Although he did file his own lawsuit in 1998 accusing MJ of violating the terms of the 1994 settlement by claiming publicly, in an attempt to restore his reputation, that JC was a “corrupt and immoral person” and that MJ had been “coerced” or “blackmailed” into settling. JC’s accusation of repeated sexual molestation by MJ was confirmed in the lawsuit.

For the record the evidence of the accuracy of identifying features of MJ’s penis was conflicting not definitive either way. Nor does or should a sexual abuse case ever stand and fall on the description of a penis.

There are parents who sell their own children.

There are parents who sexually abuse their own children.

There are parents who look away when their landlord, pastor or new partner sexually abuses their child.

I assume that you are aware of that (unfortunate) reality.

so why wouldn’t there be parents that could be paid off? Parents who wouldn’t want to pursue justice?

I appreciate that this is a sensitive subject and I do now want to be disrespectful. The statement that no parent would or could be paid off is simply incorrect.

And the post you’re responding to fails to consider that pursuing ”justice” rather than compensation - would have meant in JC’s case - putting him through a public trial against a global celebrity at the age of 13.

Would @Martinii actually put their child through that? Would she have faced her abuser in court at 13? Does she know that sex offence court cases can destroy adults let alone children, so stressful and damaging is the process?

In that context, a settlement which will pay for treatment and support the victim’s life going forward is arguably the more prudent course of action.

‘exactly did Jimmy Savile do when he wasn’t abusing children? Raise money to rebuild a children’s hospital.’

yup. Better access to vulnerable people, and a nice charity cover story. MJ did exactly the same.

This would give me massive red flags and puts a different spin on your original post. I can now see why you were so upset about him defending MJ.

That wasn’t Jordan that was his father Evan. He wanted to be allowed to record an album called EvanStory in reply to Michael’s album HIStory and wanted to sue for $60m. In fact, Jordan had very little to do with any of it. He maintained in later years nothing ever happened and it was his father after money and his mother was only worried about losing custody of him. His father tried to kill him with a dumb-bell bar over a row over the money and Jordan later ‘divorced’ his parents over the whole thing.

I would think be surprised if he came out one day and debunked the whole story.

Incorrect. JC launched one case and his father launched another and it was consolidated eventually into one case.

Jordan separated himself legally when he was 14 not later. He has never once commented on the case publicly let alone claiming it never happened - that is simply a lie.

Just because you are attracted to young boys doesn't mean you are attracted to all young boys. It's very usual for a paedophile to be in contact with more children than they will actually abuse

That some children weren't abused by him means nothing

@AllWeWantToDo well he sure kept Macaulay Culkin around for a long time despite apparently having no "use" for him. Personally (and I know I'll get called naive and worse here) I think he wanted to be a father figure to these kids-some of them didn't have the best parents and he wanted to make sure they didn't miss out like he did growing up without a childhood. I also think he was desperate to be a father and that's why he ended up having them by himself in the end.

Well yes I would go with naive. Having kids around that you don't abuse obviously works well to cast doubt , well it has done for MJ

Yet the actual allegations that would make him a paedophile if true have been shown to be physically impossible in time, number and place. And not just that but shown to be out right lies. That is the only reason he was uncancelled in 2019. How many other celebrities have such a passionate defence and have been uncancelled after such horrific things have been claimed??

People are desperately clinging on to the whole sleepover thing because it’s all they have and not only that but changing the events to help fit the narrative. The effort going into that is astonishing and leads ne to question why. Why so much effort from certain people to make square pegs fit round holes just to be nasty about somebody?

Why, in your opinion, did he want 'sleepovers' with young boys?

That’s not acfuallu true you’ve just chosen to believe it.

The reason he is uncancelled is there is so much money involved. And so many rich and powerful people and organisations involved with him who would look complicit. Also to be factored in is obsessive fans like you brand all his accusers liars and they end up with death threats - it’s not conducive to people speaking out.

There needs to be a public enquiry, not necessary criminal, - asking all men who were abused to come forward anonymously with their experiences.

Having sleep overs with young boys is enough for me!

That’s exactly my point. It wasn’t sleep overs with ‘boys’. We know this because of the hundreds of people who have stayed speaking out both in court, to Police and in interviews. Turns out rather than spooning in his bed alone like a couple, there were always plenty of people there in his 2000sq ft 2 story ‘bedroom’. Men, woman, boys, girls, family, friends and even staff. This whole sleeping with boys thing was only invented during the trial and parroted by the media ever since. When the stories fell apart with their own witnesses the jury didn’t buy their narrative.

So why would this “be enough for you” yet the actual allegations of abuse involving kidnappings in hot air balloons, molestation in multiple building (not even his bedroom) 6 years before they were built, at events we now know he didn’t attend, in continents we now know he hadn’t travelled to and within time lines requiring a De-Lorian crumbling with the most basic of fact checking make you not so much as bat an eye lid?

Only it is as is evident from what has happened in the last 3 years. They came out with leaving neverland which was version 9 of the current 12, everybody hated Jackson and he was cancelled and then it started to unravel. It started to unravel when it was noticed that both actors and the parents all contradicted each other within the bloody interview, the people and companies named all spoke up and called them out and then people actually investigating. It was ever pin-pointed exactly where one of them lifted their story from - page 79 of Michael Jackson Was My Liver by Victor Gutierrez. Whoops.

It has nothing to do with being fans, it’s simply listening to what the accusers have said with their own mouths and in their own filings. Yes some of them are nuts and I find them cringe, but that doesn’t change the facts.

People have been asked to come forward. They even set up a phone line. They spent over $1m of tax payers money travelling 4 continents and interviewing over 100 kids and families and guess what? They got absolutely nothing from it. Now there’s just these couple of guys with their hands out for money straight after being in financial difficulties. Hmm, funny that.

So I haven’t RTFT but I will absolutely die on the hill of OF COURSE MJ WAS A NONCE IF YOU THINK HE WASN’T YOU’RE EITHER FUCKING BLIND OR YOU THINK PEOPLE WHO ARE GOOD AT THEIR JOBS CANT BE NONCES.

DP then goes on to say he doesn't think MJ did anything untoward with the children and he thinks it's all innocent and because he had a "childlike mind" due to not having a proper childhood.

Bollocks. He was a talented, shrewd businessman. He wrote magnificent hits that below the world’s kind, choreographed amazing routines and ran multi-million dollar industrials. This is not a childlike person

Id be deeply wary of anyone who is a pedophile apologists. Jackson has had about 8 or 9 accusers come forward, none have gained anything except abuse from their disclosures and the likelihood of them all lying and actually ‘Jackson just loved kids’ is the logic I’d expect a parrot to use