This article talks about MJ visiting gay lovers, being anorexic, etc. My question is, is this Halperin guy free to write whatever he wants because MJ is dead, or could he be sued for defamation?
I mean, sure for a lot of it it is his word against a dead guy’s–but certainly isn’t there some extent to protect the dead? Can I write a book that said that MJ liked to mutilate small animals and eat the still-beating hearts of human sacrifices and not be afraid of being sued or at some point could his estate come after me?
Protect the dead from what? Yeah you could argue future earnings of Jackson would be hurt but who’s earnings? His mooching family?
If the family sued him they’d have to argue things like, being labled gay is a bad thing. And if so he’s already been accused of being a child molester and to some the image sticks. Being a child molester or even accused is pretty much on the bottom rung already.
You’d have to show that anything he said was worse than that.
Celebrities have a lower expectation of privacy than regular people.
Finally there is always the possiblity someone will prove it’s truth. In the US (but not elsewhere necessarily) truth is almost an absolute defense. If you say he’s gay and even if you can’t prove, someone else just might. And then you have other issues
For example, I’m gay and say I had sex with Michael Jackson. I have a photo that establishes this. I like Michael and never release it. His family sues and says “Being gay is bad.” Now suddenly I get miffed at his family’s anti-gay stance, and relase the photo. You see I had no connection at first now suddenly there’s proof of it.
Even if it’s not directly connected to the writer’s story that easily would create enough doubt to kill a case in a judge or juror’s mind.
There is a lot of worth in plausable deniablity. Michael Jackson survived the charges of child molestation on that. I would bet anyone who wasn’t as rich or as famous or either wouldn’t have likely gotten off with the same evidence.
Since you can’t “unprove” the writer it’s better to keep people guessing than to chance it may come out bad for you.
Finally when rich/famous people (or their heirs) sue they look like jerks. For example, when I worked at a temp agency, I was sent to a bail bond agency, and we had old people like 65 - 70 who were guilty as heck and they’d send someone to collect them for not showing up for court. No matter what you do, no matter how guilty they are, the bond agent still looks like a bully and jerk forcing them into the police station.
In general you cannot defame the dead. The law recognises that I have an interest in defending my reputation, but not that I have an interest in defending my brother’s/son’s/etc reputation. Jackson can’t sue because he’s dead, and Jackson’s family can’t sue because they haven’t suffered an injury of the kind for which the law of defamation provides redress.
I recall a case in England many years ago in which the sons of a man whose reputation was trashed in a book published after his death found they could not sue the author. So they publicly attacked him as a liar and fraud in such vitriolic terms that he felt compelled to sue them, and they tried to use that trial to defend their father’s good name.