while it may be true that ‘both interpretations are open’ at this point - there are a couple of qualifing things:
He has in fact been accused of molestation. Given that piece of data, one would (hopefully) be more reluctant to send one’s child there.
Given the accusation, a prudent person would limit the opportunities for there to be a potential for further accusation. As in, they’d ohhhh, say, stop having little kids over for sleep overs for example (or at least insist that the parents or other suitable adult be involved as well). And not publically invite an interviewer in and admit to sleeping in the same bed w/children regularly.
If Bashir had done a show where MJ was featured as 100% normal, everyone would had tuned out fifteen minutes into the program. Bashir would have been accused of portraying MJ falsely. The sad but true fact of the matter is that we all know that MJ is wack in the head. Child molester or not, the guy has some serious problems.
MJ may think the show was all a lie, but unless he was acting the whole time, the weirdness in the footage is undeniable. The children wearing masks and not knowing their mother…real. The bouncing-the-baby-on-his-knee-maniacally…real. The holding-hands-with-the-12-year-old-boy…real. The shopping spree, the zoo fiasco, the maniquens in the hotel room…real.
Lest we think MJ was taken advantage of, the man was paid $5 million for this interview. If you know someone’s willing to pay you $5 million, you better be prepared for their visit because they sure aren’t out to make you look good… If he didn’t want Bashir to question him about his sex life, he shouldn’t have invited his special friends to his house. If he didn’t want Bashir to question him about the wisdom of taking small children out into a swarming mob of people, he shouldn’t have gone to the zoo that day. MJ isn’t a child, and if he’s stupid (or sorry, innocent) enough to be taken advantage of like that, someone should question is ability to raise children.
I think MJ is a media-whore. The media has slapped him up and down the street, but that doesn’t stop him from getting his mug on the camera when he feels the attention waning, now does it? This rebuttal thing can only make him look worse, IMO. He should just let it go.
Admittedly I was also reading while the show was on but at the end didn’t Martin simply say that although he never observed any child molestation or any other illegal acts, that it was indeed inappropriate for an idol of the children’s to have them over for sleepovers?
My opinions of Michael were made during all his wierdness during the show, not based on any end insinuations Martin may or may not have made.
Michael acted like a nut during the show. That wasn’t due to editing or animation, it’s because the guy is frikkin’ looney.
In particular, Fischer wrote, Jordan’s father, Evan, set out to “destroy” Jackson for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the father’s inability to make it in Hollywood. Fischer also revealed that Evan Chandler had spent quite a bit of time with his son and Jackson at his home and on vacations. Fischer, in fact describes the Chandlers using Jackson as a pawn in their endless custody battle.
I think the circumstancial evidence that Jackson is a pedophile is pretty overwhelming. Here’s what we have:
A 44 year old man who has never had a romantic or sexual relationship with an adult (I’m not buying the Lisa Marie marriage for a second. From what I’ve read, she was rarely at Neverland and when she was they slept in separate rooms)
He is obssessed with pubescent boys…not children as a group, not girls, certainly, not ugly or fat kids, he surrounds himself only with attractive 12 year old boys. Pedophiles have preferences. People who just “love kids” don’t.
He has admitted to some undeniably creepy behaviour with these boys, such as bathing with them and sleeping with them. He’s never bathed or slept with a grown up.
He has been accused by at least one boy of molestation. Jackson paid a reported 25 million dollars to this kid on the condition that he would not testify in a criminal trial. Jackson has never been cleared of criminal allegations. The investigation stopped only because the victim stopped cooperating. The investigators did not believe Jackson was innocent.
Read the kid’s deposition.
His house is designed to be a wonderland for kids. He has everything they could possibly want. Many pedophiles will have things at their homes to attract children, video games, toys, candy, animals, swimming pools, whatever kids like. Neverland is the ultimate kid magnet
He was abused as a child and shows characteristics of arrested emotional development. This is common for many pedophiles
True, but there seems to be a more than significant possibility that the accusation was unfounded. Thus, while reluctance to send one’s child there would be understandable under the circumstances, it wouldn’t be justified by the facts. Not a chance I’d be willing to take, regardless.
True as well. Still, if he is innocent, then giving up the company of the very people whose companionship he most values must seem like letting the people who are wrong about him win. If (and it’s a good sized if) he’s innocent, why should he let a bunch of people who are obviously prejudiced against him take his friends away? Sure, it would be prudent to cave to public opinion, but if he’s done nothing wrong, why should he suffer the consequences of everyone else’s mistake?
[Note: I’m channeling him, here. My nose now feels funny.]
I agree with you, though; he’s not exactly taking the prudent way through this. Sticking to his principles (“I’m innocent and therefore have nothing to hide.”) may be noble after a fashion, but I fear it will crash and burn him long before he is ever vindicated, if indeed he ever is.
Acid - yet the deposition included details that the child slept in the same hotel room as Jackson, and had many sleepovers at Neverland w/o the parents present.
my opinion is unchanged by the additional information that at times the parents of the accusing boy were present. Nor is it changed by the additional information that the parents themselves had issues and were fighting an ugly child custody battle. (My stance is that it wasn’t a good idea to have their kid stay there sans parent anyhow, and certainly any parent who does so now should re-think the issue.)
Actually Stinkpalm, it was probably Jacko’s best mate Uri Geller who had this conversation with the King of Denial. Bashir isn’t the type to do hatchet jobs.
Dijon - I work w/offenders, and have many convicted molesters on my caseload, in addition, many who were convicted of the crime, but I’d argue aren’t ‘child molesters’ (the cases where the ‘criminal’ is slightly over the age of consent, and the consenting ‘victim’ is slightly underage) and in both cases, my advice to them is the same - to never put themselves in a position where anyone would have any cause to be concerned.
and if they did put themselves into that same position, I’d argue that it was further evidence of a compulsion that wasn’t able to be stopped by logic and reasonable thought.
If he is a true ‘lover of children’ vs. ‘child molester’, then a few things would be different:
the inclusion of female children, and a wider variety of age for the male children (they all seemed to have been similar types as well - frail vs. brawny for example, or at least the ones I spotted were )
the inclusion of the parents or other trusted adult into the excursions. If all is so very innocent, given that there had been an accusation, he could still have his ‘moments w/children’ safely with the parents there. He couldn’t of course, easily molest the kids with the parents there.
I think there’s a very good possibility that he may be. Being a pedophile, however, is not a crime. What I do believe is that given how heinously our society views said predilection, accusations without proof should not be made.
A question mark does not a question make, you know. If it was your intention to ask me if I am defending “Pedophile like” behavior, I think there are many behaviors which can bear a resemblance to pedophilic behavior that are NOT pedophilic behavior. Would I defend those? Depends on what they are. I certainly wouldn’t pass a blanket judgment on the category, as there are too many blanket judgments involved with this subject already. If it was your intention to accuse me of defending pedophile like behavior, perhaps you could indicate what you are referring to specifically so I could clarify my point or at least address your concern.
That on a subject so fraught with kneejerking and conclusion jumping, I believe it’s better to take a rational and thoughtful approach than blindly join a torch-bearing mob. That understanding is more productive than and preferable to hatred. Why, what do you believe it suggests of me?
wring: That’s unfortunately pretty good advice. However, especially in cases where the participants are slighly over/under the age of consent (we’re talking right smackdab in the middle of adolescence), logic and reasonable thought probably aren’t the overriding forces in operation. Hormones have a way of trumping them from time to time.
In the part of the Bashir show that I caught, he was showing a whole bunch of kids around Neverland, male and female. I’ve no idea what the gender stats are on his sleepovers, but I know when I was growing up and was allowed to have friends stay overnight, there were never girls present, just boys. If, as has been said, MJ’s childhood was stolen from him and he’s reliving it, it’s not impossible to conceive that to him the sleepovers are very similar. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were no girls sleeping over. Who in their right mind wants cooties?
I agree the parents should be there. What I have to admit, though, is that the parents and families in question know him much better than we do. Maybe they’re in a position to know he can be trusted, which we certainly aren’t. That could account for their seemingly bad decisions: they might simply know better than we do out here with all our speculating. Then again, they could be idiots.
I guess my point re: the advice I give out, is the MJ is not an adolescent, and therefore should be exercising more due caution. especially since even an accusation cost him quite a bit of money (let alone pr)
so, I have a difficult time believing that he’s not acting complusively since it seems to me, at least to be so very obviously not in his own best interest and that the same objective (of being around kids, showing them a good time etc.) can be accomplished w/parents present.
as for the parents involved, there’s several possabilities:
A. they’re truely clueless ijiots.
B. they see monetary rewards in the future for potential law suits etc.
C. They, too are seduced by the flicker of fame (many otherwise sensible people go ape shit when they actually meet some ‘celebrity’)
or
D. it may all be untrue about him
However, even if “D” is true, I’d still say that for absolutely everybody involved if there isn’t anything going on, it is still in the best interests of the children involved and the adults that the unsupervised sleepovers cease.
Given the amount of publicity and controversy, how can it be in the kid’s best intersest to stay there unsupervised? can you imagine the family gatherings “yea, last weekend when I was at NEverland…” (stone cold silence ensues while other family members stare aghast at parent who then starts blustering 'no, really, I checked it out, it’s ok) or the school "gee, Michael let me play the coolest game on his game boy " (snickering ensues… while other adults present yank their kids away abrubtly).
I’d certainly agree that he’s got some serious problems going, even if pedophilia isn’t one of them (although it very possibly is). I think he shows definite signs (to me, the unducated armchair psychologist unencumbered by degrees of any sort) of a messianic complex: the ‘angelic’ painting of himself that he had hanging in one room, his ‘suffer the little children to come unto me’ routine, the whole ‘as long as it’s love, it’s okay’ thing. I get the impression that he truly believes everything will work out okay if he maintains his innocence long enough, and everyone will come to realize that they were wrong, not him (and they might be, even).
The thing of it is, the world he describes (as well as the motives he claims) seem quite laudible, and it might be a vast improvement if the world were like Neverland, where all is Innocence and Love, and People could be Trusted to Care for the Children. I’ve no doubt he’ll pursue that ideal as long as he’s able, however delusionally; and I get the impression that he believes that holding to that ideal is the only way to bring it about.
I’m not betting any money on him succeeding, though.
Evidently you missed the links I posted which indicate that that accusation was a setup by someone in financial difficulties during divorce proceedings.
Supposedly, the camera man on the “unseen” footage was the gay porn producer who was going to produce MJ’s 9/11 tribute song, until word got out who he was and what he did for a living.
and if the police felt that this was the sole reason for the accusation, that would have been their focus, don’t you think?
in any event. Those suggest that money was a motive for a settlement. Not that money was the motive for the accusation.
There’s conflicting evidence on the original charge. doesn’t mean that one side or the other is correct.
however, as I’ve repeatedly suggested, that if the accusations were totally and completely false, it would still have been in his best interest that unsupervised sleepovers sleep ins in his bed stop. Certainly in the best interest of the child. Obviously he derives some amount of pleasure (even if it’s totally asexual, ‘oh I’m comforting this small child’) from the contact. Some one who has the best interest of the child, however, will look beyond what they themselves personally find to be pleasurable.
I’m staggered that neither MJ nor any members of his presumably large legal team thought to try and get him some control over the content of this piece before it was broadcast. If I were him, knowing what it was likely to be like and how it was likely to be perceived, I’d never have signed off on allowing a single camera into my home or a single interview question to be asked before getting veto power over any segments of the final product that I didn’t like.
Take a look at the original affidavit signed by the boy Jackson was accused of molesting. The level of detail offered makes it pretty convincing to me. It doesn’t have the “feel” of a fabrication.
Combine that with the fact that we all saw Jackson lie with a straight face about his plastic surgery, and Jackson looses all credibility (in my book, at least).
Oh, and regarding the OP, I would only point out that Jackson being a pedophile and his interviewer being an ass are not mutually exclusive possibilities.
