Ask Lemmy

I'm old enough to remember him as the King of Pop, but young enough that I can't remember him not being a weirdo. I respect the music, but was never a fan. (For context)

To me it always felt like he was trying to reclaim his childhood. His father was horrible to those kids and worked them to the bone. As a billionaire adult he was able to do ALL the things that every kid dreams of, like having an amusement park in your backyard, and a pet chimp. He shared his stuff with other child stars that he probably could relate to. I honestly believe he was just having sleep overs with his friends.

He was a deeply damaged, deeply odd man, and he definitely had no sense of what was socially appropriate, but I have literally no idea if he took sexual gratification from it all or committed any crimes. He was the absolute poster child for "reasonable doubt."

Wouldn't let my kid sleep over, though.

I don't think so. Mostly because actual victims of pedos like Feldman and caulkin still insist that MJ was on the up and up. Additionally as far as I know, he's only been thought of as a pedo because of accusations against him by a kid whose family has a habit of suing and accusing wealthy people of abusing their kids.

I'm going to say I honestly don't know but the guy was definetly messed in the head but I think he was a talent I'm not going to judge him because I really do not know (would I let any kid of mine sleep over him, no I wouldn't but that goes for anyone else as well) .

Jimmy Saville on the other hand is hopefully in hell.

The waters have been muddied enough that I don't think we'll ever know for sure, but I think it's certain to say that he had a pretty fucked up childhood, which meant that at the very least his behaviour as an adult was extremely strange.

Did he do inappropriate things with children? Yes, definitely.

Did he do illegal things with children? I don't think so.

I don't think he deserves the hate. He was messed up in the head, but I don't think he was a Harvey Weinstein or a Bill Cosby.

Considering everyone recanted an he wasn’t convicted, no I don’t think he did

Meh, since there are so many false claims about famous people, ways to profit and get an audience by making allegations... I think it's really hard to tell. Seems established fact that he was a creep. And gathered children around because of some mental illness, to compensate for his own childhood that he didn't have. That doesn't automatically mean he abused them. And he wasn't convicted of anything. I say: can't tell, in dubio pro reo, but I wouldn't let kids anywhere near people like that.

I think he's probably guilty. Maybe 60-40

I think he was just a weird and the media loves scandals

No he didn't. His energy was pure kindness. He was a child inside which is why he liked being around children. There was nothing sexual about it.

The "Jesus Juice" thing, in retrospect, sounds very Cosby adjacent. :(

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-30131791.html

He was such a cute kid in the Jackson 5. I remember my parents playing them a lot. Then Thriller was big. Hard to describe how big. He was an incredible entertainer. Didn't one of the kids actually describe his dick in court though?

I don't know, I just chalk it up to another L on the genius-madness scoreboard. We'll always have some fond memories of before he went off the deep end.

I don't know and I don't care.

If it did happen, I hope anyone affected by the act has mentally and physically recovered. The same way I would regarding anyone who has undergone a similar ordeal.

My opinion doesn't matter so I don't care to have one on it. Furthermore, he's dead, what are we going to go about it now? Arrest his corpse?

It may validate the experiences of the victims, and that would be the only tangible benefit. Even if it were able to be proven, one way or the other, would that provide any significant benefit to the victims? Do any of the victims want that?

To me, at this point, whether innocent or guilty, dragging Michael's name through the mud, just seems excessive and pointless; continually making it a point of discussion may even dredge up memories for the victims which are unwanted and uncomfortable, causing them undue psychological harm.

At the end of the day, the only thing that's of any relevance that could result from the discussion is whether or not you should feel guilty when enjoying the music of someone who may have been a child molester. My opinion is, no, you shouldn't. If that's what happened, the only people who could legitimately feel bad about supporting him, are those that bought his records during the time when those things were taking place, unknowingly and indirectly supporting his actions; and in the same breath: given that it was an unknown consequence of buying his music, I cannot logically hold any of his fans from that era, responsible for anything he may have done with the money he earned from those sales.

Buying/enjoying his music now, cannot support any ongoing nefarious acts by him, since he's too dead to cause any further problems for anyone. So, IMO, if you like his music, that's fine. If you don't like him because he might be guilty of heinous acts, that's fine too. Above all, both things can be true: you can like his music and hate the man, at the same time.... and that's also fine.

It just seems irrelevant to continue to think about it any further.

Ask Wade, there's an entire documentary on this. He absolutely diddled children

I take the allegations with a grain of salt. The "pedo panic" is turning out as being minimally different from the Satanic panic, the red scare, and whatever we had before Stonewall, in fact there are fears I've seen illustrated well that it won't end in a way that suits anyone. Did it happen? We may never know, and to assume is always premature. Notice all such allegations have a formulaic binary mindset.

I'm too young to remember Jackomania. In my politically moderate (by US standards) upbringing, he was the subject of many deeply racist, transphobic jokes, all juxtaposed with the child molestation thing. I dont really have any other memory of him, aside from the simpsons episode of him (made at the height of Jackomaia).

That all being said, any expectations I have were set by Talking Simpsons, and the fact that that is the only episode not on Disney+. The episode was very much made at Jackson's insistence. He had an unhealthy obsession with Bart Simpson, and the episode itself was made with his intention to lure more boys in. It was very much selling the fantasy of being plucked from obscurity by Jackson-as-sexless-music-elf, and you, a little boy, could stay up all night writing the next pop hit. A few of his victims even cited the episode, and one detail that stuck with me was that Jackson would invite boys over with their sisters, as cover.

Jackson had a deeply traumatic upbringing in the public eye, and I cant imagine the fame or racism went down easy, especially when that venom was all he knew. But there is no doubt in my mind that he did molest little boys.