Feel free to elaborate on the topic!

  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    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.

  • wjrii@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    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.

    • otp@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Wouldn’t let my kid sleep over, though.

      For me, part of it would be that I could never hope to compete with all the fun things in his mansion! Lmao

    • Devi@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      This is where I am I think. Although I don’t think I’d let any kids of mine sleep over with any adult man outside of family.

  • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    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.

    • Devi@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      There’s always people who defend sex offenders by saying “Oh, but they didn’t molest me”, which is kind of weird if you think about it.

      I don’t know if he did or not obviously, but there are a lot of accusers, not just the one.

      • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Feldman would put you on blast, he has no reason to defend Michael. look at his other interviews like with the removed Barbara Walters. even though he wouldn’t name them, he has mentioned people connected sexual assault and other heinous crimes. I doubt MJ molested anyone, he was sick due to his own shitty childhood, dude was barely in public he was so strange. his brain was basically trying to relive a childhood through the other kids, not fuck them up more.

        my opinion at least, nothing will ever be concrete

        • Devi@kbin.social
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          8 months ago

          I’m not saying he’s lying, he wasn’t molested by Michael, that doesn’t mean that the other victims must be lying. Paedophiles have preferences like anyone else and even within families, a person might assault one of their children while not touching the others.

          • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            it just doesn’t add up to me. but we’ll never know the truth so none of it really matters now.

  • Teknikal@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    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.

  • z00s@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    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.

  • otp@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    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.

    • ButtCheekOnAStick@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Did you see the Netflix doc where they interview one of his victims? He fucked them kids. Pretty sure that’s illegal.

  • rufus@discuss.tchncs.de
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    8 months ago

    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.

  • 1984@lemmy.today
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    8 months ago

    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.

  • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz
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    8 months ago

    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?

    • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I heard the opposite. I thought he won the case because the kid failed to properly describe MJs penis

      • Devi@kbin.social
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        8 months ago

        Jordan Chandler, who wasn’t the kid from the 2000 case, drew the pattern of pale patches around MJs genitalia, the police then took pictures to compare. Both were ruled inadmissable in court and that whole case was settled out of court with Michael giving him a lot of money.

        I don’t believe they ever confirmed or denied whether he was right.

  • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    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.

  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    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.

    • BOMBS@lemmy.worldOP
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      8 months ago

      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.

      This was the motivation for my question.