u/Long_Dragonfly_3067

The consensus in the Michael Jackson fandom is that Diana Ross is a pdf who supposedly groomed and took advantage of Michael when he was a child. Their proof is Michael having a childhood crush on her, scripted TV shows and some urban legend about them sleeping together when Michael was an adult. The fandom claims that those who believe Michael's accusers are creeps who want him to be a predator, but for some reason that doesn't apply to them who literally came up with an obscene pdf fantasy about Diana.

But WHY are they doing this to her? I certainly don't think that it's out of real concern for child exploitation. These are the same people who fiercely defend a man's right to sleep with children and to own photographs of nude boys. Yet according to them Diana – who has no accusers, no history of crossing boundaries with children and a track record of various relationships with men usually quite older than her – is somehow a certified predator.

Is it just me or are they using her to take the heat off Michael who has similar allegations? Like trying to divert it to her by saying "he was a victim of it, the real pdfs are others". Some of them argue that the reason why Michael would sleep with children is because Diana normalized it to him when he was living at her house (even tho there's no evidence of M and D sleeping in the same bed). I'm certain that if one day more undeniable evidence of Michael's crimes came out, the fandom would jump to blame Diana and say that she's the reason why he started preying on children...

FYI: because there's no credible evidence of Diana being inappropriate with little Michael or any child, any comment that reinforces this defaming rumor will be removed for unreasonable speculation

When news broke that Michael and Lisa Marie had married, they were widely accused of staging the relationship for PR. The public was suspicious of Jackson for settling with Jordan Chandler who accused him of child molestation, and believed that Michael proposed to Lisa to convince the public that he was attracted to adult women.

4 months into their marriage they attended the VMAs and went on stage together. Michael said "Just think, nobody thought this would last" and kissed Lisa in front of the world.

In an interview Lisa said that she didn't want to do it: "It looked awkward because I wanted out of my skin. At the 11th hour, he says, "I'm gonna kiss you." I was like, "No, I don't want to do that. Do we have to? That's bullshit." On the way there I kept saying, "Do we have to?" I squeezed his hand so hard that I cut off the circulation. He wouldn't tell me when it was going to happen."

In another interview she says: "I was terrified. It was his manager's idea. I thought it was stupid. All of a sudden I became part of a PR machine."

The previous year Michael lied to Oprah about dating Brooke Shields. Brooke called him out on it, and also for trying to kiss her against her will in front of photograpers: "I called him up and I think I said, 'This is kind of pathetic that you need to do this. I am having a shot at normal life - you cannot drag me into crazy town." Jackson just laughed it off. He used to say that he wanted to adopt a child with her - so did they ever date? Or even kiss?

"No! There was one moment when we were in the car and the cameras were there and he grabbed me to kiss me and I said, 'No! Stop! We are just friends and you need me as a friend.' I remember the early days when other actresses were after him and he was kind of cute, before the shift. But it never even crossed my mind"

When he was younger Joseph dreamed of having a successful musical career with the band he had formed with his brother and their friend, The Falcons. Kathrine said in her book: «Joe didn't have to tell me what his goals were for the Falcons. It was clear just from hearing him and the others talk in our living room that he wanted the same things I'd dreamed of myself as a would-be entertainer: fame and fortune.»

After playing in Gary for a few years, the group found no success and disbanded. At that time Joe's family was growing so he had abandon his dream. Other than him having an economic interest, Joseph being so invested in making his sons successful musicians might've also been a way for him to live vicariously through them. Many such cases among stage parents.

When Michael was a teenager Joseph started demeaning him for his looks by calling him ugly. Why would Joseph do that if not to intentionally lower Michael's self esteem? At that point it was clear that Michael was the star of the group and he had fame of his own. Was Joseph intentionally making Michael insecure because he felt insecure about Michael achieving everything that Joseph failed to do as an artist? According to Michael, Joseph would say stuff like "you're so black, you don't look like my child" or "your nose is so big, you didn't get it from me" and it sounds like he's trying to compete with Michael by telling him "I look better than you". Michael had surpassed him career and talent wise. While he was certainly happy about his sons' success because of how it benefited him, I think he resented not being able to do that for himself. Imo Joseph making Michael insecure about his looks was him competing and trying to one-up him in the only way he thought he could.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono's son Sean was one of MJ's special friends from age 8 to 15. He's one of the boys who would have sleepovers with Michael at Neverland. Sean once said: "I may have spent more time with him than almost anybody else."

The video opens with a depiction of Michael's house, with toys, dolls and children's books everywhere. Sean talks about Michael adopting Bubbles in 1983, same year in which he and Michael became friends. Bubbles is initially scared of Michael, and tries to hide from him under the bedsheets while Michael, who is depicted as a very creepy person, is trying his best to impress him. Michael tries to lure him through stuff that is appealing to children, like milk and candy, and Bubbles loosens up and starts trusting Michael. Bubbles gets out of the bed and Michael starts teaching him his signature dance moves. Then they get in a tub together and play. In the following scene there's an animation of Michael and Bubbles flying to Neverland in their tub. Michael spots the Neverland train station, and points at its first floor (three years after the release of this video James Safechuck said he was abused in this exact spot). That's where they're headed, until they find out that the media and the DA (clearly Tom Sneddon) are right there waiting for Michael. At that point Michael bolts out of there with Bubbles and takes him to outer space, where they continue peacefully sharing that bath tub.

Interesting lyrics:

Transported to a planet made of toys, bananas, and games / Childhoods end and Bubbles burst.

We met in the arcade / Playing video games / We both could not believe it was / Like living in a dream / We did not understand / Dancing with Peter Pan / What would be the result when we / Turned into young adults

Sean explaining the song in an interview: «I thought it'd be interesting to write about something that actually happened. It just felt right. I think I'd resisted much of my life talking about those kinds of stories, because they just seemed so hard to figure out how to translate them or relate them. And I just thought it was an interesting metaphor for what happened to a lot of Michael's friends who were my age. It felt like there was something odd going on, and I still don't know what it was. Nothing ever happened with me in an illegal way, but the whole place just felt like I was in some Peter Pan fantasy land. And there was a sense that when Bubbles got too old, he'd have to be gotten rid of, because chimpanzees turn into angry adults or dangerous adults. And it just felt like that was something I could relate to in terms of the whole situation out there. Because there was something Michael liked about hanging out with kids, because they're so innocent and fun. Then, when you become an adult, it felt like you were a chimpanzee: too old to play with anymore»

Let's emphasize that Sean says that Michael didn't do anything illegal to him. Still, his interpretation of Michael and his relationships with his special friends aligns in many ways with those who believe that Michael was a predator. In the interview Sean says that he relates to Bubbles because once he got too old, his relationship with Michael ended. It looks like in the music video he's using Bubbles to show what actually went on between himself and Michael. Michael is creepy and Sean/Bubbles is scared, but Michael gains his trust through toys and things that children like. Then the tub, then going to Neverland, then the allegations represented by the media and Tom Sneddon.

Accepting to go on the Victory Tour ended up changing Michael's life trajectory for the worst. After Thriller's success the most logical career move would've been to go on a solo stadium tour, but Michael's father and brothers were in deep financial trouble and Katherine managed to convince him to go on tour with them to help them get paid.

The tour started on the wrong foot due to the lottery scam that Joseph and the brothers decided to do, which started the friction between Michael and his brothers. Many sources say that there was a lot of conflict and envy between Michael and his brothers, who grew more and more distant to the point where they were barely speaking to each other. Michael would fly on his private jet and stay at luxury hotels, separating himself from his brothers who couldn't afford to do so. According to Taraborelli Michael at one point was hospitalized due the stress of the family tensions.

If it wasn't for this tour the Pepsi accident wouldn't have happened and maybe he wouldn't have developed an addiction to prescription meds (which contributed to the insomnia that led to his death).

I think this tour profoundly changed Michael's relationship with his brothers and his approach to business. A solo stadium tour would've made him earn a tremendous amount of money, but he accepted to go with his brothers and split the revenue. After this decision backfired, Michael became more ruthless with his career decisions: he "stole" Jermaine's producers and bought the beatles catalog knowing that Paul McCartney was trying to get his songs back.

Michael was so frustrated with them that he decided to end the tour early, blindsiding his family. I think this was a breaking point that made Michael become a more selfish person and keep his brothers to a distance for many years. He wouldn't have done something like this for them in the 90s. Even tho it was selfless of him to do it, Michael should've refused to go with them and went on his first solo tour for Thriller. That's what would've made sense for his career and he would've saved himself some serious family and health trouble.

Once Wade Robson, James Safechuck and Jason Francia entered puberty, the "sleepovers" ended and MJ limited contact with them and moved on to other boys. But I'm confused as to why this wasn't consistent with the other boys. Brett Barnes slept in his bed until the age of 19 and in 2006 Michael flew him to Bahrain. Similarly he kept the Cascios and Omer in his life as adults. Why do you think that is?

I find a lot of the discourse around his sexuality lazy and at times in bad faith. Some fans try hard to push the narrative that MJ was this 100% straight womanizer that could've never been interested in the same gender, mainly because they believe it counters the idea of him possibly molesting young boys. But just like you can't assume that he didn't like the same gender, it's also wrong to assume that be couldn't possibly be attracted to women. It's similar to what fans do: to validate the allegations some people claim that he has never ever been attracted to women in his life (you don't have to believe this to believe the victims) when there are signals that he was, and even if you don't believe those you still can't know for sure the extent of his attraction to women. Sexuality is a spectrum, and him speaking in a feminine way or looking androgynous doesn't prove lack of attraction to women. Him being attracted to women also doesn't prove lack of attraction to men. I say this because both of these points were being made under a now deleted post from another user. I personally believe that he did like women but wasn't necessarily straight. I think his love for Diana Ross was real, and he expressed it both privately and publicly for more than 2 decades. But at the end of the day sexuality is complex and claiming that someone was 100% straight or 100% gay is tricky, especially when it comes to someone who we don't fully know.

After the success of the biopic and Michael's increased popularity among younger audiences, studios might want to make money from restoring the footage from some of Michael's concerts and making a concert film. For us younger fans, watching a Michael Jackson concert in a movie theatre would be the closest we'll ever get to seeing him live and i would die to watch the bad or dangerous tour on a big screen! Do you guys think that this could happen after the release of the second biopic, or would it be counterproductive as Michael could end up oversaturating the media?

Hi, new fan here! Can anyone recommend some good YouTube channels that post archive footage and accurately cover Michael's career and personal life?