r/PsychologyofMJ

On their first Neverland stay, Michael was cautious with Gavin and Star staying in his bedroom, so he had Frank and the kids stay also and Michael and Frank slept on the floor.

Later, during the supposed weeks long “captivity”, warnings from Chris Tucker and others, child services actively investigating Michael and the arvizos, and the PR crisis, Michael let Gavin and other children sleep in his bed.

People were specifically hired to clean this mess up, but nobody said to Michael “hey, you’re being investigated by child services and you’ve had warnings about this family, maybe let’s not let any children sleep in your room until this goes away?”

What’s the deal here?
Did Michael not think anything of it and he has a hard time saying no?
Did people tell him to stop but he’s too stubborn?
Are Gavin and Star lying when they say they slept in his bed after Miami?

How could Michael have been so careful before but then essentially not give a shit when child services is involved? I don’t believe Michael is a child molester, I’m just trying to see if there’s information I’m missing about this period of time. I’m only about half way in listening to the trial transcripts.

Please reframe from assumptions like “he just couldn’t help himself, that’s what predators do”.

I’m not an MJ hater or a diehard fan. I simply find him really interesting, so I’m approaching this as an unbiased discussion.

I’ve never fully understood why Michael spent so much of his whole life (childhood to death) obsessing over childhood, as well as saying that he was the most misunderstood and loneliest person on Earth, often explaining it all through simply said childhood (as a lot of fans and reporters simply do too). For example, in one of the leaked private conversations, he was asked why he was obsessed with mannequins and kept them around throughout his adult life. He explained that he was too shy to be around real people, didn’t really understand how social peer dynamics worked and said something along the lines of: “They’re like real babies, children and people (the mannequins), and they make me feel like I’m in a room with people.” When asked why he was too shy to be around people and if it was due to his childhood, he again said yes, probably childhood, as he did with most other things and eccentricities, despite sometimes contradicting himself. He (self claim) said (early 20s) he did not have much of a social filter either, which made him embaressed and avoidant in impulsive social situations, as he would cry over people calling him weird and being lied about. He admit in private, though, that he sometimes has felt he is by nature “different” and something “wrong with him”. Even though he becomes defensive against any such claims (that he isn’t “normal”) elsewhere.

But thing is, from everything we know of the full narrative, he didn’t spend his entire childhood doing *nothing* except performing (which he consistently claims he loved and wanted and wouldn’t change). Even his school music teacher said he had a one-track mind after discovering the school choir: music (at 5 or so, before he started performing), and would rush through schoolwork, to sit in his own head and hum/dance with arms, head and legs, while the other kids did their tests. He would still play, do pranks and be part of a class though, collect model trains and use his allowance running between candy stores. He attended school with other children until he was at least 11. Lots of experiences. He had close relationship with some siblings, he had a mother he felt emotional comfort with, and a tutor (Rose Fine) who had that same role when on tour with J5 later on. He met people while travelling and worked with many different people. He was spoon fed to be social from early on. His childhood was obviously far from ideal for “normal” development, especially for a very sensitive child, but I don’t know if it can accurately be described as a completely socially deprived childhood. No one can have it all. He was abused/beaten like his siblings, but sadly many kids were back in those days and areas. Michael clearly internalised every trauma or negative experience a lot more intensely and vivdly than majority of other children back then, including his siblings. Even described a childhood experience of turbulence on the plane as traumatizing him, “a big wound for life”, that would make him hide when traveling and have meltdowns from fear, for a while. And intense emotional descriptions od wanting “to die” because someone said he had a lot of teen pimples (crying over it decades after), while he didn’t see calling Janet a “fat cow/pig” for being chubby/comfort eating was hurtful (until later on, where he said it was mean, but just done cause he loved her and he wanted to “help her lose weight” so she would not get bullied). Said he could be at museums, see a painting and then collapse crying from the sheer overwhelm of visual and emotional stimuli. He seemed to experience everything, including joy and music, 100x the intensity of his peers. And everything stick with him, deeply internalised. Which makes his narrative and judgement a bit confusing to understand at times.

All in all, I believe he still did have a childhood - like his siblings, even if it wasn’t the childhood he wanted or needed or deserved.

Going back to the topic of intense loneliness.
He also said several times that he was so lonely during the Thriller era, and had enough of it, that he would break down and go out into the street, approach random strangers and children playing in parks, and begging them to talk to him, give him their phone numbers and to “please be my friend”. Which is rather sad, but again an emotionally extreme and tragically socially naive approach.

I understand his JW upbringing and that intense fame, which although he continued *choosing* to pursue of own ambition and passion, could leave someone confused about who genuinely wants them for who they are. You can also feel deeply lonely in a room full of people you don’t feel good or connected with. I understand all that. At the same time, Michael had several close friends as an adult whom he himself described as real friends. Children and their families were constantly coming and going from his life. He had showbusiness friends (but he didn’t count those as “real friends”, cause they were not “ordinary people” - but hey, again, you can’t have it all. Most of us can’t have what he considered “showbiz” friends, unless he equals that with work collagues). Countless people loved him, and he had relatives around him whenever he wanted. He lived with his mother and sister and all his animals until he was around 30. Even if the family was dysfunctional in some ways, both Michael and his family said they loved one another. At different points, he also had wives, and later he had children.

—

In some private conversations, however, despite his big need for company when he needs it: he genuinely seems uninterested in connecting deeper with certain people, and people who don’t share his interests. He is a good listener, patient and often start questioning the other person with genuine concern and enthusiam (sometimes excessively, if a word or phrase catch his attention), but at the same time, he default runs a lot in the same pattern, and he keeps going back to “his” topics when possible, turning to references of his own passions and interests, and wide book encyclopedia. He says that he mainly wants to be friends with elderly people, children and former child stars because they are the only ones who “know what he means,” whatever that means (he just explains it as feeling like telepathy), while other people don’t understand him, and adults are boring, comfusing and says he does not like or understand their social structure. He do want ordinary people as friends, but they “only want him for Michael Jackson” according to himself, even though random people he goes up to asking to be friends, genuinely don’t know him as anything but MJ (so how would they know on the spot if they match beyond his persona, before they get a chance to know him). He generalises about celebrities, saying that he doesn’t want to spend time with them when invited to hang out, because they have nothing in common and only want to go out and party, drink and get high. He says he wants someone “like him”, who share his interests/fixations, personality and worldview. While also understanding him. Again, tough to have it all.

It’s similar with his self described view on romance, he privately says he longs for romance and having “that” intimacy with a girl, and that his brothers never had that issue and married young, but at the same time he doesn’t want a wife, cause it may disturb and take time from his creativity. If he were to have a wife, he wants “his mirror”, a girl who is like him, childlike, gamer, tomboy, wants to help the world and love all children as their own, and “understands him” and him being a perfectionistic workaholic. (Self admitted privately: “There are very few I like who fit the mold. It takes a very special mold to make me happy. I don't understand a lot of things that go on in relationships and I don't know if I ever will. I think that is what has hurt me in my relationships, because I don't understand how people do some of the things they do. And the mean things and vulgar things with their bodies. I don't understand it and it has hurt my [romantic] relationships.”). At the same time, he finds sexuality very awkward (“I would never say this on TV, but if I went on stage thinking about what goes through women’s heads, I would never go out on stage. If I was suddenly to start thinking about what they were thinking about. . . sex, or what I look like naked, then, oh God, that would be so embarrassing. I could never go out. That’s so horrible”), despite seemingly wanting and longing for that too. I understand why all these internal contradictions and overthinkings must be a mess in his head.

—

It’s all understandable to a degree his life considered, but wanting only people who share his specific experiences, personality and interests naturally reduces the number of possible connections considerably. Which he does seem to understand himself. The life pattern is consistent: described having almost no friends and being lonely over and over while, elsewhere, naming close friends and maintaining a large network of family and acquaintances whom he said he loved. Constantly said that nobody understood him except people who were “like him,” such as child stars (who he initially claimed were the same, yet admitted they were not when pointed out that not all were “childlike”), elderly people, children, childlike people or people with similarly intense, interest-based obsessions and collections. But he categorize all of those. Showbiz friends. Interest focused friends. Family. Children. Fans. Emotional support friends. Then comes to conclusion = no real ordinary/friends. No normal childhood. No normal life. No one understands me. Loneliest person in the world.

According to people around him, and I know that there were also plenty of leeches around him, constantly betraying or taking advantage of him, his seeming forgiving kindness and his sometimes social naivity, which would make anyone paranoid, he frequently chose “depression” or avoidance instead of communicating when relationships became difficult or someone said no, or if they took up serious matters (that honestly needed to be said to him at time). He pushed people away. Often times, he seemed desperate for company, but at other times he withdrew into his own intense passions or appeared not to care about connecting with people at a deeper level, outside his intense social curiosity/need for connection, as well as the feeling that he was sent-by-God to use his talent on a world bettering mission (helping children, take pain away from others, inspire with his “magic”). He also had an intense fear or hurting anyone, animal or person, and their feelings. So he chose run or shut down, rather than confront.

Makes me think his social awareness and understanding in some aspects could be very inconsistent. In one of the leaked conversations. Michael complained that fame made ordinary life and relationships impossible, but like I said, he continued pursuing that even bigger solo career and fame and publicicity and love of fans by own choice (to an extend, the paparazzi and mob show everywhere he went was a disgrace). He desperately wanted company, yet often withdrew or pushed people away. He said he had almost no friends, yet he had close friends, mentors, colleagues, wives, children, siblings and a huge extended family. People actively sought his company, and he had practically unlimited opportunities to meet others in one way or another.

He literally possessed many things that profoundly lonely people would desperately want: a large family (not ALL were bad or bad for him), children later in life, long-standing friendships, mentors, staff, colleagues and people who loved him intensely.

I myself grew up with barely any friends and only one parent/adult I could rely on. I also had a severely disabled brother who craved most of her attention (love him though), and an abusive father who kept us cut off from the outside world during several of my developmental years. I was also addicted for some years, like my father. So, to some extent, I understand isolation and a lost childhood, but at the same time, I don’t fully understand Michael’s narrative and fixation of it (everyone are different, I know). Makes me think Michael was “special” in one way or another, however someone wants to define that. Underneath the trauma responses, extreme fame and his sense of having lost his childhood, there seemed to be something about him that could both be unique in an amazing, pure and beautiful way if nutured correctly, but also unusually complicated and difficult.

How do you people interpret his loneliness?
Was it primarily an internal emotional state, rather than a lack of people around him? Or do you think he helped create and maintain the loneliness he repeatedly described throuhhout his life?

Support your choice in the comments below.

If you chose “More Than One Option” explain why.

Key: Paternal Origin / Reasoning

View Poll

His speech was about child welfare, the trauma of his own stardom, and the power of family healing. He also talked about his father this is a part of what he discussed "I want to stop judging him.
I have started reflecting on the fact that my father grew up in the South, in a very poor family. He came of age during the Depression and his own father, who struggled to feed his children, showed little affection towards his family and raised my father and his siblings with an iron fist. Who could have imagined what it was like to grow up a poor black man in the South, robbed of dignity, bereft of hope, struggling to become a man in a world that saw my father as subordinate. I was the first black artist to be played on MTV and I remember how big a deal it was even then. And that was in the 80s!My father moved to Indiana and had a large family of his own, working long hours in the steel mills, work that kills the lungs and humbles the spirit, all to support his family. Is it any wonder that he found it difficult to expose his feelings? Is it any mystery that he hardened his heart, that he raised the emotional ramparts? And most of all, is it any wonder why he pushed his sons so hard to succeed as performers, so that they could be saved from what he knew to be a life of indignity and poverty?
I have begun to see that even my father’s harshness was a kind of love, an imperfect love, to be sure, but love nonetheless"

Do you guys think Micheal Jackson was really a virgin. I would like to know because I ready story’s of women who claimed to have slept with him I would like to know you redditors opinion?

just watched it and found it very interesting they got a few things wrong but they have a few old interviews and podcasts I haven't seen before. I had never seen the interview with Sheryl before

Latoya either told the truth and rightfully fuelled the fire and was paid to keep her mouth shut or

She told the WORST lie about her brother

Either way, HOW and why did he forgive her?

What do you think?

First of all, I do believe Michael is guilty, I’m not a defender or fanatic. I’m going against the grain from a lot of other people who believe he’s guilty though, I think his white appearance is more incidental/a natural response to his skin changing than it is him not wanting to be perceived as black. BUT I want to learn about the specific reasons why people believe this, I’m not here to convince anyone. I want others to convince me that I’m wrong if there’s good reason to.

I don’t believe Michael wanted to be white. Basically the entire Jackson family had nose jobs, including Joe, based on self hatred that was probably instilled by Joe. Michael’s skin changing was due to vitiligo. I’ve seen a lot of people who believe he’s guilty try to deny this which is very strange. He had vitiligo and his skin color changed as a result.

So, naturally, you’re going to begin dressing, styling your hair, etc, in ways that compliment your skin tone, and Michael did exactly that. That’s not necessarily a rejection of being black, that’s just looking good because your skin tone might no longer compliment the way you used to dress as well.

If you have pretty blue eyes, and you wear shirts that compliment those pretty blue eyes, and then one day you wake up to discover you now have brown eyes, you will wear shirts that compliment your pretty brown eyes. That’s not a rejection or hatred of having had blue eyes.

Now, obviously that analogy ignores a LOT of context surrounding Michael, his upbringing, the racism he grew up surrounded by, so on and so forth. But I’ve not seen evidence to necessarily prove the principle of what I’m saying wrong, so I TOTALLY could sound like a naive fool right now. I’m asking to be educated on the reasons that contradict my reasoning.

Michael also continued to make music in genres and with sounds that is primarily made by black artists, featuring many black artists (I think he probably had more black artists as features than white artists, especially AFTER his skin changed). He idolized James Brown and even had the same hair as James Brown in the early-mid 2000s.

I’m open to being convinced that I am wrong, that’s the point of this post, so please be nice if there are crucial details I’ve completely missed.

The article:

>Michael Jackson's sleepovers with young boys are sure to come up in his molestation trial.

>Now there's word that one of the most respected names in the music industry, Quincy Jones, reached out to his longtime friend and begged him to stop sharing his bed with children.

>Harvey Levin, the executive producer of "Celebrity Justice," broke the story, and filled in viewers of The Early Show Friday.

>The interventions, Levin says, took place "a couple of years ago, before the current scandal broke, before the documentary aired where Michael Jackson talked about sleeping, sharing his bed with children. And Quincy Jones was alarmed. That's the word I got – alarmed -- and felt that this would bring Michael Jackson down -- if only in the public perception, if he continued to do it. There were no signs (Jackson) was stopping and he really felt that he had to step in."

>So, says Levin, Jones "went to Michael Jackson and made it very clear that -- he was very direct that he felt it was inappropriate. He felt it was wrong. He explained how it could destroy him.

>"And Jackson was like a wall. He would not hear it. He didn't want to acknowledge any of it. And Quincy Jones was frustrated, and he went back again. This happened several times.

>"This was something that was discussed among the people who were closest to Michael Jackson, people who liked him the most. And they felt he had to stop this. He would absolutely hear none of it."

>Levin says Jones was "extremely frustrated and almost panicked that this would be (Jackson's) downfall."

>How, asked The Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen, did Jones first learn about the sleepovers?

>"Quincy Jones was really, really close to Michael Jackson," responded Levin. "He did the "Thriller" album with him and, I believe, the "Off the Wall" album. He was with him every single night as they were recording these things -- really involved in the family, to the point where the (Jackson's) defense (in his molestation trial) has called Quincy Jones as a witness in this case, because Quincy Jones and his daughters were at Neverland on some of the key dates in this case, and they can testify that they didn't see anything inappropriate happen.

>"So, Quincy Jones saw the way Michael Jackson lived. It was not a secret. He saw how he lived, but there were problems he had with part of the lifestyle.

>Levin adds there are at least two other celebrities who implored Jackson to stop the sleepovers, to no avail. But Levin wasn't at liberty to name them. One of them has died, Levin noted.

>"But I can tell you," he added, "beyond those two, there were discussions about this. This is not just something that people said, 'Oh, he's going off and doing this.' They knew that there was something that had to be fixed."

For whatever reason they don't allow me to post in LNHBO so here I am asking this.

I just followed that link from Daphne with her sitting with Frank in a video. It was a very strange Instagram short. She said she loves Michael Jackson and she's happy the movie did well while Frank sat beside her saying nothing. The thing is, Frank looked awful! I don't mean his aging. But he looked incredibly distressed and very disturbed. I've seen him look unhappy and nervous in interviews before but not like this.

What the hell is happening? Now I believe the Cascios 100%. But why does it appear like they're doing so much worse? I have PTSD myself (I am diagnosed) but my attacks have gotten better with time. My good friend has PTSD as well and has a YouTube channel ("alifelearned") and has too improved though she still struggles.

To be honest, I am concerned for the Cascios genuinely. I've never seen people appear to be mentally deteriorating so many years after a trauma. They are WORSE than 2010 though I'm sure their denial was covering their pain at the time.

But I am concerned. There is a strangeness to this as with the weird video from Daphne. Why would she say she's happy about the biopic doing well with a traumatized victim sitting next to her? I can't understand

Have yall seen this movie yet?
It’s on Amazon Prime it’s based on a security guards point of view of MJ’s last year or so. Gives Some interesting insights that i didn’t know about.

He’s been talking abt loving children since he was a teen but he never tried to have kids until after the first allegation all of a sudden. He basically tried manipulating lisa to have his kids saying if you dont do it i know a nurse who will and HE DID IT. Lisa mentioned how adamant he was. Then they divorce and 3-4ish months later debbie is pregnant. Some random nurse who worked for his doctor. Like wtf.

Is there a correlation with the first allegations coming out and the sudden want to have a child ASAP? What would that even mean?

This ruins the idea that he was humble, I think this is actually a display of Narcississm. He thought societal rules didn't apply to him. I know that Chilli (the singer in the video) and his fans don't mind but It shows how big of an ego he had that he felt it was fine for him to go up and kiss people. And this 100% goes for him kissing children on the cheek or sitting them on his lap all the time, in fact he did this whenever a child was in his vicinity. They still have bodily autonomy.

In Joy’s 2005 testimony she said that when Michael got back to the US after the Chandler allegations, he called Joy and she and Wade drove to neverland late at night and she dropped Wade off at Michael’s bedroom and she went to the guest quarters. This was at 1:30 am. And that it wasn’t uncommon for him to call late at night and request the kids to come to his bedroom. Like when they were staying at a hotel across the street from his condo for 6 weeks, she said Michael would call very late at night and she would walk over and bring Wade to him. And r that it was just Wade and Michael and she would go back to the hotel. She said sometimes she wouldn’t see Wade for a couple days.

I was always under the impression that many of the sleeping arrangements were spontaneous- kids falling asleep whenever.
But this narrative about how the parents are basically delivering children to his bedroom really puts me off.

I need someone to explain this to me. Whether it’s debunking something, clarifying what she means, idk providing anything that makes this okay in your mind. And I’m being genuine. I don’t really care to hear about him being childlike and not having a childhood. I’d like to know what convinced you there is nothing to see here.

EDIT: I’d really like to genuinely hear from people who think Michael is innocent.