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| Songwriters Hall of Fame. Michael Jackson was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002. |
"You know I'm bad, I'm bad..."
Or do I?
Michael Jackson's media crumb trail persists sixteen years after his passing. In 2025, people (including me) are unsure what to believe.
The purpose of free press in the United States is to report the truth to the public without repercussions. When it comes to Jackson's story, allegations and accusations included, I wonder - what if the press lied?
I will preface that I was born in January of 2003, years after Jackson's accusations first emerged, so I hold no bias on either side. To effectively conduct my research from a neutral standpoint, I have opted to look at Jackson's life through every angle at my disposal - articles, photos/videos, music, books and Broadway.
Over a year ago, I saw MJ The Musical with my family in New York City. There are two distinct scenes from the production that still sit with me today because I don't quite know how to feel about them.
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| The Hollywood Reporter - Matthew Murphy. Myles Frost (center) portraying Michael Jackson in the Broadway production, MJ The Musical. |
MJ The Musical walks the audience through the stress and immense preparation it took to piece together Michael Jackson's "Dangerous Tour" in 1992. Throughout the show, the audience sees Michael endure endless verbal and physical abuse at the hands of his father, Joe Jackson - who was also his manager.
A large portion of the show walks you through the creation and success of Michael's biggest hit songs, such as Smooth Criminal and Thriller.
Toward the end, Michael begins a quiet and fearful reprise of Thriller, giving the song a secondary meaning that goes miles beneath the surface of the original.
As Michael sings, "It's close to midnight, something evil's lurking in the dark," we see that he is thinking back to his childhood and talking about his father. Joe Jackson is the evil creature who lurks in the dark. Then, a younger version of Michael appears alongside the 1992 version. The two begin singing in unison:
"You try to scream, but terror takes the sound before you make it." Witnessing these lyrics in the context of child abuse was the most chilling thing I had ever seen in a Broadway production.
Suddenly, Joe Jackson takes to the stage in a red ring-leader's uniform. The set quickly changes to match Joe's new look - eerie, red all over, and resembling a circus. Michael stands before Joe, defeated. Through these visuals, Michael is letting us know that his career and his life are not in his control, but his father's.
The other scene that I keep as a vivid image in my mind lightly touches on the subject of Michael Jackson's child molestation allegations. In MJ The Musical, Michael sings a song called They Don't Care About Us, detailing his struggles as a celebrity, while standing at a pedestal surrounded by members of the press. An overwhelming amount of questions are speedily thrown at Jackson. He very clearly cannot handle the pressure.
The press are chanting, "Situation, aggravation, everybody, allegation," while dancing around Jackson.
The lights are abruptly shut down to a blackout, and the question of whether Jackson's child molestation allegations are true is left unanswered - and up to the audience's interpretation. It is not brought up again.
I was curious as to why a musical about Jackson's life would avoid such a topic - especially if they could have used the show to tell us Jackson is innocent. After looking into the creation of the musical a little further, I now can see why.
The musical was written by a woman named Lynn Nottage, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama. No one close to Michael Jackson had any role in creating this show - no friends, family or acquaintances.
Since the public has not been supplied hard-hitting evidence of which side of the story is true, I understand why Nottage elected to only (and barely) touch on the allegations for a second. It isn't her story to tell.
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| goodreads La Toya Jackson's 1992 memoir. |
Regarding family members who spoke out about Joe's abuse, Michael's sister, La Toya Jackson, had a lot to say in her memoir, Growing Up in the Jackson Family. She details a painful childhood, supplied by Joe Jackson, and says Joe had sexually abused La Toya and her siblings.
Becoming aware that the Jackson children were so poorly taken care of has put a few things into perspective for me about Michael's allegations. Let me be very clear: I do not believe he is innocent or guilty. In my head, I see two possible outcomes after what Joe did:
1) Michael was abused and taken advantage of as a child. Therefore, he went on to abuse other children as an adult to take back the power he had lost to his father. If the allegations are true, his actions could be Michael seeking revenge after suffering a traumatic childhood.
2) Michael was abused and taken advantage of as a child. Therefore, he would never want to see another child suffer in the way that he and his siblings did. The last thing he would ever do is inflict the same kind of pain on somebody that his father did to him.
I was verbally abused and emotionally manipulated as a child too - by my own father. I feel fortunate that the physical abuse I endured from him was short-lived, occurring only twice in my youth, compared to the relentless screaming and cursing he replaced it with. Physical or verbal, it all hurt the same for me.
Speaking from the experience of surviving an abusive parent, I feel like Michael's worst nightmare would be to behave just like his father. I would never, in a million years, want to be anything like mine.
I have promised myself for life that I would never lay a hand on somebody - and certainly not a child, because my worst nightmare is becoming my father. With that, maybe Michael Jackson felt the same way.
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| Ebony The Jackson Family posing for the cover of Ebony Magazine, December 1974. |
The Jackson family as a whole is divided on whether the allegations against Michael are true. From what I have found, people will lie about anything for money and media attention - including La Toya Jackson.
During a press conference in December 1993, La Toya tore into Michael, telling a large crowd in Israel that the allegations were true. "This is very difficult for me," she said. "Michael is my brother. ... But I cannot, and I will not, be a silent collaborator of his crimes against small, innocent children."
La Toya and Michael's mother, Katherine Jackson, said that La Toya was not being truthful about the allegations. "La Toya is lying and I'll tell her to her face she's lying," said Katherine. Katherine added that La Toya was actively trying to make a profit off her brother's "downfall." As I previously said - people will lie for money and media attention.
To further solidify her claims, La Toya said that her mother had once shown her large checks that were allegedly written out to the victim's of Michael's child molestation and abuse in 1984. Although, Katherine had never confirmed who the money was going to, nor had she specified the money amount.
In her second memoir, Starting Over, and an interview about said memoir, La Toya's very public bashing of her brother comes to an end. La Toya reveals she did lie about Michael. To defend her actions, she said her husband (who she claims was abusive) forced her to speak out against Michael and their father, Joe.
"My family and Michael knew that wasn't really me talking," she said. "I never believed for a minute my brother was guilty of anything like that." La Toya took part in ruining her brother's reputation...for what?
Although La Toya admitted to lying about the allegations, others were still accusing Michael of abuse.
In 1992, the FBI launched an investigation into Michael's behavior. Two separate investigations followed, one from 1993 to 1994, and another from 2004 to 2005.
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| Federal Bureau of Investigation Page 1 of the FBI's investigation of Jackson. |
I took a look at Michael's investigation documents, and wanted to share the first page with you - which ended up coming out a little blurry when I attached it to this post. You can get a better view of it here.
In the documents provided by the FBI, it is stated that Jackson made an "indecent phone call" to an alleged victim from London in 1979.
An interesting detail I found on this page was that the unnamed alleged victim accusing Jackson of sexual abuse is not looking to press charges - they just wanted to offer information.
The document states, "[redacted name] have advised that they intend to take no action in this matter and is providing the information for information only."
After looking further into the case, the accuser was revealed to be Terance George, a British DJ. An article covering the accusation can be found in this PDF, on page 4. The sexually-charged phone call between George and Jackson is said to have occurred when Jackson was 20, and George, just 13.
As disturbing as the allegations were, no conclusive evidence was found to prove that Michael committed the heinous crimes he was accused of.
After a twelve-year-long investigation, Michael Jackson was acquitted of all charges.
In summary, I still do not believe one side or the other. All accusations against Michael Jackson came about through word-of-mouth, and I have not discovered any proof of his actions.
I have chosen to bring you everything in this piece from a neutral standpoint, and to keep you informed.
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