CNN offers this panel discussion raising the question of whether his 1993 video statement denying child molestation gave clues about his drug use and also about the psychological impact of this case, which was settled out of court:
Meanwhile, there are these other developments:
–Michael Jackson’s estranged father Joe Jackson insists he never beat the singer. EW.Com’s TV writer Ken Tucker (who offers a video of the comments) reacts to that with utter disgust:
If you’ve read any extensive interview with Michael Jackson, you probably share my nausea at the display of self-serving bull that Michael’s father Joe Jackson handed Larry King last night. Other people are going to seize upon Joe’s accusations of foul play involved in Michael’s death on Larry King Live. I’d just like to zero in on what Joe said when King asked about the “many” reports “over the years” that he’d “physically assaulted” his son. “That’s a buncha bull-s,” said Joe, saying, “I wish I could say the s-word… I never did.”:
Joe’s denials that he ever beat his son have been repeatedly contradicted by Michael’s own words, including those in Michael’s autobiography Moonwalk, in which he wrote of his father, “He would beat you… he would hit me so hard.”….Make no mistake: Joe Jackson was, at the very least, not a good father to Michael. I believe a dead man’s words over his.
–When a bloated and waning Elvis Presley died, it boosted the sales of not just Presley’s music but books, movies, memorabilia, trips to Graceland…anything about Elvis. The cliche wisecrack about his joke became that his death was a “good career move.” Similarly, Jackson’s music is flying off the shelves and off Internet sites (his album Thriller is now poised to be the best-selling album of all time )– and it now turns out that MORE new Jackson products will be coming out…including footage of him rehearsing shortly before his death for the final concert tour that was not to be. ABC News:
Sources tell ABC News that Sony may be close to closing a deal to pay up to $50 million for the rights to Jackson’s final performance video, to be compiled from 100 hours of rehearsal footage owned by concert promoter AEG.
“We’re told that Sony pretty much has the deal,” Sharon Waxman, editor of the Wrap Web site, told “Good Morning America.” “I mean, the T’s aren’t crossed and the I’s aren’t dotted on the paperwork, but our understanding is the deal’s done.”
–Negative feedback from people who see Jackson differently than his adoring fans, and animal right activists, creamed plans for a Michael Jackson butter sculpture at the Iowa State Fair. The fair put it to a vote on its website and the vote against the idea was not even close.
–Jamie Lee Curtis, writing in The Huffington Post, contends fame killed Jackson:
The explanation is that this moment was the drug start point that eventually took over his life. I don’t believe it. The pain he suffered was from his birth, from his being and becoming the commodity that then made him the omnipotent King of the Pop-Goes-The-Weasel-Jacko-In-The-Neverland-Box that destroyed him. Few children, put into the intense focus of their precious youth being marketed for other’s pleasure, come out unscathed and with any sense of mental balance. I won’t name names but we all know who they are as they have navigated their fame and falls on the covers of magazines and at the top of news hours. Rarely are the parents really held accountable for the fragile, destroyed youths as many of the young people get the F*&^% away as fast as their agents and lawyers get them… but the imprint is there, it cannot be undone without a painful process of self discovery and as we know… pain needs to be killed… not tolerated and examined.
Listen, I can relate. I too found painkillers after a routine cosmetic surgical procedure and I too became addicted, the morphine becomes the warm bath from which to escape painful reality. I was a lucky one. I was able to see that the pain had started long ago and far away and that the finding the narcotic was merely a matter of time. The pain needed numbing. My recovery from drug addiction is the single greatest accomplishment of my life… but it takes work — hard, painful work — but the help is there, in every town and career, drug/drink freed members of society, from every single walk and talk of life to help and guide.
I believe Mr. Jackson was in pain. Burns are a horrible injury and excruciating to recover from… but there was a time, when the physical pain ends and the emotional trauma takes over for which he needed the real help, the real treatment, the real focus. Mr. Jackson was an addict. It is coming out. Everywhere. He wanted relief and would get it in any name, place or method he could. It was and is a conspiracy of silence.
And so the Jackson saga moves into a new stage of several stages that occur when someone famous dies:
1. The shock (or nonshock) of a death.
2. The tributes that leave out the warts and comments from fans going after anyone who dares to criticize, recount or reveal any facts that don’t fit an airbrushed version of the famous person’s life.
3. Details about the life that were either hidden, hushed up, or discreetly covered up by the news media or unable to be confirmed by the media when the famous person start to come out. The life is placed into a perspective not as flattering as when that person was alive.
And the next stages?
4. New product in the form of music, bio pix, memeorabilia.
5. The major books about the person’s life — which leave no stones unturned.
Think of all the books that came out about Elvis after his death that revealed the extent of his wealthy but substance-abuse excessive and shockingly empty, lonely and monotonous life.
There’s a lot of money to be made for enterprising journalists who came out with new details about Jackson in books — and you can bet your bottom dollar that they will come out and lots of money will be made.
And in the end?
The famous person’s reason for being famous doesn’t diminish. But the carefully constructed p.r. image shatters for all as in coming years journalists and historians recap in boilerplate summaries the person’s life…taking into account all the new, juicy facts that had been hidden or ignored during the person’s protected lifetime.