Was the allegations against michael jackson ever proven right or wrong ?

THE MASTERMIND@feddit.ch to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 100 points –

Do explain your answers answers much as you can. Like which of the ones were proved right/wrong , how did it come to be .etc.etc.

56

Nothing proven. Much documentary about it though.

There's a vine/TikTok dude that made a short about it somewhat recently in a shallow and humorous fashion.
Basically, the Jackson dad was an asshole who beat his kids. Michael being the most successful one got the worst of it, as per the documentary. Not sure if his brothers covered him and how often.
He didn't have a childhood, he had beatings, training and concerts.
His soft-spoken voice was beaten into him, only allowed to use his full voice for singing.
His Neverland was built for that which he never had and he tried to give that to other children he felt were like him.
Whether something happened is only known by the the people involved, but odds are that unless Michael himself was molested as a child, it's far more likely that he was deeply traumatized, cried himself to sleep and had recurring night terrors.

I'll repeat, only the people involved know what happened and they're not talking.

If he was specifically trying to invite children with bad childhoods then it's not actually too surprising that some of their parents would come after him.

He was acquitted of criminal charges while still alive from NPR. People have tried to sue his estate over alleged inappropriate behavior since his death but nothing made it to court yet. So legally no, he never molested any minors. But the fact that there were multiple allegations is concerning.

I saw a clip of an interview on youtube in which he was kinda imotional abot it but i guess that's how people fake it.

Grew up in a town near Neverland ranch in the 90s, he hosted the local little league champions team to a party there. I'm pretty sure a classmate of mine went there once. Only had nice things to say about it, but even then there were jokes and rumors.

On one hand I can see people scapegoating a successful black man, from multiple angles there may also be feelings of betrayal from the black community. On the other hand, I was also up the road from Oprah, and I never heard anything about parties for groups of minors that she hosted.

Where there's smoke there probably fire, but racists and radicals are good at hiding smoke machines.

"Where there's smoke there's fire" is really interesting when the courts operate on the basis of "innocent until proven guilty".

Anyone who says "where there's smoke there's fire" never did chemistry class at school. Probably the second worst idiom one can say.

Funny, because I'm a decade long chemical analyst, with a solid half of that time doing smoke taint research....

I know creosol compounds better than 99.9% of the population. I live in an area that's known for burning down... The way I identify fire each and every time is by it's smoke.

There are ways to impart the essence of smoke, but more often than not people are trying to hide the fact that there is or was smoke.

So please tell me, a chemist, how if there's smoke there's fire, is one of the worst idioms of all time? Exothermic chain reactions with organic matter produce carbon rings that get carried away from the site of the reaction is a perfectly valid statement.

Because the idiom is simply not always true, that's why.

Special effects producers take advantage of this as well.

I'm not sure if you read the couching of my statement that there are smoke machines.

Or that, you know, I'm an analytical chemist for smoke.... And there may be smoke without fires (as I eluded to in the original post), but where there is a fire there is absolutely smoke. And I believe I've taken at least a chemistry course to get where I am today... But who says the universe wasn't created last Thursday...

Also there are some idioms that are never true, how are they not worse than an idiom that "isn't always true"? I think your scale on idioms are off as much as your judgement of people's chemistry backgrounds.

Because I was thinking mainly of idioms in this kind of context. Many idioms wouldn't be said in this context. Other idioms that have even more negative potential include but are not limited to...

"Spare the rod, spoil the child."

"One bad apple ruins the whole bunch."

"Fight fire with fire." (why the Hell would someone fight fire with fire)

"Flies are attracted more by honey than vinegar."

"Tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are."

The idiom in question is "where there's smoke there's fire" and it alludes to the idea that "much ado" is never about nothing, that commotion is never born in a vacuum. This is neither true literally or figuratively (people do not operate in the same way as smoke and fire, people seem more analogous to snow avalanching down a mountain if we are to update the idiom), but the fact it's not even true literally spells out a glaring problem with even invoking the idiom. The reverse statement, "where there's fire there's smoke", isn't true either.

There’s a difference between the courts and a person. If I had to decide if someone or something is safe, I have a much lower standard than “beyond the shadow of a doubt.”

If my Uber driver is slurring and smells like cheap brandy, I’m not getting in the car, but that’s not enough to charge them with a DUI, thankfully.

That's an interesting example. Here in my city there was a case of a transport officer crashing his car into someone. He smelled of alcohol and was slurring and it was in the news cycle with great outrage and irony.

A few days later news broke that he had died of diabetes-related complications. Apparently the smell was not alcohol, it was ketones from him being hyperglycemic.

Going back to your "standards" statement, for an individual it would make sense not to get into a car this person drives. At the same time it makes sense for the court not to convict him until he is proven guilty. Both standards have their place and rightfully so.

when the courts operate on the basis of “innocent until proven guilty”.

This is a slogan, a hypothetical that applies to a spherical defendant in a vacuum. In over 90% of all US criminal convictions, the prosecution has no burden of proof.

You lived in Lompoc, Goleta, Solvang, Santa Maria or Santa Barbara.

You remember the giant Santa next to the 101 near Summerland?

I very much do, I was very sad last time I visited SB to see that it was gone, though I feel I hadn't seen it on a few of my previous trips, but now they're building something where it used to be and it clicked that. "didn't there used to be someone else iconic there? Oh yeah, Santa!". Also pea soup Anderson's is closing, and that's.... Meh. As long as the palace survives I'm a happy SB tourist.

I remember people diving off the street lights into the underpasses, and the airport being so flooded that water was piling up behind the fence, the CHAIN LINK fence at the Goleta airport during El nino in the late 90s.

My home town was not known for anything tourist, so that'll narrow the list down a bit.

Oh man, I loved that year. There was a culvert that want under a bridge between Hillsboro and Cannon Green that normally is empty. That year our was almost full. My friends and I tied a route around or waists and jumped in the culvert of waste water. It ran so fast that we were able to water ski

Man, fairview and Hollister was flooded then. You couldn't drive through it then. I was not into the pirate BBS scene back then with a good friend that ended up dying by getting hit by a train in the mid 2000's

You every jump off of the tree swing in the bluffs? The one that broke the back of one of the DP teachers?

Also, the Living room. That place was magic.

From what I've read they almost certainly completely wrong. This is a blog site that lays out the timeline and evidence and all the shenanigans. It's pretty horrible reading this. There is zero evidence and all the witnesses contradicted themselves or outright lied. A jury found him not guilty. But it was a cottage industry. It's about greed and media malfeasance and racism and maybe just hatred of freaks.

https://themichaeljacksonallegationsblog.wordpress.com/

What a horrible website they don't let you read at all without accepting all the cookies and trackers

It's wordpress. I use ghostery addon to avoid cookie popups (always deny) and trackers.

But i didn't see a decline button and i can't use addon with tor

You have to click "learn more" and then "disagree to all". Internet is getting worse and worse without addons.

You can use add-ons with tor browser, it just leads to a much smaller fingerprint to identify you. The number of people with uBlock origin is large enough.

No adblockers work against tor

You're correct that it's not recommended and can possibly hurt your anonymity and privacy but it's important to understand the reason so you can make the right decision for yourself.

When you install add-ons in tor browser (besides NoScript which is installed by default) they narrow your specific browser fingerprint. JavaScript enabled sites can get a list of browser add-ons you use. But many people still install uBlock origin on tor browser. As long as you don't install 5 add-ons it won't hurt your anonymity much. Installing uBlock Origin may narrow your unique fingerprint down to tens of thousands of people instead of hundreds of thousands or millions, but it won't make tor instantly worthless and can in some cases improve your security.

It all depends on your risk assessment. Are you just looking for extra privacy and anonymity, or is there a large target on your back put there by a government agency or organization of some sort?

https://browserleaks.com/

Nothing ever proven. He was weird, he had issues with boundaries and felt like a child himself. He never hid the fact that he slept in the same bed with these children and thought it’s just a very normal thing (he mentioned it in an interview that was also shown in Leaving Neverland I think). Maybe he did some things with them that he also thought was normal like, you know, children discovering themselves, playing doctor and stuff. Not good at all. But from his perspective kinda innocent games. Just a theory about his intent and no excuse of course. If anything happened anyways.

I was always a big fan of his music and general style and still am but I think it is possible some things happened behind the scenes because he was just a very broken person. And later I felt he had this “too good to be true” vibe to him.

There are also rumors he was gay and that fucked him up even more because he had to hide it (like pretty much everyone back then).

I've also read convincing theories that he was on the spectrum, which could explain a lot of his challenges interacting with people, as well as his obsessive tendencies.

And his perfectionism with regards to his performances

lived through it.. way too much damaging info was released for him not to be wacked in the head... things he admitted to.

Can you give a little (lot) more info ?

Off the top of my head...

Admitted to sleepovers in same bed as small children.. no adults allowed

Those children were able to identify marks on jacksons body they should not.

Alcohol was provided by staff

All that could just as easily prove he was developmentally delayed and basically thought of himself as a large child. I think it was obvious he wasn't mentally healthy. There are developmentally delayed adults out there who get along like gangbusters with little kids because their brains are running on the same wavelength.

MJ is a weird case. It's super suspicious, but the fact that parents let kids sleep over is even more suspicious. As a parent, I'd never let my kids sleep over at mjs place. Especially with the rumors.
So why would a parent do that? Extortion seems reasonable.
Worst case, parents were feeding their kids to a child predator so they could extort a filthy rich guy.
This also explains caulkin. He was rich. There was no point in extorting mj.

Can you explain the caulkin case ?

Macaulay culkin had a long friendship with mj from around the time he was in home alone. He's consistently said throughout his life that nothing bad happened to him.

So this culkin is a kid too ? So according to your theory because his parents are rich he doesn't need to lie ?

He was a former child actor who starred in the Home Alone movies. Had a turbulent few years early on as an adult, as many child actors do, but is supposedly doing very well now.

What the other poster is getting at is that he had a lot of income coming in from his acting career, as a child and even still now to an extent, so he would not have felt motivated to lie and sue for a lot of money like some kids' families might have.

My memory is fuzzy and Google-fu isn’t finding it, but wasn’t Neverland searched after he passed and they found lewd photos of children in his possession? I swear to god I remember reading something like that maybe a couple years after he passed.

No. He had pornographic magazines of (adult) women. A complete zero evidence incriminating him, see here. But it was a cottage industry to make shit up. It's pretty sad example of media malfeasance / racism / greed / hatred against freaks.

"evidence found at neverland ranch" turns up a lot of results, admittedly, with far too much commentary and speculation describing "must have been used for..." rather than what may actually have been the case.

Yeah, I was trying to find something more concrete than what was showing up in Google, but I could also just be misremembering that bit.

In hindsight...

How it was all reported in the media, commented on... was pretty fucking gross. Especially since the kid who made the allegations admitted to lying.

Nothing was held back on for the court of public opinion. Police statements amounted to "We found creepy dolls that only can be used for grooming..." "He had [this] because [he's definitely that]..." Later on the same police were caught giving adult magazines from the raid to one of the kids they claimed Michael molested... several months AFTER the raid... and then bagged the magazine for fingerprints. The way everything was handled, even if generously... we could admit that Michael was a bit of a kooky freak... the way the raid, reporting on evidence gathering (and apparent manufacturing of it) and prosecution was handled, that part of it seemed straight up corrupt.

There was always a tinge of ick about it all.

At best, Michael was a deeply damaged person who did whatever he could to cope with the loss of his childhood and... we'll never know what truly happened at the Ranch.

You shouldn't repeat rumors you heard without any actual evidence at hand to back them up. That's just baseless gossip. It's poison spewing from your mouth to the ears of anyone who hears you.

I can't back it up either, but I remember reading that he had thousands of books of photographic collections and one magazine went through them all and found a couple dozen photos that would been extremely suspicious if that's all he had.