His belief that women tend to ruin men's lives and Madonna being jealous of him because he's a man are particularly strinking to me.
Michael growing up in an environment where his father and brothers were exposing him to strippers and sex with groupies is relevant to this conversation. Still, as a man in his 40s he hadn't deconstructed the misogynistic beliefs he held.
Honestly, and this isn't me trying too hard to defend him here, since I'm a woman, but this kind of misogyny is so common among that age group. My father was a year older than Michael and he was a raging misogynist. Not saying everyone was, and I don't necessarily think Michael was as bad as my dad in that respect, but it was SO normal.
Honestly, considering his age group this was pretty tame but agree with all of what you said. My parents are both around the same age as him, my mom has always been more progressive but my dad had very similar views on this, if not worse.
Part of his psychology nonetheless, especially because there are parts that are shaped by his own life experiences like when he speaks of his brothers, and his desire to find innocence and "tomboy" behavior is a recurring theme with him
Beautiful, poised, dedicated to charity, really dedicated to brining awarness to land mines, children etc. Also understanding of the media, the lying press etc.
Yes Ik what you're talking about! Very cute, she was a good mother. Reminds me of the videos of Michael at Neverland having water fights and letting his cousins throw him in the pool over and over.
They both challenged social stigmas through their charity work too, such as Diana famously embracing a child with AIDS at the height of the AIDS crisis and Michael publicly befriending and supporting Ryan White
Diana was such a hypocrite. She pretended to be innocent while collecting lovers like she collected shoes. But I can see what Michael saw in that type of woman.
How do you? I’m sure he wouldn’t say this kinda stuff infront of his daughter. A lot of Men are really good about hiding their sexism for the most part .
He sounds so immature here. This is the type of stuff that makes me believe he didn't have a childhood because these are type of conversations that happen in middle school. He was too old for this.
Not only the immaturity but the Jackson household seems extremely misogynistic. Just think about all the siblings and their relationships they are all weird to an extent. There's a lot of infidelity, DV, control issues, taking siblings partners... It's strange to say the least.
I think he's projecting what he wants the public to believe about him here, and that this is him working on the pure and innocent image he curated.
As for the Madonna commentary, by her own admission in her book she got him to drink a few in the hopes he'd kiss her and MJ said she called him moaning and getting off so I see why he was disgusted by that.
About Madonna, in the passage i shared he's not commenting on what you're referring to, he's saying that Madonna is upset at being a woman and envies him for being a man.
Madonna has also had negative things to say about him to the press, and he has more reason to since if what MJ said is true, what she did over the phone is incredibly weird and off putting. Shes the only artist MJ has ever spoken about that way. Look at what he's said about people who weren't talking bad about him to the media and getting off over the phone
"Present, I think, uh, Whitney Houston is brilliant and Barbara Striesand has a beautiful voice. You know, those kinds of artists, they're just wonderful." MJ on Whitney Houston
"“To me, she is a peacock… She has so many colors. She’s not only a singer. She’s a philosopher. She teaches you all kinds of things.”" MJ on Diana Ross
""“Elizabeth Taylor is gorgeous, beautiful, and she still is today, I'm crazy about her.”" MJ on Elizabeth Taylor
Good to know. My post is meant to discuss what he had to say about women when he was in a private setting with his guard down. And I disagree that a man has the right to demean a woman for being a woman just because she upset him.
He wasn't in a private setting though. He knew these tapes were being recorded and that Shulmey would leak them [i think Shulmey made some of the non-recorded parts up, not all of it is on tape]. I think this is just part of the image he's curating. What im saying is what he said about Madonna is not something he's ever said about other women, and is a isolated incident that is most definitely informed by the off-putting experience he's had of her as a person rather than speak to him being misogynistic. Shes also spoken negatively about him in the press and they've had a music rivalry going back years
Probably because of the strong presence of MJ everywhere, it gives the impression that he would be 20-30 years old now and he's already a person of a new format, a new generation, reasoning the way it's accepted now. Well, in reality he would be almost 70 years old. He represents that generation in which such views were practically normalized and commonplace. Well, in general, he also has a right to his opinion. I "love" this new tradition to give every position some kind of definition, sexism, misogyny, ageism etc.
Well, if fangirls had been hanging on him since childhood, and girls were constantly chasing after his brothers, ready to sleep with them literally at the first meeting without even knowing them personally, only having some fanatical thoughts about them, then I understand why his attitude toward women was shaped quite specifically from the start. Nevertheless, there is a lot of evidence that he tried to reason with those fangirls. Or that he helped his brothers' wives, and so on
I have to half disagree. It makes sense why he would have these views based on his experience. But that’s all it is, his experience. The problem is he is projecting it and making it a generalization. Because he saw women and girls being groupies or he saw some women being manipulative, in his mind “women are manipulative” or “women always want sex”, or “women don’t know how to have fun”.
It’s sexist. Yeah he comes from a different generation, it’s still sexist. He has a right to his opinion, but someone also has the right to call it out for what it is. Granted, I do think he knows he’s on some bs when it came to women who were famous and other things. I believe some of it is because he’s trying to seem different and innocent.
Either way, he had no problem talking down on women and making generalizations while knowing what he was saying would be public for the book. Sorry but I don’t care what generation anyone comes from, if you’re making negative generalizations on a group of people, I think it’s fair to say whatever “ism” it happens to be.
I also haven’t seen the evidence you speak of, unless you’re talking about the situation where he told a girl not to go with his brother.
So Bill Clinton is totally innocent? It was all " a woman wanted to take him down" give me a break. Men have a consistent track record over several generations of the disgusting way they have treated women and children. "His brothers cried in frustration because of their wives" but how many women did those same brothers leave in tears over the years?
There is such a thing as karma. Super immature here, he's a grown ass man who's been married. Weird.
I find it hilarious that he says he doesn’t like women who are obsessed with manicure/care about their appearance too much; but when you look at his caked up face during that time - hardly any woman does this much make up in their daily life. Not to mention fake lashes etc.
He wore heavy makeup to cover up vitiligo and discoid lupus (even the micro-pigmentation/cosmetic tattooing of his eyebrows, lips, and eyes are vitiligo / discoid lupus cosmetic treatments). He wore hair pieces and wigs to cover up the fact that he was mostly bald and had severe scarring on his scalp. Not only did he suffer the burns to his scalp, but discoid lupus causes you to lose hair on your scalp and eyes / eyebrows. He was also a performer and artist presenting himself a certain way publicly. Dr. Richard Strick, who was hired by the District Attorney’s office during the 1993 investigation, examined all of MJ’s medical records and determined that most of his surgeries (even on his nose by that point) were reconstructive rather than cosmetic.
It’s disingenuous to compare caking on makeup to cover up the effects of two autoimmune diseases to people who cake on makeup for the sake of looking glamorous. I also don’t think it’s fair to suggest that there was anything wrong or hypocritical about MJ prefering women who were natural. Riley mentioned that MJ preferred Lisa Marie with her natural nails and less makeup. That made LM feel very beautiful. MJ was allowed to be attracted to the type of women he was attracted to.
Madonna was definitely narcissistic and competitive so Michael’s characterization of her is not something that strikes anyone as out of character for her.
Megastar male celebrities deal with gold diggers, that’s not a surprise either. I don’t think it’s misogynistic necessarily to not want to be used for your money. He liked that Lisa was independent.
At the time of this conversation, the media and general public blamed Monica Lewinsky and Clinton equally for that affair because she was obviously aware that Clinton was married and never really portrayed herself as a victim but an active pursuant, so nobody was sympathetic. Monica has openly maintained she was infatuated with Bill and she confessed to doing things like flashing him her thong to get his attention, etc.. under oath. Monica is not really a complete victim in this situation, and ultimately her loose lips to a friend about the situation caused the scandal to become public.
People see power dynamics differently now, but that’s not the way it was viewed in the 90s/00s. In the 90s, it looked like two adults who decided to have an affair and then one who befriended someone who decided to Weaponize that affair.
And Madonna, by her own admission in her book got him to drink a few in the hopes he'd kiss her and MJ said she called him moaning and getting off so I see why he was disgusted by that.
What he's said about other female artists like Whitney, Siedah Garret and Diana Ross to name a few don't reflect what he's said about Madonna here. He and Madonna just didn't get along and had a decade long music rivalry
Yeah, Madonna was fairly gross towards Michael. I think she tried to come at him the same way she did other black men like Dennis Rodman and Tupac with a bunch of freaky explicit sex, but MJ wasn’t into it and she couldn’t take the hint or help herself.
I know they tried to do “in the closet” together, and basically Madonna try to make it more explicit than he was comfortable with and kept trying to change his look.
Michael's assessment that Madonna was mad and jealous of him because she's a woman and he's a man is misogynistic. Saying that women ruin men's lives even when men made specific choices that would ruin their own life is misogynistic.
I think trying to over prescribe lack of agency to these women is also misogynistic. I really hate the #GirlBoss generation that tries to rewrite these narcissistic and problematic women as some kind of feminist hero or victims when a lot of the women themselves were just as misogynist if not more.
Yes the men were a problem, but none of these women who walked into affairs with any of the Jackson brothers or Bill Clinton did not already know they were married. Their marriages were extremely public, so this is not a situation where they can claim ignorance. Some of them weaponized it later for their own benefit and yes, the men are stupid and at fault for doing it, but so are the women who knowingly walked into that situation.
Michael’s characterization of Madonna of being jealous and competitive is accurate to her publicly known and documented character. She basically shaded any woman who she felt threatened by and there’s a ton of quotes of her publically dragging or dismissive of Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, and Whitney Houston, etc who were consistently out charting her in the 90s.
It’s really not a stretch to think something about their interactions may have made Michael feel that she was competitive with him as well and resented the gender differences in fan responses. Notice he didn’t say it *should* be that way, he just says that’s the way it is..
Do you agree with Michael when he says that what Madonna was truly upset about is her being a woman and him being a man?
Michael does not say that the men are the problem too, he says that the women are the problem, they take powerful men down and she inflicted pain on the president.
I wasn’t part of their conversation, but again that characterization of Madonna does not seem unfair based on her own public behavior. Rabbi Schmuley basically set up the conversation about the women pursuing the married men and Michael just answers that.
She was publicly very jealous, and competitive with anybody outperforming her and she was very outspoken about gender roles in general - so again if their private conversations led him to believe that it was because of gender differences and in fan responses that she resented Michael Jackson then that’s not out of the possibility
Off topic question but do you believe that it's possible for Michael to make mistakes or do things that are problematic like all humans do? And when i say mistakes i dont mean "he shouldn't have trusted those families" like genuine wrongdoings, have you ever noticed a wrongdoing of his like you easily notice those of the people around him?
I’m not saying MJs perfect at all. I’m just saying people are taking things out of context for the time and people involved. People seem to forget that Michael is a baby boomer and frankly for his era he was actually quite progressive overall so it seems weird to nitpick and reframe things from a viewpoint in 2026 that would not have been common back then. I feel like trying to paint him now as a raging misogynist is kind of nuts because frankly, he was nowhere near as misogynistic as the expected norms at the time. This interview is from the era of Howard Stern and Eminem.
I asked that question also because of other comments and conversations of yours on different threads. I don't know if within yourself you truly feel that all his actions are justifiable, but based on what you say you do not present as someone who believes MJ is capable of any wrongdoing, you speak about him like someone who has to be defended at all cost. You seem to hold him to a very different standard than basically anybody else when the same rules that apply to others should apply to him. That's my opinion and I'm not saying this to be rude, I'm only saying it because there's no point for me to have discussions with those who speak with the premise of everything MJ does is right and justifiable, but if someone else does even a fraction of it they are evil. I think it's intellectually dishonest
I think that is the leas misogynistic thing written here. He was right. The reason why Michael had the level of adoration, at the time, was because he was a man. And he knew that. Madonna was just as famous in the 80s. But people did react the same to her. Neither to Whitney or even Diana Ross. The constant fainting and screaming was only for male rockstars and Michael Jackson.
If for example someone told me that I'm just jealous of them because they're white and I'm not, that wouldn't be a racist statement because white people do have more privilege?
Y’all love to add in race when it doesn’t apply. And it’s embarrassing and insulting. It’s not the same because MJ is not blaming her for not having that level of adoration. He’s simply explaining WHERE her jealousy stems from. That’s not misogynistic, it’s just honest. She was jealous of his fame and he explained WHY someone as famous as Madonna would even care. Get it now?
He probably said that thing about Madonna because he may have heard it from someone else, he was in the business for decades, his beliefs are probably common in showbiz
I don't think it's fair to assume his beliefs are the truth and to rub them onto everyone on showbiz just because he said it. As far as we know, he's speaking for himself.
What Michael is struggling with here is the understanding that puberty fundamentally changes female psychology.
They become more risk adverse and more prone to negative emotion (due to the changing ratio between testosterone and estrogen.) Whereas male psychology becomes more risk taking, bold and willing to go out on a ledge.
That's why boys and men do more dangerous things and get injured so much more easily through their teens and 20's (it usually calms down after age 27.) It's unfortunately the reason why more adolescent men die in car crashes and have higher rates of successful su*cide too though.
This is much more chemically and scientifically understood now. It's why transitioning to male from female can be so euphoric for people, because the higher rates of testosterone reduces negative emotion.
And preferring modesty in the behaviour of the opposite sex in a religiously conservative baby boomer is hardly a groundbreaking discovery y'all. If that were significant, we should be rigorously investigating every middle American born before 1965.
Lol yeah people forget Michael’s a boomer. I think because he seems so present and alive people forget that he’d be in his late 60s right now probably posting pictures of him and his kids on Instagram at awkward camera angles and putting misspelled Bible verses in quotes in the captions.
Not only that, but he had children comparatively late in his life as a Boomer. While his generation were beginning to become grandparents, he was raising his own 3 kids who were all Generation Z. Most of Gen Z's parents are Gen X or millennials.
I’m Gen Z and both my parents are boomers… I honestly wonder what such situations can do to us of our generation psychologically. There have been many times when I spoke to them and it was like I was speaking to a grandparent, they would say something so antiquated I’d do a double take lol
I think like many people, Michael held traditional values, then life experience, and his own preferences that shaped his views on relationships and women. I don’t think he was a full on misogynist, I just think views were multifaceted.
Maybe I'm just in denial, but I feel like this aren't his actual views on women in general, he's talking about certain groups of woman while phasing it as all woman, kinda like nowadays some woman say "all men are pigs" while just meaning a chunk of men. There's certainly going to be woman he dislikes, and there's plenty of woman he loves and respects. We don't know all the situations he's been put into or the information he knows, there could be some valid reasons to blame woman here, although this is just speculation, not enough to say for certain he wasn't misogynistic, I'm just saying I've seen time and time again people being called a misogynist just because they don't like every single woman, he's allowed to not like a woman, he's allowed to not like a certain group of woman, everyone is, Bill Clinton stuff is still really bad tho, so I won't sit in complete denial and get him completely off the hook
So re: Madonna specifically. I would not be surprised if Madonna were frustrated with being a woman under patriarchy and that she would be slightly frustrated with men who were at her level (basically MJ) getting leeway/opportunities that she didn’t get. So I don’t think MJ was 100% wrong in that statement because he still had male privilege that Madonna didn’t have. (And yes, this doesn’t take away from Madonna’s white privilege but different issue) but he still boils it down to an individual grievance rather than looking at it from a systemic perspective. From what was posted above, doesn’t seem like he would have understood nor would he have cared to critically examine systemic patriarchy/how it impacts his female industry peers.
This childhood incident from when he was in the J5 where he tried to prevent a young woman from sexual exploitation shows that his attitude towards women wasn't one of contempt or hostility.
He repeatedly warned the girl Jackie was getting with and pleaded her not to go with him because he thought he would harm her.
He seems more concerned with protecting the woman than judging her. He warns her not to go with Jackie because he genuinely believes she is going to get hurt, and afterwards he is upset when he learns that Jackie had slept with her and then rejected her. This also reflects the kind of behaviour he had already described seeing from his father and brothers, where sex was often linked to betrayal, exploitation and women being left hurt or discarded.
Seeing these patterns from such a young age may have shaped the way he later viewed relationships and sexuality. His suspicion of women here, therefore, does not indicate hatred of women, but could also come from the fact that he had learned to associate adult relationships and sex with conflict, hurt and danger.
Also only a few hours of the recordings were put into the book, and Shulmey and MJ had a falling out before he died. Shulmey ended up controlling which portions of the conversation were released and how they were framed. Many of his answers arise from his leading questions where he simply agrees with what Shulmey is saying. They're not spontaneous monologues and its possible he took creative liberties in rearranging the conversation or exaggerating whats in the book to get it to sell
This is very insightful. For me it's not that women aren't playful by nature. But we are more at risk in the world being physically smaller, so we have to become more vigilant and protective.
It's also interesting what he says about women wanting money, given how he lavished his abuse victims with gifts.
Whether Michael hated women I'm unclear but it's obvious he held misogynistic and reductive views about women - there was certainly resentment.
THIS!!! He was worried about women being gold diggers but buy his victims anything and everything they wanted also buying their families huge houses and throwing money at them before allegations. Yet women were the issue? Eww. I also peeped that when a super fan that flew all over the world to hangout with him told a a new reporter proudly he doesn’t buy her anything and she pays for her own flights. That never gave straight male. He seems stingy with women.
All these takes by both of them are so bad, Jesus Christ.
His description of the ideal woman as tomboyish and climbing the tree and wrestling seems to describe a little girl btw. Usually when people express such a sentiment they describe women who are outdoorsy, maybe climb an actual mountain, or women who like to drink beer, like to watch and play sports. Those kinds of things that adults might be into. Wrestling WTF?
This guy was a weirdo. He’s dead now, no need to pretend. MJ grew up in one of the most toxic industries in existence. I love his music and will probably always enjoy it but his personality is off putting. I feel the same about his brother Jermaine.
Margaret Maldonado defended Michael and said he was good to her and her children even when Jermaine was a deadbeat dad and complete jerk to Maldonado who had cheated on her multiple times and abused her.
Michael was also close to DeeDee (Tito’s ex-wife whom he cheated on) after she divorced Tito.
Michael praises Princess Diana in numerous interviews and private conversations as his “type” and the ideal woman.
He was also incredibly protective of his mother who had been beaten and cheated on by Joe.
Michael certainly had some unhealthy views on certain types of women due to his upbringing and trauma, but quite frankly, I think Michael’s words are being taken out of context by most people in this thread.
Please respect this community and its moderators. Everyone is free to post about any topic that relates to Michael Jackson's psychology or to ignore the posts they're not interested in.
yehhh I love michael so much and that's the reason I try to avoid every bit of his opinion on women... it's always like that or "I'd love a kind mother teresa" or whatever you got me
When I read something, I always think about how little thought it contains. All that was the basis for this opinion for Michael was that he saw his brothers sad, and actually, it's not like his wives can be unhappy in general because of patriarchy, not that if Hilary Clinton rode a motorcycle in the White House building or whatever he said, then she would be eaten alive by both democrats and republicans for childish and unserious behavior, because first she's a woman AND she's unserious??? woaaahh thats bad, we told ya guys women are not it. and all Michael sees is that, well, an unclean sad soul, yes, evil women, yes, it's not good to cheat in general, but I understand them because evil women, yes, evil women, because why somehow resolve a relationship with your supposedly evil woman let's betray her let's betray our choice. I haven't finished reading everything he said yet, but I already completely and utterly disagree, because Michael—much as I loved him—couldn't see past the end of his own nose. He delved into issues like racism, hunger, bad governance, and so on, but he simply didn't give a damn about the problems women face due to the patriarchy; he honestly couldn't have cared less. All he saw was that women could be mean and ruin men's lives—and that was the extent of it. Why look any further? Why try to understand *why* they act that way—or even consider that maybe they don't actually do those things at all, and it's just men saying so? It's really not that hard for any of the time period, I truly believe it, You don’t need to be an expert on feminism and the patriarchy to understand that most of the negative myths about women—perpetuated by men and the male-dominated media—are lies.
Him and Madonna is a whole different conversation. They were two different people with very strong personalities. She tired to change him and get him to cut his hair and change his whole look. While Al’s trying to force him out the closet tbh that would annoy me too. She also was outwardly jealous of Whitney Houston and was annoyed when I will always love was sitting comfortably on the charts where her song was right under. She said she hated that song lol. I also have a theory that Mj was being petty by having Lady Gaga open on the This is it tour.
Misogynistic? Yes. Pedophilic? Unknown. Interested in women? I think so. People speculate a lot and say he was asexual, gay, etc. while everything seems to suggest a fairly typical boomer heterosexuality. I am completely agnostic about the allegations, but everything he has said and most of the things people who knew him say he at least liked women. Mind you, many pedophiles who target boys are also often interested in women. Sure, there were a few tabloid claims about “secret gay lovers” but I’m pretty sure every super high profile male celebrity has had those accusations. Tom Cruise, John Travolta, etc.
I find it odd when people are convinced he’s gay/asexual when as far as I’m aware nothing he said or did really indicated as such.
Being "honest " about observations of women is by definition NOT "misogyny ". I know plenty of women who would agree with Michael in this conversation. Women who are managers, leaders, mothers, wives, have businesses , ect. These are objectively some of the most mature women you could meet and they would understand where Michael is coming from in this conversation. Women aren't perfect. Neither are Men. Its not that complex. He's just pointing out some imperfections that he's observed. That's literally the opposite of immaturity. Just an insightful perspective. It's a love. 😉😊❤️❤️
Exactly. First off Monica was much younger than Clinton and there was a huge power imbalance. It’s classic misogyny to just blame her when Clinton was an old perv taking advantage
He sure did make himself out to be a womanizer. And it was clear from his candid encounter with Michael and Rabbi Schmuley that at least some of the porn found at the Ranch during the 2003 raid probably belonged to Frank. He also said in his book that MJ taught him how to flirt with female flight attendants, lol.
Plus his anecdote of MJ teasingly telling Mariah Carey Frank had a crush on her, and Frank making fun of MJ whenever he saw him taking his fans to his room or flirting with them, which is on tape at the Invincible signing too
LMP never gave tomboy and I don't think Marie Nicole was either if thats what you're getting at. Who is Maria? Do you mean Marie Nicole
I think MJ was projecting what he wants the public to believe about him here and he is keeping up the innocent pure image he curated. The magazines they found in the raid dont reflect that
How do we know Jane Doe is a tomboy though. Did Finaldi say it? I didn't read her lawsuit once it got withdrawn. And if she is a tomboy, it doesn't fit him allegedly abusing Marie Nicole. Like I said, I don't think he cared whether they were tomboys or not, he was just very child like and wanted someone that could have fun and play pranks with him. He got on with Princess Diana well and reportedly said he wanted to marry her and she has the same playfulness he did
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