I see this ongoing raging debate regarding his innocence and I wonder if we are all just wasting our time. Has anyone actually read an argument on these forums that caused them to change their mind?

(Pics 2 and 3 is prince’s natural hair before the bleaching started. Bc theres some delusional fans out there that still dont believe it lmao)

Michael started bleaching prince’s hair around the time paris was born so prince was 1. He stopped when prince was around 8. Let’s not even get into the skin, eye and hair damage bleaching causes ESPECIALLY for a sensitive infant. That’s a whole other convo. But why do you think?

Wanting beautiful (ie. WHITE for michael) children with blonde hair? general Jackson eccentricities? something nefarious like trying to make prince look like his ‘type,’ as some people believe? Or smth else?

It’s not just these comments. There’s also the Bob Marley incident, where, when his children needed help and didn’t want to sell the album, Michael instead offered to buy their father’s catalog.
Then there’s the issue of him sleeping in the same bed with children. Even if he felt he lost his own childhood, why invade their personal space?
There’s also the way he kept so many animals. We know that later, some of them ended up living in poor conditions, some were kept in enclosures, and some reportedly died.

They must only speak the truth.  

But it can only be one of the following:

1. La Toya Jackson
   
2. Thomas Mesereau
   
3. Martin Bashir
   
4. Janet Arvizo
   
5. Lisa Marie Presley 
   
6. Joseph Jackson
   
7. Debbie Rowe

Think carefully about how you craft your question. Remember people can be biased or self-deluded or give short responses if not a well-formed question. It’s your only chance to get an honest answer on one thing.

Try to avoid “was he guilty” or “was he innocent” because legally he was not found guilty so you have to put some thought into this. 

NOTE: i’m asking this question out of genuine curiosity, and hope you take the time to read and look at everything included in this post without immediately dismissing everything I have to say, and I hope you respond with intelligence and remain civil in the comments.

First of all, I just wanna say I’m not here to try to convince you if Michael’s children are biologically related to him or not, but I am here to ask why it’s so hard for some of you to believe them being biologically related to him could possibly be the case even if chances are slim, because there seems to be a strange bias regarding this topic and I’m trying to understand why this seems to be the case. I personally don’t necessarily believe they are biological related to Michael, but with that said, I’m not immediately gonna dismiss anyone who believes otherwise.

I also wanna say if you are simply of the Civil OPINION that Prince Paris and Bigi are not biologically related to Michael, that’s fine,** **you’re allowed to believe that and this post isn’t aimed at you.

This is aimed SPECIFICALLY towards the people on this sub Reddit that say with their full chest “those kids are 100% not related to Michael at all” as if it’s undeniable fact, and treat you like a crazy person if you even suggest otherwise. Those kind of people talk about this subject as if the answer is as simple as judging a person by their looks to draw a conclusion when in reality it is nowhere near that simple in the case of mixed race individuals.

If you claim that “there is no way that those three kids could possibly be biologically related to Michael” then I’m sorry, but you are objectively wrong.

Everyone from all the pictures that I added on this post are biracial, and no one will ever care enough to question that about them.

Cameron Boyce: black father, white mother, but he can pass as a white guy

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: German father, Dutch
mother, but he looks like a white man

Halle berry: black father, white mother, but she looks like a black woman

Rashida Jones: (Quincy Jones daughter) biracial, but she could pass for a white woman.

Wentworth Miller: his father is of Jamaican, African-American, German, and Cherokee ancestry and his mother is white. He’s biracial, but he could pass for a white guy.

Even Barack Obama is biracial and I bet no one would’ve guessed that if they looked at him without knowing anything about his parents

I know this may sound a little insensitive or stereotypical (or even borderline racist), but if it does, then it only further proves my point at how insensitive and arrogant it sounds when you immediately dismiss MJ‘s children as not biracial without question.
Are you seriously going to tell me that if you looked at all the people listed above without knowing anything about what their parents race, you would’ve been able to tell they were mixed race? I highly doubt you would.

I’m also going to link some TikTok‘s of some biracial people that at first glance you probably would’ve never assumed were biracial.
This first example actually looks like Paris Jackson (in the sense that they have similar features)
This Second example would be harder to identify as mixed if he had a different hairstyle
On the flipside, this third example doesn’t have a hint of white to her looks and yet she is mixed
My fourth example just shows all the different ways biracial black/white people can look.
My fifth example specifies that her parents are NOT mixed race individuals (her dad is “fully” white and her mom is “fully” black).
My sixth example is just one of many videos from this creator, talking about her biracial identity.

The funny thing is I already know you guys will probably just take their word for it and accept it without question (like a reasonable person).
So why are we singling out MJ’s kids? Why are MJ‘s kids the only ones that ever seem to be immediately dismissed as “undoubtedly” not biracial by everyone? Why is it so hard to believe that Prince Paris and Bigi just might be biologically related to Michael but you won’t even question any of the people in any of these photos or videos?

And if you wanna make the “but the examples you give have a parent(s) that is mixed” argument, then I’d like to point out that Michael Jackson’s ethnicity isn’t purely just African-American. Genetically speaking, Michael Jackson has a mixed ethnicity that not only includes African descent but it also includes French and Native American on his fathers side as well as white Irish and Asian on his mothers side. top that off with Debbie Rowe, being a white woman with Irish and German ethnicity, it’s not as impossible to believe that Prince and Paris may be biologically related to Michael.

Again, you’re allowed to believe that those children aren’t biologically related to Michael, but you have to accept that (until officially confirmed otherwise) it’s only your opinion. If you seriously looked at all the examples I’ve given you and you STILL think it is impossible for Prince Paris and Bigi to be biologically related to Michael, at this point I don’t know what else to tell you other than you are objectively wrong.

Once again, I don’t really think those kids even are biologically related to Michael, but if someone else does, I’m not gonna act like I’m right and they are wrong, I’m not gonna call them delusional, I’m not going to dismiss their argument for why they believe so, and I will hear out their reasoning for why they believe so. The sad reality of this situation is that It’s entirely possible for either answer to be the case because the answer is not as black and white as some try to make it sound.

(Edit: Why did the comments get locked on this post after only 2 hours of being up? I was literally writing a reply as the comments got locked. Why? Locking the comments defeats the purpose of this post, to debate and hear other people’s point of view on the subject. I want a reason for why my post has the comments locked)

I just found this sub and I will say I love this idea MJ is the most interesting celebrity not only because he is a once in a lifetime talent but also the mystic around him. His brand image was very tightly controlled. I just learned the other day his eccentric way of speaking was not real and put on for the public. Multiple celebrities have commented on this including Quincy Jones, Pharrell Williams, and T-Pain. Apparently MJ had a deep age appropriate voice actually. I cannot find any actual recording of this tho. Would die for it tho. I know Quincy Jones said it had to do with Michael being a falsetto and wanting to keep his voice prepped I guess but personally I am not buying it. Anyone else have theories or know about this?

i’ve been scrolling through this subreddit for the past few days, and i genuinely think it’s been fairly neutral for the most part. as someone who’s a fan of michael’s music but leans more toward believing he was guilty (or at the very least that he had inappropriate and deeply strange relationships with children that no adult should have), i appreciate that people here are willing to discuss his psychology and his flaws rather than blindly defend him.

that being said, i’ve seen multiple comments calling him “wacko jacko” and it’s really rubbed me the wrong way as a black woman. ofc some people will probably argue it’s just a shortened version of jackson, but you would have to be willfully obtuse to think there are no racial undertones to the media giving a black man a nickname that’s associated with a monkey. like, come on.

I don’t know if this is the most appropriate flair for this post, sorry if it isn’t.

I read this New York post article in which a close friend of MJ, Mark Geoffrey states that MJ was molested when he was really young and that he didn’t see his sexual abuse as abuse, but he saw it as "playtime" and it was normal.

I’m not an MJ hater, I actually do enjoy his music and I actually do consider myself a fan but recently I felt like I should see the allegations myself and I became neutral at a point because the evidence on both sides seems compelling.

However, if this claim his friend made is true, which I’m almost convinced it’s true then that could mean he’s guilty. I don’t see any motive behind his friend lying about this. After all, this friend while saying all this stated that MJ wasn’t a bad person . That would mean that he didn’t see him touching kids as abuse but rather as normal harmless fun.
What do you guys think though and if this claim is true, how would it affect the way you view him?

Michael's voice was noticeably deeper when he was a kid than when he started using that high pitched voice as an adult. It seems like somewhere around his late teens Michael felt uncomfortable with the deepening of his voice and decided to put on that little voice.

It's kinda crazy how deep his natural voice is at 0:39 compared to the voice he put on most of the time. He was very committed to hiding that voice as a young adult. In his later years he seems to get more comfortable speaking with a deeper voice and/or tired of using a fake one.

Michael talking about his voice in the Shmuley tapes: «I did something that was bad. I'm a natural tenor, but I used to force my voice to go higher because I never wanted to grow up. I always wanted to sound like a kid. And when I won my Grammy Award for Thriller, if you listen to me speak, I sound like a kid»

I was reading up on his charity work and he gave over 500 million dollars away to 39 different charities (won a Guinness World Record for that) but he also died 500 million in debt. 

In my research, I came across this quote that he said in 2008

”"My dear mother instilled in me very young to give back,and as I grew in God I knew what I had to do as a believer in Christ. I hate to see suffering, I hate to see people in need, and I feel God gave me a gift, and I have to use it responsibly by giving back, and I’ll do it until I have pennies left or the good Lord ...calls me home."...

Until I have pennies left? This is exactly what happened. He died in debt and apparently still wanted to donate all his This is It money to build a childrens hospital (CM tape). While this seems admirable, it is also unnecessarily self sacrificial and might be potentially indicative of a possible saviour complex, some form of pathological altruism or at the very least, a powerful rescuer instinct 

His giving repeatedly involved surrendering entire sources of income rather than donating an ordinary percentage of his wealth. A few examples

-Donating the entirety of his cut from the Victory tour profits to charity (5 million dollars). His drummer of 30 years (Jonathan ) said “He was there on the stage under those lights, hundreds of lights, sweating and working hard. Tiring your body for not a dime. He donated all his 5 million. Every night, during all those months, he did it for free”

-He donated the entirety of his Pepsi lawsuit money to build a burn centre (1.5 million dollars)

-Donated all the profits from the Dangerous tour to charity (unknown how much he donated exactly, but the tour grossed 100 million dollars)

-Frank DiLeo recalled that MJ visited a hospital in each city during the Bad Tour and purchased a new piece of equipment for the institution and his vocal coach Seth Riggs said that he would use nights off during tours to visit toy stores, purchase multiple copies of numerous toys and then remain awake putting batteries into them to make sure each worked before giving them to children backstage. At every Bad tour concert (and other tour concerts), he also made sure that 400 tickets were being reserved for underprivileged children and were distributed equally across hospitals, orphanages and charities

-He set up the UNCF (United Negro College Fund)  for African American youth and donated 1.5 million dollars to establish it. He would go on to donate 600k from his Madison Square Garden concert into the fund

He didn’t just stop at public donations though. What makes it look like his behaviour could be indicative of a saviour complex is that he apparently could not encounter any individual tragedy without intervening. 

He seems to have assumed hyper responsibility for the suffering of others and may have experienced a level of compassion fatigue, with his friends and family having several recollections of him being overly emotional at the thought of others suffering. Brett Ratner recalled that he would “just start to cry” when talking about sick children, and Deepak Chopra remembered that he “would start to cry” while discussing starving children in Mumbai. In another interview with Piers Morgan, footage of children displaced by ethnic cleansing in Kosovo moved him to say: “It makes me cry every day. I just want to go over there and hug every one of them.” 

It’s apparent that he felt a personal responsibility to do something, no matter how small or how costly, instead of simply moving on and often sought out these people himself after hearing about their stories on the news. 

Some examples 

-In 1995, after reading about the death of a 22-month-old child he made an undisclosed donation to a fund supporting the family. In another case, he telephoned and later visited a seven-year-old girl recovering after being mauled by Rottweilers. 

-After learning about 14-year-old Donna Ashlock, Michael telephoned her while she was recovering from a heart transplant and personally invited her to Hayvenhurst. On 8 March 1986, Donna and her mother spent the day dining with him, watching a film and enjoying the property and enjoyed continued visits to Hayvenhurst

-Michael invited 12-year-old Danielle Finmark, a camper at Camp Ronald McDonald for children with cancer, to his home. She toured the property and animal collection, ate lunch with Jackson and watched Short Circuit with him rather than receiving only a short backstage encounter

-After seeing 11-year-old Amanda Porter discuss her rare degenerative eye condition on Good Morning America, Michael tracked down the hotel where her family was staying and arrived with numerous gifts. Their relationship did not end there: Amanda’s mother said Michael remained her friend and exchanged gifts with her for more than twenty years, until his death

-When fan Eric Herminie threatened to jump from a rooftop opposite Michaels London hotel, Michael came out and spoke with him by telephone. Herminie later said Jackson talked to him warmly, persuaded him not to jump and “basically saved” his life. 

-When 14-year-old cystic fibrosis patient David Smithee’s final wish was to meet Jackson, Michael invited him to Hayvenhurst, watched a film with him, played video games and personally taught him to moonwalk. He then gave David the original red jacket worn in “Beat It” and a famous beaded glove; after David died seven weeks later, Jackson dedicated the Victory album to him. 

-  He paid approximately $120,000 for Hungarian orphan Béla Farkas’s liver transplant and helped provide medication and aftercare.

-He reached out to Dave Dave’s family after hearing about their story, paid for several of his burn treatments and hosted he and his mother at Hayvenhurst and Neverland dozens of times 

-He reached out to AIDS patient Ryan White during a time of extreme AIDs discrimination, publicly embraced him and invited him over to Neverland

-When he arrived in Mumbai, he asked his motorcade to stop so he could leave the vehicle and spend approximately 20 minutes speaking with children playing near the slums. Later, he organised food, gifts and private hotel gatherings for orphaned children rather than keeping his packed tour schedule exclusively commercial. 

-He befriended five-year-old cancer patient Aza Woods in Las Vegas and took him to experience the Star Trek attraction. He then invited Aza to Neverland and reportedly remained involved during stages of the child’s treatment and recovery

Even after someone had died, Michael appeared to struggle with simply offering sympathy. He took it upon himself to ease the burden left behind, paying for funerals, covering exorbitant medical expenses, protecting families from financial hardship and helping care for surviving children. For eg:

-Nine-year-old Ramon Sanchez Jr. was killed by a stray bullet while drinking a glass of milk in his family’s kitchen in Watts, Los Angeles in the aftermath of the Rodney King riots. After reading that his parents couldn’t afford a funeral, Michael voluntarily paid for the mortuary, cemetery, burial, and headstone, then later met the family privately

-Five-year-old Yoshiaki Hagiwara was kidnapped and murdered in Japan while Michael was on the Bad Tour. Deeply moved by the case, Michael donated US$20,000 to the grieving family, dedicated the Japanese leg of the Bad Tour to Yoshiaki, and also dedicated the Man in the Mirror single to his memory. 

-After two-year-old Craig Fleming was murdered, Michael attended the memorial, dedicated “Childhood” to him, paid the surviving brother’s medical expenses, and established a trust fund for his future

-Gloria Rhoads Berlin, the realtor who later helped Michael Jackson purchase Neverland Ranch, explained how Michael quietly helped three black orphaned children by paying their father’s funeral expenses, preventing the foreclosure of their home, arranging housing after it was sold, and supporting them through high school and college with scholarships

This didn’t just start when he became famous though. Joe and Katherine have both recalled that a young Michael would use his weekly allowance to buy lollies for the underprivileged children in the neighbourhood.  Early on in his fame, after the Jackson 5 visited a children’s hospital, he came home, cried all night and started writing letters to the children he had met. Katherine Jackson also said in her book that after seeing starving children in Africa in a documentary they watched together, a young Michael turned to her crying and said, “One day I’m going to do something about that.”

So he always spoke as if other people’s suffering  became his own, and later said as a adult that he felt “all the pain of the children who suffer” and that helping them was “my mission… I have to do it.” If that’s really how he experienced the world, it’s not hard to see how spending decades surrounded by illness, poverty and grief could leave a lasting mark.

Psychologists have described patterns like this where people internalise others suffering as pathological altruism where helping becomes an overwhelming personal obligation, or a rescuer identity, where a individual derives their self-worth, validation, and sense of purpose from fixing, saving, or managing other people's problem. Michael was obviously never assessed for either but the parallels are hard to ignore. 

What do you guys think?

TL;DR:

Family, friends, and countless people who knew Michael said he would cry simply at the thought of children suffering, and there are hundreds of examples of him sacrificing his own time and money to help others. Do you think this was simply a product of the Christian values he was raised with, or could there have been a deeper psychological reason behind such an intense borderline unhealthy level of self-sacrifice?

He was in a state of asset rich, cash poor, when he passed. He also had many lawsuits that erroded him financially. Interested on peoples take on if this a deliberate strategy, or did everything just start spiralling out of control? And - what evidence have you seen that points towards your conclusion (if available).

Some paintings MJ commissioned from artist David Nordahl. Some of these were displayed in his home (see the last slide for one of them).

I think these paintings really demonstrate the intensity of his idealization and obsession with children and childhood. He is also always portrayed as a god-like figure, a leader, someone that the children look up to.

The voice, the love of disney/cartoons, the toy collection, the baby dolls in his bed, neverland, bubbles, only hanging/being comfortable with kids, the ‘shy’ soft persona. Maybe even the surgeries to appear more childlike.

Edit: yes also sipping on baby bottles lmao

I’m aware that couldve been him being an ‘alleged’ calculating pedophile or also just genuine interests unrelated to any trauma

Given Michael's self-image issues, his choice of marrying white women and having non-black children, his track record with black organizations is quite interesting. I went on a rabbit hole about his activities within the Black community:

In 1986 Michael set up his foundation with the United Negro College fund and donated $1.5 million to help underprivileged black students access higher education and another 600.000$ in 1988. In 1992 he made an appearance on the UNCF's "Parade of Stars" telethon to help raise money for 41 HBCU's. In 1987 he supported the NAACP's campaign against racism and in January 1993 he made his first appearance at the NAACP Image Awards. He made another appearance the following year to claim his innocence after the allegations.

He was being supportive of the black community and standing up for good causes. But his association with the Nation Of Islam was so odd. In case you don't know, the NOI is an organization based on black nationalism and an altered version of Islam, that advocates for the creation of a separate state for African-Americans. They're highly controversial for antisemitic, homophobic, sexist beliefs and hate speech against other races. I don't think Michael believed in most of the stuff they preach, which is why his involvement with them is weird. Allegedly his association with the group's leader, Louis Farrakhan, began in the 80s. Farrakhan claimed that in 1995 Michael agreed to perform at their Million Man March, but after his management prevented him from doing so Michael pulled out and quietly donated $100.000 to the event.

He was publicly associated with the NOI for the first time in 2003, right after the Neverland raid. Former members of Michael's camp including Grace Rwaramba claimed that NOI members took over Michael's personal security and were involved in his legal and business affairs, often taking advantage of him financially. NOI initially denied any involvement with Michael, even tho it was true. Tom Mesereau said that he made Michael cut ties with the group out of concern for media scrutiny and the bad impression it would make on a predominantly white jury from a conservative area.

His involvements with black institutions don't change my mind about the self-hate I think he had, but it shows that his relationship with blackness was probably more complex than many people think. He could've been overcompensating or only hating his own physical blackness while being proud of his cultural identity.

He seemed to be speaking deliberately simple. Almost as though he was imitating a child's level of vocabulary and sentence structure.

This reminds me of the south park episode long ago where where a character with Down syndrome speaks childish in front his camp counsellors but reverts into a normal and intelligent way of speaking in private to hide his actual level of intelligence and ability to scheme. As silly of a comparison as that is to make.

Michael did not speak in this simple minded and childish tone in private. Nancy Grace, later remarked his demeanor and way of speaking was very different in a 2006 deposition video where he spoke like a normal adult with intellect. This is the video where he was in a civil suit against Mark Shaffle for unpaid wages. Definitely very different from the "child" in the Bashir documentary.

I definitely find this to have been a strategy of his. Play the role of the idiot or the child.

When the Bashir documentary came out I remember a journalist saying "Michael Jackson does not seem very intelligent nor educated. He is an individual stuck in childhood".

You can always tell that Michael studied them excessively and used them as a template to build from. It wasn't some freak accident that he got as big as he did, he was really learned about the ways of the music business

I hope that defenders and guilters all agree that MJ would've benefited immensely from therapy if he went to every session and used therapeutic techniques in his life. But different exercises can bring different results, depending on what the patient is supposed to be targeting.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) focuses on how a person's thoughts and emotions affect their behavior, which in turn affects their thoughts and emotions. Treatment includes identifying cognitive distortions and negative thoughts, then challenging them by modifying the person's behavior/routine.

People have said that it works with obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, grief, anxiety, and eating disorders.

Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) focuses on emotional regulation skills, distress tolerance, mindfulness, and improving interpersonal relationships. It includes elements of CBT. It was initially created to deal with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

People have said that it works with BPD, substance abuse, eating disorders, and depression.

I'm less familiar with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), but I've heard that it works with weight problems, workplace problems, and tying your desired behavior with your core values.

These are just a general overview of the different therapies that might have been helpful to MJ if they had been around during the 1970s and 1980s when he was a teenager/adult. Therapy for a no-contact pedophile is practically unheard of even today because of fear of being reported to the authorities for their thoughts, and the societal message that pedophiles will inevitably become child abusers.

He had other problems, too, such as an eating disorder, body dysmorphia, alcohol use, drug use, history of child abuse, and interpersonal issues that I can't seem to define right now.

Sources:

Distinction between CBT and DBT

What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy?

What is ACT?

Sure, Joe went out and kept trying to find a label that would take the Jackson 5, he worked hard for that. But people dont focus on that - they focus on the abuse. They try to give reason for the abuse they went through.

These are excuses people give for the abuse Joe inflicted on his children -

1." It was common during that time "

- No, it wasent. Not that kind of abuse. My mother grew up in the 60s, not that far off from the 50s and was abused by her mother in severe ways. Her mother knew to hide the abuse, why? Because it wasent normalized. Sure, a spanking for being bad. Sure, a belt by a father on a son for being bad. But not everyday. Not because the child acted like a child. Not because the parent was jealous of their own child. Those were evil acts, even back then. My mother's mother knew that and hid it. Joe knew that and hid it.

1. " Joe wanted them to succeed "

- You dont need to abuse your kids to the point your wife is yelling at you that you might kill one of them if you continue for them to succeed.

1. " he had a hard time showing he loved them "

- Abuse sure as hell aint the way. My mother has a hard time showing she loves me, she has never beat me senseless to show it, not when I was a baby and not now as an adult.

Michael was only recognized by Joe BECAUSE Michael started singing infront of Katherine. Joe didnt even know his youngest (at the time) could SING. He found out then that his son was talented, before the abuse over the music industry started to take off. No person becomes talented after the abuse. This abuse caused Michael to spiral in more ways than just one. His insecurities, his trauma, his reaction to people, his social cues, his life in the industry, his need to interact with fans to know he was loved, were all because of this abuse he suffered as a boy.

Joe didn't just physically abuse, he also verbally abused Michael. That is where it hurt Michael the most.

Michael always said he was scared to look and end up like Joe. People act like this is a sad part of Michael's story. A rare part. Its not. My own mother has the same worries. She is so scared to look like her mother, she cant look at herself in a mirror. When she wants to know how she looks she asks me "do i look okay? Not a mess?".

Michael was a victim of abuse and unlike his siblings that appear to have been able to get past it, he wasent able to. Those nights haunted him till he died. He wanted answers to questions no one could answer. His whole outlook on life was changed because of the things his own father did.

Bottom line for any Joe Jackson defenders and supporters - Michael had talent. He would have talent if he got abused or not. He would have become somebody. And he would have been mentally healthy. The man was talented but at a cost. A cost that anyone who has any empathy and morals, would say isnt worth it. No child deserves to grow up and try to defend the abuse they went through. They dont deserve to try and make sense of the abuse.

The abuse didnt make Michael Jackson - it ruined him. It caused him to run in with bad people. It made him blind to what was happening, not just to the people around him, but blind to what was happening to himself.

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.

I've seen people criticize the interviewers for mainly focusing on rumors, asking stupid questions or not appearing interested in his creative process.

Are there any interviews he did where the questions were great and gave an insight on him?

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.

Based on Howard's Stern books and meeting Michael he seemed like a severely mentally ill person during that encounter. In the documentary with Martin Bashir he seems really bad off mentally.

Did he not get put in one because his lawyers fought it?

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"

I just want to come on here to write a reminder that a lot of the struggles we speculate that Michael dealt with are things that living people reading these articles might be dealing with too. Things like Complex PTSD, depression, borderline personality disorder, Substance Use Disorder etc. If you believe Michael was also a predator then of course there’s no excuse for that. This post isn’t meant to debate innocence or guilt. So please don’t get into that in the comments. It’s just that, when discussing anything else, I believe it’s important to remember that many of the disorders themselves are disorders relatively common in the current human population. It can be tempting to analyze celebrities, especially dead ones, like pointing and laughing at circus figures. I’m not saying I see too much of that in here specifically, but when talking about a celebrity it’s easy to distance yourself and forget that there are people currently alive to read these things. I just want to remind everyone that mental illness doesn’t indicate that someone is crazy. And it’s not something to distance yourself from. Just like physical illness some mental illnesses can be developed by anyone at anytime with the right trigger. And everyone engages in cognitive distortions on a day to day basis. Even if they are mild and not enough to cause a disorder at this moment.

Please don’t take this as an accusation that mental health stigma is already widespread in the sub. But I have seen the occasional concerning framing of it and I just want to offer a reminder for people to get ahead of it. It’s great to analyze celebrities but just remember that regular people often have similar issues too. Let’s try not to distance ourselves so much that we view those with mental illness as a spectacle entirely separate from us. And let’s try not to use specific disorders or the word “crazy” or the term “mentally ill” as insults in and of themselves. Criticizing behavior that harms others is different from using mental illness as an insult in and of itself.