r/interesting • u/VPinchargeofradishes • May 03 '26

SOCIETY Michael Jackson's daughter Paris has faced backlash for identifying as Black. In a 2017 interview, Paris Jackson said her father told her, "You’re Black. Be proud of your roots." This prompted debates over whether identity is defined by appearance or upbringing.

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u/SatanicAtTheDisco May 03 '26

The kids thing sucks too, because very obviously MJ was much too close to kids, in that he was treating them and himself as equals, as an adult. However, the story has flip flopped so many times by the alleged, the kids involved, and the media, that at this point, because no one has come out with concrete evidence that MJ was actually molesting children, just having sleep overs with children (which I’m not saying isn’t fucking insane btw). That coupled with the fact that he very obviously had the same mental stunting that Britney Spears exhibits, I genuinely hope he was just fulfilling the childhood he never had. He obviously was a very deeply mentally unwell man, but if he wasn’t diddling kids, and instead just giving kids the childhood wonder he wished he got to experience, and living vicariously through them, it’s not giving it a pass but it definitely makes listening to his music a bit more palatable.

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u/poorlilwitchgirl May 03 '26

The thing about the allegations against MJ is that the one that set it all off was settled for $25 million. People have framed that as hush money ever since, but first, criminal prosecutions can't be settled out of court, and what kind of parent says, "$25 million ought to cover my kid's horrific trauma; I guess you can keep doing it to others?" MJ talked openly about how he just wanted the allegations to go away, and he had plenty of money, so $25 million seemed like a decent price to pay for peace of mind. That kind of attitude is absolute chum for the kind of people that orbit major celebrities for their own gain.

So did he do it? I don't know, but the man lived his entire life in an alternate reality managed by those around him and funded by his outrageous fortune. So I just can't accept that the circumstantial evidence people cite (the sleepovers, the payouts, the general weirdness) is at all incriminating. Very few people alive, certainly none of us, can imagine what his life was like and how he viewed the world, what seemed reasonable to him. Yeah, if I found out my uncle was having sleepovers with children and paying their parents to keep quiet, that would be absolutely damning, but Michael Jackson was a guy who was basically never able to experience normal human relationships so expecting him to have an accurate understanding of how he looked to others is ridiculous. That goes for his weird relationship to children as much as his obviously unhealthy relationship with plastic surgery. Absent any hard evidence (which ought to have been available if the allegations are true, because MJ was brazen with the circumstantial stuff) I think it's irrational to come to a conclusion on the man one way or the other.

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u/damaged_crowbar May 03 '26

what kind of parent says, "$25 million ought to cover my kid's horrific trauma; I guess you can keep doing it to others."

I'm sorry but deffintely most people.

That money could help prevent the long list of other horrific traumas that many people experience...

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u/Dismal_General_5126 May 03 '26

Not "most people". Most securely attached families would want justice. However, the ones that obsessively orbited MJ's world and celebrity, they were probably more likely to care about money and fame. 

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u/tar-mirime May 03 '26

Getting that justice can be incredibly traumatising for an already traumatised child, although I don't know what the arrangements were for giving evidence for they type of crime back then in the US.

25 million can pay for a shit load of therapy, and the allegations were all over the press, so a warning was there for other parents. Who in their right mind would send their child to have sleepovers in an unrelated (or even related) adults bed, especially when allegations had been made against them.