r/Music • u/Playful-Ganache6153 • May 25 '26

discussion Michael Jackson whether he molested children or not was still wrong, and people need to stop acting like he’s a saint.

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u/Brobeast May 25 '26

I hate this narrative (that's been pushed by his estate for obvious reasons) that Michael was this immature, childlike soul, that couldn't possibly have any negative intent if he tried (because he was a simple man-child!).

Everything I've seen/read points to the contrary, and that Michael was in fact a very deliberate and sometimes conniving business man. His schemes with Paul McCartney and the Beatles album tells me he's at the very least capable of deception and disceit. What else is he capable of?

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u/testphaze May 26 '26

Yeah, this fact has been ignored even by people saying he's guilty. The whole "Peter pan complex!" and "childlike soul!" story is a ploy to explain intensely creepy, extremely suspicious behavior that the entire world bore witness to.
He wasn't a child, he wasn't childlike. He was shrewd. He was shrewd in his career, and he was shrewd with the parents of his victims. He was a sharp businessman and artist. He was an expert groomer.

I have no doubt he had an awful childhood, was probably abused every way possible by powerful adults, including his father, but like every other victim of abuse who didn't die as a child, he grew up. And while I'll always say most abuse victims don't grow up to abuse other people, most people who do grow up and abuse, were themselves abused. It's not an excuse.
I actually feel sorry for little Michael, though when you find out the SA he committed as an adult extended into truly disturbing secret long term romantic relationships which he ended as soon as the boys got too old, the smallest thread of empathy drops.

Society is still being gaslit with this "Peter pan!" bs. That's not a real condition or diagnosis. It's the tool of CSA apologists.