>this shit is crazy.
>
>MJ's character was "assassinated" because he got constant
>plastic surgery, bought a bunch of weird shit including the
>bones of a deformed man, had his skin changing color (even
>though we now know that wasn't intentional), dressed like a
>military commander and made giant statues of himself (that has
>to be in the pantheon of egomaniacal rock star moves), and
>most of all had a bunch of sketchy sleepovers with little kids
>- some of them quite famous - while also having the vocal and
>physical mannerisms of a guy who might be a bit off the
>heteronormative track.
>
>I can't speak for what went on behind the scenes at the record
>labels. I can fully believe that some obstacles were thrown
>in MJ's path that white artists did not face. (Although I
>also believe that after "Thriller," their main interest in him
>was the part where he made them money, not some racist desire
>to shut down a greenback-generating factory.) I can get on
>board with that to some extent. But the media frenzy and even
>the court cases were largely the man's own fault. He was the
>biggest star in music and a bonafide weirdo; it would have
>been utterly bizarre if they DIDN'T talk about it; and when a
>very rich man has little kids sleeping in his bed, even if
>it's 100% innocent, that man simply should have known better.
>Or one of his handlers should have.


The stories of buying the elephant man's bones, the oxygen chamber, and other tabloid stories that started in the mid 80s were ploys that MJ and his team came up with. He believed he could manipulate the media but when he realized it wasn't working to his advantage, he went on the defense

That statue thing too was his idea to be controversial. He got his wish but again, it gave him negative press even though that was somewhat his attention (to get a "WTF?!" reaction)


He definitely bares some responsibility in much of the media frenzy of 1985-2009 but I do think the press went too far at times, especially during the trial and even times in his life when he was pretty quiet

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