No, the soul is gone even if he still sells tons of records.

jn2 said:

What a pity.

no, pedophiles such as MJ tend to have a limited shelf life.

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

An abused child never forgets about it and just moves on. It doesn't matter how old he gets. The abuse he endured as a child will have an affect on him for his whole life.

whatsgoingon said:

Hey...Leave my hometown outta this!! Naw I'm juss joshing wit ya!! But that did sting a lil bit!!

tonyat said:

Oh, I am sorry I am not saying the whole of Gary is a war zone. But let's be honest The Jacksons were a poor family, with 6 boys and 3 girls. I doubt if they never made it out of Gary at such an early age all the brothers would be alive today.

purplerein said:

get informed before you start making silly comments

purplerein said:

yea, 37yrs in music is limited

MICHAEL CAN STILL COMEBACK IF HE WANTS TO... he has so many great unreleased songs that he could use... and those songs would easily hit the top of the charts.... He could release his unreleased single "Hotstreet"... i love that song... and he has a song from his Dangerous era called "serious"... and thats a great song... that i love as well...

DarlingDiana said:

We are not speaking of "forgetting" and "just moving on" but using your abuse as a crutch for when you, as the adult, have made bad choices. This is what we are speaking of. There is a time in your life when you have to take responsiblity for healing. People like to bring up his childhood whenever he does something idiotic and just plain stupid. I'm sorry, there is a point in your life that you can't use the abuse of your childhood as an excuse for your own bad behavior. Michael is almost 50, he's not 20something or even 30something.

The power is making sure that the affects of the abuse make you stronger and don't take over your life. People who keep talking about being abused, especially someone who has been abused over 25-30 years ago AND who are not using their stories of abuse to help others, is just wanting to stay a victim.

I'm sorry. Michael can no longer use the "look what joseph did to me" EXCUSE for why he's dangling his child out the window or other stupid crap

Rhondab said:

While I agree with what you said, I think it is really funny that whenever people say "He can't come back" or something like that doubting him, it goes back to giving reasons like you guys know him or something. Something tells me Michael is A LOT different then the "Michael Jackson" we see on TV in interviews, or read about in magazines. While I do think the guy is probably eccentric, he probably knows a lot more about what is going on with his life then I bet a lot of you people realize. Just a guess on my part.

Rhondab said:

I don´t see Michael using that "look what joseph did to me" excuse for everything. He talks about childhood only when asked about it and for example Bashir pushed him into details that he himself might have stayed out of. "What did he say to you? Did he beat you? How did you beat you? What did you feel?..." He also tried to make him state the exact reason of why he had plastic surgery saying " given your childhood, I can understand why you did that" and Michael was only rolling his eyes and avoided answering that. That Joseph was the reason for that was only our conclusion - even though quite natural and logical. Oprah also went through his childhood troubles, but when she asked him if not liking the way he looked as a teenager was the reason he had plastic surgery, he replied "No, not really." He admitted that dangeling a child over baclony was a big "mistake" and as far as I know, he´s on good terms with Joseph. Haven´t you read his Oxford speech or noticed that Joseph escorted him almost everyday to court? The only thing that Michael excuses by having a bad childhood is his relationship with kids saying he wants to re-live his childhood. Hopefully he learned his lesson after the trial when he said that he "will never place himself in such a vulbarable position."
[Edited 9/10/06 9:29am]

Michael's problems are obviously complicated, but the number one problem is simply this; he's a repressed homosexual. Coming from an extremely homophobic background, that was bound to fuck him up.

whoknows said:

How and when did you come to this conclusion? He never had the "perfect childhood". He does indeed have issues that have to be dealth with, but his sexual preference, is not one of them. I think he has some repressed feeling concerning his childhood and how he feels about his dad.

shorttrini said:

Let's consider the evidence:

1/ In his early 20s he was close friends with Liberace , and Freddie Mercury . For those of you who don't know, Liberace is probably the gayest man who ever lived(though he denied being gay in his lifetime). I'm gonna presume you all know about Freddie. His other friends Liza Minelli and Diana Ross are also gay icons who have a court of gay men surrounding them (Liza even had a gay father, and married a gay man years later).

2/ Tatum O Neal tried to seduce him when he was 18. He said he "wasn't ready". According to biologists men are never more ready than when they're 18. I don't know about you but when I was 18 I wasn't hanging out with any woman I didn't want to fuck.

3/ His 1st wife Lisa Marie said he married her to repair the damage to his image after those allegations. She also said he was "reluctant" in bed.

4/ He never even lived with his second wife.

5/ None of his children were conceived naturally

6/ His best friend Elizabeth Taylor has a decades long track record of being confidante and best friend to closeted gay men. James Dean, Montgomery Cliff, and Rock Hudson among them. She's also great friends with Rupert Everett. Like Liza Minelli she has a strong identification with the gay community who have always been in awe of her. She often speaks about how her friends know she can keep a secret.

7/ There is no evidence he has ever had a girlfriend. His claims about a relationship with Brooke Shields have been flatly denied by her. She was a publically proclaimed virgin all through the 80s so Michael obviously thought she'd be safe to hang out with. The other man she was linked to in the 80s was George Michael. Go figure.

Oh, and there's something I'm forgetting... What is it? Oh, yes...

He sleeps with little boys.


Now where on earth would anyone get the idea he was gay?

whoknows said:

Now, I am not quite sure what Michael is, but some of your evidence is flawed.

Yea he is close to diana Ross but that could be more to do with the fact that he use to live with her when he was a child.

True he was close to Liberace and Freddie Mercury, but he was probably closer to Quincy and Barry White. Don't forget whilst a child he didn't mix with other children, so most of the relationships he probably had were with adults, regardless of their sexuality.

Brooke Shields has admitted her being a "virgin" through out those years was a PR stunt in itself.

According to Tatum O'Neal book Michael tried to seduce her when he was 17, he says the opposite. So I guess it boils down to who you believe.

As for LMP, according to her interview with Oprah she admitted they had a "healthy" sex life, inspite of everything.

Now, I am not saying you are not onto something about him being a "Repress Homosexual" but half of your so-called evidence is more speculation than fact.

whoknows said:

1. Freddie Mercury was bisexual. He did have girlfriends long before boyfriends.

2. In Tatum O'Neal's autobiograhy, she stated that it was Michael that wanted to lose his virginity to her (despite that he was already 19 and she was underage!). It didn't happen. But it does set the record straight that Michael loves white women!

3. BTW, Lisa Marie also mention that she loved Michael more than Michael ever loved her.

4. Correct about Debbie Lowe

5. Correct about all of Michael's 3 kids being testtube babies.

6. James Dean was also bisexual.

7. So far, Tatum was the closest thing to a girlfriend that Michael ever had in his personal life. And BTW, before George Michael went gay full-time, he also had sexual relations with women (like the vixen in the I Want Your Sex video, his very last girlfriend to date).

8. The final court ruling by jury said that Michael Jackson was (and still is) found....NOT guilty. And I wish all of these MJ-haters out there would learn to get over it!!!
[Edited 9/10/06 20:04pm]

Michael's 'Invincible' album proves that his voice is not obviously declining.

whatsgoingon said:

Now, I am not quite sure what Michael is, but some of your evidence is flawed.

Yea he is close to diana Ross but that could be more to do with the fact that he use to live with her when he was a child.

True he was close to Liberace and Freddie Mercury, but he was probably closer to Quincy and Barry White. Don't forget whilst a child he didn't mix with other children, so most of the relationships he probably had were with adults, regardless of their sexuality.
He had a working relationship with Quincy Jones. Barry White was a great producer/writer/singer working in the same genre as MJ. Michael could have learned a lot from him. Those relationships are understandable. How on earth do you explain a straight young black man being friends with Liberace?

He wasn't a child when he was hanging with Liberace. He was in his 20s. In 1981 he travelled to England with Liberace and his boyfriend. Not to work. Just to hang out.
She may have told Oprah that, but when promoting her album in 2003 the interviews I saw and read all made it clear that he had used her to repair his image, and she did say at least once that he didn't give her what she wanted in bed. What that means exactly, I guess we'll have to figure out for ourselves.

None of these things would be conclusive proof by themselves, but taken as a whole they make a pretty overwhelming case. Those who say he's straight have an awful lot more difficult questions to navigate their way around than those who say he's gay. Why are all the little boys he sleeps with so good looking? Why are the vast majority of them olive skinned? Why doesn't he sleep with little girls? We could go on forever.

Boy I fucked up that post pretty bad, didn't I? I hope you can still see my points in there on the bottom half.

TonyVanDam said:

Like a lot of gay men, Freddie took time to accept his sexuality. Many gay men have girlfriends in their early life. Many of them get married. It doesn't make them bisexual. George Michael and Elton John are both emphatic on this point. Both had girlfriends, but they later came to accept their sexuality. Freddie was the same. And by the way, I'm not a hater. Just someone with an open pair of eyes. How does my saying he's gay make me a hater? There's nothing wrong with being gay. It's just a bit nauseating how so many of his fans have swallowed the idea that his lost childhood and abusive father is the root cause of his problems.
1/ There have been numerous child stars through the years. They didn't all turn out like Michael.
2/ There's never been any suggestion that Michael got any more abuse from Joe than any of the other boys. In fact, Michael himself admits that Marlon felt Joe's wrath the most because he was always making mistakes in rehearsals.

whoknows said:[quote]

whatsgoingon said:

But some of what you said is flawed. You talk about Michael being close to Diana Ross, who Michael use to live with when he was a child, as evidence of his sexuality. Him being close to Diana doesn't prove a thing, considering the friendship with her started when he was a child.

And even him being close to Elizabeth Taylor doesn't say much, because Taylor, like Brooke Shields and Tatum O'Neal was a child-star, like wise Michael. Probably he could relate to people like that better.

I can understand why you believe MJ is a "repress homosexual" but some of your so-called evidence doesn't prove a thing.
[Edited 9/10/06 15:48pm]

whatsgoingon said:

Like I said, by themselves they prove nothing, but taken overall they build up a pretty convincing case. I mean the sleeping with little boys thing is pretty damning in itself. Why doesn't he sleep with little girls? Like I said before, those who say he's straight have more difficult questions to answer than those who say he's gay. The fact that you've ignored the majority of my points and isolated a few is itself proof of that. Explain the test tube babies. Was he scared the children might come out black? Is he biologically incapable? Those would both be plausible explanations, but the fact that his fans don't even question that speaks volumes about the blindfold they wear when viewing their idol. That's the thing I'm objecting to more than anything; the lack of clear, objective thinking some people have.

whoknows said:

I understand what you are saying about him and children, especially around the boys. I understand if you talk about the lack of "real" relationships he has had with women. I understand if you bought up the make-up and his overall appearance as "evidence" of homosexuality. What I am objecting to is some of the things you brought has no bearing on his sexuality because there are other plausible reasons.

Btw I am not saying whether he is gay, straight, bi-sexual or a Paedophile. I am just questioning some of your so-called evidence that to you proves he must be a "repressed homosexual".

whatsgoingon said:

Like I said before, some of the points I made could have alternative explanations as you've rightly pointed out. But taken overall they help to build up what is in my view a pretty conclusive picture.

I agree with whoknows. I don't completely rule out the possibility of MJ being straight, but that huge list he typed out of blatant, tell-tale signs of his possible homosexuality make a fairly solid and obvious case to consider.

I think it's just that we're so used to thinking of MJ as "weird" as opposed to "flamboyant" (in the homosexual manner) that we don't notice the points whoknows made more often.

whoknows said:

A "pretty conclusive picture" to you. There a lot of people out there that believe Michael is a "pedo" but not a homosexual, repress or otherwise. What do you say to those people.?

I myself laugh at those fans who believe that Michael is a "Playa", because I doubt that very much. But for me to sit down and say Michael is a "Repress homosexual" because of one or two friends would be very presumptious of me.

Btw, even after LMP and Michael divorce they still spent a lot of time together, so I do believe LMP when she says they had a "healthy sex life". It doesn't mean he is 100% straight but it does prove when it comes to Michael there is a lot of contradictions that are flying around.

squiddyren said:

That raises another thing. What a lot of people don't realise is that Michael deliberately cultivated his weird image. Many of the "Wacko Jacko" stories were planted by Michael's own team. It seems a strange thing to do. You have to wonder how much of it was to divert attention away from what was really going on. That way when people saw him with all these boys they'd just see it as part of his overall weirdness rather than anything more serious.
btw, there were a hell of a lot of things I left out of that list. I was just too lazy to roll out the full case.

yea, its called marketing. publicity...ever heard of it?
[Edited 9/10/06 17:26pm]

TheBoyfromtheBand said:

It seems a very strange way to market yourself. He only started planting those stories in 85/86. He'd just had the biggest album of all time. It's hardly like he needed publicity. He did have a lot of rumours to deflect though. In 1984 he issued a statement about how much the questioning of his sexuality bothered him. After the "Wacko Jacko" stories became a regular feature in the tabloids those questions faded somehat as people just labeled him "weird". They saw him as weird anyway, but stories like him buying the elephant man's bones and sleeping in an oxygen chamber made people see his fixation with little boys as just another peculiarity.