NOSEY BARKER Feb 8 2003

I've decided. I'm going to have it done. Next week I'm having breast implants.

Not into my chest, you understand, but grafted on to the palms of my hands. True, it may look odd, but that way I reckon I'll be able to have a good old "feel up" in public, any time I choose, without any laws being broken or the police being called, and I'll be able to feel a right tit (or a left one) all day.

Perhaps Michael Jackson (a man who clearly needs a check-up from the neck up) should consider something similar.

Over the past 20 years he has paid a fortune to plastic surgeons to hack away at his face, so why doesn't he ask them to graft a child on to his body, for comfort and convenience?

If he did, I bet he'd insist afterwards that there was nothing improper about the relationship, just as he's now insisting that it's perfectly normal for a 44-year-old man to share his bed with young boys (odd, isn't it, how it's always the boys who get to sleep over?).

Following the screening of Martin Bashir's documentary in the US, he's even lodged a complaint with the ITC, protesting that the programme made him look like a bad parent. Which is fair enough, because I'm in little doubt that he's an expert when it comes to rearing children.

Nor am I surprised that he was "horrified" by the programme because, for the first time in decades, a mirror has been held up to his face, and this latter-day Caliban has seen himself for the wretched creature that he really is.

That must have been truly horrifying, because for years he's been surrounded by yes-men, who are being paid a fortune to please him and therefore indulge his every whim, instead of quietly taking him to one side and telling him he's a tile short of the space shuttle.

"New nose? Of course, sir." "A dozen hideous Greek urns at $2million each? Excellent choice, sir." "Whiter skin? Of course, sir, and if anyone asks, just tell them it's vitiligo" (a strange disease that not only makes the skin lighter, but very thin, too, hence Jackson's inability to take criticism).

It's the same unreality that eventually cost Howard Hughes his sanity, because nobody dared tell him he was crossing the line, either. "Want to end your life as a recluse with yard-long fingernails, walking up and down the freeway with Kleenex boxes for shoes, sir? No problem, sir."

If Wacko's employees won't tell him the truth, what about his close friends? Well, unfortunately they're all midway between East Ham and Upney too (Barking).

Take Elizabeth Taylor, whose insistence that "Michael is the least weird man I've ever known" is hardly reassuring, coming from a woman with a history of chronic alcoholism and bulimia who discards husbands more often than most of us discard Kleenex tissues.

Or Liza Minnelli, who thinks Jackson is completely normal, presumably because her own flirtation with plastic surgery has been almost as obsessively disastrous as his.

Or Uri Geller, staunch defender of Jackson's right to take other people's children into his bedroom, and a man who's made a lucrative career out of pointless "supernatural" tricks such as spoon-bending. Perhaps his powers even help the children to bend at Neverland?

Ultimately, Jackson needed this documentary, because the TV cameras are the only way he's going to see the awful truth of what he's become. Bringing up your children behind masks and veils is cruel, while shaking a small baby or dangling him over a balcony is potentially lethal, and far from stitching him up, Bashir let him off so lightly that he made Tony Benn look like Jeremy Paxman.

Especially by not pointing out to him the simple truth that (for basic physiological reasons) men have most of their erections when they're lying horizontal, and inquiring how that might affect the "innocence" of his bedroom fun.

Most extraordinary of all is the way that a man who initially claimed to have had no plastic surgery (and still admits to only two small nasal operations) has the nerve to call the tabloids liars.

Unlike him, we humble hacks have to get our facts right, otherwise we get sued by rich litigants like him. Whereas Jackson uttered so many blatant untruths during the interview that, if his Pinocchio nose worked properly, by now it would reach from one end of Neverland to the other.

thanks, that was on point. I love MJ and grew up with him. I'm 40. He is nuts however. Anyone who can't see that is in serious denial or they are missing a few cards from the deck themselves.

ESTEEMED?

Hardly. Victor Lewis-Smith ceased to be relevant when Jackson was in jheri curls.

Essence my Friend I question your Respect for Michael Jackson you are reaching Sensationlism here my Friend.this is wrong&off the mark.MJ has some Issues but truth be told I think the Cat is alright when you consider all things.this isn't a cool Piece.

mistermaxxx said:

I didn't write this piece though. It's an article by a high profile journalist that gives an opinion as worthy as any other. Tricky99 dug it for one.

Essence said:

I question you for even Posting it here or anywhere?what point does it prove? we also have enough takes on the Matter anyway.

mistermaxxx said:

lol - 'we'? - don't like it - report it and ask Ian to delete it.. he moderates the site

Instead, 'we' have your post about how cool the cat is everytime the subject's raised. 'We' know your point of view - but you keep giving it. Don't get me wrong - you've every right to express the same opinion every hour. But don't tell Essence that 'we' can't all read V L-S's point of view (once) whilst you insist on posting yours incessantly.

langebleu said:

I'm a Balanced MJ fan.also somehow if someone allows a Negative Article on MJ then they want to Flame folks like myself who defend the Cat.so it's a two way street.I never said not to read it but everything isn't Post worthy on the Subject.but nevertheless as long as you Post on here then welcome to the MJ Party My Friend!

http://pub4.ezboard.com/f...9690.topic

Dear Martin, you have asked for questions to be sent in for your web chat. I have one or two.

In one of your first voice-overs during the program, you claim to have the answers to questions about Michael’s sex life. After having asked but a few unimaginative questions about his art, why the need to focus on such an irrelevant, private matter, so early in the program, if at all? Even Noel Gallagher, a notorious critic of Michael had this to say “I was quite annoyed they mentioned his music and art for maybe two or three minutes. I mean so what if he climbs trees. Did you learn anything new about about him?” Moreover, do you think it was fair to lead viewers to make assumptions about Michael’s sex life without asking about his marriage to Lisa-Marie Presley, the one person with whom he has mutually confessed to having sex with? GMTV’s resident psychologist came to the conclusion, as did Richard and Judy, that Michael is ASEXUAL. Your program may not have insinuated this specific point but through a lack of research and understanding on your part, you missed a very important piece of what you might term ‘the puzzle’. Through failing to ask about Lisa-Marie, you left the audience to reach a conclusion without all of the relevant facts. Michael appeared anything but asexual in his interview with Diane Sawyer in 1995 in which he was obviously very much in love with Lisa, and she with him. The man cannot win.

Did you ever watch or read any of Michael’s previous interviews? If you did, you would have known that Michael has a rather dull set of stock answers for such questions as “How do you write a song?” Phrases such as “it comes from above” and the beat box routine have been given in that way for over a decade. I would liken the question to asking Michelangelo “So how do you sculpt?” Since the Oprah interview ten years ago, fans have been desperate to find out more about his fascinating beat-box technique. Unfortunately you then went on to ask Michael to demonstrate the moonwalk. Oprah has been there and done that, and the results were fairly dull the first time around.

Ten years ago, Michael told Oprah that he used to get angry at the camera man when he was little while watching James Brown. The shot would invariably be focussing on James Brown’s head and not his feet. I was similarly irritated when through a reasonably lengthy dance demonstration, your cameras focussed on Michael’s upper body and face whilst his feet were tearing up the floor. Later in the film, your camera crew had no problems in continuously panning downwards to focus on Michael and Gavin’s hands and his restless feet as he fed Blanket.

Why is it that you appear so uncomfortable during the early sessions where Michael is by contrast relaxed and happy? You seem to be far more at ease in the latter stages during the probing sessions when Michael is at his most distressed.

In another narrated piece you comment “…the colour changing skin condition HE SAYS” has changed his skin. The clear implication is that there is doubt on your part that Michael did not want to be white. Did you not research this topic prior to the interviews? Vitiligo, for one thing, is not colour CHANGING but colour DESTROYING. Michael did not try to CHANGE his skin colour to white through any mythical bleaching process but found the melanin in his skin being slowly destroyed by a disease. Do you honestly believe that he has walked around in the sun with an umbrella for the last 15 years to try and fool people? Because that is the impression the film gives.

During the ‘Giving Tree’ scene, you reply to Michael’s question with an emphatic “No I do not!” (Climb trees). Firstly, there is a clear implication that there is something wrong with Michael’s ‘hobby’. Yes, it is unusual, but I have heard several people comment that it was just plain weird. Perhaps you could have tried a little harder to understand why a forty-four year old man might enjoy such an activity. Listening to that clip, you come across as very much the jaded, cynical, conservatively British middle-age man, in comparison to a spirited and happy Michael.

In your post-broadcast comment you said “The pressure has been enormous, especially for my family. Nobody will ever know how much my wife Deborah has had to sacrifice to allow me to get on and make the film.” Given this, do you not think it is rich to make a film depicting Michael as an inconsiderate father? You judged him for putting his children in a difficult position at the zoo, but had he left them at home for two weeks or in the hotel, you would have probably criticised him for that too. The whole point is that HE wanted to see the gorillas as much as the children! How often during the filming did you take your kids out? Michael was in Berlin as a celebrity, and whilst ‘working’, he found time to be with his kids everyday. Did you? Incidentally, by this point in the film, your perpetual scowl became far more unpleasant to look at than Michael’s face.

In yet another misleading voice-over, you tell of Michael’s time spent “alone in a hotel room, deeply bored and isolated” and pledge to investigate as to why he would want to live this way. Except you don’t ask, and we don’t find out. Obviously you were unaware of any of the business ventures Michael was pursuing whilst in Vegas. Maybe you didn’t think to ask or were asked to leave hose details out, in which case your narration should have been altered accordingly. But I suppose it was easier and more convenient to imply he spent months playing videogames and talking to mannequins. Instead of repeatedly saying “bizarre” and “weird” in your two-faced narration, why not ask as to why he has mannequins in his room, instead of allowing the audience to just wonder, thinking it odd? What was the point in zooming in on his gadgets and mannequins repeatedly, then panning back to your bemused expression? Why focus on a green dress hanging on a hotel clothes rail without any questions or commentary in relation to it? What were you trying to say? I suggest you were trying to say “Look everyone! Michael’s a weirdo!”

When interviewing Michael about sex in general, and trying to extract increasingly graphic details, did you not think it was enough for him to say “I heard everything”, and leave it at that? We all know what he meant, but you seemed to want him to describe the specific sexual sounds he heard his brothers make.

To make matters worse, you focus yet AGAIN on the mannequins whilst asking “So you were pretending to be asleep with your brother’s having sex in the same room”. The effect this has is to make the audience subconsciously think that Michael has a twisted view of sex. If that is your uninformed opinion, fine, but why not tell him so or ask HIS opinion instead of using suggestion to add impetus to your own views?

During this part of the interview, did it not occur to you to ask about Lisa Marie? Given Michael’s traditional beliefs on the subject of sex, it is fair to say that his and Lisa’s comments in 1995 are central to the issues you had so much difficulty tackling. You claim a frank exhibition of his sex life in your narration without touching on this vital topic. Again, good research is not evident.

During the shopping trip, Michael explains his interest in the elaborate ornaments saying he loves beautiful craftsmanship and you have the nerve to say everything is ‘tacky’. Are you silly? And as for “How much are you worth?” That was really scraping the question barrel.

You feigned surprise a number of times during the interviews, or so it seemed, but amazingly you seemed genuinely taken aback that a man worth $1 billion would have expensive taste. Moreover, you failed to see the irony that the store clerk was privileged enough to be host to one of the greatest musical talents but was more interested in the money he was making. However, the real irony was that you are really no different. You ARE that shop owner. Perhaps you were out of shot whilst rubbing your hands with glee.

During the shopping trip you made such an effort to calculate how much money he had spent. Any fan could have told you ten years ago that Michael is a shopaholic who tends to go crazy in stores. Wouldn’t a better line of enquiry have been “How much money do you give to charity?” or “What is the Make A Wish Foundation and Heal L.A.?” You also failed to notice that out of that shop teeming with seemingly identical items, Michael knew EXACTLY what he had purchased previously. He was not throwing cash about for the sake of it. He actually wanted those things. Given that there has been so much missing from his ‘bizarre’ life, would it not have been more constructive to try to understand why he might find escape through art?

“Michael, what about paintings?” What a pointless question to ask while Michael was visibly distracted. Why did you not ask that question at Neverland about the portraits of Michael on the wall akin to the scenes with Apollo on the painting he liked in the store?

As you left the store, commenting that Michael “must’ve bought 80%” of it, he replied “You don’t want to look at it that way”, that way being that of a detached, conservative, English man making no effort to understand the life of the most famous man in the world. Why did you not follow up on his telling, throwaway comment? The comment shows that Michael knew all along what you were getting at with regard to his spending, but since you refused to get beyond your initial disbelief, he was not going to be straight with you. It speaks volumes that he did not respond to any of your comments about price tags in the shop but left you with a clue.

As you quizzed Michael about his face and the comments his father made to him, Michael replied “Ooh, it’s pretty embarrassing. He used to tease me, he hurt me real badly.” This was a clear indication that he was not prepared to divulge anymore painful memories yet you pushed your ‘friend’ harder and harder. It was extremely unnecessary and bringing up the specific issue over which Joseph used to tease Michael when he wouldn’t volunteer the information himself was very low.

Michael revealed that in his difficult teens he would have been “happier wearing a mask”. (Cue cut to mask shop.) This is yet another cheap tactic. There was no connection disturbing or otherwise between Michael’s plastic surgery and the clips of him goofing around in the mask shop. Yes, it is clear you believe Michael created his own mask but there was no need to turn this harmless, fun piece of unconnected footage into something sinister. As he said at the time when he held a mask up to your face; “That’s fun!” Why the need to blur the lines of his innocent amusement the same way you did in the hotel room with the mannequins and dress?

“I wasn’t entirely convinced by Jackson’s explanation about his face and felt he wasn’t being entirely honest.” And the Louis Theroux Award for inane commentary goes to…..

“I knew we would have to return to the subject before we were through.” Why exactly? Michael’s medical history is not something that you as an interviewer, let alone a friend, have the right to ask, so if that was as much as he was prepared to say, it is far from your place to assume you have the right to return to the subject for more dirt.

“His children are rarely seen in public.” How dare you feed people this misinformed rubbish as fact? During Michael’s time in Las Vegas in late 2002 he went out nearly everyday with the children in public and they never wore masks. As Michael has since stated, the only reason the masks were on was because of the cameras. Presumably this series of visits to Vegas was not covered in your 8 month period of contact?

“Hi. Let me see. Come here. What’s it made of?” You clearly have no idea how to speak to a child. What a bizarre, patronising, confusing tone.

“And what makes you think you’re qualified to make such a strong judgement?” Yet more gibberish. It takes Michael to rephrase this preposterous question in a way that a five year old can understand. But more than the language used, I’m sure Michael could see how imperfect your communicative skills are with children; I’m just surprised he didn’t highlight them for you. Can you see the overarching irony in all of this?

“Would you like to be buried in something like this?” I can’t work out which are more ill-conceived; your questions to Prince or your questions to Michael. He has already explained repeatedly how he loves the intricate design, the beauty of the artefacts he buys, but instead of exploring his love for art, something nobody has asked him about before, you have to lower the tone.

What you fail to realise as an outsider who has absolutely no genuine interest or knowledge of Michael as an artist or human being is that there was NOTHING ‘revealed’ in the documentary that most fans could not have explained to you years ago. You could have been told that Michael would be cagey, defensive and ‘dishonest’ about certain aspects of his PRIVATE LIFE, the truth of which someone like you could never comprehend in the space of eight months when many of us have studied him for a lifetime.

What I find most irritating following the press coverage of the program is that you have allowed and led the public to believe that Michael’s children are isolated, lacking in the company of others their own age and are suffering from the lack of a mother figure when the truth is that they have school with other children, have many ‘normal’ friends and so many positive influences in their lives and never want for attention. How would you feel to read a report of yourself, depcting you as an uncaring man who is more interested in his career than his children?

Moreover, you did nothing to dispel the ongoing rumours that Michael has a troop of ten nannies who spoil and pander to the children. Anyone with a keen eye could see there was only one main minder with them, but that Michael is the one who takes prime responsibility for the children. Theei nanny is there for the times he needs to sign autographs. Again, the fans have known this for many years. What makes you qualified after a few weeks spent with the family, and what gives you the right to assume things you don’t really know and perpetuate such untruths?

As is evident on the shopping trip, the children’s nanny, the children’s ONE nanny, who has been with the children forever, is there for the few seconds that Michael stops to greet fans. Michael tells her “You have to pull” (to make Paris let go off his hand); “This is what she does.” Michael explaining the children’s subtle habits to a nanny who has known them for years is a far cry from the tabloid conjured vision of a cavalcade of minders swamping the children and protecting them from germs. Why did you not only make no attempt to dispel the stupid fabricated story, but actually perpetuate it in another of your suggestive voice-overs?

Do you really think it was fair to use Michael’s own more aggressive songs as the soundtrack to your characterisation of the ‘deranged and disturbed’ Michael of the Berlin trip? The effect is subconsciously compelling; it paints a dark picture, enveloping your morbid voice-over and giving impetus to your wacky portrayal of Michael. Such techniques wouldn’t be necessary if you were a truly talented, skilful interviewer and producer. The whole film is peppered with such cheap techniques.

Michael was clearly agitated during the post dangling interview. You failed to ask as to why this may have been. Did it not occur to you that he was upset and distressed knowing that the tabloids were saying he deliberately endangered his child? If you were not even going to ask Michael about it later, was it really fair to dwell on this admittedly unnerving piece of footage, when he is was not given the chance to explain it? Yes, it is an odd moment, but did you acknowledge how distressing the situation was for Michael or contrast it with his infallible one to one contact and communication with his children at all other times? No. Neither did you attempt to understand his wish to hide his childrens’ features from your imposing cameras. As I have stated, he has taken the children out in public many times without veils, but it was the idea of seeing them on TV which concerned him. There was even a widely publicised picture of Michael walking with Prince in the street on Father’s Day in 1999. Did you not come across this in your research?

Instead of trying to understand the sensitive nature of the predicament for Michael, especially at that time, you tried to PULL OFF THE VEIL AND EXPOSE BLANKET’S FACE. It was this which worked Michael into a panicky frenzy. Don’t be so quick to judge others when your actions can be seen as equally disturbing and questionable.

“There was a manic quality about him which I had never experienced before.” That is because you had never experienced Michael around a large group of fans before, many of whom he has known for over a decade. Had you researched properly you’d have known that thirty years of performing has meant that he automatically goes into ‘hyper’ mode around screaming fans. His body is getting ready to perform. And I never heard anybody describe one of his performances as ‘manic’.

“That’s the hotel pillow?” Again, had you researched at all you would have come across hours of footage where Michael ‘abuses’ hotel property. He has been doing it for years. But your question is directed in such a way and put in the program in such a way as to imply that this is a weird thing that Michael would not be doing were he not in a ‘manic frenzy’ having dangled his baby. Would it be more accepatble to you if he threw TV sets out of the window like other stars?

Don’t you think it would be weird if you switched on ‘Match of the Day’ on a Saturday evening, expecting to see Gary Lineker but were faced instead with Anne Robinson in the anchor’s chair? You’d be rightly irritated if she spent half the program trying to work out who the red team were and what the offside rule is, wouldn’t you? So why does the same not apply to a program about Michael? The fundamental principles are the same. Why is it OK for somebody with less than no knowledge of Michael, his music and his world to assume he is in a position to come in and make judgements? It’s like a store clerk trying to figure out a heart surgeon. A journalist could never understand Michael. This is one case where a fresh, ‘unbiased’ perspective is not what is needed.

When you asked Michael about the press coverage of his court appearance, he replied that he never reads the tabloids. Could you not take a very obvious hint that he did not wish to discuss his face and what the world thinks of his face any further? You could see that his face was not disintegrating as the coverage suggested; surely that invalidated your questions? But no, you probe again immediately about the media’s obsession with his face. Maybe you should have asked Michael what he thought of YOUR obsession with his face.

Michael countered this second probe and tried to shift your attention to the dancing fan. We got to see a rare glimpse of a wonderful side of Michael. He was completely uninhibited, enjoying himself, and talking and laughing in an open tone which even fans rarely get to hear. THIS is what we wanted to see. And how very two-faced of you, having been so disgusted by the scene in the hotel room when you arrived, to laugh and bellow so whole-heartedly with Michael about the dancing fan. Why did you not say to his face the things you seemed only to have the courage to say in your cowardly voice-overs?

Admittedly the zoo scrum was unfortunate, but you let people believe this was an everyday occurrence by focussing excessively on this one incident. Michael cannot win. If he left the kids at Neverland he would be criticised. If they were stuck in a hotel room they’d be criticised. If he takes them out when the stores are empty at night he is criticised. If he takes them out on one occasion and the situation becomes chaotic he is criticised. And if he did as you suggested and sent them out with minders, Fern Britton would have something to say about that too.

In your voice-over, you state that Michael was oblivious to the chaos of the zoo incident all of thirty seconds before he himself admits to the “pandemonium”. It was not a nice situation for the children. Maybe by the same token we should condemn all parents who take their children on tubes, trains and buses during rush hour. Countless children are killed on our roads every year because of speeding and drink-driving. Most child deaths are a result of inattentive drivers outside their own homes. You took the zoo situation out of all rational contexts, and as a result ignorant, foolish people such as Lorraine Kelly have written their gossipy ‘opinion’ columns in tabloids informing people that Michael is an unfit father. Is this result what you were thinking of when you said “I try to do my best. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. This time, I think we did all right”.

One of the most flabbergasting parts of the program for me was your use of the supposedly “humiliating” Bambi TV hiccup as the last of Michael’s crazy Berlin antics. This was such a ridiculously cheap way of making sure your narration about a ‘disastrous trip’ really carried across. In your supposed eight months with Michael, did you not capture anything more interesting or revealing than a simple TV mistake? Live TV is riddled with such moments. He didn’t even “take the stage” far enough for the audience to see him and he certainly wasn’t picked up on the live broadcast. Perhaps your view from behind the scenes, eternally lurking in the shadows, gives you a distorted picture of reality, equal to Michael’s supposedly warped view. Or perhaps your use of an innocent piece of footage in that way was simply malicious. This seems quite possible given your most disturbing narration yet and the fact that you failed to follow up with footage of Michael’s speech and of the audience’s all embracing reaction. Contrary to your voice-over, the award was not meant to ‘cement’ anything. Michael’s legacy was sealed long ago with love, truth and honesty. Yours may be set in cement for now, but cement weathers.

“The confusion was excruciating for all of us”. All of who, exactly? On screen you just look like the nosey reporter, bustling to the front to see what the commotion is about, completely out of place in Michael’s world. Why the need to turn this boring scenario into a sensationally bizarre wacko moment?

I cannot find words to fully describe and convey my utter disgust at the barely disguised implications of inappropriate behaviour towards Gavin and other children on Michael’s part, conveyed in your film through tacky innuendo and editing techniques. You are a very deluded man if you could not see the innocence that was so apparent in the relationship between Gavin and Michael. For you to be disturbed by the situation as you have asserted numerous times you would have to believe him capable of sexual abuse of a twelve year old cancer victim. For that I pity you, especially considering you have had a rare first had experience of Michael’s kindness, generosity, love and innocence.

“I knew I had to confront Jackson about what I thought was an obsession with children”. I assume it is your expertise as a nosey, conservative, English reporter that gives you the right to make such a judgement. There are so many things I could say about this, least of all that the tone of you Louis Theroux-style voice-overs had by this point become increasingly disturbing, but there is no point. Again, your position can be likened to Anne Robinson hosting Match of the Day’.

Anyone with an intellect could see that Michael was shocked, upset and angry in the final interview because someone he liked and trusted was asking questions that nobody, no friend of his ever asks, ever. And even as a journalist it is not your job or right to ask about such private things as you did. It’s your job to ask about his music and art, as nobody has done properly for nearly ten years. Wouldn’t it have been nice to focus on that instead of making Michael relive the hell of 1993 and causing this paedophilia obsessed media storm, just to get attention for yourself and further your own career whilst stepping over Michael?

Did you not feel at all guilty that you were causing Michael so much pain and anguish? Did you feel nothing for him at all that it was so easy to keep asking and pushing, harder and harder? Is that any way to treat someone who saw you as a friend he could trust, even if the feeling was not mutual?

Don’t you think it was a remarkable testament to Michael’s wonderful, open, giving nature that despite all of your dignity-robbing, degrading, cutting, probing questions and after he was visibly shaking, that he could describe the fun times he shared with Macaulay Culkin with such openness and unshakable belief in your ability to understand him?

You perhaps didn’t understand the significance of the tape Michael put on his fingers before the interview. If you had asked, or understood Michael from a fan’s perspective, you would have seen that as very significant. His gesture of opening and closing his fist, flicking his hand and thrusting his taped fingers in your face in response to your questions about the number of operations he had was a gesture of defiance. He was reminding himself all the time to stay strong. The tape began as a visual aid over fifteen years ago and has since become symbolic, a sort of lucky charm. He clearly sat down for that interview in the type of mind-set he might have taken to the stage. At least, he felt he needed a barrier between the two of you. What does that tell you about your supposedly interviewing technique and talents?

After Michael had fully explained his position with regard to sleeping arrangements, you continued to probe with cheap innuendos. Does it not seem telling to you that on this one issue, despite your intense, misguided, scrutinising, that Michael is until the very end, completely open? It is plainly obvious that he had nothing to hide.

And the crux of the matter, the very essence of Michael’s character and the reason you will never understand him is contained within his final desperate plea. In reaching out to you after your attempted humiliation and torture of him, on the verge of tears Michael says “The world needs love. We need to bond again. It’s very important, Martin.” Listen to him. Listen to his voice. Every answer you could possibly want is contained therein. For me, listening to that heartfelt exclamation would be akin to watching a defenceless animal being kicked and beaten. And just like there are authorities for dealing with such behaviour, there are authorities for dealing with your bullying.

As someone who clearly has no understanding or prior knowledge of Michael, your inability to comprehend his ways is understandable. But you seem to think that you and your everyday conservative, British ways should be the standard by which Michael should live his life and that the point of the interview was for him to understand you. But the program was called ‘Living With Michael Jackson’ and it was your job to try and understand him. Your post broadcast comments completely betray your failure to grasp this fact.

In closing, I suggent you watch Michael’s short film ‘Ghosts’. It’s a story about a cold, detatched Town Mayor entering Michaels’ house and trying to turn the impressionable local townsfolk against him. He fails to understand what is so obvious to everyone else, especially the children; that Michael is not disturbed, but missunderstood. The story ends with the Mayor being chased out of the house and the re-embracing of the missunderstood curiosity figure by the locals who have since come to their senses and seen through the Mayor’s deception. I could say so much more. I hope I don’t have to.

Ellie said:

and

Please don't. I've laughed too much already.

love him or hate him Micheal Jackson is a living legend and has recorded brilliant music,videos, concerts ect. i mean how many after 30 years in the biz can attract 43 million viewers like he did for his interview! and over 27 million watched the whole 2 hrs. some of you say he is a freak if he is so what? who is he hurting? give me a break. personally for me it boils down to music and MJ music for the most part is the work of genius. also anyone with half a brain knows he was set up by money grubbing asshole's over the molestation BS. and the media is even worse they tell a million lies and pass it off as truth sad day when a person is accused and is assumed guility because of the tabloid media. what i dont get these people go and get degree's in journalism and end up being nothing more than locker room gossip whore's sitting on their asses passing judging. but MJ seemed to win with this interview HMV and Virgin Records have seen a huge boost in CD sales of his back catalog. and as it stands Thriller is still the biggest selling album of all time 52 million album worldwide! no one will EVER beat that...especially in the era of file sharing and downloads no one will top him.
[This message was edited Mon Feb 10 10:23:15 PST 2003 by Voltron88]