It don't matter if you're green or white

Yeah. The kids came out later and talked about how their parents pressured them into making shit up. Iirc they said he was a weird guy, but he never touched them inappropriately. It was too late at that point though. People had already made up their minds and the response was generally, "well, but I'm sure he has. Just 'cause they weren't molested doesn't mean he didn't molest other kids. He seems like a kid molester."

In the court of public vibe check he was guilty regardless of what actually happened. Poor dude's life was tragic. I'm not normally one to feel a whole lot of sympathy for the mega rich, but MJ was a good one.
- Yeah. From what I've heard his brain was either kinda stuck in "child mode" or it easily reverted to it due to the trauma and abuse he received growing up. He could act like an adult if he had to, but he was a child pretending to be an adult so to speak. A lot of his life was the result of trying to experience a childhood he didn't get to have as a result of being in the Jackson 5.
- He did bring a llama to a studio session with Freddie Mercury though.
  
  And then there was the time he rented a whole grocery store so he could have the experience of shopping for groceries. Ordinarily it seems like a fucked up entitled billionaire conspicuous consumption thing to do. But MJ gets a pass in my book.
  
  Honestly, if I was never really able to experience the life of a normal person, and craved that experience for even a moment, I'd probably be willing to drop a lot of money too.
- I think it helps that he wasn't mega rich from his own wishes. His dad forced him to perform until he got mega rich.
Not all of his accusers recanted, and his personal computer had a ton of cp on it. That detail was excluded from trial for being prejudicial, and thus didn't make headlines at the time.

So yeah, there were probably some parents who sold their kids, and other parents who coached their kids to inflate their accusations, and some kids who got molested. It's likely some of the accusations weren't true, but it's also entirely unlikely that he was completely innocent.
- I looked into this and what I found waaaass:
  
  A) the prosecution's case was leakier than a screen door on a submarine. Most of the witnesses had prior grievances against Jackson, had sold stories to tabloids instead of the police, claimed to be in impossible situations (for an example, Star Arvizo claimed to have been shown pornography that hadn't been published until after the accusations; Janet Arvizo claimed to have been held hostage, but receipts showed she'd spent $7,000 shopping and dining out during that time), or straight up went against the prosecution and claimed the prosecution was lying.
  
  B) the defense had hundreds of people (staff, celebrities, friends, visitors) who'd either spent time at Neverland Ranch with Jackson and/or knew him outside of the ranch, all of whom were ready to testify that they'd never witnessed any wrongdoing on Jackson's part (though several staff members had said Star and Gavin Arvizo were horrible children, one of the staff members in particular had been threatened with a knife). Additionally, several celebrities acted as witnesses specifically against the prosecution, such as George Lopez and Jay Leno, alleging that the claimants had previously attempted to extort them for money and that they had tried to warn Jackson about the Arvizo family.
  
  C) on the case of the child pornography. There was none. The FBI raided his house and supposedly found normal pornography, but no child pornography. However, the media claimed it was child pornography (so you're wrong about it not making headlines). Additionally, the FBI had already been monitoring him since 1992 due to creditable death threats being made against him, and during over 10yrs of monitoring, they'd never once found any evidence of wrongdoing.
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sexual_abuse_accusations_against_Michael_Jackson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Michael_Jackson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI_files_on_Michael_Jackson
- Holy shit did it? You got a link to news or something on this?
  
  Straight into that person's ass is where that link would go. That's the source.

I think he was never a sex pest, but was just absolutely fucking crazy.

It actually seems like he was having platonic, stunted mind sleepovers with children, literally to live out a childhood he desperately wanted.

Is that appropriate? Probably not.

Is it a crime? Apparently also no.

Not taking sides, but he cleared out a grocery store and paid people to pretend they were random shoppers just so he could have that normal experience.

I really don't know and haven't followed any of it very closely. But his music is top shelf.

I would like to think that he wasn't, but it's undeniable that either way it was creepy what he was doing.

It made sense to me when someone said everything he did was because he was basically robbed of childhood and made to perform for a living since he was like 7
- That's what my dad said.

Where's the proof? Last I heard there were thre same accusations by the same person who has been proven to be a liar. The actual abused kids in Hollywood say he wasn't a pedo, so it's hard for me to believe that one kid with his scammer mom.

I feel like this entire thread forgot about the closet…
- Those claims are incredibly misleading. It's all in the court cases submitted as evidence, the pornography he had was not CP was not illegal to own. The sole reference in the article you linked isn't even online anymore, and other instances claiming this are tabloid sites like Daily Mail, etc.
  
  I remember seeing the video of it when it originally came out and it was some weird shit. His bodyguard said it wasn’t a closet and was instead a panic room. They had people that would parachute into the ranch and security would tell him to hide in there. He put things in there that brought him comfort and uhh… whatever else.
- Big if true. Thought that last few sentences threw me off, when the prosecutor states factually that the material was used for grooming, where did she get that info?
  
  In any case, he's got such a mysterious story, since kids life Corey Feldman and McCauley who actually were abused by many, say that MJ was not an abuser. Yet he's got a closet with child porn, so I don't know what's going on with the guy
  
  It's been a long time since I've researched anything on MJ, but I vaguely remember reading that they found the fingerprints of both MJ and some kid on porn mags that he had. Showing porn to kids is one of the main methods of grooming that child predators use, though I don't recall if they were adult magazines or CP magazines - not that either option would be good, really.
  
  Edit: So after looking at this article on the fingerprints and this one on the CP they found, the story is a bit more complicated than that.
  
  Do keep in mind that this blog is obviously very biased in favor of MJ, trying to downplay the fact that he kept magazines with nude photos of children, and speculating about what "real grooming" would look like and why MJs actions supposedly don't match what the author personally thinks a real attempt at grooming should be like.
  
  If anyone wants to abide by the interpretations of this blog specifically be my guest, but I sure as hell still wouldn't let my kids near MJ.
  
  He always struck me as a troubled dude that was shaped by being a child star. It was like his escape hatch was to revert back to a child-like state and thus his closest friends… were mostly children. I was pretty split on that whole thing because I was such a fan as a kid growing up in the 80s and 90s. Insanely disgusted by it, but also saddened because he was a product of a toxic environment that we’ve seen time and time again is not a good place for children.
- Yeah, this is some ironically white washed history. Dude was NOT a good man. Was that due to his abuse as a child? Maybe, but that doesn't matter once you become an adult and have to be responsible for your own actions.