Apparently MJ was taking propofol to sleep, which another commenter said was akin to "getting a haircut by undergoing chemo".
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Happy to’ve learn a URL trick on HN so I’ll reshare:
The media and the people who bought into their shameless attention-grabbing lies are the reason he had sleep problems. He was unanimously acquitted of all counts, but the media made his life into a living hell by consistently portraying him as a pedophile because it drove incredible engagement numbers. A justice system should be "innocent until proven guilty", and yet MJ was deemed guilty even after proven innocent. Longform read from an actually good journalist, if you care to learn for yourself: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/one-of-the-most-shameful_b_61...
How is it obvious pedophilia, if you say he may have never done a sexual thing to them?
Maybe he liked playing with children because adults are evil and only saw him as a moneybag to try to extricate a payday from. If he wasn't harming them, it's not my business.
Michael had a secluded ranch with private security to ensure we would never know what he did with the children.
But it is not necessarily pedophilia. Because that means wanting to have sex with children.
The explanation I heard is he wanted to be close to children to compensate for his own lack of innocent childhood. Children don't do sexual intercourse. Now if he was a child in his mind, then I as a parent would surely not have gave my children to his care, but this is still something very different from child molesting.
So what you are saying is flawed. Even if Michael was a child in his mind, he was not inherently asexual.
Treating children as incapable of sex is dangerous and you are giving a prime example. Treating Michael Jackson like a child is absolutely insanity because I don’t know a single child with a vacation Ranch and private security detail keeping everyone from witnessing how he actually lived.
Pedophilia is a sexual attraction to prepubescent children. The attraction is the disorder; acting on it is a separate thing (child sexual abuse). Michael was definitely a pedophile but maybe not a child sex abuser.
So I don't know what happened in Michaels bedroom, was it the innocent or the weird or even sick version. But I certainly won't condem the innocent version in general. The world needs rather more of this very normal close bonding, not people being afraid of being close with children for fear of being called a pedophile.
"Michael was definitely a pedophile"
So I would like to know what makes you so sure of it, that there was a sexual desire?
Apart from that, you are right, that also children can experiment or be very early. But normal childrens play or adult children interaction is not sexual. So I don't see the final conclusion. Did you read the article linked above? The media reporting about it was anything, but not fair nor factual. Did you consider you might have been influenced by that? I certainly do consider that I might be wrong here with my judgement, but all evidence so far I read against him seems either fabricated or hysterical from the point of view of puritans.
I don't give much credence to new allegations. Where were these allegations when he was alive, and why are people still publishing documentaries? You don't need a documentary to make an allegation. They're doing it because they want to make money, then. Off a dead man, who can't defend himself.
It’s worth noting that it’s common for it to take years or decades for victims to speak out against an abuser. Especially when the victims are children. Especially when the abuser is a prominent figure, like the literal King of Pop.
I’m not going to try and convince you that these allegations are credible (though I believe they are), I just want you to think about how a child victim might behave in that situation. There’s almost never any objective evidence or 3rd party witnesses of abuse. It’s almost always the word of one person against another. And it may be years before a child victim even fully understands what was happening, and years beyond that to come to terms with it.
Another big allegation is from Wade Robson, who has turned the accusations into two documentaries. Wade Robson was 25 years old when, in 2005, he testified under oath that Jackson had never abused him as one of the witnesses called by the defense. He is now suing the Jackson estate for $400 million.
It's not like I can't imagine a child victim growing up and taking time to come to terms with abuse, but these people were actively defending him as fully mature adults, only to suddenly turrn on his estate for some reason. I see a pattern in the accusations, and that pattern is $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/film/michael-jacksons-biopi...:
> Over the years, Jackson and the estate have paid out millions to settle various claims, with some lawsuits still pending without ever admitting wrongdoing. A significant reason for the large settlement totaling about $25 million made by Jackson in 1994 to the Chandler family and their lawyer was the drawing of specific markings Jackson had on his penis caused by the skin condition vitiligo.
> Jordie Chandler drew the markings and the drawing was put into a sealed envelope. During the criminal investigation, Jackson was so resistant to having his genitals photographed that he slapped one of his doctors. It didn’t matter for the civil suit. My reporting showed that when Jordie’s drawing was unsealed, it matched the photos.
He was not “proven innocent”; that’s not how the legal system works. He was “found not guilty” which is a much lower standard than “proven innocent”.
(OJ Simpson was similarly found not guilty; do you think he was also “proven innocent”?)
Maybe it's a sign
At the very least drop an "allegedly" or something to make it sound a little tasteful.
Never connected Jackson to e.g. Weinstein - if allegation’s true that’s a horrible thing