The King of Pop.

Unless you've been playing Starcraft in your mom's basement without stop this week, you should know this has been probably the worst week for celebrities in the history of forever. The world is now without a comedy legend, a TV crime fighter, an infomercial shouter, and possibly the best thing to happen to music since The Beatles. Besides Disney Channel stars, of course.


I kind of just wanted to post this to write about how much of a bummer it is that Michael Jackson died. I was really hoping he would make a proper comeback with the This Is It concerts. He was even scheduled to make a new CD and a movie based off of Thriller! For those of you who weren't old enough to remember MJ other than his court charges a few years back, he was, but not limited to, popularizing the music video as a form of publicity, becoming the first black artist to appear on MTV, part of what is considered to be the first American "boy band," holding the highest selling record in the world, and, of course, was the creator of many household trends, such as orange jackets and the Moonwalk.

But what I think bums me the most, though, is the observation that a lot of people are going to remember him purely for his allegations of being a child molester and a plastic surgeon addict - and all of it based on ignorance. The reason I say "ignorance" is because, come on - you and I both know that if you are someone with such an opinion on the guy, you probably didn't bother looking for the evidence yourself. Just looking at Michael Jackson at a glance, or listening to what we hear on the news is not a great way to judge a guy. It really makes me sad that we're a nation based off "don't judge a book by its cover," when in fact we do it every night while watching TMZ or reading the tabloids on the net.

Michael Jackson's look changed completely by the start of the 21st century

For the sake of boring whoever is reading this, I'll try to only cover a few points.

First of all, the molestation cases are extremely flawed. The first time Michael Jackson was accused, all sorts of things seemed fishy from the get-go. First, the thirteen year old that was reported of being abused never showed up to the trials - not even to sit on behalf of himself. Everything that was said about Michael Jackson didn't even come from the kid to begin with. His dad did literally all of the talking. And to make matters even worse, the court found a recorded conversation between the father and an anonomyous submitter which revealed how dedicated the accuser was to bring down MJ's career. The consensus of this message reveals that the dad not only held a grudge against the singer, but was jealous Michael's friendship with his son. Yet, Jackson decided not to fight the case any longer and instead agreed to just pay the family $22 million.

Most of you are thinking: If Jackson was innocent, why did he pay the money? Why wouldn't he just agree to fight this in court?

Think about it. Its a lose-lose situation any way you think about it. If he were to just give up and throw the family a couple of bones, all of this would end and further prevent the negative image this whole case provided. If he were to continue to fight, however, what do you think the public would say? When celebrities get in legal trouble and decide to bring the case down, they only hire the highest of status for a legal team. The media would then likely provide a story along the lines of, "Jackson is so defensive of this case that he hired the best of the best in lawyers, who know how to convince even the falsest of cases!" That would ALSO ruin his image. So, whichever decision he would choose, would cause you to think he was the bad guy.

And it also doesn't help that the second time he was in court that a majority of the parents who initially accused Michael Jackson of molestation came forward years later and said they were in it for the money as well. EVEN THE KID WHO WAS INVOLVED WITH THE FIRST CASE ADMITTED TO LYING ABOUT MOLESTATION ONCE JACKSON WAS DEAD. But, of course, many people didn't hear (or care) about that.

Michael's skin color before 1986

Second, there's the whole issue with Michael's skin. Countless people reported of how "only in America could a black man die a white woman." It is true that MJ did have a plastic surgery obsession with reforming his nose and chin, but the whole idea of bleaching his skin is incredibly unlikely.

How is this idea debunked? Think about this one too. Why would he want to bleach his skin in the first place? To gain attention? He wouldn't need any more of it, as his condition began occuring at the heigh of his popularity in 1986. In fact, popularity seemed to be the last thing Michael wanted - he even wrote a song called "Leave Me Alone" directed towards the press.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, why wouldn't he just want to "transform" his African-American image along with his other cosmetic changes? This appears to be super unlikely. Don't forget that Michael Jackson was one of the only black entertainers to gain so much success as a black man to begin with. Not only that, but he wrote songs about equality between races and has demonstrated through interviews that he had "a lot of pride and dignity" towards being of African descent. Now, why would he bleach his skin? That's like claiming Martin Luther King Jr. wanted to change into a white man AFTER he started his protests. See how much sense this makes?

Plus, have you EVER, in your life, heard ANYTHING about somebody bleaching their skin? How do you impose this would happen to begin with?

Truth is, Michael Jackson had a conditional disease called vitiligo, a problem that kills pigmentation cells in the skin. It occurs in both black and white people, and a number of famous people have it. You can Google up vitiligo and see pictures if you like, and you'll see that's how Michael Jackson did in fact look. Its speculated that the reason Michael also wore a lot of make up in his later years was because of the disease, which can cause lighter "spots" anywhere over his body and he wanted to even out his skin tone.

Well, that's all I feel like explaining. Even though I believe that the above thoughts were easily provable as false, I do think that Michael Jackson had psychological problems. I really think that he was stuck in childhood throughout his adult life, which is why he had a fascination with providing other kids a better life than he had (MJ was heavily abused as a child during the time he was in the Jackson 5). He also admitted that he became obsessed with his nose, as he was teased by his father about it. Another thing that seems true is his addiction to painkillers. Its reported he became addicted to them after his first court cases, and his parents wanted him to go to rehab for the problem. He never did, and although its still up in the air, it might have been what killed him.


Although there's a lot of criticism surrounding him, Michael Jackson is still undoubtedly one of the biggest names in music history. I just hope that he is remembered for his achievements rather than the bad... even though, you know, he showed us WHO'S BAD. (that was horrible.)

If you need some catching up to do, here are some of his best music videos that, if you haven't seen, you need to watch before you die.