To most people, there has been so much evidence now of Jackson’s predilection for young boys, it beggars belief that some rational, thoughtful people are still on the fence regarding his guilt. Even though we know that Jackson entertained different boys for at least 850 or more nights, owned books featuring photos of naked young boys, and paid a lot of money to boys who accused him of molestation, once we take into account the Halo Effect[1] and the fact that a lot of Jackson’s behaviour had an air of plausible deniability[2], it is easy for some to have residual doubts about whether Jackson is guilty or not.
It is now the end of 2013, a year in which many more signs pointing to Jackson’s guilt emerged. Some were high profile, others less so, but all add to the massive, undeniable jigsaw of Jackson behaviour that shows he could not have been anything but a pedophile.
Wade Robson
The first, and most explosive of course, was the realisation by Wade Robson that all that “love” that Jackson showed to him over seven years, when Wade was aged seven to fourteen years, was in fact sexual molestation. While still to be decided in the courts, Wade Robson’s claim is shocking in which it details the level of abuse suffered at the hands of Jackson. It alleges fondling, oral sex and also sodomy. To most, it would be surprising that sodomy is being alleged because we have never heard this claimed about Jackson before, but upon reflection it is not surprising at all.
To date, we have the detailed accounts of four boys who have been molested by, or had to endure overtures from, Jackson – Terry George, Jason Francia, Jordan Chandler and Wade Robson. I have put them in that order for a very good reason, and it is this: The closer Jackson became to a boy, and the longer he knew a boy, the further the abuse progressed. Terry George had Jackson talking about masturbation on the telephone with him; Jason Francia endured hugging, then kissing, then fondling of his genitals (disguised as tickling); Jordan detailed a steady progression from hugging to kissing to fondling to oral sex; and Wade, who knew Jackson the longest and was seemingly the closest to him, included all of that plus went further to include sodomy.
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So it’s not quite as odd as you would imagine. From what we know about acquaintance molesters they become more bold with their victims as time goes by. Jackson waited to see what he could get away with before progressing to the next level of intimacy. It is classic behaviour.
Plausible deniability? Jackson defenders insist that Wade Robson is only after money, and is lying about the abuse. Why Wade would ruin his career by claiming abuse from Jackson is unfathomable, and no amount of money would be sufficient to cover the shame and embarrassment of admitting to (or even lying about) being sodomized by a celebrity such as Jackson. Also take into account the fact that Wade’s claim rests on whether a judge will allow his court action to continue or not, and you have a very shaky foundation on which to base the assumption that Wade is greedy.
Conrad Murray
Secondly we have Conrad Murray, credited as “the doctor who killed Michael Jackson” by the fan community. While we won’t go in to the ins and outs of Murray’s trial, conviction or subsequent appeal as that is not the focus of this website, we will however note his comments in an interview he gave in November 2013 to Australian current affairs show 60 Minutes (a franchised version of the US stalwart).
Conrad Murray 60 Minutes interview
When presenter Liz Hayes asks Conrad Murray, “Do you think he was a paedophile?” he dramatically pauses for 15 seconds before replying: “I’m not prepared to answer that question, not now. And I tell you the reason why – because my interview with you is candid and honest, and I will not make up or fabricate anything.”
A most extraordinary reply, considering Murray had also told Liz Hayes he was a great friend to Jackson and they were close.
Not to be deterred, Liz Hayes presses on: “As a friend, someone that was his closest friend, I would have expected you to say “absolutely not”.”
“Well, sometimes expectations are not always satisfied,” Murray continues. “One thing I will tell you is this: I may have formed an impression of an individual based upon certain things I have seen or encountered.”
Ms Hayes was not going to be put off, after all, this is someone who knows Jackson very well and she doesn’t want this question left hanging. “The reason I’m pressing you is because by saying what you’re saying, you are deliberately muddying the waters here, because that’s what you’re doing – you’re leaving it unclear about your thoughts. Is that fair to Michael Jackson or do you have something that you know?”
Murray is measured in his response: “I’ll never be unfair to Michael and I’m not here to destroy Michael. You asked a question and I’m not prepared to answer – not now.”
We can only guess what Murray has seen or encountered, but we do know that Murray knew Jackson in Las Vegas during 2007 and 2008, and treated Jackson and his children when they lived there. Those who believe Jackson to be innocent would have expected someone close to Jackson to immediately give an emphatic denial to that question as so many (but not all) have in the past. We can glean an answer from Murray’s replies though. His very telling comment “I’m not here to destroy Michael” tells us everything we need to know. Would it destroy Jackson if Murray were to say “Absolutely not, Michael was not a pedophile”? No, that would, if anything, bolster Jackson’s reputation. The only conclusion is that yes, Murray thinks (because of things he had seen or encountered) Jackson is a pedophile, but isn’t prepared to talk about it at this time.
Plausible deniability? Jackson defenders insist that Murray doesn’t believe Jackson was a pedophile (or at best didn’t know Jackson well enough to say one way or another) and is deliberately leaving the issue hanging in the hope of gaining more money for new interviews or a book deal.
Aphrodite Jones
A name hardly known outside of circles that follow the allegations against Jackson, Aphrodite Jones became the pin-up girl of Jackson defenders after she wrote a book detailing how Jackson was “railroaded” during the 2005 trial. During the trial she was a reporter and she said herself that during the entire proceedings she was convinced that Jackson was guilty. It wasn’t until she had a meeting with fans at the gates of Neverland after the not guilty verdict that she had a “Road to Damascus” moment and changed her mind, vowing to write a book on the travesty of justice that Jackson had endured (never mind the not guilty verdict, nor the vast sums of money she imagined flowing into her coffers from Jackson fans eager to lap up something positive about their idol). That book, a mish mash of everything to divert attention away from Jackson’s obviously inappropriate behaviour with boys, is reviewed here. In any case, Mario Nitrini met Aphrodite and has this to say:
” … At a dinner house in March of 2006 on Ventura Blvd and Coldwater Canyon Blvd here in The San Fernando Valley, Aphrodite Jones told me POINT-BLANK, and emphatically stated that Michael Jackson was GUILTY of child molestation. … “
Enough history, you get the idea. We have shown that Aphrodite can speak out of both sides of her mouth, and she displayed that brilliantly in an interview with Jordan King on November 5th. After reiterating the unfairness of the 2005 trial, she made this extraordinary admission about the 1993 Chandler case:
Do I have doubts about the innocence in 1993? YES. I do. Why? Why….because I watched the testimony of June Chandler in the court in Santa Maria, Jordy Chandler’s mother, and was, how shall I put it? Ummmmm…unnerved by what she was saying. She was talking about Michael staying in the hotel room with Jordy, Michael sleeping over at her house with Jordy, about Michael crying if he couldn’t stay in the same room with Jordy. This is all part of testimony at the trial. It was very unnerving and I felt like he was in love with that boy and whether or not there was any more to it, obviously we’ll never know, but everything that his mother was testifying to, when I was reading between the lines, made me very uneasy.”
Now to you or I, this mightn’t seem extraordinary, in fact the vast majority of people who read it (or hear it) would nod their head in agreement, however in the world of MJ defenders, this is heresy. In that huddle of overly enthusiastic Jackson fandom, anything, absolutely anything which casts even a sliver of doubt upon Jackson’s motives with children is met with howls of outrage and shuddering feelings of anger. That it came from Aphrodite Jones added an extra sting to the slap, and MJ fans were left bewildered and confused.
Aphrodite went on to say “[June’s testimony] is a HUGE reason…. There couldn’t be a bigger reason. I sat inches away, feet away from Jordy Chandler’s mother and watched her testify for hours and hours and everything about her made me feel like she was a woman who was looking the other way. Everything about what she said.”
“Now, does that mean that I think that Michael really did anything? I don’t know. That’s all I’m saying. But I’m not willing to say he didn’t do that nor that I feel he did because I don’t know, but I will say I was shaken by June Chandler’s testimony.”
“I’m not here to debate what happened in 1993. Michael is dead. I don’t really know what happened. None of us I don’t think will ever know what happened. I think that will die with Jordy and his father who killed himself and the rest of that family, who do or do not know anything. I don’t know.”
So we have someone who is absolutely viewed as being in the Jackson defender camp expressing quite reasonable doubts about the innocence of Jackson in the case of Jordan Chandler. The Jackson fans may hate what she had to say, but it is the absolute best spin that can be put on the Chandler allegations.
Also interesting was this comment from Aphrodite on Wade Robson during the 2005 trial:
“He was adamant that nothing had happened to him, but I will say, I re-read his testimony because when he first came out with those new allegations, I’m looking at his testimony and reading between the lines, part of me felt like he was maybe being TOO ADAMANT…that maybe there was something to what he was saying later, but that’s going inside he envelope you know what I mean? It’s reaching so far, it’s over-analyzing it to the point that I don’t know what to do with that. But on the surface, he was adamant that nothing happened and that is clear in the testimony that I read and in what I saw in court. So the only way to say is maybe there’s a glitch there is to say at some point as I was re-reading the testimony more recently this year, I thought….’WOW, he’s almost TOO adamant, like he’s TOO quick to say no.”
While I do understand that Aphrodite Jones has been inconsistent in the past, it is encouraging that perhaps she is coming to understand certain things about how acquaintance molesters and their victims behave, and it is possible that Jackson is at least capable of molestation. One small step.
Plausible deniability? Aphrodite isn’t saying that she thinks Jackson is guilty, just that she has some “reservations”. Actually that makes her no different from most people, and if Ms Jones put two and two together (molestation allegations plus a huge payout after Jordan described Jackson’s erect penis) she would be a lot more sure of any questions she might have.
Darlene Craviotto
Don’t worry, I hadn’t heard about Darlene either, until someone suggested I read her book “An Agoraphobic’s Guide to Hollywood: How Michael Jackson Got Me Out of the House”. I just put that one on the backburner, to me it sounded like another ode to the brilliance that was Michael Jackson by another starstruck hanger on who had met Jackson briefly for a few moments (or worse, one who hadn’t met Jackson at all) and had ascribed some miracle of personal rebirth to him.
After having forgotten totally about it, I was recently stuck in a hotel room in LA awaiting a call for a meeting (which never eventuated anyway) and was down to the last item in my todo list – reading this book. I downloaded it with trepidation, but once I started reading I was pleasantly surprised. Not only surprised, but subsequently shocked.
Ms Craviotto is an Emmy award winning screenwriter who details how she was hired by Disney to write the screenplay for “Project M”, the secret movie project which was actually a Peter Pan film to be directed by Steven Spielberg and to star none other than Michael Jackson. She describes the process and meets Jackson several times, but we’ll fast forward to the last time she meets Jackson, late one Thursday night at his hotel.
Darlene is naturally confused. She is here for a business meeting and Michael Jackson has a young boy with him?
Darlene spends a couple of paragraphs describing a trick she learned when she was acting, where she could see a play from a different perspective – either as a member of the audience or one of the other actors – in order to critique her own performance. She is doing this while she gives a reading of the Peter Pan treatment to the meeting.
Darlene, as a mother herself, is deeply disturbed by what she has seen. A natural reaction of course. After a time the boy falls asleep.
Shortly after, Darlene leaves and promises to return to read the remainder of her treatment, Michael and his friend Buddy are left alone in the apartment with the boy.
The whole situation is totally disconcerting and dare I say it creepy. While certainly not proof of child molestation by Jackson, it is an extremely disturbing description of a young boy alone with Michael Jackson and another man late at night, with no sign of either the boys’ mother or father. Remember too that this story is set in 1990, years before any scandal about boys were public.
The author goes on to recount a story she had heard years before: a friend of hers worked in the office of a Hollywood music company, and the story was that Michael had had a relationship for years with one of the executives there. The man had been a mentor to Michael professionally, but he had also been much more. The office gossip was that the man had been molesting Michael since he was a young boy. It was on the down low, and people there kept it to themselves for fear of losing their jobs. Darlene speculates that this is why Jackson sees nothing wrong with a grown man having a relationship with a young boy.
Of course, this is purely speculation or even outrageous rumour, but it could be have some validity but bear in mind that boys who have been molested do not automatically become molesters themselves.
Plausible deniability? Quote by MJ fan: “What a sweet story! Mike was so kind to children!”
It could be construed as such by naive people.
All this adds to what we already know.
While none of this information actually proves Jackson was a child molester (of course, Wade’s case has yet to proceed to trial) in a beyond any sort of doubt sense, it certainly reinforces what we already know about him. It shows that Jackson was very interested in spending time with boys, that he had a lot of time alone with many boys in which he could have groomed and molested them in secrecy, that there were people around him who indulged him or turned a blind eye when it came to the time he spent with boys, that there were also others who were discomfited by his interactions with boys but didn’t have enough to go on to take any action regarding their suspicions, and that there are still those who, rather than looking at the big picture, can look at individual events or actions and add an element of plausible deniability in an attempt to make Jackson’s actions seem totally innocent to those who don’t look too closely at an accumulation of Jackson’s behaviour.
The documents from Wade Robson’s case, the comments from Conrad Murray and Aphrodite Jones as well as the excerpts from Darlene Craviotto’s book all show that Jackson’s behaviour was not above board or transparent with children. Jackson certainly never made any serious attempt to put himself at arm’s length from children so that his behaviour could be described as beyond reproach, Jackson always made sure there was some ambiguity in his more intimate interactions with children so that he could deny being inappropriate with them and for more impressionable people to believe that was so. Jackson was never serious about allaying suspicions about his relationships with children, and even just for that he should be condemned, because it leaves people asking some very unpleasant questions of the boys he befriended. Jackson never cared so much for his young friends, only for himself.