As for the whole Wacko Jacko image, that was less an invention of the media than of his own - until it spiralled beyond a joke and beyond his control.
To begin with, though, it was carefully nurtured to boost his career. He understood that to sell records he needed to stay in the public eye.
For a while, this strategy of selfpromotion was brilliantly successful as Jackson convinced himself that he could manipulate his image and control how he was portrayed.
Throughout the Eighties, he dreamt up bizarre stunts and stories that were leaked to the Press.
One favourite ploy was to use outlandish disguises on conspicuously extravagant shopping trips. Once, he popped into a Los Angeles chemist's in an Afro wig and dark glasses, and asked to buy a sex toy. It was hardly a surprise when the story made all the newspapers.
He also told the world that he slept in an oxygen chamber that would enable him to live to be 150. It was a complete fiction, but word of Michael's latest wacky exploit spread round the globe, helping to sell more records on the way.
But the danger of this drive for self-promotion was that it became open season for any invented story. Reports appeared that he had seen John Lennon's ghost and was speaking chimp language to his pet ape Bubbles.
Since he refused to give any interviews in an effort to maintain his inscrutability, the stories spread without contradiction or explanation.
Jackson's carefully nurtured image spun out of his control. He became a victim of the weird mythology he had set out to create.
And then it goes on about how his sick bastard of a father traumatised him when he was younger.
To teach his sons not to leave their window open at night, he'd climb into their bedroom screaming, his face hidden by a mask, pretending to be a burglar. For years, Michael and his brother Marlon had nightmares of being kidnapped from their beds.
It's a long article. The last part was subtitled "Stripped of all dignity", which was about the investigations for the first allegations, in which they had to check if the boy's description of his body was true. It was not. Were those bastard accusers punished for putting an innocent man through that trauma? I hope that boy is hated by everybody all his life.
Other articles I read:
Lisa Marie Presley said he was a passionate lover. So what WAS the truth about Jackson's sexuality?
'Michael was obsessed with Diana Ross, but his mother feared she would corrupt him...'
Revealed: Michael Jackson's revenge from beyond the grave...
If not for his children, I would say maybe it's not that bad for him to be away from all this shit. The mother/ex-wife is claiming that he's not the biological father? Even if that's true, so what? His biological father was an asshole to him. Blood ties are over-rated. He loves his children and that makes him their father. If the mothers were not part of the children's lives at all I don't see why they should be with the mothers. But of course I don't know what really happened and people make up stories all the time so whatever. Nobody's reading this anyway right?
Why am I having trouble uploading pictures?
Michael Jackson's children were banned from looking in mirrors and had their toys thrown away each night. So what kind of father was Jacko?
The grandparents could see that all three children openly adored their father. 'If I could spend all my time with Daddy, I would do it,' Prince told Katherine. 'I think he's the best daddy in the whole world.'
Others saw the change that came over Michael Jackson. His eldest son was with him at a recording studio and spilled some popcorn on the floor. A producer - the sort who normally lived in awe of the temperamental superstar - bent over to clean it up, but Michael intervened.
'No, let me,' he said, apologetically. 'He's my kid. I'll clean up after him.'
Then, according to the producer: 'I looked down and there's Michael Jackson on his hands and knees picking up his son's popcorn. I'm not sure you would see Madonna doing that.'
Aw, so sweet.. His daughter was born in April too. =P
Might his family one day lament their childhoods, just as their father - caught up in showbusiness from the age of four - did his? He anticipated this in a speech he once gave for a children's charity.
He wondered out loud whether his children might come to resent him and the choices he made for them when they were young. 'Why weren't we given a normal childhood like other kids?' they might ask.
He had his answer. 'At that moment, I pray they will give me the benefit of the doubt. That they will say to themselves, our daddy did the best he could, given the unique circumstances he faced.
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