The News Argus, December, 2003
Michael Jackson must soon speak out about molestation charges
Facing Up
By Linda Shrieves
The Orlando Sentinel (KRT)
ORLANDO, Fla.
For Michael Jackson — and for a
nation that has watched him grow
up — what a long, strange trip it's
been: From cute front man for the
Jackson Five to solo superstar to bizarre
celebrity.
Recently, when authorities announced
they had issued an arrest warrant charg
ing the 45-year-old singer with multiple
counts of child molestation, it was one
more episode in an increasingly sordid
soap opera.
Jackson surrendered to authorities.
The charges come at the end of a par
ticularly bad year for Jackson, one in
which his financial empire has begun to
crumble and the entertainment industry
has virtually ignored his new music.
Instead, he's been dogged by the after
shocks of a TV documentary last winter
in which he admitted that he slept in a
bed with many children and carted his
children throughout Europe, wearing
masks. In 2002, photos and video
showed him dangling his child. Prince
Michael II, over a balcony to adoring
fans.
Jackson's relationship with children
has long been a source of speculation. In
1993, Jackson was accused of molesting
a 13-year-old boy. He denied the allega
tion, but reached a reported multimil-
lion-dollar settlement with the child and
his family.
The public is no longer fascinated with
Jackson's music; it's his behavior that
captures people's attention.
"In Michael Jackson's case, his
celebrity status of the past decade has
been the carnival sideshow," says Gary
Hoppenstand, a professor of American
studies at Michigan State University.
"People perceive him as a freak."
This month, when he released "One
More Chance," a song written and pro
duced with hit-making producer R.
Kelly, "radio shrugged its shoulders,"
said Chuck Taylor, senior editor at
Billboard magazine.
For music industry observers, watch
ing an amazing musician turn into a
spectacle has been painful.
"I'm inclined to give him a lot of
slack," says Glenn Gass, a music profes
sor and rock historian at Indiana
University. "Short of Elvis, I don't think
there's anyone who's had to go through
what he's had to go through," Gass said
in reference to Jackson's lifelong
celebrity. "I think it's hard for us to
imagine what kind of hyper-reality he
lives in."
Born in Gary, Ind., in 1958, Michael
Jackson admitted that he had slept in a bed with children in a television documen
tary last year. Now the.King of Pop faces multiple child molestation charges.
didn't have a "normal" childhood. By
age 6 he was performing with his broth
ers, and he was 11 when the Jackson 5
signed with Motown Records and
recorded Diana Ross Presents the
Jackson 5.
His career turned white-hot in the
1980s, after the release of his solo album
"Off The Wall." He followed up with the
1982 album "Thriller," which won seven
Grammys and sold more than 46 million
copies _ and remains the best-selling
album of all time. But after he released
"Bad" in 1987, his personal life began
grabbing headlines.
rhere were reports that he slept in a
hyperbaric chamber, that he tried to buy
the Elephant Man's bones, and that his
best friend was his pet chimpanzee.
Bubbles.
With more media attention, Jackson
withdrew to his ranch, Neverland,
appropriately named for the place where
Peter Pan never had to grow up. And
though he counts as friends celebrities
such as Liz Taylor and Liza Minnelli,
many of his friends are children.
Jackson likely surrounded himself
with childrcn because they couldn't
exploit him the way adults would, says
Steven Berglas, a Los Angeles psychia
trist who has written books about the
stress of success.
"What you see among lots of famous
people, like Howard Hughes and
Michael Jackson, is that they get
entourages to surround them," says
Steven Berglas, a Los Angeles psychia
trist who has written books about the
stress of success.
Jackson's entourage consists mainly of
bodyguards and children.
His increasing reclusiveness seemed to
coincide with dramatic physical changes.
With each album release, the nation
watched as Jackson slowly transformed
from a cute African-American young
man to a pointy-nosed, pointy-chinned,
light-skinned man. Some observers sug
gest the changes started in 1984, when
his hair caught on fire during filming of a
Pepsi commercial. His bums required
surgery, and rumors of more plastic
surgery began to circulate.
Earlier this year, when Dr. Pamela
Lipkin, a New York plastic surgeon, stud
ied photographs of Jackson over the
years, she noticed his face changing at
about age 23, when he had apparently
had his first nose job.
By 1987, she told ABC News, Jackson's
lips were thinner, his eyebrows were
higher, suggesting a forehead lift, and he
had a cleft in his chin that wasn't present
before.
In 1993, he told Opah Winfrey that he
had undergone only two rhinoplasties
and that his skin color was changing
because he had vitiligo, a disease that
causes the skin to lose its pigment in
blotches.
Even today, many in the medical com
munity are unconvinced.
"I'm not going to argue with his der
matologist," says Dr. Vail Reese, a San
Francisco dermatologist who operates a
Web site called skinema.com, "but rarely
do people have vitiligo that spreads and
covers nearly all of their skin."
Instead, Reese suspects Jackson may
suffer from "body dysmorphic disorder,"
a psychological condition in which
patients "have a vision of beauty in their
minds that they try to pursue with plastic
surgery and other treatments."
Jackson is an enigma to many fellow
celebrities.
In this week's Time magazine, Russell
Crowe tells of phone calls in which
Jackson "used to put on these funny
voices and then giggle, 'Oh, Russell, it's
Michael.'"
At a dinner at Katharine Hepburn's
home, she struggled to find a topic of
conversation to engage Jackson, says
author Scott Berg in his biography "Kate
Remembered."
Yet Hepburn was amazed by Jackson.
"He's an absolutely extraordinary ere a-
ture," she told Berg. "He's worked his
entire life, entertaining professionally
since he was 3, and he's never lived a sin
gle moment. I mean not a moment, in the
real world."
FUBU from page 1
Now he is involved in
several business ven
tures including owner
ship of a national med
ical temporary services
company that employs
medical professional to
train and treat cancer
patients.
Alleycat, a former
d rug dealer and street
hustler, said Brown's
encouragement, plus his
own business savvy
saved him from the
strivts. He now owns a
DVD magazine.
"What began as
900,000 turned into 1.5
million dollars and
now, 2.5 million in 12
months," he said.
Like Brown and
Fullartt Alleycat hasn't
chosen to spend all his
money on elaborate
things such as cars and
jewelry. All invest their
money wisely. They
encouraged students to
avoid getting deep into
debt.
"They (credit card
companies) know you
all are going to become
somebody when you
get out of here, they
said, 'Let's get 'em in
debt,' " said Brown.
"They know if they
catch you now, they'll
have you forever. Don't
be held captive."
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