SALON

Tuesday, Mar 8, 2011 3:32 PM UTC

10 year time capsule: When Michael Jackson spoke out about abuse

In February 2001, the King of Pop was trying to heal the world, one father-son relationship at a time

By

Topics: 10 year time capsule, Michael Jackson, Television,

10 year time capsule: When Michael Jackson spoke out about abuse

Ten years ago yesterday, Michael Jackson cried in front of an auditorium of Oxford students. “Childhood has become the great casualty of modern-day living,” Jackson said in a speech to the British university’s debating chambers. “My father was scared of human emotion. He never said I love you while looking me straight in the eye, he never played a game with me. But despite my earlier denials, I am forced to admit that he must have loved me.”

Michael Jackson speaking out for kids’ rights struck his American audiences as a little odd, since it had been less than a decade since the King of Pop settled out of court with the family of a child who accused him of molestation. But he hadn’t completely fallen from grace yet: It would still be another year till Michael put his own child’s life in danger by dangling him out of a window. It would be the year after that, in 2003, that Michael would be hit with his second child abuse scandal.

But in 2001, Jackson was bordering on an odd precipice: He had already become the Howard Hughes-ian recluse that lingers in our memory — covering his face in a mask and restructuring his nose as often as some people buy new outfits — but he was still doing the occasional public appearance. He even joked at the Oxford gig, “I do not claim to have the academic expertise of other speakers who have addressed this hall, just as they could lay little claim at being adept at the moonwalk … Einstein in particular was really terrible at that.” Michael Jackson joking! It’s hard to even imagine. Even harder to imagine was how young Jon Stewart looked while mocking Jackson’s intentions that week.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Michael Jackson is the Nutty Professor
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Ha ha, get it? Because he’s weird-looking and touched children?

2001 was also the year of Jackson’s “Invincible” and his second time to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Ten years since his last album, a bunch of craziness in between, and still, the title of Jackson’s 2001 comeback (and ultimately, his final full album) did not turn out to be ironic. Jackson’s music, if not his reputation, truly was invincible: Even as critics panned the album as “insipid,” it shot to the #1 slot on Billboard its first week in November.

But back to February, when “Invincible” was still just a gleam in the hype machine’s eye: What were we thinking about Michael Jackson? He had just signed on to be the best man at psychic Uri Geller’s wedding, and had begun speaking on behalf of the Heal the Kids section of the Heal the World foundation that he had begun with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. But perhaps it was this mention of Joe Jackson in his London speech that was most telling. Joe was a tyrant who destroyed his children’s lives and ruled over their success with a brutality Michael Lohan couldn’t touch. Suffice to say that by the time Michael was 42, he and his father were not on speaking terms. But the night before his speech, Michael had called his father in an attempt to repair the relationship. “‘He told his father he loves him,” said Rabbi Boteach to the New York Times “Michael’s family doesn’t do displays of emotion.”

What did they do a lot of? Beatings. Whippings. Abuse. Although Michael Jackson’s death in 2009 forever cast him in stone as weirdo Jacko, in 2001 he was still a man trying to come to grips to what had happened to him in his childhood, and, at least in his mind, prevent it from happening to anyone else.

Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • A missing poster hangs on a tree outside the Cleveland home of Amanda Berry Wednesday. Berry and two other women, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus, made a daring escape this week after being held captive for more than a decade.
    Credit: AP/Tony Dejak

  • Elvis Rafael Rodriguez and Emir Yasser Yeje offer their best impression of  Eric B. & Rakim. On Thursday, New York prosecutors identified the pair as members of an international gang that robbed $45 million in a matter of hours by hacking into a database of prepaid debit cards and draining ATM machines around the world.
    Credit: AP

  • New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie walks to a podium during the groundbreaking ceremony for the Technology Enhanced Accelerated Learning Center at Essex County Newark Tech in Newark, N.J., Tuesday. Christie made less flattering headlines this week after undergoing a secret stomach surgery to curb his weight.
    Credit: AP/Julio Cortez

  • Workers stand outside the Tung Hai Sweater Ltd. factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday after a fire broke out in its 11-story building. Eight people were killed in the blaze.
    Credit: AP/Ismail Ferdous

  • Workers rescue a woman trapped for 17 days in the rubble of a garment factory building in Saver, Bangladesh, Friday. The building's collapse was the worst industrial disaster in the country's history, killing more than 1,000 people.
    Credit: AP

  • Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford gives his victory speech Tuesday in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., after winning back his old congressional seat in the state's first district.
    Credit: AP/Rainier Ehrhardt

  • Jodi Arias reacts in Maricopa Country Superior Court Wednesday after being found guilty of first-degree murder in the gruesome killing of her one-time boyfriend, Travis Alexander. Arias has subsequently said she wants the death penalty, claiming she'd "prefer to die sooner than later."
    Credit: AP/The Arizona Republic/Rob Schumacher

  • Ariel Castro stands for his mug shot Thursday at the Cuyahoga County Corrections Center, where he is being held on $8 million bail. The former bus driver is accused of imprisoning three young women and beating them repeatedly over a period of 10 years.
    Credit: AP/Cuyahoga County

  • Charles Ramsey addresses the media Monday after helping rescue three women held captive in Cleveland for more than a decade. Ramsey's hero portraiture has been complicated by revelations of his own domestic violence record.
    Credit: AP/The Plain Dealer/Scott Shaw

  • Michael B. Donley, Secretary of the Air Force, testifies during a Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday. The military branch was rocked this week after its chief sexual assault prevention officer was charged with sexual battery.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 33 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations