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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Michael 'Creepy Lying Bastard' Jackson meets Martin Bashir

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20:47 / 03.02.03

Is anyone watching this and marvelling at Wacko's ability to raise one's Creepiness Hackles again?

Calling his child 'Blanket'.

Seeing noooothing wrong with dangling said child over a balcony.

Claiming he's had only two small operations on his nose, and no other plastic surgery.

Wanting to create "two children from every continent".

Still having children for 'sleepovers' in his bed "because children need love"...

Brrrr...

20:52 / 03.02.03

Oh that's hardly fair!

He wants to adopt them. You know, like The Ark.

ONLY NICE THINGS

20:53 / 03.02.03

Good luck with Antarctica, Mikey.

I'm just sayin'

20:57 / 03.02.03

He wantssss to looooooove them, my preciousss. Can I put my penissss in your pocketssssesss?

Creepiest, most flesh-crawly aspect was the realisation that he really has bought people, not just adults but their children too. He views children - other people's and his own ('presents' from women who could see he "needed to be a Daddy") - not as individuals but as extensions of himself and his twisted dream. He's also bought an entourage whose purpose, on the face of it, is to insulate him from any inkling that there might be anything wrong with any of this...

23:54 / 03.02.03

It's the same celebrity story all over again. It's been taken further in MJ's case, but not that much further than a few other notables.

The documentary seemed more of an indictment of the star system. I actually felt extremely sorry for MJ and his delusions, no matter how dangerous they've become. And I have to admit to cheering when he admonished Bashir for never climbing a tree.

A really mixed bag of emotions from seeing this. There were glimpses of his sheer peerless genius, a spectrum from his best to his downright worst. I can imagine this thread becoming filled with people commenting on his obvious insanity (on which I'm in agreement), so I've deliberately focused on elements that I found likeable.

I loved hearing him talking about songwriting and dancing.

04:33 / 04.02.03

I'll save my venom for the record company slime who don't intervene as long as the hits keep coming, and will walk away when they stop. *I* don't know how they would do such a thing, but he's *their* cash cow. Or was.

08:24 / 04.02.03

Good luck with Antarctica, Mikey.

Ian Lee said the same thing this morning on Rise. Are you a secret TV presenter Tannhauser?

Aethelwine Jedi

08:32 / 04.02.03

I wish I was rich enough to get away with being that batshit insane, anyway. As it is, I'm just batshit and broke. But I'm with reflect on this one. The guy obviously hasn't had a childhood, and I can't blame him for wanting to buy one as an adult. To me, he really came across as an innocent, but innocents just can't fit in to this world.

Aethelwine Jedi

09:00 / 04.02.03

Actually, the fans and paparazzi creeped me out far more than Jackson himself. Brrr. It's pretty easy to figure out why Jackson is stark raving nuts, but I've yet to figure out the mentality of people who scream, puke, piss themselves and faint at the sight of someone who's really a stranger. Seems very... de Clerambault's syndrome-ish to me. (And I realise that I could be mis-applying that condition, I'm no expert, but that's just what sprung to mind.)

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:49 / 04.02.03

Watching it with my flatmate, he observed as a German fan crumpled to the ground weeping after MJ hugged her, "You know, Jill Morell took seeing John McCarthy more stoically than that."

I agree that it's no surprise that MJ is a fucking loon, and I feel desperately sorry for him, but I also feel desparately sorry for his children (heads wrapped in muslin...fucking "Blanket"?...the feeling that he doesn't *quite* seem to understand that they have an independent selfhood...the trip to the zoo). As to whether he's a big paed...who knows? If you lived in a world where you could afford literally *anything*, it might be worth $13 million not to have to turn up in court for months listening to witness after witness telling the world what a freak you are...I don't think it's necessarily an admission of guilt.

What I *do* think he lacks, cripplingly so, is someone who can turn to him and say, "Michael. It doesn't matter whether your bed-sharing with the Culkins is totally innocent. it doesn't nmatter if you were in a sleeping bag on the floor and Gavin was in your bed. It doesn't matter that your intentions are totally innocent. At this point, you have to stop. This isn't about right or wrong, it's about damage limitation. And the world may be cruel and judgemental of people whose only failing is possessing the soul of a child, but it's you and that guy who dresses as Peter Pan in one corner and EVERYONE ELSE in the other. This has to stop now."

Anyone find the bit where 14-year old Gavin had his fingers interlaced with MJ's as they simultaneously told slightly different stories about the sleeping arrangements incredibly disturbing?

09:55 / 04.02.03

My issue is that he's compensating for his own missed childhood by appropriating other people's childhoods - and yes, parents, entourage, record company and legal system all seem happy to indulge their Mad Cash Cow.

And yeah, what I found particularly creepy about the stuff with Gavin is that that whole 'sitting holding hands on the bed' thing really isn't how 14-year-old boys behave with other 14-year-old boys. Jackson may talk about having the soul of a child (or whatever) but I seriously doubt that's how these kids read him. I'm pretty sure that, at some level, they're completely and utterly aware (whether intuitively or, more likely, through the reactions of their parents) that he's a very, very rich fortysomething man with a world of pleasures at his disposal, and who can basically do whatever he wants. If they conform to his particular idea of 'childhood' (climbing trees, sleepovers, etc., etc.) they reap the rewards.

I've no idea whether there's any actual kiddy-fiddling going on, but I've no doubt Jackson's little playmates are acutely aware that there's a transaction going on...

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:26 / 04.02.03

I could only bear to watch a tiny bit of this.

Bashir: "If I invited a group of my children's friends round for the weekend, and they slept in the same bed as me, how do you think their parents would react?"

Jacko: "Well, if they're wacky, they'd think there was something wrong with it..."

I can't believe he actually used the word 'wacky' to describe people who think *he's* weird.

Aethelwine Jedi

11:15 / 04.02.03

I'm morbidly interested in seeing what his kids will be like when they grow up. Any bets?

14:45 / 04.02.03

Does anyone know when this will air in the U.S.?

14:46 / 04.02.03

Nakid Jedi - N-Sync 'n Britney choreographer Wade Robeson (sp?) was apparently one of MJ's special friends.

Lord Jesus, please don't let me watch VH1 again....

14:56 / 04.02.03

Jackson, along with Whitney Houston, Paul McCartney and a few other of the mega-famous remind me of that super-rich businessman in Neuromancer...totally disconnected from reality. You can certainly envisioned MJ being preserved in a vat somewhere once he starts to hit old age...

------------------

My modest contribution to the MJ mythos. I believe that the image of Michael and Child will soon replace the Madonna and Child motif .(incidentally, is there a specific term or that? I was thinking of pieta but that's Mary and big, dead Jesus rathet than little wriggly Jesus)

Hey, I know I'm no Jeff Koons....

15:30 / 04.02.03

You painted that? Cool...

I wish I had seen the programme - I would have watched it if I'd known it was on - sounds like fascinating viewing, in a sort of slow-motion train-wreck way. I do feel sorry for the bloke, but that doesn't alter the fact that he is creepiness personified.

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:34 / 04.02.03

Apart from the thread-starter, am I the only person to find Martin Bashir really fucking unpleasant?

That over-portentous delivery.

Don't. Pause. Between. Every. fucking. Word.

Which fails to mask the fatuity of his questions...

"So, how do you make music then"

"Er"

"How? "

Mister Six, whom all the girls

15:57 / 04.02.03

I'm simply very disgusted that this shit gets away with hurting kids, the results of which to my eyes has been people rolling their eyes saying 'he's so ODD.'

I mean, I was abused quite a bit as a kid and when I found out later that a few relatives knew and did fuck all to help out or change anything I realized that it's not that authorities cannot reach an abused child to help out, it's that people don't care.

Flash forward to a kid being dangled out a window on TV and nobody does a fucking thing.

People nauseate me.

16:48 / 04.02.03

I'm with BiP on this one - I think he's pretty over-rated as a journalist. For instance, his stance against MJ over the kiddie-fiddling stuff at the end was somewhat weakened by the fact that he'd dedicated the previous hour and a half to demonstrating just how strange MJ is, and how his desires and motivations are totally unlike "normal people's". So when he comes on all 'I wouldn't dream of sharing a bed with a child who wasn't related to me' I couldn't help thinking, Yeah....But....you wouldn't dream of living in a fucking theme park either would you Martin? (....and in fact I then started puzzling over whether that meant that he does sleep with children who are related to him; but then my mind is apt to wander)
Anyway, I'm no expert, but I would have thought a better tactic would have been to start by putting it to MJ that he's perceived to be an utter freak and affront to nature, and to ask if this perception is justified. Getting him to give examples of how 'normal' he is, which I imagine would have been forthcoming and extensive, would have made a better preface to the questions about those sleep-overs. As it was, I thought MB came across a bit paranoid and Daily Mail, while MJ seemed, at worst, naive.

And did I miss it, or did he never ask MJ if he ever had sex at all? I remember MJ explaining how he couldn't bring himself to shag Tatum O'Neil, and that all his kid's were all conceived artificially, but I don't recall the obvious follow-up being put to him.

16:53 / 04.02.03

Maybe he's been neutered. Would explain all that fancy legword -- it's tricky to moonwalk with your junk in the way.

16:54 / 04.02.03

Given that Jackson responded "oh please" to all suggestions that he'd more facial surgery than a little sinus op here and there, I'd imagine the chances of an honest answer would be low.

Aethelwine Jedi

17:56 / 04.02.03

Mayor Emeritus Todd - The baby-dangling thing does make an intriguing image. If the whole world and his dog didn't already know the background in it, you could stick it in a gallery and have critics puzzling over it, I reckon.

As for his kids, I personally can't see them going in to music/performance. Jackson knows the stress of aspiring to be a celebrity from his own childhood. Instead, I just think he'll be extremely lenient with them and they'll just grow up to be spoiled, isolated, and… sort of alien, I guess, given the world that they're growing up in

Excuse me if I sound a little naïve here, but speaking of 'his' kids, they were all white - not mulatto, but white. What the fuck?

Beat Qalyn sez: Maybe he's been neutered. Would explain all that fancy legword -- it's tricky to moonwalk with your junk in the way.

Modern day Castrati? He sounds like one, anyway. And I'm also wondering what he's going to be like when he hits 60 (assuming he lives that long, anyway). The man is like a one-person trainwreck. It's perverse, but I can't help but stare and speculate. I have no taste.

18:57 / 04.02.03

I only saw about 3/4 of this ultimate TV junk, but what struck me. (Apart from the mans obvious lying about his plasic surgery and his very weird relatioships with children.) He's got no tatse whatsover. Running around some avant-gard-art-junk-shop shaying "I'll buy that, and that,and that, and that ohhh did I buy that already?"
"Yes you did and its overpriced tat for the satrorically challanged like yourself."

Another point. Taking underprivelegd chiledren on day out to his own private theme park/home dosen't really help them. Use some of your money for Community projects/Drop in centers/education or in any one of a hundered ways that you might actually redeeme yourself as a human being.

Another point. For someone who loves childeren so much, he hasn't got a clue on how to feed them. Who feeds a baby while bouncing it on his knee? Someone who want's to be covered in baby puke thats who?

Aethelwine Jedi

19:24 / 04.02.03

I don't think he was deliberately bouncing it on his knee. It looked more like a nervous thing, since I know someone who does exactly the same thing sometimes.

21:07 / 04.02.03

I wonder what's the point of interviews like this. One with US celebrity softball interviewer Barbara Walters was about as content-free. I'm sure it pained her to have to actually ask the P question, or else acknowledge that interview as a complete waste of prime time. Jackson, of course, dismissed it all as "crazy talk."

As for the nuttiness of fans, check out "Starlust," by Fred & Judy Vermorel, about fan letters to David Bowie, or Huxley's "The Devils of Loudon," or even Charles MacKay's "Extraordinary Popular Delusions & The Madness of Crowds."

22:00 / 04.02.03

No, BiP, I didn't like him either. I haven';t seen anything else by him, but come on... URI GELLAR TRUSTS HIM. So anyway...

What the fuck was up with that whole bit on the beach with the big rolling clouds and the moody look and the "it would be hard, but I would have to get to the bottom of this" bullshit.

And the child beating thing?? "How did you fatehr beat you?", at whcih point jackson starts to cry, covers his face and pleads "I can't believe you're doing this to me... ", closely follwed vy... "How did your father beat you, Michael?", all with the camera firmly on Jackson (should we possibly for a minute think that this might be at all anything to do with Bashir- fuck no!) in some sort of "This man is crying- DOES THIS SHOCK YOU?? But I do not care, because I am a hard-hitting journalist and I do what must be done- DOES THIS SHOCK YOU?? I am shocked and repused by what I have seen (so much so, in fact, that i feel the need to show my convertable rental car that I've been driving for, like... 8 fucking months, all the fucking time- DOES THIS SHOCK YOU??" way.

And if, by the end of this little escapade he'd become so shocked and stunned by what he had seen then why, as someone pointed out earlier, did he edit it so jokily and look at the funny rich man! at the start?

And why, oh why, did Uri Gellar have to tell the listners of Radio 4 this morning that he was related to Sigmund Freud?

Goodness Gracious Meme

22:27 / 04.02.03

To be honest, I think - IMHO etc - that he was lying (ie awareness) about the plastic surgery and his 'children', but really didn't see what was wrong about the 'sleepovers'

Which is not to excuse them at all, but I don't think he was trying to lie about this, as he quite obviously was about the other stuff.

I found the programme quite horrific, i was left with the impression of a man in his 40s who genuinely feels/thinks he's an 11 year old. And, as Ganesh, has pointed out, for very obvious reasons to do with waht came over as a horrifically abusive childhood and having gone frmo this very autocractic 'adult' setting to one where he has the money and freedom to do what the hell he likes....And therefore doesn't see anything weird about having sleepovers with friends.

I wondered more about the parents of the kids who stay over, to be honest. Is it just a gravy train? This is the bit I find really hard to understand.

22:57 / 04.02.03

The odd thing is that he did the interview at all, I think. He has a $billion plus wedged under the mattress, awards clutter the mantelpiece, he tries to avoid his kids being seen in public usually. Can only have been seeking approbation in some way. Why should he care what anybody thinks? But he lies about stupid things and doesn't see what's in front of his scary face. None of which would be particularly problematic if only he were affected but it seemed clear his children were just brought into being for his amusement, like the ferris wheel and the imitation Tut sarcophagus.

I found the sleepover stuff very alarming but spoke to some down to Earth, experienced mothers at work today who didn't have a problem with it, they said. That surprised me, quite a lot. I just can't see it that way, even if there isn't any Uncle Ernie activity.

"Michael knows his art" said a worshipful Las Vegas store manager. Seems that interest too is bringing him some grief at the moment:

Jackson and his company, MJJ Productions, have been sued by Sotheby's after the singer failed to pay the auction house for two pieces of art he purchased last year.

In October, Jackson was the highest bidder on two William Adolphe Bourgereau paintings, having bid more than $1.3 million for the works. Sotheby's claims that Jackson and MJJ recognize the purchases, but that they no longer want them because they don't fit into the singer's collection.

Good job the mothers of his children seem to be sticking to their "contracts".

00:54 / 05.02.03

Like I say, I was freaked by the fact that the 'sleepover' kids seemed to be acting so unlike kids of that age group (would you, at the age of twelve, thirteen, fourteen have held hands with anyone on-camera - let alone a grown man - and talked about how "special" they were to you, in a bed-sharing kinda way?) and instead falling in with a sort of skewed-nostalgia view of what an idealised childhood might be like. I wondered whether the slightly mercenary feel (act like Wacko wants you to act) arose from the kids themselves or there was some sort of behind-the-scenes transaction (not necessarily a financial one) going on with their parents.

His interactions with his own kids were disturbing too, albeit in a more mundane way: having worked in Child & Adult Psychiatry, I've seen plenty of adults treat their kids with appalling off-handedness; they view them as property, little extensions of their own ego. Their own upbringings have given them little to indicate otherwise, and they genuinely cannot see why those around them have a problem with their behaviour. Thing is, these parents are typically monitored fairly extensively by the social services; they (reluctantly) undergo retraining in parental skills, gradually learn what it is and isn't acceptable to do with and to a child.

That kind of reality-orientating network is entirely absent from Jackson's situation. On the contrary, he's surrounded by an entourage which is happy to confirm that, hey, there's absolutely nooothing wrong with covering one's kid's face all the time, or dangling him over a five-storey drop...

yawn - thing's buddy

08:33 / 05.02.03

Mayor Todd: your painting is most prescient. It IS the new 'parent-child union' image for the paedo-age.

11:41 / 05.02.03

BiP:

"Apart from the thread-starter, am I the only person to find Martin Bashir really fucking unpleasant?"

Ha ha! Quote from Some Bloke On A Mailing List:

"i expected to watch a posing sensationalist shithead

and i wasnt let down

i just dint think it would be Martin Bashir

what a fucking camera fucking senasationalist shit sucking wanker
whore this little shit was - i dislike Mikey quite a lot - but
martin was just a fucking tabloid hack with a camcorder and a whole load
of shit twixt his ears

and then (abut 18 second after the program ends) fucking ITNs
exclusive "news" about a prgram they had just screened

martin bashir is a fucking fucked fuckhead tabloid whore who danced
like a tit in front of the brasseye level "journalist angsted
backdrounds" - he gains favour and gets photo'd by oooking after
kddies on an MJ trip to berlin zoo (with a media crew of course) and then
gets all sanctimonious about mikey taking his kids out with reporters

to think ITN let this fame crackwhore report on race crimes makes me
fucking sick."

So, erm, no, you're not alone there BiP.

13:40 / 05.02.03

must admit I didn't watch the show, but am highly annoyed at the stuff over the last few days on the ITN news stuff "advertising" their show.

And of course now the show has fallen State side and ITN and (hold on how did that guy describe Bashir) that "fame crackwhore" get the priase. Worst still the tape of the show has passed into the hands of the lawyer for the kid Jackson settled with several years ago, who has passed it on to the authorities.

Not quite the payment for interview the Jackson camp was expecting I'm guessing.

17:25 / 05.02.03

What horrifies me is that some of his fans appear to be in the same denial as Mikey J himself: BBC World Service's NewsHour ran an interview with the fickly-accented webmaster of All Michael Jackson, where he was mouthing platitudes both crazed and banal: People fink all these orrible fings about im because e seems too good to be true, dunnee, because e's such a pure and innocent and loving person and he's done so much for children and and and and and you can just feel Alex Brodie doing his damnedest to restrain himself from leaning across the studio desk and slapping the poor twart silly.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

08:29 / 06.02.03

Weird. Watching telly this morning, apparently everyone's feeling sympathetic to him now (according to Lorraine Kelly). There was an interview with his ex-wife lady who "gave" him the children as well. And she doesn't see anything wrong with that, either. He "needed to be a father". Hmm. Can't someone just step in and give him the help he quite clearly needs? Oh, and apparently his children shouldn't have been featured in the documentary at all. You know, but they can go to the zoo. In masks. Or veils, or something.

Oh, and oddly, I read that his album sales have increased. Sales of thriller are up 500% and history 1000%. And they might enter the chart again.

Weird.

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