I registered an account here pretty much for the sole purpose of commentating on this issue.
Kudos to
@MirnaMinkoff and
@sperginity for dropping some much needed truth up in here, but there are still some important points which are missed. The biggest point that needs to be said: Michael Joseph Jackson was the gayest closeted celebrity who ever lived.
Gayer than Richard Simmons. Gayer than Justin Timberlake. Gayer than Marcus Bachmann's dick in Lindsey Graham's ass. Gayer than all of the homos Taylor Swift has "dated" combined. Gayer than Gaylor Swift's tongue in Camila Cabello's vagina.
I still don't think people appreciate how gay showbusiness is. Sure, there've been comings out, even amongst the least believable pretend heteros known to the Anglosphere (Kristen Stewart, Ricky Martin, Clay Aiken, Kevin Spacey – even though that was a shameless PR move that thankfully failed). Sure, the old pretense at conservative morality's been flushed for a frankly embarrassing level of wokeness (and it was a pretense, but image matters). But the celebrosphere's always has, and always will be, about trying to trick the masses into thinking the stars are just like them.
That's never been the case. Nor could it ever be the case. Sexual minorities, for numerous reasons, have always been more drawn to showbusiness than the heterosexual population which will always make up society's majority; and the mechanisms to prop up the now century-long lie that most of these people are straight are foundational and intractable. Even the rare open gays of the industry, such as Ryan Murphy and David Geffen, have actively shielded the sexualities of their boytoys (Darren Criss and Tom Cruise) in public. Even Taylor Swift, the most obviously closeted Millennial celebrity of all time, has still not been relegated to a public joke after multiple tours spent with a harem so obvious, they've been openly christened "The Squad" by tabloids who can't wait for her to come out as "bisexual" at age 45 after she gets divorced from Shawn Mendes.
Michael Jackson, like Taylor Swift, was just the most obvious case of his own generation. The three women in his life closest to him romantically (Brooke Shields, Lisa Marie, and Arnie Klein's Nurse) have all been on record saying he never had sex with them (Lisa Marie retracted, but said retraction has no credibility). LaToya admitted she saw dozens of boys spend the night with Michael when he was at their parents in the same interview where she admitted Papa Joe molested, at minimum, her and her sister (LaToya retracted, but said retraction has less credibility than Lisa Marie's). Jacko looked awkward as fuck every time he tried to pretend he was interested in a woman, especially for the "In the Closet" video with Naomi Campbell. Jacko named a love song, ostensibly about fucking a woman, "In the Closet" in 1992; five years after Liberace's death, and seven years after Rock Hudson's.
Unlike Gaylor, Michael Jackson was also a homosexual pedophile. There's a helluva lot more evidence he was up to something shady than there is even about Dan Schneider, who's also a pedophile, albeit a heterosexual one who generally seemed to be interested in targets a few years older than Jacko's preference.
Showbusiness is pretty similar to The Vatican: only a tiny minority's interested in the legitimate criminal predation, but the vast majority are lying about their interests, and the extent of the lying's so pervasive nothing short of shaking the very Earth'll make a difference. Like The Vatican, there's still hope: Frédéric Martel's
In the Closet of the Vatican was a titanic move against the Church's closeted elite, and might just be the very thing Pope Francis needs to join the West with the East in allowing the ordination of married men, which was opened up on anyway by the procedure for converted Anglicans instituted by that notorious, dope-smoking, tie-dye wearing hippie
Pius XII.
But, like The Vatican, this'll only happen if the public not only demands it, but insists on refusing to believe comforting lies in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Michael Jackson spent the overwhelming majority of his free time with boys between the ages of eight and sixteen, and stopped hanging out with almost all of 'em once they got older. He didn't treat them like his sons, nor even normal friends: he showed them porn, gave them booze and drugs and cigs, and took them to the most fun places on the planet. That's exactly how every human being alive treats those they're trying to seduce, and he did this to dozens of known boys. Child stars with real families, such as Elijah Wood and Daniel Radcliffe, were refused to be allowed to hang out with Jacko; and they're in a helluva lot better shape than Sean Lennon and Macaulay Culkin.
Not all of 'em have spoken up; many, including but not limited to Webster, 3T, and Donny Junior and Eric Trump, will likely remain silent for the rest of their lives; but every sexual abuse case involves people who won't speak up, and not one as big and obvious as Jacko's encounters this much public resistance. J-Law never admitted that spooge on her face belonged to Harvey, Ariana Grande never admitted Pete Davidson was only the second-ugliest guy she slept with, and there are dozens of black Chi-Town girls who'll spend the rest of their lives breaking down in tears when their kids ask if they can eat at McDonald's. Jacko'll always be a more sympathetic predator than those three: he endured horrific abuse at the hands of his father, and I wouldn't be surprise if Papa Joe either abused him sexually or pimped him to a producer; but Jacko deserves exactly as much benefit of the doubt as Weinstein, Schneider, and R. Kelly.
Pardon the autism. I was recently run over by a My Little Pony parade float.