Much has been written over the years of the odd life of the King Of Pop, the late Michael Jackson: his many exotic pets and the excesses of his palatial Neverland ranch; the sleeping in hyperbaric chambers; the extreme plastic surgery and high, piping voice; the unusual relationships with young children and the odd ways he made his own kids behave; his stupendously spendthrift lifestyle; the childlike, sexless image and affect that he presented; the two unconventional marriages he entered into; amongst many other peculiarities. His insistence that all three of his children including his daughter carry his name was only the most minor of the strange ways that Jackson related to children and childhood. While Jackson was exonerated following indictment for charges relating to paedophilia, it seems that the years of personal and physical abuse that the former child star suffered at the hands of his father from the age of five, coupled with his growing up in show business, may have kept his emotional development at a pre-adolescent stage throughout the remainder of his life. During his later years, as his music began to fade into the shadow of his eccentricities, his erratic behaviour and the legal problems he was facing, it seemed that his legacy would be weirdness, continued whispers of sexual deviance and scarcely believable urban legend. Since his untimely death, however, a new focus has thankfully been brought to bear on his strengths as a songwriter and performer, and on his peerless discography.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
