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Michael Jackson called himself the King of Pop. Okay, it was the media that made it stick, but I do think it's a cheat all the same. Like Ol' Blue Eyes. I'm trying to think up a nickname for myse;f that I can pass around too... Answers on a postcard, the judge's decision is final.
Anyway.
I've never been a Jackson fan. Didn't like the way he danced or the way he sang. His voice was too high, his trousers too tight, his pelvic thrusts and crotch-grabbing frankly unsettling. And I didn't like his enunciation. I have more misheard lyrics from Michael Jackson songs than all the rest of my misheard lyrics put together.
For example Annie are you okay as Annie are you walking and Keep on with the force don't stop as Get on to the Post Office. Even when I heard the lyrics they made little sense to me (dance on the floor in a round?)
My teen friends and I assumed he was gay. I judged him on that, because at the time I still thought it was a kind of deviancy. I laughed when he got married - what?! It was so obvious! Looking back I can still see that his style of dress, speech, dance and affectations were signs that something unhealthy was going on inside. It's just that now I have the sense to realise that being gay can be perfectly healthy, and it's unlikely to have been his issue anyway.
Do I think he had paedophilic tendencies? No, actually. I think his monstrous lifestyle warped his ability to experience real love and relationships. I don't think it necessarily translated into a sexual desire for children. In a more innocent time he would just have been an eccentric recluse. Then again, in a more innocent time he wouldn't have had the worldwide success that damaged him/ freed him to behave the way he wanted to.
I'm already tired of the tributes. I've just Sky-plused a load of episodes of Britain's Next Top Model to watch until it's safe to come out again. At least no-one is calling these girls geniuses.
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