My opinion on him is that he was the very personification of the concept "overrated". Mediocre vocalist, mediocre composer and even more mediocre dancer who somehow managed to take his incongruous Messianic megalomania to unparallelled heights, thanks to a less than discerning public who will stare in awe at anything that they're told is amazing.
If I have to hear single more person saying "he was so pure", "he was so good" or anything of that sort, I am going to vomit. He was a proven pedophile who was saved by the racial victimization he shamelessly exploited whenever someone criticized him for his actions (curious, when you take into account that he so desperately wanted to be Caucasian), the best legal representation that money can buy and, during his second trial, the prosecution's sheer stupidity and incompetence.
And please, a charity single doesn't make anyone a saint - have you not learned anything from execrable media manipulators like Bono, Sean Penn or Angelina Jolie? These individuals use the suffering of others to promote themselves, and seek sainthood in the process while pretending to criticize the same system they carelessly perpetuate, because it has made them wealthy and powerful. Returning to Michael Jackson, he squandered outrageous amounts of money on whimsical purchases, an increasingly luxurious lifestyle that even someone with his level of income couldn't support, and "parties" with children where "Jesus Juice" (and, I have no doubt, other types of juices) ran free. What exactly did he do for the poor and destitute of the world? Mention them once or twice during promotional interviews, between complaining about how life had mistreated him and inviting people to buy his albums?
Honestly, some people have bizarre ideas about what being a "humanitarian" truly consists of. Oh. and it's not called building people up and then tearing them down. It's called calling them on their self-aggrandizing bullshit.
And agreed with posters above.
