Michael Has Left the Building - How Will You Remember Him?

Though many people out there would love to only remember Michael Jackson as a music legend and nothing else, the King of Pop's less-than-glowing behavior throughout his life is bound to bubble to the surface at some point, whether dearly devoted fans like it or not. I'm not too comfortable the with reverence people have for him, some of them, the same people who condemned him only a few years ago for being a child molester. Certainly he is an iconic figure in the music business, but do we want to see memorials and statues and God forbid, stamps with his face on them?

With respect to the Jackson family, it's well-known that Michael led a troubled life and wound up in and out of court again and again. Does having undeniable talent totally negate allegedly committing horrible crimes? I'll answer that question myself. Why, yes, sometimes it does in Hollywood.
A key figure in Jackson's defense from his last trial was asked point-blank: Did you ever look at him head-on and ask if he really, truly molested those children?
"I did ask," the M.J. player exclaimed. And you'll be surprised what M.J. told him :
"He insisted that he did not."

There you go. Whatever crimes Michael may or may not have committed in his life, he honestly believed he didn't do anything wrong. Just remember, though, this is the same man who believed all the powerful drugs he was putting into his body were simply "medicine" to make him feel better. For god's sake the man was a long term drug addict who downed a cornucopia of drugs every day and he did it in front of his kids.There are a lot of things Jackson apparently didn't understand about his own actions—or their consequences.

Like purchasing the bizarre—and just plain creepy—wax figures of children that filled up the hallways and rooms of his home. A close M.J. amigo, who had a private tour of Jackson's belongings before the public exhibition for the Julien's auction( which never took place), tells how extraordinarily uncomfortable it all was to take in.

Or how about the life-size red throne, adorned with gold thunderbolts, sitting grandly in the King of Pop's bedroom?
How many real children must've sat in that throne back in the day, believing they were royalty while playing house with one of the most famous men on earth? And yet he never thought twice about how strange any of this must seem to other people?

So, at worst he was a molester and debaucher of children and a doper. At best he was an enormously talented performer, the like of which we may not see again for a long time. In any case he was damn peculiar.