Death of an Icon

Today I bought a newspaper, and I'm getting quite used to seeing Michael Jackson's face splashed across the front page. And then many more inside. Normally when celebrities die, they die two deaths; their actual death, and then their media death. Their media death lives on for a long time past their actual death, and this is the time where they fall victim to a complete overkill of new stories, secrets, illicit love affairs, spiralling debts, alcohol addiction and pretty much everything inbetween.

I feel prompted to write a short piece tonight on the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson. Now everybody has got their own opinion on the guy. So here's mine. I have always thought that the guy was just a misunderstood, naive 10 year old living inside a 50 year old man's body, because he was never allowed the childhood that everyone else his age was. He was too busy in gruelling rehearsals and being beaten by his father. The child molestation allegations made against him were unfair and wrong; the guy was simply living out the childhood he never had. It might have been different if he'd admitted luring children into his dingy flat, but the fact that the guy had his own theme park equipped with everything a 10 year old boy could want surely proves this. He just wanted to play, like he never got to when he should have been. I hate it when people are quick to judge without much of an opinion, other than that of the media's; 'oh he was just a peado' but this is so ignorant. I think the phrase is ignorance is bliss. The reality is, the man was an absolute genius. The word legend is banded around all too easy these days, but MJ was one of the original legends, and his legacy will live on forever.