Kostgard

That’s the amazing/infuriating thing about the spoofs and the Norm MacDonald stuff - we knew. On some level, we all knew (except the people who swallowed his wounded star child bullshit) and we always knew. A grown man sharing his bed with children who aren’t his own just ain’t right and sets off the alarm bells in most reasonable people. But because he was Michael Jackson, no one did anything about it, so we did what you do when you feel helpless or cynical about a situation - you make jokes about it. Except now there are names to those faces we saw with MJ. Robert Smigel jokes about MJ and boys in Budapest? Yeah, that joke was probably based on James, who accompanied MJ to that city. Now it’s kind of a kick in the gut because we see the results of what MJ was doing. And the thing that gets me about the super-fans who cry “Why didn’t the parents see what was happening if it was so terrible? Why did they let their kids around him?” and mark that down as proof that it never happened is they can’t even see the parallels. I want to say, “Because they were just like you. They saw MJ as a god who could do no wrong and they waved away anything suspicious or negative as impossible.” Then they learned the truth. Even Wade’s sister said, “I was one of those people who assumed his accusers just wanted money. Now I’m on the other side of it.”

Wade said the last time was at 14 (at a hotel or something - not at Neverland). He testified (the first time) at 11. So the abuse carried on for a few years after the trial. James would have been about 15 at the time of the first trial. Again, it makes more sense that MJ would follow the same pattern with James and continue the abuse like the did with Wade instead of suddenly keeping his hands to himself. Perhaps it was more sporadic because James was older, but I have a harder time believing that he didn't "thank" the boys who testified for him in similar ways - especially when MJ wasn't just buying him a gift or inviting him over for dinner. He took James on what was essentially his honeymoon for his fake marriage. He had him at Neverland playing Spielberg. James said MJ bought him a car when he turned 16 . It seems the whole thing was still very much going on to some extent or another when he was 15-16. Exactly. MJ wasn't stupid and he wasn't going to start making out with a kid in front of his sound engineer. Even Wade, who said he is absolutely convinced there are other victims, said that he never actually saw MJ do anything other than hug or kiss (I assume not on the lips) other boys. But he also saw him disappear behind closed doors with other boys, and he knew from personal experience what went on behind those closed doors.

There’s probably some truth to this. I was listening to a podcast hosted by people who have some experience dealing with people like MJ (though their main focus is domestic violence, but there are plenty of grooming parallels there), and one of the hosts pointed out that when asked if he was abusing kids, MJ always protested, never denied. What he meant by that was that MJ always said something like “I would never hurt a child!” rather than “I never had sexual contact with a child.” Most likely because he told himself that he wasn’t hurting them - that he loved them. That he was helping them and their families (when in reality he was grooming/manipulating them). And that’s probably why he never scratched his itch with a child from some sex trafficking operation when someone of his means easily could have gotten that and it probably would have been easier/safer with no families to groom and no nosy mothers poking around. But if he did something like that he’d have to face that what he was doing was illegal and wrong. Instead he chose these boys and told himself it was all loving. The other host who is the main domestic violence expert on the podcast said she found the messiness of the emotions Wade and James had around MJ were very familiar to her, and she would have called bullshit if they were just straight up “Michael Jackson is a monster for what he did to me and I hate him.” Then combo of love/shame/guilt is something she sees a lot in her work. And yeah - the mismatch of James’ memory is not weird or a dealbreaker. I wasn’t abused but if you asked me to ID what happened to me at 14 or 16, I wouldn’t be 100% accurate. Human memory sucks. It is not proof of lies - especially when dozens of other things line up perfectly. And it isn’t like the timing is impossible because he was off at boarding school on the other side of the country when the train station was built. We have photographic evidence he was around MJ in 94 and 95. He was shooting his short films at Neverland during that time. It’s entirely plausible he simply got dates wrong.

I think they’ve been quoted as the abuse stopping at 14 for both of them, but no, I don’t think James talked about a final encounter the way Wade did (and even Wade couched it in some fuzziness by saying it was the last sexual contact that he could remember). And it’s entirely possible that something happened in 1994 or 1995 because we know MJ had renewed/intensified their contact in that period in the wake of James testifying for him. Maybe it was a one-off so he doesn’t consider it part of the “abuse period.” Honestly, I was a little surprised that there was no specific mention of abuse with James during this period. Wade said that for him the abuse started right back up after the first trial. I don’t know why MJ would suddenly start keeping his hands to himself with James. Sure, it could be that at 16 he was too old for MJ, but it seemed like with Wade as he got older (And described himself as more a man than child physically) MJ tried to push things in a new, I guess more “adult” direction (by trying penetration). He certainly could have tried to do the same with James. Honestly, I’m amazed at how much detail they both remember. Getting some dates from 20+ years ago wrong is not shocking.

This Slate article has been sitting in a tab on my browser for a while, and I just got around to reading it. And Geez Louise - every time I think things were bad I read how things were worse. Like this: Just...what? It also points out that there were times when Wade's mom couldn't find him at Neverland and got upset and talked to the staff about it, only to be reprimanded by MJ for causing a fuss. I went into the documentary thinking "How could anyone allow this to happen to their child?" then after watching it, I thought that I at least kinda understood how they were groomed and how it happened. But then I go and read how MJ was doing his version of a sick and twisted booty call and she would drop her kid off in the middle of the night. Or the fact that he got mad at her for being upset that she couldn't find her child and she didn't take that as a sign that she should grab Wade and run for the hills. The article also points out that all of the Neverland moms were probably jockeying for the "favorite" position just like the kids were and I can see that happening, but that doesn't paint the parents well, either. I try to have some empathy for the parents because being in the presence of someone that famous can make you do stupid stuff. But at what point do you go, "You know, NONE of this is cool. This guy does not get to dictate what happens to my child and doesn't get to tell me to chill out when I can't find him" and walk away? I guess the one thing I can understand at this point is why Wade and James haven't been able to forgive their mothers yet.

This is pretty much where I am at. I didn't think Season One was all that strong, in that it was basically a police procedural that included Batman characters. But they did have something good in Oswald's story line - the one really serialized aspect in an otherwise episodic show. They did a great job of showing him manipulate his way to the top. And I think it was smart of them to pivot away from an episodic format and move to serialized (as comic books are), and I really admire them for just embracing the crazy campy-ness, coming away with a Batman story that was equal parts Nolan and Burton, with some Schumacher and original TV series sprinkled in for kicks. But while that was great, they had the opportunity to really explore these characters. And they had so many good ideas that just sort of sputtered out. And that's what is disappointing. All the other elements were in place, but instead of really digging in, it's all, "Oh, wait! Let's drop this and bring in a bazillion minor Batman villains. Look everyone! It's Man-Bat!" or "Well, we had something good here, but let's just drop it to go play with Jerome/Jeremiah/Joker/Whatever for a while!" (Don't get me wrong - Cameron Monaghan has done great things with these characters. But too often when he shows up the writers just shove everyone else off the screen and stop their development). I really, really thought that they had it finally locked in at the beginning of Season Four. I think the first half of that season is probably the strongest for this show. The character development was very good. First, Sofia was a great villain because she was actually smart and playing several people at once without winking to the audience while doing it (People on TV are usually terrible liars to telegraph to the audience "Hey! I'm lying!" Sofia never did that). Everything was really thought through - not just Crystal Reed's performance, but things right down to her wardrobe. Go back and look - check the difference in her outfits and hairstyles when she's meeting with Jim and when she's meeting with Oswald (sleek and sexy for Jim, soft and feminine for Oswald), and the evolution of her wardrobe around Oswald while she poked around to figure out what would work on him (Jim she had figured out right away). I mean, by the time she introduced the orphanage she was practically dressed like Mary Poppins in that scene. Then right when she should have been at her most dangerous and we would have had to really see the regular characters pull out the stops to defeat her, they...just shot her in the head and swept her aside so they could play with Jerome/Jeremiah instead. Again, he's fun, but they tossed away a great character to make room for him. The other characters suffered too. They FINALLY had Jim start to acknowledge what a hypocrite he was, what with teaming up with Sofia basically because he didn't like Oswald outshining him and the stuff with Pyg (the scene with Jim in the ambulance with Pyg where he confesses how much he sucks was great), but then all that was gone by the time Season Five rolled around. The only hints we had are the feelings of loyalty/guilt he seems to have toward Oswald that may explain why he refuses to kill him/take him down (there was a great moment in season four when they found Oswald on the street after his escape from Arkham and Oswald's having his meltdown because he just realized that Penn had betrayed him as well, and Jim just has this guilty look on his face. Like he finally realized the role he played in breaking Oswald and making him what he is), but that was never explored further. Let's bring on Bane for some reason. I doubt we'll ever revisit why in the beginning of the season Jim just would not kill Oswald even when everyone else was telling him to. And the stuff with Lee just kinda got swept to the side too. Don't worry about it, they're happy now. Everyone else suffered too. I thought it was interesting to see Lee try to do penance for her part in the virus mess by helping the people hit the hardest. Instead she because the THIRD character to be all, "Breaking bad set me free!" (after Barbara and Ed). Then even that was dropped by season five. Ed lost everything about his identity, and it became a question of which side of his personality would win out. But then it was all, "Don't worry about it - he's the Riddler now. Look at Jeremiah go!" And honestly, his character is no different now than he was at the end of season three except he's not mad at Oswald anymore. Bruce too started out season four great - he was trying out the vigilante thing, got in over his head and Ra's sent him into a spiral. You'd think all this stuff would have a greater impact, but he's just the rich kid who helps out the cops like he's been since about season three. Season four moved him forward because he started operating and seeking out criminals on his own, but now he doesn't do that outside of incidents where he's specifically helping someone like Selina, which he's done all through the series. And the less said about the mess that was the Ra's story line (and Barbara's part in it) the better. At least they seemed to retroactively realize that Barbara's "all men suck" stance was dumb, because that didn't really go anywhere. But that's symptomatic of the problem -they get these ideas, then it feels like they change their minds midstream three or four times and stuff ends up going no where. So, the action/adventure and general WTF-ery of this show has always been fun. But if they actually took the time to develop these characters well, it could have gone from "This is a fun way to kill an hour" to appointment television. As it stands, I've only watched maybe half the eps this season live so far, because I'm just not excited about it.

I was thinking just the other day how completely effed up the 70s/early 80s were in this regard. Jodie Foster playing a prostitute at 13. Brooke Shields playing a prostitute and appearing nude on screen when she was twelve. TWELVE. It was controversial at the time, but today people would riot. I was thinking about that because I was thinking about Jennifer Fox’s situation from “The Tale” (also on HBO, based on her experience of being abused at 13 by her 40 year old coach). She actually wrote about her experience for English class, and she said the only note the teacher had for her story was “I know this must be fiction because you are so well-adjusted.” That’s it. No call to the parents, nothing. This was in the 70s. People just weren’t well-versed in this stuff like they are today (though there is still tons of room for improvement and why I think this film should be required viewing). I especially think that people didn’t think of boys as being potential victims. People looked out for adults who were too fond of little girls, but I don’t think they used the same caution with little boys. I don’t think even MJ could have gotten away with running around in public holding hands with his seven year old victims if those victims were little girls. But because they were boys, a lot of people probably didn’t even think about it.

Is that Omer Bhatti? He was the last of MJ’s special friends who MJ met when he was 11, but he stuck around into his 20s and seemed to be something of a nanny to the kids.

I believe it was filmed in February. The film premiered at Sundance in late January and this was filmed not long after. He did look pretty devastated, but I think part of that was nerves and the raw emotions of being in a room full of survivors who had just watched his story and were crying. He looks way less distressed in the interview with Gayle King, which I think was conducted within days of the Oprah interview. And as the Oprah interview went on, he visibly relaxed a little and was even funny in moments at the end. So I don’t think he walks around every day looking the way he did in that interview. No doubt he’s still really going through it, but he seems very cognizant of where he is and isn’t in denial about anything, which seems the most important part to me. And I think his emotions stand out even more because he’s there next to Wade, who I think is a little more stoic in nature and has a much easier time with these interviews due to the media practice he’s had with his career.

Diana just says she doesn’t believe the allegations, which...fine. Barbra is all, “Oh, I totally believed it happened. But...whatevs. It didn’t kill them, so it’s all good.” Which...yikes. I wonder about the timing of this. The film has been out for nearly a month now. I wonder if the Jacksons are calling in favors. In other news, You guys, James is okay. Even though I too walked away from the documentary thinking he looked like a wreck, I’m amused at the idea that Dan Reed has been getting a ton of emails from people all, “Seriously - is he okay? Should someone check on him?”

I’m among those who find this season kinda underwhelming. It certainly has its moments (like Oswald shouting “I’M SORRY” at Barbara’s uterus), but it doesn’t feel cohesive, and no where near enough character development. Bruce is in the same place he was at the beginning of the season. Yeah, Alfred’s injuries and the city being destroyed could push him over the edge, but why haven’t they been building towards Batman instead of a more “one bad day” scenario? He was building towards it last season. We learn that Jim feels guilty for the shit he put Lee through. But don’t worry - he won’t change, Lee forgives him and nothing really comes of that. Lee? Yeah, she’s just back to season one/two Lee. Don’t worry about it. Ed apparently has lingering feelings from last season, but how does Lee feel about that chapter of her life? No idea. Speaking of Ed - remember how they lingered on him adding the playing card to his wardrobe in the premiere “flash-forward” like it was significant? Like there was a story behind it? Don’t worry about it. He just has it. Remember when Oswald was one of the more complex characters on this show? Not any more, baby. He’s just a straight up evil guy who is sort of bumbling through everything without thinking it through. Don’t worry about the guy who was able to overthrow two major crime families and outsmart the Riddler, or the guy who let himself be played by the daughter of one of those crime families because he was so desperately lonely and wanted to believe she was his friend. This guy we got now is shocked to learn his minions grew to hate him and abandoned him when he starved them (you’d think he’d remember the time he got Maroni’s men to turn on Maroni by offering them more). But at least he’s funny. Also remember how Ivy warned that her cure for Selina would change her? Bring out her dark side and gave her crazy cat eyes? Well, it just made her really want to kill the guy who shot and paralyzed her (which was understandable), but that lasted for, like, a few days. She’s fine now. That is what is missing for me. Yeah, we’re getting a lot of explosions and new characters, but I want to say goodbye to the characters I know and love. I don’t feel like I’m getting that.

Yes. Both he and Jordy Chandler fall into that category.

I do wish both were required viewing. I was lucky enough to not suffer the same kind of abuse, so this has been a huge education for me on how it happens (grooming, etc) and how survivors behave in the aftermath. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it spelled out quite the way it is in this film. And I’m sure for survivors it is something of a relief to see a story similar to their own, and know that there’s nothing “wrong” with them for how they feel (it’s common) and they aren’t alone. That Billboard interview was good, especially since everyone seemed a lot more comfortable. The Oprah interview is so important, but it was hard to watch them both seemingly on the verge of tears, with Wade staring at his shoes a good chunk of the time and James literally flinching in response to some questions (seriously - watch his reaction when Oprah first asks him about the “wedding”. And he actually does flinch when they talked about the “interview” on the way back from Hawaii). In the Billboard interview they get to talk about some “good” stuff a bit more. As for MJ, if you stop to think about it, it is clear he was a master manipulator. His career is a reflection of that. Even the best artist in the world needs good marketing, and that usually comes from the artist themselves (Madonna had a gift for it) or they are surrounded by managers who are masters of marketing (I think this is the case with, say, Britney). I don’t recall MJ ever having some sort of Svengali type manager, and it appears most of it came from him. No man-child could have crafted that career. He knew what he was doing. And I’m sure that rolls into the guilt and shame his victims feel. Even though they were kids, they probably feel like chumps for being duped. MJ told them he loved them and they were special and oh-so-talented and totally going to be the next Spielberg! Then they discover that he was saying the exact same thing to another kid. And who knows how many others. That’s gotta hurt like hell and you probably can’t help but feel dumb for believing him.

And this dude worked for MJ for the last 10 years of his life. After both Wade and James said that the sexual abuse had stopped for them (They both said it stopped at age 14, which would be around 1992 for James, around 96 or 97 for Wade). So, yeah - his testimony totally changes everything!

Yeah, he was with MJ briefly at around age 16 as a “reward” for testifying in the Jordy Chandler case. He took him on the trip to Budapest with Lisa Marie, bought him a car, encouraged the whole film directing thing, also encouraged him to drop out of AP math, etc. James said the sexual abuse stopped at 14, but MJ kept him around for a bit longer (like he did Wade) until communication faded away and then James severed it completely when he refused to testify in 2005.

Yeah, that means next to nothing. Sure, he liked “locker room talk” - Wade said that MJ constantly asked him for details about Britney and the women he was dating. Also, even if he dated women regularly that doesn’t mean he didn’t also abuse young boys.

Yeah, he was probably high the whole time. I remember when I first saw the interview that I thought his affect was weird and kinda flat. I watched it again after his death and the revelation that he was abusing drugs and pulling them in from just about every pharmacy in a 20 mile radius under various false names and it all clicked into place. I was like, "Oh, yeah. He's just stoned out of his mind here." Whut? Honestly, the mental gymnastics his fans perform to excuse his behavior are mind-boggling.

Me three. Thriller is exquisitely produced (maybe almost too well?), but Off The Wall is superior. But at the moment, I can’t listen to any of it. A few days after the film aired I was in the pet store when “Scream” started playing. I was just like, ”Really?” I know “in store radio” is just some pre-selected stuff they get from corporate once a month and that had probably been playing in the store for the last several weeks. Just bad timing. But the fact that it was one of MJ’s “Leave Me Alone!” songs made me want to invite him to shove his whole “Everyone picks on me and I’m just an innocent, wounded star child” oeuvre where the sun don’t shine.

Yeah, this is why I can’t decide if MJ’s drug abuse and other destructive behavior was the result of guilt over what he’d done eating at him, or just the result of the total mindfuck mega fame does to people.

I don’t think this has been posted yet Cell phone footage of their q&a session after the Sundance premiere. It’s only 15 minutes and doesn’t offer a whole lot of new info, but it’s just more evidence that these guys are tremendous actors if they are lying. They were obviously emotional, but the thing that got me was their body language when the moderator said they were going to take questions from the audience. You see Wade take a deep breath to steel himself, and James has a sort of, “Oh, boy. Here we go” smile/smirk. They obviously expected someone in the audience to slam them (didn’t happen). Just a very telling moment when they probably weren’t all that cognizant of being on camera. And the answer Wade gave when asked about the fans who are calling them liars was remarkably empathetic.

Ah, okay. That makes sense. I almost wish MJ had the opportunity to sue them. Discovery would have been a bitch, I’m thinking. But again, for whatever reason, Wade dropped the book (and the “You can’t defame/libel the dead” thing REALLY makes it hard to believe he couldn’t find a publisher), went the route of a lawsuit (that has much lower odds of a payout than a lucrative book deal) and spilled the beans publicly for free.

Yes. This would be an extremely odd long con with no guarantee of anything other than MJ’s fans will rain shit down upon you. Don’t know why anyone would sign up for that. So, in order for this to be a con, they would have to be willing to sign up for lawsuits that may never result in anything other than legal bills, they and their families would have to be excellent actors who never once cracked or wavered in their stories despite hours and hours of footage of them talking about it (Dan Reed said he had 22 hours of interview footage of just Wade alone), they had to have really researched child molesters to come up with stories of grooming that fit the patterns of predators and then designed their own behavior around the behavior of survivors, and then they were smart enough to not make themselves perfect victims to add a layer of realism. Then they decided that they would make up stories about their abuse that were graphic in detail and humiliating enough that their neighbors and coworkers probably have a hard time looking them in the eye. And they spilled all those details out on an international stage. Who would sign up for that if it weren’t true? As pointed out above, they would probably have better luck trying to get a payoff from the MJ estate (there’s evidence that MJ payed off far more families than just the Chandlers). Especially if they teamed up. Instead they followed the legal route for restitution (that’s what a civil suit is, and no, it’s not weird to try to get money from someone when pressing criminal charges is impossible) and gave away their blackmail fodder for free. A lot of people point to Wade initially shopping the idea for a book back in 2012 or 2013. But that isn’t shady to me, either. In that scenario he wasn’t trying to get money from the estate, he has the right to tell his own story and he would have hardly been the first person to publish an autobiography that revealed a celeb’s dirty secrets. And it seems like lying about someone in a book is just asking for a lawsuit (which also begs the question why the Jacksons haven’t sued them if they are lying in the film). He dropped the book idea, don’t know why. I don’t think he’s specified why. The story is that there were no takers for the book, but I have a hard time believing that. Someone would have LOVED to publish something that explosive. And he really didn’t shop it for that long. But even if he couldn’t get a major publisher to bite, he could have found another way to get paid for his story. Trust me - SOMEONE , TMZ, whatever - would have paid him a pretty penny for that story. But instead he chose the uphill battle of a lawsuit and again, gave the blackmail fodder away for free by telling his story on the Today show in May 2013. The argument that they just decided to trash MJ doesn’t hold water, either. Again, to what end? Unless they just love getting death threats. And if the goal was just to tear him down, why didn’t they just straight up paint him as a monster they hate? Why confess that they still struggle with feelings of love for him and why would James say he still feels guilty about exposing MJ’s secrets? I think they are telling the truth and their motives for going public are exactly what they said they are. This is an extraordinary way to get your story out, but they were in an extraordinary situation. I believe that telling the truth is part of their healing process. James was especially terrified of the world finding out. Proactively telling the world your dirty secret on your own terms has to be the ultimate form of therapy. I believe them when they say they hope that by speaking up they can help other survivors. And honestly, if they are also motivated in part by some sort of revenge or if they believe they deserve a huge payday from the estate, I can hardly blame them after what MJ did to them.

The "I had no childhood" excuse never held water for me. I was listening to a podcast the other day where they discussed the film, and one of the hosts really spelled out how I always felt about it, and it's this - if you didn't have a "real" childhood, you don't try to solve that by basically creating another childhood for yourself in your 30s and 40s by living in an amusement park and hanging out with eight-year-olds. That's just not how this works. Yes, people who had abusive or traumatic childhoods are impacted by that and often end up displaying unhealthy or destructive behavior (see the substance/alcohol abuse and promiscuity reported by the victims in the film), but they don't just go and recreate a childhood they never had. So, MJ's "I'm just a child in a man's body" story was one of two things. First option - it was a total put-on (this was my opinion for years). A mask he could hide behind so he could get away with whatever he wanted to do. The other option was that he had some genuine, serious issues that made him want to act like a child, and in that case, hanging out in an amusement park with children was not going to help those issues and in fact, will damage the kids he seemed to expect would make him whole again.

Yes. EVERYTHING about what he did was unhealthy and inappropriate. He entered their lives, took them on a strange whirlwind ride of fame and money, discouraged education (at least in James’s case, Wade was probably more focused on dance), isolated them from other people and drove a wedge between them and their parents, told them they were special and he loved them, and then they had to watch as he slowly moved away from them to someone else. Even if he never laid a finger on them, that’s a terrible thing to do to a kid. Wade talked about how Michael was also sort of a father figure to him (probably an important role considering the situation with Wade’s actual dad). Imagine watching your father figure slowly but surely replace you in his affections with some other boy. It’s no wonder he came running every time MJ decided to dangle a scrap of affection/attention before him. Imagine how heartbroken he was as a kid when he asked MJ if he could go on tour with him and MJ told him he couldn’t bring kids on that tour only to see tons of photos of MJ on tour...with another boy. Even if MJ never touched him, imagine how hard that would be when this is what Wade wanted to do with his life, and MJ told him he was special and talented and MJ brought him to the US to help him with this. Then he was essentially told, “it’s not that I can’t bring kids on tour, I don’t want to bring you on tour.” All that was cruel enough. But then he did manipulate them into romantic/sexual relationships that as children they absolutely were not equipped to handle. And kept them in those relationships until he decided they just didn’t turn his crank any more. So they weren’t just abandoned by a friend, they were dumped. They were devastated, and couldn’t tell anyone about it.

It is true that this situation sucks all around. It sucks that this terrible thing happened to James and Wade, and Jordan and Gavin (and who knows who else). It sucks for people for whom MJ and his music really meant something. It really sucks for MJ's kids (behind MJ's victims, I feel bad for them most of all). It sucks to an extent with the rest of MJ's family, but for me, it is tempered by the fact that even though they were most definitely abused themselves (physically and emotionally, at least) by Joe, they were adults, they had to have at least suspected what was happening (and according to La Toya - at least at one point in time - at least Katherine did), but they didn't want to rock the boat because MJ was the one generating income. Yet, I feel like this is so important. We need to be able to recognize this stuff to stop it from happening again. We can't turn a blind eye to troubling behavior just because we really, really like the person who did it, or because they are talented/successful, or has a lot of money. We can no longer be blinded by that sort of stuff, and we need to recognize the signs of grooming and abuse so that we can recognize it in everyday people as well to prevent it from happening.