The "King of Pop" died before he kicked off the This Is It concert tour in London, which also left his estate liable for $40 million owed to the tour promoter, court records said.
    • Sanctus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      5 months ago

      I took a music business class and I vaguely remember this subject. I’m pretty sure dude was actually in the hole from frivolous spending, and also partially due to the way the music rights worked out.

  • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    5 months ago

    I saw a documentary about him once where they showed him in a Las Vegas hotel. He decided he wanted to go shopping, so they took him to the fancy art store there. We’re talking paintings that cost a couple million dollars each. He walked through the store and pointed at things he liked and his handlers bought everything for him. If that was an average day for him, then I’m not surprised he was heavily in debt. They had to close everything off just for him to go places, which I’m sure also costs a fortune. Fans would get a glimpse of him walking and break down into hysterics and tears. It was quite the spectacle.

    • protist@mander.xyzEnglish
      334·
      5 months ago

      Here’s a legitimate question…at what point, in your mind, does a child who’s suffered years of sexual abuse deserve to lose every shred of empathy? In no way am I ever going to excuse what MJ might have done, but he himself was also a victim for so many years, and was set up to fail from the beginning by his family and the industry

      • Superfool@lemmy.worldEnglish
        23·
        5 months ago

        It’s a difficult question.

        A very large percentage of paedophiles are victims themselves. Children don’t have any characteristics that arouse me, and to dwell on the thought males me feel very uncomfortable indeed.

        If a person is attracted to a child in a sexual manner, then for want of a better way of putting it, there has to be something wrong with that. Arguably that person needs help rather than incarceration.

        But then there are the victims of the paedophile. They deserve justice, and children deserve to be safe.

        Maybe MJ was a private and quirky troubled artist who was guilty of poor optics. Maybe he was a serial serial offender, who was enabled BT paid off security, parents etc.

        We will never know what MJ did or did not do with those children, but they were failed by multiple adults, regardless. If you let your kid play on a main road you are a terrible parent, whether they get hit by a car or not. Every person that did not intervene, allowed that child to continue playing is as responsible as the parent.

        • lars@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
          4·
          5 months ago

          And there are mountains of child-abuse victims who never abuse children. MJ was treated worse than most children can even imagine but the advantages he took on other children is unacceptable.