Newspress.com: Michael Jackson on Trial

DEFENDANT: MICHAEL JACKSON
Spotlight sometimes harsh for child star reluctant to grow up

Michael Jackson isn't like you. He is unlike anyone you know or anyone you've met.

He has an entourage of attorneys and a team of beefy security guards. They open doors for him and use a big black umbrella to shield him from the sun and pesky reporters. His long black hair frames the almost opaque aviator glasses he likes to wear. His color-coordinated outfits include white-on-white and black-on-black suits, gold-braided armbands, vests with elaborate embroidery and a royal-looking coat of arms he wears on his chest.

But the one-time "King of Pop," an entertainer who has sold more than 170 million records and has been famous almost all of his life, will be judged by 12 people who have to open their own doors.

When Mr. Jackson walks into court on Monday for opening arguments at his trial for alleged child molestation, it's not clear whether his fame, his eccentricities and his biography will help him or hurt him in the eyes of the jurors.

"His attorneys may present him as someone just like you or me, but I think that would be a mistake," said J. Randy Taraborrelli, a biographer of celebrities who wrote "Michael Jackson: The Music and the Madness."

"He's not an average Joe," said Mr. Taraborrelli. "I think people have to stretch their minds a little bit to get into his world. It's taken me 30 years to do it, but his attorneys have six months to show that his is not a normal existence."

This is a 46-year-old man who lives in a place called Neverland. An immensely successful star with a music and entertainment empire, he says he still feels more comfortable with children than with adults. He is a protective father of two young sons and a daughter. For his fans, he dangled his youngest boy over the edge of a balcony in a Berlin hotel two years ago. He is a philanthropist who has opened up his home to thousands of ill and underprivileged children, but who also faces allegations that he has sexually abused at least two vulnerable boys.

Both Mr. Jackson's defense attorneys and the prosecutors who want him behind bars will use the arc of his life to deflect or support claims against him. Whatever opinion one has of the case, Mr. Jackson's life story is a compelling one. It is that of a former child star who has been unwilling, even in middle age, to let go of childhood.

"I've said it many times: My greatest inspiration comes from kids," Mr. Jackson said in an interview with Martin Bashir, which is expected to be used as evidence in the trial. "Every song I write, every dance I do, all the poetry I write, is all inspired from that level of innocence, that consciousness of purity. And children have that. I see God in the face of children. And, man, I just love being around them all the time."

In another interview, he said the truest song he ever wrote, "the most autobiographical," was "Childhood" on his "HISstory" album.

"Have you seen my childhood
I'm searching for the world
That I come from
'Cause I've been looking around
In the lost and found of my heart
They view it
As such strange eccentricities . . . 'Cause I keep kidding around Like a child
but pardon me . . ."

Sorting through the spin of record industry image-making and the dirt of gossip that swirls around Mr. Jackson and his family has always been a challenge, said Mr. Taraborrelli.

"Michael has really been building an image since the time when most kids are building tree houses," he said.

He was born in working-class Gary, Ind., the seventh of nine children. His mother, Katherine, was a devout Jehovah's Witness and his father, Joseph, a stern steel-mill worker.

When Michael was 5, he and his four older brothers began singing as a group. His voice and charm pushed him to the front. Managed by their father, the Jackson Five worked nonstop, landed a Motown contract and between 1969 and 1971 had four consecutive No. 1 singles, according to Mr. Jackson's biography in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

In 1971, at the age of 13, Mr. Jackson began releasing solo records, but it wasn't until the 1979 album "Off the Wall" that his solo career took off.

The rock critic David Marsh called the album "a masterpiece of modern record making."

It sold 10 million copies, but it was 1982's "Thriller" that eclipsed everything before it. The record sold 40 million copies. With the accompanying videos for songs "Billie Jean," "Beat It," and "Thriller," Mr. Jackson helped pioneer longer-format music videos and broke into the playlist of MTV, which had been dominated by white performers.

Mr. Marsh would later refer to Mr. Jackson as a "crossover dream," bridging black and white audiences with his listener friendly sound and reaching an international audience.

Between 1985 and 1993, Mr. Jackson released two more records, "Bad" and "Dangerous" and continued to perform. In 1988, he purchased his 2,600-acre ranch off Figueroa Mountain Road near Los Olivos for $14.6 million. Over time, he built a small amusement park, train, zoo and arcade, transforming the property into Neverland Valley Ranch, where he could indulge his childhood fantasies in privacy.

Then, in August 1993, authorities in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara launched searches of Neverland and Mr. Jackson's home in Encino as part of an investigation into allegations that he had molested a 13-year-old boy. A month later, an attorney for the boy filed a civil suit against Mr. Jackson, alleging that he was "fondled, masturbated and orally copulated" by the singer.

At one point, Santa Barbara detectives obtained a court-approved search warrant that allowed them to photograph Mr. Jackson's genitals to corroborate markings on his body that the boy allegedly described.

But in January of 1994, the boy and Mr. Jackson reached an out-of-court settlement reported to be between $15 million and $20 million. The agreement included a stipulation that both sides were barred from discussing the case. Nine months later, Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon and Los Angeles authorities said they had halted their investigation because the accuser refused to testify.

After the 1993 allegations, people seemed more willing to believe even the most fanciful or weird story about the star, Mr. Taraborrelli said.

Since those accusations, Mr. Jackson has continued to perform. He released "HISstory" in 1995, which, along with the song "Childhood," included a track titled "D.S.," a thinly veiled swipe at Mr. Sneddon, who is referred to in the lyrics as Dom Sheldon. It includes the line "Dom Sheldon is a cold man."

Mr. Jackson has also fathered three children, all apparently with the use of artificial insemination, and has been married twice. His 1994 marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis' daughter, lasted less than two years. In 1997, he married his dermatologist's nurse, Debbie Rowe, who carried two of his children. They divorced in 1999.

He made headlines locally again in 2002 after being sued for reneging on two millennium concerts. During the trial in Santa Maria, Mr. Jackson displayed sometimes bizarre behavior, showing up four hours late to one hearing, nearly falling asleep during another and making devil horns for cameras in the courtroom.

That kind of behavior has been noticeably absent in his current case. Apart from showing up 20 minutes late for his first arraignment last January and jumping onto an SUV to wave to fans at another court appearance, Mr. Jackson has been subdued.

The case has triggered a rush to Santa Maria by journalists from around the world. More than 1,500 reporters are credentialed to cover the trial. Fans, including young office clerks and students from France, Germany and Japan, have spent their savings and burned up vacation time just to stand vigil outside the courthouse for one of the pretrial hearings.

"There are people who are dismissive of Michael or are perhaps tired of hearing about him," said Mr. Taraborrelli. "But this is a history-making event in our culture. No one as famous as Michael has ever been on trial for anything like this. He is a world-famous figure. This isn't O.J., who no one has heard of in France. This isn't Kobe, who people in Switzerland don't recognize, or Robert Blake, who is nobody in Spain. This is maybe the most famous person on the planet."