Hotmail
Jackson’s sad descent from star to punch line
Will the pop star’s career recover?
 | Slideshow |
 |
Michael Jackson: 1958 - 2009 Click to see pictures from the highs and lows of Michael Jackson's career. |
 | Interactive |
 |
NEW YORK - When Michael Jackson became a superstar more than three decades ago, irresistibly cute with his apple cheeks and dandelion Afro, perhaps the most startling thing about the child phenom was just how adult he appeared to be.
Though a diminutive 12 years old (his handlers said he was 10 to make him seem even more precocious), Jackson commanded the stage like a veteran. With his vocal prowess and dazzling footwork, he truly seemed inhabited by an old soul.
In his 1988 autobiography “Moonwalk,” Jackson recalled an early talent show when one competitor referred to him as a midget. “My feelings were hurt,” he wrote, “(But) Dad explained they weren’t laughing at me. He told me I should be proud, the group was talking trash because they thought I was a grown-up posing as a child.”
Yet as he grew older, Jackson was unwilling — or unable — to adjust to a grown-up world. Apparently scarred by the lack of a real childhood, a painful adolescence that included verbal and physical abuse at the hands of a demanding stage father, and finally the pressures of fame, Jackson devoted much of his adulthood to recapturing the carefree atmosphere he never was able to enjoy.
Jackson always maintained that his affinity for children was non-sexual, and on Monday a jury agreed, finding that Jackson did not molest a 13-year-old former cancer patient. But while Jackson left the courtroom a free man, he also emerged as a broken, tragic figure with his once-brilliant career now in tatters.
Jackson’s acquittal did provide some hope for his future. “He’s absolutely capable (of a comeback), he has an amazing talent,” Island Def Jam CEO and Chairman Antonio “L.A.” Reid told The Associated Press after the verdict. “This is one of the greatest performers of our time.”
Perhaps no other entertainer has plummeted from such stratospheric heights to the depths of notoriety like Jackson, who has been a superstar since he crooned “I Want You Back” in 1969, when he was 11.
Missed a normal childhood
Jackson was born in gritty Gary, Ind., surrounded by poverty and crime. With nine children, his mother, Katherine, and his father, steel worker Joe, looked for a way to keep their children off the streets. Music was a hobby at first, but Joe, a former guitarist, saw it as a way out of the ghetto. While Jackson has said he was never forced into show business, by the time he was 8, he already had a full-time job with a stern boss.
“He was a great trainer,” he said of his father in “Moonwalk,” but added, “We’d perform for him and he’d critique us. If you messed up, you got hit, sometimes with a belt, sometimes with a switch.”
|
But Jackson was still missing something.
“There was a park across the street from the Motown studio, and I can remember looking at those kids playing games. I’d just stare at them in wonder — I couldn’t imagine such freedom, such a carefree life — and I wish more than anything I had that kind of freedom, that I could walk away and be just like them,” he wrote in “Moonwalk.”
As a solo artist and with his brothers, Jackson sold millions of records and made some of pop’s most revered classics by the time he reached puberty. Then he made the tricky transition from prodigy to adult pop star with the stunning “Off The Wall” album in 1979. And in 1983 he became an international icon with the release of “Thriller,” still the best-selling album of all time, with more than 50 million copies sold worldwide.
- Discuss Story On Newsvine
-
Rate Story:
View popularLowHigh - Instant Message
MORE FROM MICHAEL JACKSON TRIAL |
 Michael Jackson trial Section Front |
| Add Michael Jackson trial headlines to your news reader: |
Sponsored links
Resource guide