Michael Jackson was a famous American pop-rock singer, songwriter, and dancer, born on the 29th of August, 1958 and died June 25th, 2009. He was given the name ‘King of Pop’ by being one of the best-selling, and most memorable music artists of all time. His album ‘Thriller’ quickly rose to the top in 1984 and was certified platinum a few years later, now having up to 66 million sales worldwide. Throughout Michael’s career, he was both one of the most significant and controversial artists of all time, especially after the late 1980s where he was accused of sexually abusing the child of a family friend in 1993. Michael has left both a good and bad legacy behind, he donated millions to charities and gave away thousands worth of concert tickets to the less fortunate. He had a very kind heart and was a huge inspiration to many, but due to the sexual assault accusations made against him and his disputable changing appearance he became both a hero and a villain.
The first and possibly the biggest factor in which has turned Michael Jackson into one of the most controversial singers in history, are his quite recent accusations of sexually abusing children. Michael has been implicated in many child-trafficking stories, one of which started a chain reaction of sexual abuse stories in 1993 when Evan Chandler came forward with allegations that Michael had sexually abused his 13-year-old son.
Save your time!
We can take care of your essay
- Proper editing and formatting
- Free revision, title page, and bibliography
- Flexible prices and money-back guarantee
During interviews between Michael Jackson, Marlon Brando, and the prosecutors during Michaels 1994 trial, they said that Michael never admitted to nor denied anything, he just cried and said how much he hated his father. “With this mode of behavior that’s been going on, I think it’s pretty reasonable to conclude that he may have had something to do with kids”, Brando said. “My impression was that he didn’t want to answer because he was frightened to answer me”. More accusations, similar to this one, were brought up in 2005 which led to a trial where Michael was found not guilty. ‘Leaving Neverland’ is a 2019 documentary that addresses the story of two men who claim that they were sexually abused as children by Michael. During Michael’s career he has changed his appearance dramatically in many ways, a lot of people found this to be negative and possibly connected to internalized racism. Michael is African-American and during his youth he had medium-brown skin tone. After the mid-1980s his skin tone started to lighten, this obviously caught fan’s attention and speculations grew, people started to suspect that he had been bleaching/whitening his skin. In 1984, Michael was said to have been diagnosed with Vitiligo which is a disease that causes white patches to form on the skin. According to biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, Michael had been skin bleaching because of his condition to make his skin appear more ‘normal’ or ‘natural’. He also began using makeup to cover up any uneven patches on his skin which also made him appear paler. Michael claims that he never purposely bleached his skin and that he could not control his Vitiligo, that it was suggested by his doctor and he just wanted his skin to look natural. Other than all his skin bleaching, Michaels changing appearance was massively affected by the surgeries, mostly nose jobs, he had been getting. Michael grew up in a small house in Gary, Indiana with his 9 siblings and parents. He had a hard childhood, suffering from both emotional and physical abuse by his father. His father would often yell at Michael and hit him, once he found out about how much Michael hated the size of his nose, he began calling him names like ‘bignose’. Michael started to develop a nervous tic where he would touch his nose with his left hand, this is all due to the verbal abuse Michaels father put him through in his childhood years. He then got the surgeries to fix this tic and self-consciousness in the 1980s.
Michael Jackson is actually listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for giving the most to charities and being one of the most compassionate people on the planet. On his days off he would spend as much time as possible visiting hospitals and orphanages giving out gifts and sending love to his fans and just regular people in need. He donated all $1.5 million that he received from a Pepsi advertisement, after being seriously burned during the production for it to the hospital he was treated at. During a press conference Michael promised to donate all proceeds he made in his ‘Victory Tour’ in 1984, he said: “Finally, and most importantly, I want you to know that when I first agreed to tour, I decided to donate all the money I make from our performances to charity”. After the tour he did indeed donate all $181 million dollars to charity. The three charities that benefited from this the most were ‘Camp Good Times’ for terminally ill children, the ‘T.J. Martell Foundation’ for Leukemia and Cancer Research, and ‘The United Negro College Fund’. In 1987 Michael donated $20,000 to a Japanese boy’s family after he was kidnapped and killed. The boy's name was Yoshiyaki and had no relation to Michael at all he just did it out of the kindness of his heart. In some News footage Michael mentions the tragic death of Yoshiyaki and dedicates his Japanese tour to him: “I would like to dedicate my Japanese tour to Yoshiyaki. Yoshiyaki, I know you're out there watching us. I hope such a brutal and heartbreaking thing never happens again. And I love you”. These are just three examples out of all the massive donations and kind gestures Michael did throughout his life.
All throughout Michaels life in the spotlight he was in the media, there were many scandals and rumors against him but no matter what people threw at him he was always climbing back up to the top of the charts. This is what made him such a huge inspiration to not only his fans but other artists as well, people as famous as Beyonce have been inspired by Michael’s music and used his unique genre in their own songs. In an MTV News interview from 2010 Beyonce mentions Michael and how she used her love of his music to help create her new album: “So many people ... Lauryn Hill, Stevie Wonder, of course, Michael Jackson's Off the Wall ...all of those things I'm kind of mixing together”.
Stuck on your essay?
