Well Phil Spector being arrested for murder wasn’t enough to take Wacko Jacko off the tabloid covers and out of the gossip mill yesterday – what to make of his much hyped interview with Martin Bashir screened on ITV on Monday?
Some were critical. Guardian reviewer Rupert Smith concluded: "Michael Jackson is a condition that no amount of money can cure. Jackson hasn't grown up because he's never needed to grow up; a child millionaire, he had the luxury of dwelling on his fascinating problems through a permanent adolescence. At 44, he's well past the age when teenage acne is really an excuse for anything, but boy, is he milking it."
Others sympathetic, readers to BBC Online writing: "I believe that if more people had the same views as Jackson the world would be a far better place,” another adding: "He is not a paedophile. He is a devoted, loving father with a very simple, uncomplicated perspective on how people should treat each other."
Some of the tabloids were less forgiving describing his comments about sharing his bedroom with children as disturbing, and reporting that Californian authorities are interested in investigating his claims. But if Jackson came out of the show bad, Bashir probably came out worse, many media commentators criticising the ITV journalist for laying into Jackson in the voice-overs but not asking decent questions during the interview sequences – many accusing him of wasting his unique access to the star and declaring – "if only it have been 'When Louis met Jacko'".
CMU editor Gill's opinion: “I don't think it's normal for kids to sleep in bed with unrealated adults. But then MJ is not 'normal', and for this reason I think we should cut him some slack. As long as nothing untoward happens then who cares. Bless him, he just thinks he's a kid; and from the way he behaves and what has happened to him over the years it is easy to see where this comes from - he doesn't have the biggest vocab, he gets embarrassed and covers his face like a five year old, he gets excited like a child at Christmas. As far as the sexual thing goes, as far anyone can gather from the programme the guy has never had sex. The guy seems completely asexual. The analysis was superficial and didn't ask or look at things like - what he thinks is normal? what are his views on current affairs? how can he deny extensive plastic sugery when it looks suspiciously like he has had it? who does he fancy? let alone what inspires his music? It annoys me ITV will make shit loads from selling the programme to other networks from such an un-empathetic, boorish and Daily Mail-reading approach to one of pop music's institutions”.
What are your thoughts? Add them to the debate on the message board here.
Meanwhile ABC, the US network who have bought the rights to screen the documentary in a multi-million dollar deal, will now screen the show on Thursday, rather than Friday, to replace a made-for-TV movie about an air crash, which they have decided is unsuitable to air after the weekend’s shuttle crash. Word is this will be the first time Jackons himself has seen the programme.