I'd Still Sleep With Children, Says Jackson

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 12-27-2003 | Oliver Poole

[blam]

I'd still sleep with children, says Jackson

By Oliver Poole in Los Angeles
(Filed: 27/12/2003)

Michael Jackson, the pop star charged with child molestation, has told an American prime-time television programme that he still believes it is acceptable to sleep in the same bed as children.

But in the interview for the CBS network, recorded on Christmas Day and to be screened tomorrow, the singer said he would "slit my wrists" before he would hurt a child.

He is charged with seven counts of performing lewd or lascivious acts upon a child under 14 and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent in a case believed to involve a 12-year-old boy. He remains free on $3 million (£1.7 million) bail.

Asked by the interviewer, Ed Bradley, if it was still all right to sleep with children despite the charges, Jackson, 45, answered: "Of course."

He went on: "Why not? If you're going to be a paedophile, if you're going to be Jack the Ripper, if you're going to be a murderer, it's not a good idea. That I am not.

"Before I would hurt a child, I would slit my wrists."

[conservativecajun]

Well, if we banish him to Siberia, then we won't have to worry about him sleeping with them anymore.

[visualops]

They don't call him Wacko Jacko for nothing...

[Radix]

He is doing it all for the children.

Why can't people just get along?

What a pathetic individual.

[AD from SpringBay]

What a freakin' freak! If I ever caught him trying to sleep with one of my children, that would be it for him. He wouldn't have to worry about slitting his wrists.

[expatpat]

He probably does't think that giving a kid a hand-j0b, for example, is hurting them.

[jraven]

You don't UNDERSTAND what Michael is saying:
--He sleeps with them to relax them.
--He wants to be a role model to them.
In other words, all he wants to do is rear boys.
NEWS FLASH: His lawyer asked him if he wanted to plea bargain and go to jaiil, but Michael said, "No, I want to stick it out for one more year."

[Salo]

Q: What time is bedtime at the Neverland Ranch?

A: When the big hand touches the little hand!

[FormerACLUmember]

Q: What's black on the inside, white on the outside, and comes in little cans?
A: Michael Jackson!

Q: What's icky and in a baby's diaper?
A: Michael Jackson's hand!

Q. What's the difference between Mr. Potato Head and Michael Jackson?
A. Michael Jackson has had more noses.

Q: What do Michael Jackson and the Detroit Tigers have in common?
A: They both wear one glove for no apparent reason.

[Judith Anne]

I once had occasion to talk with a pedophile, by his own admission...he was very non-threatening, very witty, very soft-spoken, gentle, polite, slow in his gestures, nothing to arouse suspicion in a child OR in an adult.

It was a long discussion, and he told how he was depressed because people shunned him, how he had just wanted to help a certain kid who was disadvantaged, how nice the kid was, how the kid ate up the attention and thrived from the "friendship."
The kid was under ten. He talked about how he taught the kid to fix his own bicycle, how they went to theme parks, etc., how physically graceful the little boy was...

He talked about the court case and his conviction, how terrifying the ordeal was for him, how dreadful prison was, how no one in his family would ever speak to him, how his friends abandoned him, how depressed he was...

His justification was that he had caused no harm to the child, he had helped the boy in so many ways, he had given the child a safe place to express himself, had broadened the boy's horizons, had generously paid for clothes, for lessons, etc.

Honestly, I am telling each of you the truth: If you didn't KNOW he was a sexual predator of children, you would never suspect it.

He asked me what I would do if I ever found out that someone had been to one of my children as he had been to the boy he was convicted of molesting, and I told him that the person would be dead, and I would be in jail, content for the rest of my life that the offender would never touch a child sexually again.

His response was that I just didn't understand...

Now, it isn't Michael Jackson's fault, exactly, that he reminds me so much of this guy (he was young, in his 30's) but I have to say, he does. The guy I talked with was born white, middle class, and when I met him was poor and suicidal, but other than that, he and Michael Jackson could be interchangeable...

[Desdemona]

MJ is just entirely too creepy for comfort.

[ridesthemiles]

I am 100% convinced that M Jackson doesn't know what the rest of the world calls molesting......He is on his pwn wavelength, and he thinks he is superior. I only hope that the DA has an iron clad case, because the devoted followers of MJ won't believe anything less.

[Radix]

Mommie Dearest?

[mansion]

Theory: Maybe that's why he had his own kids - parents were starting to catch on and his "supply" was running low, so he had to breed his own?

[Free ThinkerNY]

No, Mommy Queerest.

[Sabertooth]

"Before I would hurt a child, I would slit my wrists."

Attention, all needy, scatterbrained mothers in broken homes:

Does this drama queen still inspire the confidence
to let him bed your sons?

[uglybiker]

Honestly. Does anybody really &$#%@ng care? Just keep him off my t.v., and my radio. (I s'pose it's a lost cause asking to keep MJ articles off this forum.)

He's going to trial. Wake me when it's over.

[kennedy]

Many pedophiles believe in their sick minds that they are not hurting the children that they molest.