Sex scandal that ruined his career

Michael Jackson may have died yesterday, but in his heart he was destroyed years ago  -  the victim of his own warped proclivities.

The King of Pop was dethroned and denounced by his love for children. and the man who helped to push him off his pedestal was Martin Bashir, the British journalist who persuaded Princess Diana to reveal the truth about her miserable marriage to the Prince of Wales.

What once seemed an innocent if naïve affection for young boys became the fatal blow to his career, as allegations of child abuse devastated the singer. he survived - barely - the accusations in 1993 by Beverly hills dentist’s son Jordie Chandler, but his career never fully recovered.

And when police arrested him for child molestation in 2003, with under-age bed-mates including home alone child star Macaulay Culkin, he would never again enjoy the sort of wholesome image he had so carefully cultivated.

“The most humiliating ordeal of my life” was how Jackson described the full body search that police gave him in 1993, looking for physical marks to corroborate descriptions of his genitalia given by accuser Jordie Chandler.

The boy had been one of many children visiting Jackson’s palatial 2,600 acre Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara, California, but had become a special ‘pet’ of the singer.

Jackson took Chandler on trips to Disneyland and Monte carlo, and as their unusual friendship grew they shared beds - and more, claimed Chandler.

Before police could file charges, Jackson paid a reported $20 million to Chandler’s family, and the boy withdrew his co-operation from the enquiry. Frustrated police were unable to file charges but they lay in wait, watching Jackson’s every move with suspicion.

Jackson, with the hubris of Greek gods, refused to moderate his affection for young boys, continually inviting them to share his home and his bed. He kept his dangerous peccadilloes private, but proved his own worst enemy when he invited British TV reporter Martin Bashir and a documentary film crew into Neverland to watch him at play.

The self proclaimed Peter Pan of pop openly boasted of sharing his bed with young boys, insisting that there was nothing wrong with the practise, and calling it “the most loving thing to do.”

Police swooped on Neverland Ranch, raiding Jackson’s bedroom and rampaging through his mansion, seizing computer files and thousands of potentially incriminating diaries and personal documents.

Jackson was handcuffed, finger-printed, and posed for a mug shot. Jordie Chandler maintained his refusal to testify against Jackson, but new accusers had been found.

Gavin Arvizo seemed poised to be the singer’s downfall, with ten charges that promised to send Jackson behind bars for up to 20 years. Jackson allegedly molested arvizo, an 11-year-old recovering cancer victim, on several occasions at Neverland Ranch.

Jurors heard graphic testimony that Jackson was a serial paedophile, luring children to his honeypot home, plying them with booze, lavishing their mothers with gifts, enticing the boys to his bedroom, sexually molesting them, and buying their silence.

Arvizo was allegedly kidnapped by Jackson and held hostage in his bedroom, where the singer preyed on the boy.

Fans deserted Jackson in their millions.

His record sales plummeted, and negotiations for film and recording deals suddenly collapsed. He quickly became a pariah in the showbusiness world he once dominated.

Yet the singer did little to help his own defence, with courthouse behaviour that only added to his troubled reputation.

He appeared at the courthouse in full make-up, wearing a succession of flamboyant outfits with colourful armbands, WWii medals that out-raged British military veterans, and even moonwalked on the top of his car to entertain fans.

On one occasion he arrived late to court wearing pyjama bottoms, to be admonished by the judge.

After a disastrous day of testimony against him, Jackson emerged with a wry smile on his thin painted lips, and allowed: “it’s going well.”

Yet Jackson was blessed with accusers whose credibility was as dubious as his own. Several key witnesses

admitted to lying under oath. Others confessed to having accepted payments to elaborate their stories for american tabloids magazines and TV shows before the trial.

Jackson’s former security guard, Ralph Chacon, who worked at Neverland for three years until 1994, claimed to have peeked through a bathroom window and seen the singer performing oral sex on a ten-year-old Jordie Chandler.

But Chacon’s testimony was shaken when he confessed to filing a 1995 civil suit against the singer claiming wrongful dismissal.

Jackson countersued, and won a GBP 1 million judgment that drove Chacon into bankruptcy. Chacon later

admitted selling his story to supermarket tabloids.

And the prosecution’s star witness, Janet Arvizo, mother of Jackson’s accuser, whose testimony was riddled with inconsistencies, ultimately admitted lying under oath, and lying in a previous case where she received a large financial settlement.

Ten years later, Jackson’s interview with the British journalist Martin Bashir was meant to be a chance to show both his fans and detractors the man behind the per- former.

Instead, it turned into an excoriating expose in which Jackson was literally condemned by his own mouth.

Bashir, the soft-voiced interrogator who had persuaded Princess Diana to reveal the truth about her marriage, spent eight months on and off between May 2002 and January 2003 talking to Jackson and winning his confidence.

The singer had not given a formal interview for years but with Bashir he talked openly for the first time about his troubled childhood and allowed outsiders into his private sanctum at his home, Neverland.

But instead of repairing his reputation, the interview damaged it irrevecably and led directly to his trial in 2005 on charges of child molestation.

With surprising candour, he spoke of his difficult childhood, recalling how his father, Joe, would patrol the rehearsal room clutching a belt as Michael and his brothers practised their routines.

In the next segment, filmed at the Four Seasons  Hotel in Las Vegas, Jackson spoke of his early sexual experiences, describing how he pretended to be asleep while his older brothers had sex with groupies.

He revealed that Tatum O’Neal, daughter of actor Ryan, was one of his first girlfriends but that despite her eagerness for them to make love, he had backed out at the last minute.

Then came the astounding revelations about his invitations to disadvantaged children to visit the ranch.

Not only did they play on the funfair in the grounds and in the rooms full of toys, but they shared Jackson’s bed. Why? Because he invited them to, he said.

And what, asked Bashir, did Jackson get out of the experience? He replied that it brought him joy “because my greatest inspiration cmes from kids.”

In later interview sessions, Jackson revealed that “many children” had shared his room. They included the Culkin children, actor Macaulay and his brother Kieran but Jackson denied any sexual contact with them. 

Jackson emerged from the subsequent trial victorious, but a broken man, physically, emotionally and financially.

While awaiting trial he became heavily dependent on morphine, suffered severe stress and lost weight from his already slender frame.

He was an ill man forever afterwards.

He may have escaped prosecution but for many he left the court a man far from innocent.

With his death comes the promise of years more litigation and battling over his fortune and astonishing debts. And finally, at long last, the bizarre truth about what went on behind the closed doors of his bedroom at Neverland may finally be revealed.