Why would someone pay off anyone if they weren't guilty? I've never had this explained to me in such a way that it made any sense.
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shareI see your point. But I never understood the "Why take the money if you were hurt?" question. People are awarded damages because they were hurt, and no one questions why they'd take the money. But yes, many still do ask that question.
It is something that will be debated endlessly, I agree.
I'm sure this has been said before, so it probably still won't make any sense to you, but …
I could see someone who's extremely wealthy, and used to being able to use their money to get whatever they want, being willing to pay someone off/settle just to get rid of the problem, and not being guilty.
I'm not saying that's what happened -- I don't know what happened -- but it could be.
You mean like swatting flies? "He's annoying me. Pay him off and get him outta here," kind of thing. Possibly.
I can't believe there weren't people telling him, "You know how this is going to look, don't you?" There's no better way to look guilty. Well, that, and insisting on continuing the sleepovers until he nearly lost his whole career.
Yeah, kind of like swatting flies. People do settle sometimes because it's just not worth the hassle of going through trials, plus Michael Jackson was nothing if not eccentric.
The feeling I got was that MJ surrounded himself with people who agreed with him, and was pretty much kept in a sort of bubble, so maybe no one spoke up to point out how settling would look or advise him that continuing with the sleepovers was a Very Bad Idea.
Sigh. Michael is a passive, non confrontational man who didn't want his genitals aired in public for the world to see, so he caved in and decided to settle. It was a weak, spineless stupid decision that even he regretted. But it's not evidence he's a peadophile.
shareIf there were only one settlement, I'd agree with you.
It's like Trump trying to claim he never had sex with ol' Spanky Daniels. She wasn't the only one. You don't keep settling over and over unless they've got you on something you do over and over.
Let me ask you a question, if your child or loved one was sexually abused, would a simple money settlement be enough to quell your fury, or would you want to see the bastard hanged? Especially knowing 20 million dollars is hardly a slap on the wrist for a guy that rich. Seems odd that all 20 cases were settled that way.
I find it much easier to swallow that Michael was being crazy and stubborn and just kept paying them all off hoping it would go away eventually.
Oh, I think the parents pimped their kids out to him. And I think he showered them with gifts and knew precisely how his fame awed them as much as it did their children. In most con games, the con artist picks a mark who's eager to be conned. The children always came from defective homes, and MJ picked up on that. The kids wanted someone who really seemed to care about them for them -- nevermind that he had an alarm system to warn him when anyone might be getting close to his bedroom, that he gave children wine and called it "Jesus Juice" so they'd think if the Lord loved little children, and the Lord drank wine, then it couldn't be bad. And he had "art" magazines -- like Trump's "art" pictures of his soon to be wife writhing naked and in handcuffs on the bed of his jet, or the naked lesbian poses he also dismissed as "art." Michael's pictures of naked boys and all kinds of pornography is what "all men have." Except they don't. But these confidences brought the children closer to their idol, or so they thought. Actually, they were being groomed. The parents cared more about money than they did their attention-starved children, so they could be bought. His job was simply to find the price they'd sell their children for. Sure, they'd tell themselves that wasn't really what was going on, but MJ learned early that these defective parents COULD be bought, and he'd work on what level of bribe it took to make them look the other way.
It's not odd that so many cases were settled with presents and payoffs if you pick the right dysfunctional families and groom them properly. BTW, most of the cases did go away. How many came to court?