‘Children want to just touch me’: New Michael Jackson documentary reveals his thoughts on kids
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A new Michael Jackson documentary features previously unheard audio of him sharing his thoughts on children.
PHOTO: AFP
LONDON – A new Michael Jackson documentary, which aired in Britain on Feb 4, features previously unheard audio of him sharing his thoughts on children, including that he believed they wanted to touch him.
The four-part Michael Jackson: The Trial, produced by London-based Wonderhood Studios, looks at the late American pop star’s 2005 criminal trial, where he was charged with and later acquitted of sexual abuse of a minor, Gavin Arvizo, at his Neverland Ranch in California.
In a trailer of the film on Wonderhood’s website, Jackson can be heard saying: “Children want to just touch me, hug me.”
“Kids end up just falling in love with my personality,” he is also heard saying. “Sometimes, it gets me into trouble.”
The documentary, which aired on Britain’s Channel 4, uses interviews and previously unseen footage, as well as the unheard audio of the singer, to step “beyond the media circus” of Jackson’s infamous 2005 trial to ask “profound questions about fame, race and the American justice system”, Wonderhood said on its website.
The audio comes from interviews with a rabbi who Jackson turned to for “spiritual guidance”, Channel 4 said in a statement.
“In hours of recorded interviews, Jackson confesses intimate secrets,” the British broadcaster said.
“The tapes, most of which have never been broadcast before, deliver an unprecedented insight into Michael’s mindset and his troubled childhood,” it continued, adding that they also show his “fixation” with Arvizo.
The man dubbed the King of Pop has been the subject of numerous films focusing on allegations that he abused young boys, including Leaving Neverland (2019), also broadcast on Channel 4, which prompted an angry response from his family.
“Michael is not here to defend himself. Otherwise, these allegations would not have been made,” the family said at the time.
The airing of the new documentary came just days after the release of the trailer for the Hollywood biopic Michael, which stars Jackson’s nephew, Jaafar, as Michael. It is due to open in cinemas on April 24.
Jackson, who died at the age of 50 on June 25, 2009, after being given an overdose of the anaesthetic propofol, faced multiple allegations of child sex abuse during his lifetime.
In addition to his 2005 acquittal, the performer paid a US$15 million court settlement in 1994 over allegations involving another child. AFP
