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Michael Jackson and Bob Marley in Jamaica, 1975
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2026
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Michael was about 17 here. I feel like he has a sad smile, especially compared to Bob's
yeah, but a glorious fro
It sucks being white not, only will I never have hair like that but as a white person I'm not allowed to as much as I'm not allowed to have dreads.
I see it too. It is impossible to describe how popular he was in this period: he and his brothers were on tv constantly, plus making records and doing Vegas and international tours and promos and whatever else anyone wanted them to do. In the US in the early to mid 70s you literally could not go a week without hearing or seeing a reference to the Jackson 5 and especially Michael.
But what we didn't see at the time is that he and his brothers were effectively slaves, with their dad signing them up wherever he could make a dime out of it while the kids just worked and worked and worked, plus they had to be nice to everyone, could never let their guard down, could never just be kids, could never really personally enjoy any of the money everyone else was making off them at the time. They weren't even allowed any creative say in their earlier records: it was a shut up and sing situation.
So in this picture, Michael was exhausted and his father was still running his life, a relationship he always called physically and emotionally abusive in later years, as did his sister LaToya.
It doesn't excuse whatever he did later in life, but he looks a bit sad and tired probably because he was.
IDK maybe MJ was an oddball and probably a little nuts but when they raided his house, his porn collection was in a locked briefcase in the bathroom and it wasn't creepy. Just normal porn magazines. So that tells me that if he was around kids and probably not a normal way, he was at least locking his porn and kept it from the kids
I really havent done a deep dive or anything but as someone that performed as a kid and faced a lot of abuse, i believe the folks that say he was providing a safe space for the kids in a hostile world. Going against that culture in hollywood is certain to ruffle some feathers enough to spread rumors.
Macaulay Culkin and Corey Feldman seem to defend his friendship in a way that suggests he was a good friend to them. Feldman seems to not shy away from spilling the beans on the horrible things that happened to him but he defends MJ, so maybe that says something.
Honestly feldman's defence is a big part of why i believe it. Tbcf, i was raised on mj, so i already didnt want to believe the rumors but it really just comes off as hollywood vitriol