Jackson Family Betrayal
by
Allforlove
October 14, 2010
Although this site has the intention of being
Michael's website, and I try to avoid any bad comments about
him and his family because we know he didn't like it, I need
to show sometimes my feelings too about things like this, his
family behavior with him, so excuse me Michael:
Family betrayal has been such a hot topic recently in
the Jackson camp-between Katherine and Joe sitting down with
Oprah last weekend, and the discovery of Latoya’s interview
with Victor Guiterrez (of all people!) last March in
Chile-that I thought it was time to address the issue.
I was thinking not so very long ago that Michael has been, in
many ways, the victim of some of the worst family betrayal imaginable.
It began in childhood, with his father’s own physical abuse
and taunting. It seemed to grow worse when his solo adult success
put him miles ahead of his brothers’ successes. This was
when Jermaine Jackson wrote a song called Word To The Badd,
which contains some of the worst vile and venom I have ever
heard spewed publicly from one brother to another. True, the
song never mentions Michael by name. But there was never any
doubt who the song’s lyrics were being directed towards:
What up yo,
word to the badd
Reconstructed
Been abducted
Don’t know who you are
They may love you
they don’t know you
Lonely superstar
never think about who you love
only think about number one
You forget about where you started from
You only think about what you want
don’t care about how it’s done
you only think about you, your throne
Be it right or be it wrong
It ain’t about your world
It ain’t about the things that you do
If you don’t care, I don’t care
Cause you keep thinkin’ ’bout you
It ain’t about you takin’ my pie
You been takin’ for a long time
If you don’t care, I don’t care
If you keep
Well I ain’t thinkin’ ’bout you
What up yo, word to the badd
Once you were made
You changed your shade
Was your color wrong?
Could not turn back
It’s a known fact
You were too far gone
You know I tried to be there for you
Like a brother I care for you
It didn’t matter you always play me off
You only care about what you want
You don’t care about how it’s done
You only think about you, your throne
Be it right or wrong
It ain’t about your world
It ain’t about the things that you do
If you don’t care, I don’t care
Cause you keep thinkin’ ’bout you
It ain’t about you takin’ my pie
You been takin’ for a long time
If you don’t care, I don’t care
If you keep
Well I ain’t thinkin’ ’bout you
Oh no no, I ain’t thinkin’ ’bout you
Oh no
What up yo, word to the badd
Thinkin’ about that pie that you’ve been takin’
from me
From a brother to another brother hard to believe
Lost and don’t know it yet you still show it
Givin’ seems to be harder than it is to receive
The glass has gotten shady, time to make it clearer,
Clean it up and lets start with the Man in the mirror.
Theres sadness there brother, aint no mistaken it,
Get a grip cause youre not far from breakin it.
Thinkin about the time when we used to be close,
It shouldnt be past tense, cause nobody knows,
What the future may hold, what tomorrow might bring,
Its not guaranteed that youll be spreading your wings
But meanwhile, I continue to smile, cause in the back of my
head,
I know you’re still a child
You say that your a man, but that will never be.-
Jermaine Jackson, “Word To The Badd”
In hindsight, it may be easier now to understand some of the
song’s harsher sentiments. This was 1991, a time in which
Michael was asserting his independence and had become a global
superstar-that is, a global solo superstar. There was, perhaps
understandably, a lot of jealousy and inner conflict between
Michael and his siblings during this time. And I certainly would
be the last to pretend to know everything that was going on
between them. When I look at Jermaine’s Word To The Badd
lyrics now, what I see is simply nothing more than the hurt
and spitefulness of a sibling who has probably just had a series
of fights with his little brother and is getting back-the best
way he knows how. Some of the lyrics are inexcusable, such as
the jab at Michael’s vitiligo. He could not help changing
“his shade.” It really begs the question if, at this
point, Michael was talking to his siblings at all.
They certainly seemed to be as in the dark about his medical
condition as the rest of us were at that time. This may seem
hard to believe, but Latoya pretty much confirmed in her 2005
interview that the family has a tendency to “breeze over”
any deep discussions that may cause conflict. The fact that
Latoya herself seems to know so little about the details of
her own brother’s allegations speaks volumes, and also
speaks volumes about the Jackson family dynamics, but I will
get to that just a bit later.
I also have to wonder, when Jermaine was writing about the brother
who had forgotten where he “came from” if he also
remembered how hard Michael took it when Jermaine stayed with
Motown and refused to accompany his brothers to Epic. Did he
know-back then-how often his little brother cried, looking to
his left as he performed and hoping to see Jermaine there? How
could Jermaine throw it up to Michael about breaking them up,
when he himself was the one who broke up the orginal Jackson
5?
That much aside, I can overlook most of Word To The Badd for
what I think it was at the time-a fit of anger, and a bid to
get his brother’s attention. Well, apparently it did just
that! It was said that during the filming of “The Jacksons:
An American Dream,” the famous 1992 TV saga on the Jacksons,
they were desperately needing to get in touch with Michael and
get him to the set for some reason, and were having no luck.
But he came home quick enough as soon as he got wind of Word
To The Badd! Appearing at Hayvenhurst, Michael confronted his
brother immediatly and demanded a showdown. They confined themselves
in the trophy room, along with Joe and Katherine, and apparently
duked it out verbally.
Stonewalling
Jacksons
Whatever was said within the confines of that room, it was sufficient
that Jermaine soon changed the lyrics to a more conventional
love song about a relationship gone bad, and nothing more was
said of the matter.
But therein lies the danger of being a rich, powerful show business
family. The Jacksons are a very big family. And like most families
with that many siblings, there are bound to be arguements, jealousies,
and rivalries. Sure, they may love one another to pieces-blood
is always thicker than water. But the truth is that brothers
and sisters do fight. It would be unrealistic to think that
they don’t. The problem is that when your brothers and
sisters just happen to be some of the most famous entertainers
in the business, then every family spat and misundertsnading
is apt to appear as their next song, or as a tell-all book!
Unfortunately, too many of the Jackson siblings have learned
to use the press as their biggest. most deadly weapon of all.
As children, they all learned too early that the best, most
effective way to hurt someone in the family is to go to the
media–usually, a last resort when all other avenues to
get that family member’s attention have failed.
But there’s a heavy price to be paid for that kind of vindictiveness.
Eventually, it comes back to haunt them all.
Every family has issues. It’s also true that every family
has some degree of dysfunction. Every family has “some”
skeleton in the closet. The difference is that most families
do not have the media spotlight constantly on them. Nor do most
families have the added pressures of stardom, mega sums of money
and the horde of constant outsiders, clingers, hangers-on and
advisors who are constantly pulling members asunder.
It’s not surprising that Michael has often been the target
of some of the family’s worst betrayal. As the most succesful
member of the family (some might argue as to whether that title
should go to Michael or Janet, but I have to say it is easily
Michael, with Janet a distant second place) he was also the
one most targeted for this or that favor, this or that business
venture, this or that reunion, this or that financial loan,
this or that assistance with someone’s album or songwriting.
When he didn’t or couldn’t always comply with these
demands, the repercussions could often be bitter.
Time and again, Michael withstood some of the most horrendous
betrayal I have ever seen inflicted on anyone by his own family
members. The worst was in 1993, in the well known Tel-Aviv press
conference in which Latoya proclaimed her belief that he was
guilty of the allegations against him. Since those clips have
already been featured prominently in other recent articles here,
I won’t repost them. I think most of us by now are familiar
enough with the sordid details. But in a follow-up interview
with Katie Couric, she pretty much confesses that everything
she said in the press conference was based on circumstantial
evidence and personal suspicion-nothing more. In this video,
she confesses that she was only basing the claims on some checks
her mother reportedly saw (but that she really had no idea what
the checks were for, even if any such checks were ever seen
at all); she is forced to admit she never actually saw any wrongdoing
on her brother’s part. It’s interesting that even
Katie Couric sees right through her!
Latoya, of course, would later retract those statements completely,
claiming that her abusive husband Jack Gordon forced her to
read from a script and that he used her as part of his plan
to set up a bidding war for the story between the tabloids.
This wouldn’t surprise me. It was also Jack Gordon who
attempted to extort the family for $5,000,000 in exchange for
a promise to halt the publication of Latoya’s tell-all
autobiography in 1991. The demands weren’t met, and publication
proceeded. (That beig said, the book isn’t “as”
horrible as some people think. I have often used it as a reference.
There are a lot of little-known family stories, and a lot of
funny stories about Michael in it. She mainly talks of Joseph’s
abuse, stories which were also corroborated later by Michael
himself, though unlike Latoya, he never claimed to have been
sexually abused and threatened to sue his sister if she went
forward with her original plans to claim he was sexually abused
in the book).
The Tel-Aviv press conference may well have been Gordon’s
idea. But I’ve never really bought that Latoya was just
going along with the scheme blindly, as a battered wife. I think
the more likely truth is that she had her own issues with Michael
at that time–again, perhaps a family quarrel; perhaps some
words had been exchanged; perhaps he had refused a favor. Whatever
the reason, there was bad blood between Michael and Latoya in
1993, and this was how she exacted her revenge. I believe that
is the far more plausible explanation. The bad blood would have
created the perfect chink for Gordon to plant the idea in her
head to hold this press conference and smear her brother’s
name.
In 2005, long after she had recanted her accusations, Latoya
said that Michael forgave her and nothing more was ever said.
I think it says a lot about the person Michael was that he could
be so quick to forgive his sister of something so horrendous.
But did he ever really forget? In the documentary Moonwalking:
The True Story of Michael Jackson (which you can access here:
http://allforloveblog.com/?p=4089) psychologists speculate on
the kind of emotional damage that can be incurred when one is
so deeply and blatantly betrayed by their own family.
The truth is, regardless of Latoya’s reasons (whether she
was suffering from battered wife syndrome and was simply being
the puppet of a very bad man, or if she’d had a falling
out with her brother and was seeking revenge), words once spoken
can never really be retracted. The emotional scars that the
words inflict are forever. A person can forgive the actions.
But the hurt from the words never really goes away.
Of course, Michael himself wasn’t totally immune to the
temptation of “getting back” through words, either.
Even though he never said anything publicly that was as remotely
hurtful as what Jermaine and Latoya did to him, he nevertheless
had his ways of letting his feelings be known. “Susperfly
Sister,” for instance, was a song in which Michael finally
got off his chest some of his own feelings about his family
and the smack they were talking. Take, for example, the following
lines excerpted from Michael’s song Superfly Sister:
“Sister’s married to the hood/thinking that she’s
got it good” (an obvious stab at Latoya)…”Mother’s
preaching Abraham/brothers, they don’t give a damn…”
(a jab at Katherine’s Jehovah’s Witness teachings
and his brothers’ blatant disregard of it, especially in
regards to sexual matters).
I have to say, compared to the knife that some
of his siblings drove into his own back, this is relatively
mild stuff. However, we probably should not forget that it was
also Michael who came forth to tell the world about his own
childhood abuse. He spoke openly of the abuse in several interviews,
including Oprah Winfrey in ’93 and Martin Bashir in 2003.
And despite the fact that the rest of the family has maintained
it was nothing more than discipline, some of Michael’s
claims–for example, suffering from broken ribs, and/or
being forced to strip naked and having hot oil poured on him-certainly
are beyond the bounds of mere “discipline.” However,
it is worth keeping in mind that these last two accounts come
from sources that were never intended to be made public-his
private phone conversations with a friend named Glenda (Michael
tells the story of his broken rib at about 9:18):
and the book by Rabbi Schmuley, based on tapes
that were intended for Schmuley’s ears only. In other words,
this was not Michael publicly airing the family’s dirty
laundry. And certainly not his fault that this info was ever
leaked. However, his candid admissions of physical and verbal
abuse have led some family members to come to their father’s
defense, saying the claims were exaggerated.
It’s ironic that Latoya, the sibling who betrayed him the
deepest, was also the only one who truly backed him in his claims
of childhood abuse. (Though Janet has hinted in some interviews
that there is validity to the claims as well). In some ways,
I can understand the other siblings’ desire to come to
Joe’s defense-after all, that is their father. And I believe
part of their actions in recent years have been an attempt at
damage control to rectify the bad rep that they feel their father
has gotten.
But there is another important thing to consider as well: Joe
may be their father. But Michael was their brother. When they
go to such lengths to say, “Those things never happened”
they are also, in essence, calling their brother a liar. I’m
sure it’s a catch-22 for them either way: If they appear
to side with Michael, then they are admitting their father was
an abuser. If they side with their father, they are admitting
their brother was a liar (or at least a very imaginative exaggerator).
Given Michael’s private accounts-things that were said
in confidentialtiy, and never intended for the world at large
to hear-I think it much more likely that he was telling the
truth. And I think his decision to reveal what he did publicly
was not so much intended as a betrayal (after all, there was
nothing to be gained for him by doing so) as it was a cry for
help and understanding, at a time when he despertaly needed
the world to understand him.
I certainly wasn’t there and I can’t claim to know
what was true or wasn’t. But it is interesting to note
that even in the movie The Jacksons: An American Dream, a production
that had the full support of the Jackson family-including Joseph’s-that
Joe is portrayed a very domineering, controlling dad who had
issues with his temper and anger management. So it’s not
too inconceivable to believe that his “discipline”
may have sometimes crossed the line.
I think it is entirely possible for a parent to love their kids,
and still have a bad temper. A person can love their children
and still have issues with their anger management. The two are
not mutually exclusive. To pretend that they are, I think, is
to deny the very complex dynamics that make up most family relationships.
Despite everything that was said, Michael always made it very
clear that he loved and respected his father.
And most importantly, that he forgave him.
However, in the year and (soon to be) four months since Michael
was murdered, we’ve seen the diviseness within the family
play out even more forcefully. And even though these days it
may not be so much what is being said to Michael or about him,
he remains in many crucial ways the source of family conflict.
In times of grief, it’s not unusual for family members
to start tearing one another apart. As soon as the tears dry,
the fingers of accusation over who should have done what, who
gets what, of who was was there and who wasn’t, of who
is being repsectful and who is “selling out” their
memories often starts to fly. The Jacksons, as we’ve seen,
have been no exception. And again, it is even worse for them
because every action they make and every word uttered is immediate
tabloid fodder.
The latest crisis to divide the family has been Joe and Katherine’s
decision to invite Oprah Winfrey into Hayvenhurst for a sit-down
interview, and even to interview Michael’s kids! I don’t
even have to ask to know Michael must be spinning in his
grave over that decision!
For my part, I am willing to extend the benefit of the doubt
until I see how the interview plays out. That is really all
we can do at this point, anyway. However, between Oprah’s
noted tendency to badger her guests and speak for them, and
Joe’s tendency to fly off the handle and put his own foot
in his mouth, I can’t help but have my concerns as to how
this whole mess is going to go down. Here is a clip of one of
the last sit-down interviews Joe and Katherine did together
prior to this. This interview was before the trial in 2005,
and you can see how even here Katherine has to put the muzzle
on Joe more than once (it’s kind of funny to watch):
But personally, I have far more concerns about
Latoya’s recent associations with Victor Guiterrez. Over
on Vindicating Michael, there have been a lot of recent
articles about Guiterrez’s ties to NAMBLA and his role
in the accusations brought against Michael. If you have not
been keeping up with these articles, you really should because
it’s some mind-blowing stuff!
Victor Gutierrez is a link to
NAMBLA and REAL pedophiles. Was it a big P.Plan?
As if all of that info wasn’t mind-blowing enough, here
is an article (originally posted by Dave Edwards in the comments
section) that was translated from its original Spanish. The
article details how Latoya, under the pretense of concern for
the victims of a recent earthquake in Chile, and perhaps blindly
seeing in Guiterrez an ally who also believes her brother was
murdered, actually agreed to sit down to an interview with the
man who was perhaps more responsible than any other of ruining
her brother’s life! (Of course, that’s a very long
list that must include Tom Sneddon, Evan Chandler, Martin Bashir
and many others) but nevertheless, Guiterrez’s role in
instigating those allegations can’t be denied. My blood
went cold as I read this (the translation is a bit rough, but
you can definitely get the gist of it):
Michael’s chaser ended up hugging La Toya
Víctor Gutiérrez in a good mood with the Jacksons
The good wave was such big that the singer, sent greetings to
the earthquake victims,
Picture legend: During the interview La Toya liked Víctor’s
Gutiérrez shirt
Sergio Vallejos
It seemed and impossible mission, but he did it. The journalist
Víctor Vallejo, the same that treated Michael Jackson
as delinquent and pedophile, must obtain an exclusive interview
with : La Toya Jackson, who today is the head-on spokesperson
from the late King Of Pop’s family
“I thought that I couldn’t make it. Until the last
moment I had doubts about the interview”, tells Gutierrez
from Los Angeles, California
“ The only thing I can say is Chile be Strong”
La Toya Jackson
With so much faith, the persistent journalist contacted the
manager of the dark-skinned girl to speak about the situation.
And for the surprise of Gutiérrez,
The journalist was hired the past week, to produce an interview
between La Toya and an Argentinean program via satellite. He
reveals “They called me from 70.20.10, from the Channel
13, asking me to contact La Toya to speak about the theory of
her brother’s murder”
The 53 old woman, accepted his invitation. We met last Friday
in the studio, before the interview I told her: It’s time
to talk about other matters. He confess, I think she though
that I was going to lay an ambush or something like that to
her”.
After the 17 minutes interview. Michael’s sister and Gutiérrez
shared a friendly conversation.
I told her what happened in Chile with the earthquake, and she
couldn’t get that matter out of her head. She asked me
how could she help, and I said sending them regards”
And they recorded a video.
We made a couple of tests, because she wanted to send a message
in Spanish. She had a hard time trying to say “Fuerza Chile”,
but she had a very beautiful gesture.
Did you make up with La Toya?
I don’t know, I think the earthquake united us.
In addition, I commented to her about my mother’s passing
and she was very affectionate.
What about the other siblings?
I believe they don’t like me. I did not change my theory
(about Jackson’s pedophilia), but I believed he was murdered.
No, Victor Guiterrez, the other siblings don’t like you!
I wonder why? Could it be, perhaps, all those lies you spread
about their brother? Or that slanderous piece of fiction you
wrote called Michael Jackson Was My Lover? Or that $2.7 million
dollars in damages you were ordered to pay Michael Jackson,
for which you skipped the country in order to avoid paying?
No, they don’t like you.
As for Latoya, I hope and pray this was just a case of ignorance
of the facts. Otherwise, there is no excuse.
Latoya, you stabbed your brother in the back once. He forgave
you. But please, in the name of love and all that is decent,
don’t stab him again by associating with this man. If your
goal is to prove that Michael was murdered, I’m sure there
are plenty of other people and other avenues that can be pursued
to get to the truth.
Truth, however, is not something you can put in the same sentence
with Victor Guiterrez!
Back to Vindicating Michael Jackson
