14 DAY TRIAL // Michael Jackson fans and representatives of the media are up in arms over a series of comments made by British journalist Kelvin MacKenzie on the television show This Morning, where he said the singer’s children were better off with him dead.
The interview took place on the eve of Oprah airing the Michael Jackson exclusive in which she talks to the King of Pop’s mother, father and children – in what is a first since his death in the summer of 2009.
In it, MacKenzie, a former contributor to The Sun and an avid Michael “hater” (he was the one to coin the term “Wacko Jacko”), launches bitter accusations against the singer, calling him an abuser and a monster, journalist Charles Thomson writes on his blog.
Though the topic of the show was how the Jackson children managed to reveal in just a few words a side of Michael that few knew existed (he made “the best toast,” was a “great cook” and “the best dad ever”), MacKenzie managed to change it.
As fans know, Michael was cleared by all molestation charges, which means he’s innocent. MacKenzie, it would seem, does not agree: moreover, he believed his own children have better chances at a proper life with him gone.
Clearly, the implications of his words are terrible, since he seems to be saying that the star would have been capable of traumatizing his own children, Thomson states.
Because of this, and because MacKenzie deliberately set out to tarnish the reputation of a man who is no longer here to defend himself, he’s calling for all fans to boycott MacKenzie and pressure him into offering an apology.
“OK, well a rather different view to that is that the death of Michael Jackson may well have saved some children, possibly, who knows… from a lifetime of being mentally corrupted, shall we say,” MacKenzie said in the aforementioned interview.
“He’s faced a number of charges, a number of allegations, and I in some ways feels that the children will have a better life for their father not being around, which is pretty unusual,” he went on to say.
“MacKenzie’s comments were morally and ethically reprehensible. He demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the justice system and also for the ethics of his profession. Jackson was acquitted of any wrongdoing and nobody has any right to insinuate that he was anything other than innocent,” Thompson writes.
He’s also asking for all fans to come together and make their voice heard by contacting ITV and even Ofcom to force MacKenzie to issue a formal apology.
“MacKenzie’s outburst was unacceptable. [T]o announce on television that three orphaned children are better off now their father is dead and proclaim that they should never have been born in the first place – that is beyond vile,” Thompson says.