Michael Jackson’s Family Fires Back After WSJ Revives Abuse Allegations

Every few years, like clockwork, the Michael Jackson legacy debate explodes again. And now, an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that has the Jackson family seeing red.

Maureen Orth, a journalist who covered the allegations against Jackson for Vanity Fair over more than a decade, used her platform to argue that Jackson’s fame and music created “an almost impenetrable shield from the truth.” She called him a “stone cold pedophile” and blasted the new Michael biopic for blinding audiences to what she insists is his real legacy.

But here is the problem with Orth’s piece, and with so much of the media coverage that lands like this. She writes as if the legal record does not exist. She writes as if Michael Jackson were criminally convicted. He was not.

Let’s start with what the WSJ piece argues

The writer, Maureen Orth, argues that Jackson’s fame and music created “an almost impenetrable shield from the truth.” She says the biopic blinds audiences to the “real” Michael Jackson, the one she’s been writing about for Vanity Fair since the 1990s. She calls him a predator. Orth writes with the kind of certainty that would make you think she sat on the jury.

But she didn’t. And the jury, the actual jury, the one that heard weeks of testimony, including from Jackson’s accuser and his accuser’s mother, reached a very different conclusion.

Michael Jackson was acquitted on all counts in 2005

Not one charge. Not two. He was acquitted on all counts in 2005. That is a fact and not an opinion. It is not a fan conspiracy theory. It is the outcome of a criminal trial that lasted five months, involved hundreds of witnesses, and was overseen by a judge who allowed every piece of evidence the prosecution wanted to present.

The media loves to throw around phrases like alleged abuse, settlements, and investigations. What they hate to mention is that after years of investigation, including the FBI, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department, and the LAPD, no criminal conviction occurred. The FBI files released after Jackson’s death show the bureau reviewed leads and found no basis for federal charges.

So why does Orth get to call him a “stone cold pedophile” in a major newspaper? Because, as Taj Jackson pointed out, Michael cannot sue from the grave. U.S. defamation law generally does not protect the dead. That means outlets like the WSJ can use the nastiest possible language about a man who cannot legally fight back.

What about the 1993 settlement?

Yes, Jackson settled a civil claim with the Chandler family. Civil settlements are not criminal convictions. People settle for many reasons: to avoid a drawn-out media circus, to protect their children, to make a problem go away. The settlement explicitly stated it was not an admission of wrongdoing. But the media always presents it as a smoking gun.

And the biopic?

Spike Lee already said it: the film ends in 1988. The first public allegations came in 1993. You cannot accuse a movie of covering up something that happened five years after its story ends. The film is about Jackson’s rise, his artistry, his genius. That is a valid story to tell. Not every film about a complicated person has to be a hit job.

Critics like Dan Reed, who made Leaving Neverland, want you to believe that any positive portrayal of Jackson is a lie. But Leaving Neverland was a one-sided documentary that presented accusations without cross-examination, without the accusers ever facing the kind of scrutiny they would have faced in a courtroom.

The real fight here is not about a biopic

It is about whether the media gets to rewrite history. Michael Jackson was tried. He was acquitted. He was investigated. No criminal evidence put him behind bars. You can believe the accusers if you want; that is your right. But you cannot pretend the legal system failed to convict him because of his fame. That is an excuse, not evidence.

The Jackson family is right to be angry. TJ Jackson called Orth’s piece “garbage” and “fake news.” Taj Jackson pointed out the defamation loophole. And fans around the world are once again asking the same question: why does the media keep retrying a man who was already found not guilty?

Michael Jackson had his flaws. He was eccentric, isolated, and sometimes deeply naive. But being weird is not a crime. And being acquitted means something. Or at least it should. The Wall Street Journal wants you to believe Michael Jackson was a predator. I believe the jury. I believe the legal record matters more than headlines written as if the verdict never happened. Michael Jackson’s legacy should not be rewritten by headlines that skip the acquittal. And I, for one, will not be gaslit into pretending he was ever criminally convicted.