Nosheen Iqbal

You know, there was even a trial.

Owen, can you briefly run me through a timeline of the allegations made against Michael Jackson?

He was another child actor who had been in Jackson's orbit for a long time as well, right?

Coming up, why fans still can't get enough of Michael Jackson.

Lanre, it's deeply complicated, isn't it?

Because reading Margot Jefferson and Wesley Morris on Michael Jackson, you know, titans of cultural criticism, even they admit to a level of denial about who he really was, perhaps because of this kind of defensive crouch of wanting to believe in black artists and wanting to protect them from the worst of how the industry treats them, you know, building them up, profiting from them, and then pulling them down and spitting them out.

What's your take?

And there's also there's lots about his father beating him.

I think that's going to be in the film very much so.

I mean, he, you know, there's interviews where he talks about they'd be practicing their dance steps.

And if they were a step out of wrong, Joe Jackson had a belt in his hand.

Like that was the literal whip that he used to control his kids.

So let's rally round.

Yeah.

Lanre, it's potentially going to be the biggest film of the year.

It's billed to be this huge blockbuster.

People are rushing to see it.

Do you think it's wholesale cultural amnesia?

Is it excellent PR?

Or do people simply not care about allegations of paedophilia when a pop star is as big as he was?