Inside the Outrage Over Leaving Neverland and Michael Jackson's Complicated Legacy

The circumstances of Michael Jackson's death almost 10 years ago couldn't have been more strange.

Not in that we don't know what happened to him—although that, too, was bizarre—but in that Jackson had been existing for years in a state of celebrity limbo, still as one of the most famous people on the planet and a revered artist, but also as a punchline, someone whose oddities had largely overtaken his genius in the public eye.

As soon as he was gone, the inexplicable behavior, the outlandish money trouble and the lingering accusations—and fast-held beliefs, by some—that he had abused children, despite being found not guilty of molesting a boy at a criminal trial in 2005, was not all of a sudden was erased from everyone's memories. 

And no truly discerning account of the latter half of his career left all that out. But his rich musical legacy fairly instantaneously took center stage once again, with artists who hadn't publicly been seen with Jackson in who knows how long showing up to pay tribute at all-star musical events and award shows and his contribution to pop music ripe for endless odes and appreciations.

For countless people, bringing up the Jackson molestation allegations counts as a slur against one of the greatest artists of all time. 

But the whitewashed version of Jackson's legacy has never sat well for plenty of others, and there has literally been no time like the present to explain why.





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