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Michael Jackson – A victim

Michael Jackson - A victim
Michael Jackson - A victim
Michael Jackson – A victim

Michael Jackson will probably be remembered as much for his strange and bizarre behavior as his music legacy, genius and talent. But what triggered his antics – dangling a baby over a hotel balcony, numerous plastic surgery and claims that he molested boys? Was it the price of fame or the result of other emotional and psychological issues? Was Michael Jackson another victim of the drug addiction mentality and disorder of Hollywood and the music industry? For example, country singer Tammy Wynette was addicted to Demerol, silent movies actor Wallace Reid died from addiction to morphine, Heath Ledger died from a cocktail of prescription drugs – multiple prescriptions from various doctors, and, the list goes on.

Curtis Kim of KSRO 1350 and CNN radio interviews Celebrity Life Coach and Human Behavior Expert, Patrick Wanis PhD for insight into the mind and emotions of Michael Jackson. In an enlightening and controversial interview, Patrick unfurls shocking revelations about the King of Pop. Patrick reveals that “Michael Jackson was a victim of childhood abuse, a victim of being a childhood star and ultimately a victim of his fame and celebrity. The king of pop was still a little boy lost and hurt.” Patrick also says that abuse as a child leads to feelings of inferiority, anger, hostility, inability to form meaningful relationships in adulthood – primarily because of trust issues. Patrick also states that “Michael antic’s were as much the result of public pressure and criticism as they were his deeper emotional pain and emotional immaturity…He often regressed in his behavior. He was still a child – probably somewhere in pre-pubescence – listen to his voice and the helpless, childlike way he described his encounter when the police searched and stripped him naked following claims that he had molested a boy.”

Below is the transcript of the interview. Read also the article CNN.com featuring Patrick Wanis’ insights into Michael Jackson and the price of fame: https://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/06/26/michael.jackson.spotlight/index.html

https://patrickwanis.com/blog/michael-jackson-and-the-extreme-price-of-fame/

Curtis: Well, his fame was larger than life. His death riveted the world. When Michael Jackson died, there seemed to be little doubt that Michael Jackson will be remembered as much for his eccentricities as his talent. But how did he go from a superstar, beloved by millions to Wacko Jacko in such a short period of time. Where did it all go wrong for Michael? Childhood? Drugs? Too many nose jobs? Joining us on the live line right now, therapist and celebrity life coach, Patrick Wanis. Good morning, Patrick.

Patrick: Good morning, Curtis.

Curtis: Well, let us begin, Patrick with your assessment. We know a lot about Michael Jackson from Missouri childhood with the Jackson Five, strict father and how he ended with some deviant behavior along the line. What is your assessment of Michael Jackson?

Patrick: You know, Michael Jackson is obviously an enigma in terms of his talent, his supernatural talent, his genius. He’s also an enigma that he outlived being a childhood star. That means that, you know – the average performer, Curtis has a life of about five years and that includes bands, singers and et cetera but Michael went from being a childhood star to also being an adult star. But what complicated it was what happened to him as a child, the fact that he started at such a young age and then what he went through in terms of emotional abuse and other forms of abuse as a child. So the way that I read Michael Jackson is that he was a victim of childhood abuse. He was a victim of being a childhood star and I’ll talk about that in a moment and he was ultimately a victim of his fame and celebrity.

See, the king of pop was still really a little boy lost. He was still a little boy hurt because he never, ever outgrew his emotional immaturity. He was still stuck at an age, at a very, very young age what I would probably say was like pre-pubescence. I mean, a very, very young – and this is not uncommon, Curtis for people that have been abused as children to stay stuck emotionally, to be stuck in a certain age and thus, when they’re an adult, they have feelings of inferiority. There’s hidden anger, there’s hostility, there’s inability to form meaningful relationships and a lot of that relates to the inability to trust, the inability to get close.

Curtis: You know, on the one hand, I agree with most of what you said there, Patrick. On the one hand, you know, he did show some – those childlike signs when he was even an adult but on the other hand, he had oodles and oodles of success. On that side of his life, he was probably one of the most well-known, if not the most well-known entertainers. With the help of MTV, he became more than just a star. He became literally an ultra superstar.

Patrick: Correct.

Curtis: Yet, on that side of the arena, he had just everything he could probably want but he couldn’t, I guess, master his past as what you’re saying.

Patrick: Well, that’s something that affects almost every one of us, Curtis. You know, all of us ultimately have to try and master our past and we have to really get pass the past and put it where it belongs. But Michael’s problems were complicated not only because of what he experienced as a child in terms of abuse but being a childhood star means that he was robbed of his childhood. So he was robbed on two levels. One, because of the abuse and then secondly, because he was a childhood star and this is not uncommon.

So Michael even said in interviews that he just wanted to be a child, he just wanted to play and you’ll see that that’s what he was regressing to time and time again and progressively getting worse, wanting to be a little boy, wanting to be around little boys. I mean, this is not a guy that I saw as a predator. He was – you know, obviously, there are these instances of pedophilia but this was not a predator. He was not like say, British rock star Gary Glitter who traveled to Cambodia looking for little boys. That was not Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson was stuck in a very deep, differently emotional state and one full of pain.

Curtis: And one of the things I thought that was really a shame in all of this is that there were not people on the sidelines who were looking at Michael and saying, “Michael, we need to help you a little bit,” or, “We need to get you moving forward with your life in different ways. We need to, you know, get you into counseling,” or whatever it was and there just didn’t seem to be a support system on the side to help Michael overcome, as you mentioned, the childhood.

Patrick: Curtis, you’ve raised one of the most important points here, the fact that almost every single one of these celebrities, performers, rock stars, pop stars, even sports stars don’t get the right support around them. They all have an entourage but the entourage is like a group of parasites that feed off them and will do anything that they can to keep propping up this person so that they can continue to feed off them.

And I want to use a couple of other examples. You know, country singer, Tammy Wynette was addicted to Demerol. Wallace Reid, the silent actor died from addiction to morphine. Heath Ledger, we know died from a cocktail of prescription drugs, multiple prescriptions from various doctors. These people don’t get the right help. I mean, Michael Jackson did have a problem with painkillers back in 1993. He got a little bit of help but he didn’t get the right help and most of these celebrities don’t get the real emotional help but it’s not just about sitting there and listening to them. It’s not about putting them through a rehab clinic because most of the rehab clinics don’t work.

It’s about dealing with their deeper psyche, their deeper emotional pain and the other things that even relate to something that every pop and rock star goes through and that’s feelings of being an impostor. “Am I good enough?” or, “How do I get the attention? How do I get the adulation? And even if I do get the attention and adulation, do I still feel good about myself? Is it real?”

Curtis: Yes.

Patrick: Does that make sense?

Curtis: Yes, it does. Final question, we only got about 20 seconds left here. How do you think Michael Jackson will now be remembered, Patrick?

Patrick: Well, I hope that he’ll be remembered for his talent. I hope that he’ll be remembered as someone that gave the world a lot of joy, a lot of brilliant music, brilliant dance, brilliant videos, a great form of art and I hope that people will also remember, to a certain extent, that he was a victim, a victim of the celebrity culture and that ultimately we can look up to him and say, you know what, we always need to understand that we’re all fallible no matter how talented we are, how gifted we are, and we all need to deal with our own personal cravings and insecurities.

Curtis: Patrick, thanks so much for the insights.

Patrick: My pleasure.

Curtis: Patrick Wanis, he is a therapist and celebrity life coach talking about of course, Michael Jackson.

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