Michael Jackson’s shtick was simply a more sophisticated, well financed variation on the molester with an ice cream truck. When after paying millions to his young accuser, Jordy Chandler, Jackson was later found to have gay porn producer Marc Schaffel, an un-indicted co-conspirator in Jackson’s 2005 child molestation trial, as his PERSONAL VIDEOGRAPHER and close pal on the very private grounds of Neverland Ranch.
When this scandal was exposed (but underplayed by the dysfunctional and enabling mainstream media), Schaffel was shown the door and Jackson’s people issued a press release acknowledging the impropriety of the situation but claimed not to have known of Schaffel’s mystifyingly inappropriate background — especially given the accusations against Jackson and his continued desire to present himself as a kid-at-heart.
Here is the statement by Jackson spokesman Dan Klores in July, 2002:
“The minute Michael and his advisers found out about Schaffel’s background, they cut the cord immediately. This was months ago. (Schaffel) has nothing to do with Michael Jackson, doesn’t represent him in any way, shape or form, and has been told this repeatedly by Michael’s attorneys.”
Well, a year later, Schaffel was back at Neverland and again acting as Jackson’s personal videographer who chronicled the taping of the famous Martin Bashir BBC documentary that later appeared on ABC in the U.S., which centered around two young brothers hanging with Jackson and Schaffel as their ‘chaperones’ at the creepy amusement park cum bachelor pad.
Why did Michael Jackson bring back the gay porno producer to use a video camera to oversee kid trips to Neverland AFTER it was admitted by Jackson’s own people the Jackson/Schaffel alliance was blatantly improper?
And why did the media drop the ball in playing up this massive scandal? Parents had an obligation to know they were sending their kids to a ferris wheel controlled by an accused molester who hung out only with young boys (as Howard Stern has said, “Where are the young girls?”) and his gay pornographer pal.
Mark Ebner and I covered this grotesque scenario extensively in our book, Hollywood, Interrupted.
I’m sorry. When Jackson didn’t fight charges of molestation and then paid a person off to the tune of millions, and later put children in the proximity of a guy whose day job was trying to find young-looking male porn stars in eastern Europe (you don’t want to see Schaffel’s casting call videos — I have!) — Michael Jackson exposed himself as a dangerous man and sick predator whose only mitigating excuse is that he was enabled by sick family and business associates and an even sicker mainstream press.
I feel mildly sorry that Michael Jackson is dead because to a great extent our overly popular culture influenced society contributed to making him the monster he was when he died. May he rest in heat.