It was ugly. It felt dirty. We were learning, along the way, about the treacherous nature of celebrity in our modern age. He embodied the vice and helped it morph into an epidemic.
even with all the charges of molestation, Michael Jackson always somehow seemed harmless. He seemed like someone who needed our protection. And this much was true: He needed our love and approval. He lived for it, and the only place he ever got it was on stage.
We reported weeks ago that the Michael Jackson 50-city tour was an impossibility, a dream destination where the singer might once again find what always eluded him in the world.
He never found it. That is a tragedy.
SHOOT: In the present culture of celebrity, we destroy what we love.
A star at 11, a teen idol as an adolescent and the King of Pop before he hit 30, Jackson spent what should have been the best years of his life confused, hounded and haunted, an Alice in Wonderland creature in a world of pop culture that he helped to create.
We all must mourn twice today. First, the loss of a great musical and stage talent. But that person disappeared long ago.
Second, we mourn the arc of a life that should have been filled with the blessings of success as defined in our world: money, talent, fame and celebrity. But instead it descended into a hellish purgatory on earth -- damned by public opinion and tortured by demons only he understood.
It was a life left in ruins. His death is a shock, and we can only expect the unexpected in the coroner’s report.
But it is not nearly as shocking as the events that led to an untimely demise we might have expected even sooner.
And we see him creating the fantasy childhood world at Neverland, where he entertained children dying of cancer.
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