LIFE'S A BITCH: Sad legacy of man who tried to shield the world
The kids weren't his, says the latest Jackson rumour.
No, really?
I think we might already have suspected that.
Michael Jackson may not have looked black for years, but we know what he was beneath. His whiteness was just skin-deep.
We all remember that chubby cheeked little boy with the huge, round Afro and the amazing voice telling us that one bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch.
And to my mind, the real tragedy in Michael Jackson's story is the fact that the cherubic child prodigy died many years ago. There seemed to be no relationship between that beatific boy and the sad, strange, troubled man whose life ended last Thursday.
Jackson tried to shroud his life and those of his children with veils both physical and metaphorical. Now that we have had a chance to see the three little faces Jackson kept hidden for years, we can agree that his children do indeed look very Caucasian.
Maybe that's what he wanted. But there is still a chance that they ARE his and their appearance is just what nature handed him. (It is possible, though very rare, for children born to parents of different races not to take the dominant gene).
But does it really matter either way?
Being a father to a child is about so much more than genetics. Any guy can get a girl pregnant; but not every man is prepared to love and care for three children.
In my eyes, the man who raises you, is there for you day in, day out; he's your real father.
But as soon as Jackson died, we all knew the revelations would tumble out and that his deepest secrets would be exposed by anyone who ever came into contact with him.
There are so many already; he died stoney broke in a house cluttered with the prescription drugs he was addicted to. And Diana Ross, the woman he seemed to try his best to look like, is on stand-by to play guardian to his children should his own mother die...
And I wonder how many of the rumours and "true" stories much of this is getting through to the kids?
Have they heard the stories of how their grandfather beat their dad when he was just their age?
Do they know that their birth mother wants nothing to do with them and that a mafia boss is claiming to be the under-cover dad to little Blanket?
Are they having to contend with these upsetting stories while they grieve the only parent they have ever really known?
Jackson tried to protect them from such things while he was alive, but the ghost of their father will be with them forever.
His biological children or not, the intense interest in them is never going to go away.
The only thing likely to make it easier is that they don't look like him. It might turn out to be his most valuable legacy.
What do you think? Add your comment below.
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