Pop star Michael Jackson dead - TMZ website
Thu Jun 25, 2009 11:03pm BST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop giant Michael Jackson, who took to the stage as a child star and went on to set the world dancing to the thumping rhythms of his music for decades, died Thursday, TMZ website reported. He was 50.

"We've just learned Michael Jackson has died," TMZ said.

"Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon and paramedics were unable to revive him. We're told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back," the entertainment site said.

There was no official confirmation of the reported death and spokespersons for Jackson could not be reached for comment.



Earlier, the Los Angeles Times said that the singer had been rushed to a Los Angeles-area hospital by fire department paramedics who found him not breathing when they arrived at the singer's home.

The newspaper said paramedics performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the scene before taking him to the UCLA Medical Centre hospital.

Jackson had been due to start a series of comeback concerts in London on July 13 running until March 2010. The singer, whose hits include "Thriller" and "Billie Jean," had been rehearsing in the Los Angeles area for the past two months.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE55O6AS20090625
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http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Showbiz-N...ccording_To_TMZ
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http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/25/michael-jack...cardiac-arrest/
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http://www.tmz.com/
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8119951.stm
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jun/2...el-jackson-dies

He died

Pop icon Michael Jackson dies at 50

GOOD!

He was a total fruit cake!

Brilliant people often are.

The Jackson Five and Michael in particular had a huge influence on the development of "Black" pop music from the seventies on.
He may have had his weird sides, but as a musician and stageman, he was outstanding.

One thing is being weird, and another thing is being what we was accused for. That was never proved in the court of law, but the issue remains.

Field Negro - spot on as usual.


http://field-negro.blogspot.com/2009/06/end-of-icon.html

My son's Facebook status this morning mentioned that Michael was the first major icon whose death affected him. He's 22.

And I replied that it's almost a rite of passage everyone goes through at some stage...that unexpected death of someone who symbolized a generation...that provokes that "where were you when you found out" moment.

The Dutchie and I were just discussing this. For him, it was Brian Jones in 1969...He was 13 years old, in the hospital recuperating after one of many operations he underwent for a chronic ear problem. The nurse came and addressed the Italian guy in the other bed, "Did you hear Brian Jones died?"

And the Dutchie exclaimed, "Brian Jones???"

The nurse was surprised because she didn't expect this little kid to know him or care.

For me, even though I was 16 when he died, Elvis's didn't resonate the same way as John Lennon's death did three years later. I was our favourite nightspot with friends...and the band dedicated a song to "the late John Lennon."

WTF? All of us were totally stunned. I remember when we left at 1 pm, some guys were doing the usual "Party's at so-and-so address" thing...and my girlfriend screamed at them, "How can you party???? John Lennon's dead!!!!"

But, getting back to Michael...I still have (stored at my mum's) the original Betamax tape I recorded of (most of) Motown's 25th anniversary celebration in 1983. I had a wedding shower for a colleague I remember, so set the program on timer record and went out.

I was so p*ssed afterwards because I discovered that I had set the taping speed to LP instead of EP or whatever, so the tape ran out --- right after Michael did the moonwalk to Billie Jean for the very first time.

I remember my ex and I watching the tape together the first time -- and he sees the moonwalk and freaks out -- runs into my mum's kitchen and starts practising!!

The saddest thing about that tape...so many of the performers are gone now...including the host, Richard Pryor -- Mary Wells, Levi Stubbs, all the original temps except Otis, Marvin Gaye...and now Michael.

I have to get that tape onto a DVD...

He was a child genius who never really grew up, or perhaps he kept searching for a childhood he never had. Like Peter Pan, I think around puberty he saw how fucked up the world of adults was and decided not to join.

He wrote some beautiful songs before the age of 12 IMO. Like this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6bARIaMhCM

Why good?

I just read somewhere that apparently, la times/sky/tmz are all saying he's now coming to london as a zombie to perform thriller...

Nice one, eh? Doubt he wrote it though. He was part of the Motown Hit Machine then.

One of my big MJ memories are of school dances when I was around 12 or 13...We had three records that we always played for slow dances -- Crimson & Clover by Tommy James and the Shondells...To Sir With Love by Lulu...

...and this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSqo17o2a1w

I remembering thinking (because I was the geeky wallflower type with big googly Elton John glasses who didn't get asked to dance) how icky it was that people would want to dance to a song about a rat...

Well said TPC

Yep...sad that...

My 14 year old boy is sad, and I'm surprised. I didn't know he was even acquainted with his music, being a lover of Ludacris, T-Pain, Akon etc..

I'm sad too...

Fingers crossed, you'll suffer the same fate sooner rather than later. Today would be perfect.

What an inspiration he was, and will continue to be. I hope he's found that peace that he seemed always to be searching for.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSqo17o2a1w

You're right, it was Barry Gordy.

Those artists would tell you that Michael Jackson was their main inspiration...just like the Beatles inspired an entire generation, although you wouldn't be able to tell from the music it inspired.

So your kid knows...As does mine, even though his first memory of MJ was the Bad album...He used to watch the video as a two-year-old...dancing around the livingroom singing off-key "I'm bad I'm bad I know it!!!"

Watch this video of an eight year old pre-Motown Michael Jackson and tell me he wasn't a genius.

He was moon-walking even then!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux3joe0GdTA

I agree.
I think he had a fooked up childhood...

I quite like that one. I'm not sure how many songs he actually wrote or co-wrote, but that one he didn't. It was recorded in 1972 when he was nearly 14 and it was written by Don Black and Walter Scharf...

Amazing eh? I first saw that clip on the Motown 25th Anniversary Special.

Oops, my mistake... I got it mixed up with his other song 'Ben'. 'I'll Be There' was recorded in 1970 and released the day before his 12th birthday in August 1970 and it was written by Berry Gordy, Bob West, Hal Davis, Willie Hutch.

I will always miss and love MJ for the man he used to be because he was truely incredible .. in his time.

But .. he took that Pedophilia route and all those horrible surgeries .... strange parenting of children that could not possibly be his though he claimed they were ... and the lies and the list goes on and on.

I respect his music ... but all that other stuff caused me to lose respect for him as person ....completely.

These are things that far overshadow his genious. I really don't understand how people can sacrifice the welfare of a child (and there were many of them) just because they loved his music.

When I see thes people on TV crying .. all I can think is that they think MJ is okay even though he was a pedopile and a liar.

HOWEVER, to myself, I'm been saying for years now ... that he can't live much longer. I'm also sorry he passed ... but the second I heard he was dead I felt ... relief. Finally, it's over with that guy.

I will mourn MJ ( from his former times only) today.

Michael wrote a lot of his hit songs, but almost all were in his post J5 career. There will be a list on Wiki, no doubt.

**


Now is probably the time to re-post this. The singly strangest piece of paranoid wingnut idiocy I have ever seen.

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/20...el_jackson.html

Dangit I had always hoped he would turn himself into a china man this decade, I guess it wasn't meant to be

I totally agree with you. And it shame that his death occured at the same time as Farah Fawcett's death. I know it was never proven, but there are strong indicators (that he was paedopphil).

He was so talented, at age 5, Michael Jackson was already on the stage with his brothers... I've seen a photo of his debut concert, he was pretty young, but was full of confidence.

Yes, it was shame that has overshadowed Farrah's death ... though these things come in threes so .. someone else famous is due...

Anyway MJ was definitely a pedaphile - just because they could not prove their case does not mean he was not quilty.

LOTS of guilty people are walking the streets today.

There's a lot to this actually ..

Ed McMahon? Johnny Carson's sidekick.

Weirdly, all my son's friends have been affected by this...I didn't realize how much of an impact Star Search was on their childhoods!!

Ouloveit believe what you want. There is no evidence he ever harmed a child. NOR a conviction. What happened to innocent until.....?

The plastic surgery was because he suffered a tortured self-image. But that's over now. He's gone from this fucked up world. Sigh indeed....

Call me a bleeding heart, but in the end, I would just love to ask Papa Joe how well he sleeps at night...

In all honesty, I think MJ had been so ****ed up by his childhood - beaten and locked in a room for hitting a wrong note in a song - I doubt he ever had an erection in his life. There are people who go through their entire lives feeling not the least bit of sexual desire, they just aren't mentioned in our culture because frankly the vast majority of us can't begin to understand it. That he took unusual amounts of pleasure in children doesnt mean it was sexually motivated (maybe it was, maybe it wasn't). Sadly, it would probably have taken another whole lifetime for psychiatrists to have figured him out and returned him to 'society-normal'.

For those with religious beliefs, he's either receiving his reward for total innocence, or his punishment for extraordinary deviance, right now. For those of us without, it's just goodbye to an unique music/dance performer of his/our generation; not really the end of an era as such as his particular era had already ended, yet his legacy is his influence on so many future artists.

I take it you are a woman? a man can have an erection without even thinking of sex, IE morning wood.
MJ made some comments of a sexual nature to that Bashir guy in the van during that documentary.

It's not only his dad who abused him. His gak'd-up producer Quincy Jones allegedly kicked him into unconciousness during the recording of Billy Jean, because he was unhappy at how Michael was singing it.

Opps that's right ... well then ... that makes 3!

We like to crucify people we don't understand in this world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Jackson

That interview was creepy all right ...

I think it's funny that people thought he was set up after watching that long interiew with all that cr** that came out of his mouth ... talking about sharing his bed with boys etc. There he was trying to normalize his behavior with ... little boys. Please... Textbook.

I wouldn't let MJ watch my kids on TV. Hee hee!

He's not so hard to figure out. Regular men go to straight or gay bars if they want to pick up someone for sex. But where to Pedaphiles go to pick up? Pedaphiles have to find clever ways of getting children into their lives and their beds.

His appearance? BDD .. Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

Now, why he ended up with the two above ailments is a mystery... but it doesn't matter.

Again, just because a person is not convicted .. that doesn't mean he's innocent.

I don't think any normal parent would trust MJ with their kids, would they?

Emphasis on "normal"...

Fascinating stuff... incredible, amazing how young people of that age seem to excel at something seemingly knowing what to do with their lives.

Sadly if the result of not excelling is what we (these days) call child abuse, it's kind of an incentive to do well.

Why is it a shame that his death occurred at the same time as Farrah Fawcett's?

I don't believe he was a paedophile, I think he loved children far too much to harm or hurt them in anyway. I do think however, that he was not only very naive to be sharing so much company with young children who weren't his own, but extremely naive to be having them not only in his home, but in his, according to himself, his own bed just because that's what they wanted. Unfortunately, one child and his father, Evan Chandler who had previously fallen out with Michael, saw a way to make a lot of money out of it and who was alleged to have said, "If I go through with this, I win big-time. There's no way I lose. I will get everything I want and they will be destroyed forever...Michael's career will be over".
I think Michael's only failure was probably trusting people too much... I find it hard to believe how he could have earned so much money, yet end up in so much debt.

For me personally, I thought he was fantastic up to and including his 'Thriller' album ((and perhaps a few records later) just hearing those oldies today made me want to get up and dance. They really don't make music like they used to do they. ) but after that I kind of lost interest in him and his music. For me, he wasn't Michael Jackson anymore but someone else, literally turning into a parody of himself. In fact, he started looking much more like what we think an alien would look like (much like his sister was doing, very strange indeed)... such a shame.

No, a normal parent would not allow their kid to sleep over with a grown man like that no matter how famous he was. But a lot of those parents were vunerable, 'compromised' people with non-intact family situations anyway. Perfect hunting gound for a pedaphiles...

They are so impressed by the fame and money that I'm sure they were fine with MJ taking their kids ... as long as he wanted.

Then when abuse happens .. they get a big pay off.

Not good parenting ....

As far as being 'naive' I don't believe it - like I said pedafiles to contrive to find victims.

His money being lost? Geesh there are LOTS of bankrupted singers/actotrs that made zillions and lost it all. This is not so unsual. They weren't accused of being pedaphiles... but they did have bad business managers.

Yeah, perhaps I should have added, that many more of us would excel at the hands of a belt. Michael claimed that he was abused by his own father so, oh I dunno... if only parents wouldn't make such a mess of bringing up their children, we'd all live in a better world.

And just because they couldn't doesn't mean he was...

****************
For me personally, I thought he was fantastic up to and including his 'Thriller' album ((and perhaps a few records later) just hearing those oldies today made me want to get up and dance. They really don't make music like they used to do they. ) but after that I kind of lost interest in him and his music. For me, he wasn't Michael Jackson anymore but someone else, literally turning into a parody of himself. In fact, he started looking much more like what we think an alien would look like (much like his sister was doing, very strange indeed)... such a shame.
****************

I totally agree.

He was great ... in his day .. he just stayed too long at the fair... sadly.

Exactly... the greed for money was the root of the cause. I wonder how Jordan Chandler and his father feel now.

Where is Jordan Chandler now?

The 1993 settlement mythos

Time flies when you’re living off of Michael Jackson’s money

Jordan Chandler

He was a pedaphile.

I have a Masters in Clinical and Developmental Psychology (in an earlier) life. MJ had all the markers.

I'm just glad he's not hurting anyone anymore.