Aphrodite Jones defends Michael Jackson
Aphrodite Jones defends Michael Jackson and blames King of Pop foes for his death
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Aphrodite Jones' "investigative report" on the late Michael Jackson turns out to be the admiring, near-reverential portrait Jackson once hoped to get from Martin Bashir.
Bashir is the British journalist Jackson let into his life after the pop star was buffeted by child-abuse allegations in the 1990s.
The tacit understanding was that Bashir would use his unprecedented access to show the world Michael was a kind person who loved children and would never harm them.
Instead, Bashir famously decided during the filming that there really was something troubling about Jackson's relationship with kids, and his 2003 TV documentary fed the tabloid fire, rather than quenching it.
Jones, who covered Jackson's 2005 child-molestation trial for Fox News, says Thursday that she was also among those who believed Jackson was guilty.
Not anymore.
Jones uses this hour to rip Bashir and everyone else who ever insinuated that Jackson's interest in children was anything other than loving and healthy.
Nor does she stop with simply defending Jackson's reputation. She charges that Bashir, the prosecution and the media in general might as well have put a gun to Jackson's head because she plants his death in June 2009 squarely at their feet.
Specifically, she and several of her interview subjects say, the cloud from these allegations was the main reason Jackson had trouble sleeping, which is what started him on the cycle of pills that eventually killed him.
While Thursday's show isn't entirely linear, it generally starts in the early '90s, when Jackson faced his first charges of child abuse.
He eventually paid a settlement to the family of that accuser, explaining that he just wanted to avoid an O.J. Simpson-style trial. Jones strongly suggests that cash was all his accuser's family wanted from him anyway.
The Jackson family didn't participate in Thursday's show and, as it turns out, didn't have to, since Michael and his memory get unconditional love and an aggressive defense from people like his manager, Frank DiLeo, and his lawyer, Tom Mesereau.
Mesereau even takes the hit for the infamous morning when Jackson came to court wearing pajama bottoms. Mesereau explains that Jackson was sick that day, but that the judge was so angry, Mesereau advised his client to get to court anyhow - and with only 45 minutes to do so, he had no time to change.
Why someone in Jackson's position couldn't arrange to rendezvous with a pair of pants may seem a mild puzzle. No petty detail like that, however, derails or slows Jones, whose show may have started as an investigation but ends up as a love letter.
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