Michael Jackson was interviewed by Jesse Jackson yesterday, Easter morning, on his syndicated radio show "Keep Hope Alive with the Rev. Jesse Jackson."
The reverend and the pop star have known each other for 36 years since the Jackson Five performed at Operation Push's first Black Expo Chicago in 1969. Setting the tone, before MJ came on the air Rev. Jackson referred to him as a "genius" and "an icon for our ages" who "has taken this phenomenal journey from ground zero to outer space."
Indeed. The Reverend has also been providing frequent spiritual counseling via phone to Jackson during his trial, so he is perhaps not exactly neutral.
Some interview highlights:
"I know in my heart, and in my experiences in life, I am totally innocent. It's very painful, but this has kind of been a pattern among black luminaries in this country. Mandela's story has given me a lot of strength, what he has gone through."
Jacko also compared himself to Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight boxing champion some believe was persecuted for marrying white women; boxing great Muhammad Ali, a conscientious objector convicted of draft evasion during the Vietnam War; and Rev. Jackson.
"It's like a feeding frenzy, just because of my celebrity. The bigger the celebrity, the bigger the target."
Dude is not humble and isn't exactly ebony anymore either.
Jackson denied rumors of financial distress. "That's not true at all. It's just one of their many schemes to embarrass me. It's to drag me through the mud." He implied a battle is under way over the music catalog he owns 50% of, which contains the rights to songs by the Beatles, Little Richard, Elvis Presley and others. ""It's a huge catalog, it's very valuable and it's worth a huge amount of money, and there is a big fight going on right now as we speak about that. There's a lot of conspiracy going on as we speak."
Re his injury that required a hospital visit and caused him to be late to court, "I was coming out of the shower and I fell and all my body weight — I'm pretty fragile — all my body weight fell against my rib cage. And I bruised my lung very badly. I'm in immense pain. I'm in agonizing pain." He said the injury has caused him "swelling on my whole rib cage," to cough up blood and was so painful that it brought him to tears in court.
Article comments
1 - RJ
"I'm a warrior"
In jammies?
(Well, to be fair, the Scots used to go to war wearing skirts, and they were pretty tough...)
2 - HW Saxton
And come to think of it,all those tough
guy Greco/Roman warrior types used to
wrestle naked.
3 - Eric Olsen
he's a gentle warrior
4 - Braden
People...Michael Jackson was definately innocent.
I, like alot of people believed the allegations before reading the book 'Michael Jackson Conspiracy'. In it, author and crimewriter A. Jones tells all about what really happened during the trial, not what the media lead people to believe.
Regardless of all the crap that has happened to him he still remains a legend.