Jackson ‘press Abuse Was Racism’

MICHAEL JACKSON believed he was bullied by the media because of the colour of his skin.

The singer enjoyed a mixed relationship with the press before his death in June (09) and he felt he was unfairly treated when he was first accused of child molestation in 1993, and again when he was tried and acquitted in 2005.

During taped interviews with his friend Rabbi Shmuley Boteach between 1999 and 2001, Jackson claimed he was picked on because he was the first black star to win over a white audience.

Jackson said, “You had (Harry) Belafonte, you had Sammy (Davis Jr.), you had Nat King Cole. People loved their music, but they didn’t get adulation, they didn’t get crying. I was the first one to break the ice, break the mould, where white girls, Scottish girls, Irish girls are screaming, ‘I’m in love with you, I want to…’ And that gave a lot of the white press, they didn’t like that, and that’s why they started the stories. ‘He’s weird, he’s gay, he sleeps in a hyperbaric chamber, he wants to buy the Elephant Man bones.’

“Anything that turned people against me. They tried their hardest.”