There’s a new tidbit in the Michael Jackson saga: according to a report legendary producer Quincy Jones warned Jackson about his sleepovers with young boys, to no avail:
SANTA MARIA, Calif. – Star producer Quincy Jones, the mastermind who helped Michael Jackson craft such hit albums as “Off the Wall” and “Thriller,” found the pop star’s sleepovers with young boys “wrong” and tried to intervene, a TV program reported Thursday.
This latest insight into the turmoil surrounding the controversial visits by teenagers to Jackson’s Neverland Ranch came less than a day after Jackson was released from a local hospital after being treated for flu symptoms.
Sources with ties to the two men told the syndicated TV show “Celebrity Justice” that Jones said he was “deeply concerned” about the sleepovers. One source said Jones called them “inappropriate ” and “wrong,” and worried they would be Jackson’s “downfall.”
But after several attempts, the sources told the show, Jones found that his longtime friend “didn’t want to hear about it” and “didn’t take it seriously.” Jones has been listed as a potential witness by Jackson’s defense team.
So if this is true you have to ask yourself, why?
Is it because Jackson truly is someone mentally stuck at a very young age and can’t comprehend how it looks? (We don’t believe that). Or that power/money/prestige meant he just didn’t think it was that big a deal and there would be no consquences if he just gave an explanation and left the rest to his p.r. people and/or lawyers? Do you have any other possible explanations for it? Because if this report is true, he was warned by a top pro and one of his most loyal friends…but it did no good.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.