Louis Theroux says Michael Jackson was a pedophile who 'loved the children he abused' and tried normalizing it
British documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux has claimed that Michael Jackson "loved the children he abused" and had repeatedly tried to "normalize" his disturbing behaviors in interviews and talk shows. Theroux, who has won two BAFTAs and a Royal Television Society Television Award for his work, had made a documentary called 'Louis, Martin, & Michael' about his failed quest to score an interview with the 'King of Pop' in the early 2000s and said he was aware that Jackson was a pedophile even then. "I have believed Michael Jackson was a pedophile for quite a while – it didn’t take that documentary to persuade me of that," Theroux told the Sun. "But it was a very forensic and sort of granular examination of the grooming process, so I sent out a tweet that said, ‘If you don’t believe Michael Jackson is a pedophile you’re hiding yourself from the facts and colluding with abuse."
The documentary Theroux was referring to was fellow British filmmaker Dan Reed's 'Leaving Neverland,' which focused on two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who had alleged that they had been sexually abused as children by Jackson. The documentary recently won the award for Factual Series at the Virgin BAFTA TV Awards this past week, following which Theroux had tweeted his congratulations. "Massive respect to @danreed1000 for the BAFTA win and for his unflinching demonstration of techniques of child abuse used by Michael Jackson," he wrote.
Massive respect to @danreed1000 for the BAFTA win and for his unflinching demonstration of techniques of child abuse used by Michael Jackson. https://t.co/vRzIs5F6zW
— Louis Theroux (@louistheroux) August 2, 2020
Asked by the Sun what question he would have posed Jackson if he had successfully gotten an interview, Theroux answered, "The question I would have asked Michael Jackson at the time was along the lines of, 'What do you consider the true definition of love?' -- in the sense that, I genuinely think Michael Jackson loved the children he abused, which doesn’t make it any less horrible."
"It goes some way to explain why he was OK with it and why he was able to groom the victims and why the victims were susceptible to the abuse because they didn’t at the time see it as abuse -- they imagined themselves to be in a consenting relationship," he added.
Theroux went on to explain that he wasn't trying to justify Jackson's behavior and highlighted how the 'King of Pop' had tried to "normalize" his preferences repeatedly over the years. "Michael Jackson was telling us at the time what his tastes were," he said, referring to some of Jackson's interviews. "He didn’t miss an opportunity to normalise an inappropriate relationship with children – with his Diane Sawyer interview, in his Oprah Winfrey interview, Martin Bashir interview – he would always say it was about sharing the bed with children."
"I think in his mind he was telling himself it was romantic. What would I ask him now? ‘What part of you imagined it was OK to have sexual relations with a child?’ Sometimes you just have to bang it on the head."
This is not the first time that the documentary filmmaker has spoken out about Jackson, however. Last year, in an interview with Ladbible, he said the argument the singer was never convicted was not enough because Jimmy Saville had never been found guilty either but it was accepted he was a child sex offender.
"I believe that Michael Jackson was a paedophile," he insisted. "He was never found guilty in a court of law, so someone would come back to me and say, 'Well he's innocent until proven guilty' – to which I would say, 'Well, look, do some research and I think you'll find that the evidence is compelling.'"