Diana Ross follows Barbra Streisand's lead, defends Michael Jackson and calls him 'a magnificent, incredible force'
Days after Barbra Streisand made her controversial remarks about Michael Jackson’s victims, fellow-diva Diana Ross took to Twitter to express similarly disturbing sentiments. Ross tweeted on Saturday that she believes her late friend to be a “magnificent incredible force” and that the accusations against him must “STOP IN THE NAME OF LOVE,” referencing her own song 'Stop! In the Name of Love.'
The tweet has been heavily liked and retweeted, but many of her followers and fans expressed their disappointment over the stance. “I’ve always loved & respected you. You realize a person can simultaneously B 2 things at once? He can have been the person you knew & loved & a dangerous, abusing, pedophile too? They hide in plain sight. Fact: people of your generation protect abusers = why we are where we are😢,” author Emily Filmore wrote in response to the 74-year-old icon’s tweet.
"EXCEPT he was a pedophile and his so-called generosity was called, 'grooming,'" read another response. Another Twitter user offended by Ross's comments said, "No Diana, just no. Just because you knew and liked someone doesn’t mean they’re innocent. You saw him with those boys and never thought it was strange for an adult to not have friends his age? One of the boys was 7 when the grooming and abuse started! What’s wrong with you?"
Ross has not engaged in conversations with any of the critics but, following the backlash, she did post a video of Stevie Wonder's 'Love's In Need of Love Today' along with the caption "Here the dream."
Streisand, who was recently speaking to The Times while promoting her July concert in Hyde Park, United Kingdom, opined that, while she believed the accusers of the 'Thriller' singer were "thrilled" to be there at the time. “His sexual needs were his sexual needs, coming from whatever childhood he has or whatever DNA he has,” she further added.
In the HBO documentary ‘Leaving Neverland’, Wade Robson and James Safechuck accused the King of Pop of sexually abusing them multiple times over the course of many years as children. She went on to argue that whatever Jackson allegedly put them through clearly "did not kill them," and that, even though she met Jackson a couple of time, her memory of him is that he was “very sweet, very childlike.”