DANGEROUS LIAISONS

"He had me suck on one of his nipples and twist the other one while he masturbated." - Jordan Chandler, 13.

"Michael is cool. We can do anything we want. He's just the best." - Brett Barnes, 11.

"Michael is a very innocent person." - Lisbeth Barnes, Brett's mother.

"His career as a spokesman is over. These type of allegations are especially damaging. No one remembers the retractions. All they remember are the allegations." - Charles H. Stern, Hollywood talent agent.

"He never was a fucking spokesman." - Sam Snort Jnr III.

THE INCREASINGLY bizarre story of the boy who grew up in public but who also never grew up in public, has entered a new and much more real phase. I mean, we all knew he was strange, ever since Thriller, but hell, that's what we liked about him.

We enjoyed his wackiness. We lapped up the tales of his surreal lifestyle like biddies at a coffee morning. Some of us (actually, most of us) even enjoyed his music. The important thing was that we universally accepted him as being what he was - weird.

Sure, the zoo and the oxygen chamber and the private funfair and the plastic surgery etc. were all symbols of gross self-indulgence in an era of world poverty and endemic recession but no one ever seemed to hold that against him. Gone in the head he was, but at least his crazy antics weren't doing any harm to anyone. After all, when you're off in a world of your own - his house is called Neverland - you can't really be expected to have a social conscience or be responsible for your actions, can you?

Video games

Now that the buzzwords have changed from "Disneyworld" and "Bubbles" to "masturbation" (hey, we all do it but it's not on in Neverland) and "paedophilia", the music world's most strange and contradictory character is rapidly finding out that you can indeed be held responsible. Even if maybe you didn't do it.

At the time of writing, Michael Jackson is in Singapore where he has touring commitments. It's been a rough two weeks for him. He's been really badly hurt by the things his former friend Jordan Chandler has said about him. When he first heard the allegations, he was so shook that he had to cancel two of his shows (Pepsi weren't very happy with his excuse - dehydration) but now he's feeling well enough to go back on stage, mainly thanks to the ministrations of his sister Janet and his friend Elizabeth Taylor, both of whom flew out to see him as soon as they heard.

They weren't alone in responding sympathetically. In fact, after the initial predictable tabloid onslaught, what's most striking is the extent to which both the public and the wider media have seen the story from Michael Jackson's point of view.

Every time the phone rings, we're told, it's to let him know that his fans are behind him all the way. The letters help too. (Not that he reads them himself, there's people employed to do that) - thousands of them, wishing him well. One little girl even wrote that she wished Jordan would die: she thinks that he deserves to after making up those terrible lies.

Michael doesn't wish Jordan was dead (although when he first heard, he wasn't so sure about himself) but he can't help thinking that it would have been better if they'd never met that day, four months ago, in Jordan's stepfather's Rent-A-Wreck office.

He still can't understand why Jordan went and told everybody these things. He was supposed to be a friend, they used to play video games together and watch movies, stuff like that. I mean, he even came to Vegas. And Monaco. And Florida. Jordan and his mom, June Schwarz. Hmmm . . Some friend he turned out to be, huh?

Still, when you're Michael Jackson, friends are pretty easy to find (70,000 of them sang "Happy Birthday" to him the other night in Bangkok - he was 35). Yeah, he's got plenty of friends. And plenty of lawyers too. A whole team of them, the best that what used to be Sony and Pepsi's money can buy. Not that Michael has to deal with teams of lawyers, he just has to deal with one - a certain Mr. Howard Weitzman.

Sexual Abuse

Howard is on the phone to him every day and he reckons that everything's gonna be all right. He doesn't want Michael to come home just yet - but things, he feels, are looking good. There's no evidence against Michael Jackson so far, only Jordan's word. Howard figures that the fact that Michael refused Jordan's dad that money he was looking for, to set up a $20 million production company could be used in his defence. A failed attempt at extortion may have been the motivation for the accusations. Certainly superstars can be targeted in this way, and Michael Jackson's sheer child-likeness makes him particularly vulnerable.

And even if it does go to court, even if a jury decide to believe the kid, even if rock solid evidence against Michael is found, well . . . how should I put this . . . well, the kid wasn't sodomised and a psychiatric report on Michael would show that he wasn't evil, he didn't mean any harm, that his own father abused him as a child, that, hell, it's Michael Jackson we're talking about here.

Don't worry about a thing Michael, it's all going to be alright. Howard tells him this. And Janet tells him this. It's all going to be OK.

And indeed on one level at least - for Michael Jackson, everything is going to be alright. He sure as hell is never going to be strapped for cash in the way that other rockers who were hit with under-age sex raps, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis, turned out to be in the long run. He still has Neverland and his fantastic playthings. He still has the rights to all the Beatles songs (estimated at being worth $40 million) which he outbid his "friend" Paul McCartney for. He still has a massive personal fortune, enough "Fuck You" money to not really have to worry about anything except death (and he's got people working on that one).

The question of whether or not he did actually indulge in pubescent sex games with Jordan Chandler is an open one. The chances are that no-one will ever really know for sure. Certainly he has been guilty - if that's the right word - of fierce indiscretions, as a 35-year-old man, in sharing his bed with early teenage boys. But, even if there was something sexual involved, the image that many observers are left with is of two boys jerking off together, an innocent indulgence surely alongside the real evil that is child sexual abuse.

Either way, Michael Jackson can go on making music if he wants to. I mean, Woody Allen and Roman Polanski are still plying their trade despite similar accusations (and they were both guilty). On that level too, it's almost certain that Jackson doesn't have to worry about a thing.

Dismal Affair

The same cannot be said for Michael Jackson Inc., however. The good ship Michael Jackson has been holed and the massive corporations with which he is linked (Sony, Pepsi-Cola and the Disney group to name just three) don't know whether to sink or swim. Even if Jackson's name is cleared of the child molestation allegations, he has still admitted to sleeping with young boys. Worse again, young white boys.

When young Brett Barnes attempted to exonerate his friend by admitting to sharing a bed (with no sexual overtones) with him, he may have done the Jackson cause more harm than good. Whatever way you look at it, Michael Jackson's advertising appeal has been devastated, possibly terminally so. Meanwhile, his record company Sony may feel that they cannot afford to be associated, on an ongoing basis with another scandal (they're linked to the Hollywood madam trial and Woody Allen is on their books also).

No matter what happens, it is highly unlikely that anyone is going to be rushing to renew their contracts with the singer when this whole dismal affair has died down. But the basis on which his recording career proceeds may prove to be much more interesting. If Sony were to pull out of their deal with him, it's doubtful that any of the other majors would prove so scrupulous.

In the end, almost certainly, money will talk. So what's new?