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There's been endless controversy over the late 90s and early-ish 2000s about Michael Jackson and sex allegations with children. This whole article is about it.

This is the original article from BBC in 1993 when the allegations first hit the news:

1993: Michael Jackson accused of child abuse

I have always wondered this since it was so bloated on the news and media for such a long time, and then everything regarding this case just vanished without much explanation, and everything carried on.

Did he ever sexually abuse children? Do any reports/sources/evidence prove it was true/false?

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    As you know, he was found not guilty in his trial. It is difficult to see how Skeptics.SE will give a fairer trial than a US Court. What sort of evidence would you expect to see that would convince you that he was innocent? What sort of evidence would you expect to see that would convince you he was guilty, given a jury in a court, with more time and resources than we have, found him innocent? [I am not saying juries are infallible. I am saying second-guessing them seems futile.]
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Dec 18, 2013 at 2:04
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    @Flimzy, this needs a meta question. Courts have different standards of evidence, including allowing the accused the chance to respond, and defaulting to not guilty in the absense of evidence - two rules are probably appropriate for defamatory claims liek this one.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Dec 18, 2013 at 11:19
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    @Oddthinking If the trial evidence and conclusion is the best info out there, that should be an answer.
    – user5582
    Dec 18, 2013 at 18:40
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    Meta: Are allegations of infamous crimes off-topic?
    – Paul
    Dec 19, 2013 at 7:34
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    @Oddthinking I agree that yours should be an answer to this questions. Trials are, by definition, the closest thing we have as to a description of reality. We certainly can't do any better here, besides flagrant and well documented cases of injustice.
    – Sklivvz
    Dec 19, 2013 at 8:16

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To sum it up: We don't know.

The issue of child molesting is not the same as, say, a bank robbery. It is usually a hidden crime where no others are involved. The evidence comes down to the victims' ability and mental surplus to carry out a court case and ends often in a word fight.

It is connected with not only personal shame but also public shame for victims to stand out, so they refrain and suffer.

Because MJ won in 2005 it doesn't say much. On the other hand, he settled in the first case in 1994 for $23 million. That doesn't prove that MJ was doing something wrong, but could be a way of getting peace.

What Macauley Culkin says doesn't really matter either, and MJ being a nice person in public or even towards his own friends and family is also not a trustworthy indicator - criminals rarely carry a badge. The TV shows on HBO aren't proof either.

There could be a multitude of other MJ victims that we don't know of - or there could be none. We'll never really know until someone comes forward with hard evidence.

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    Welcome Dirch, this at present doesn't fit our evidentiary standards and might have been better posted as a comment. Please take our tour and read-up in the help center for guidance as to our ways. If it had been on-topic to post an answer without supporting evidence, to be "balanced" it would need to point out the pro incentives of publicity and cash and public acclaim for the accusers (and cash-hungry parents), then there's the bandwagon effect.
    – Jiminy Cricket.
    Mar 9, 2022 at 16:53

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