Jackson letter warned nephews of child abuse dangers
Michael Jackson asked his sister-in-law to warn his nephews of the dangers of child abuse, according to a note found in a collection of the famous family’s memorabilia.
The letter was discovered in a huge hoard of Jackson mementoes, recently acquired by a United States businessman.
It comes as 45-year-old Jackson defends himself against allegations that he abused a teenage cancer patient.
Jackson sent the undated letter to his sister-in-law Dee-Dee, Tito’s wife, who died in 1994.
It said: “Please read this article about child molestation to T.J. and Tarryle (his nephews).
“It brings out how even your own relatives can be molesters of children or even uncles or aunts molesting nephews and nieces. Please read. Love MJ.”
The note came to light as former CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff told the US Network ABC that Jackson was a “vulnerable” child.
Yetnikoff, who worked with Jackson for 15 years, said: “He (Jackson) once said to me, ’I’ve done all this stuff and my father has never said, ’Michael, I’m proud of you.’
“So I said, ’Here, Michael, we’re all proud of you. Give me a hug.’ It was what he seemed to need at the time.”
Yetnikoff told how Jackson confided in him.
“He says, ’It’s hard for people like you to understand people like me. I didn’t have a normal childhood. I only feel alive when I’m recording or I’m on the stage’.”
He said Jackson was “a strange guy, a little baby”.
“He could dance on stage, he could tall you about his music, but he could not talk to you,” he said.
“Kids, he was more comfortable with.
“I saw him with young people, some of them well known. He would disappear with one of these kids.
“Was it because they were playing pyjama party, watching cartoons, being more comfortable? I really don’t know. It looked like that. It did not look illicit,” he said.
Jackson is reportedly trying to recover the thousands of family possessions acquired by construction company owner Henry Vaccaro.
Mr Vaccaro has said he recently sold the items to a collector in Europe and they are due to be shipped across the Atlantic soon.
Among the massive collection, he said, are stage costumes, personal letters, a contract for plastic surgery and even sketches of noses.
One of Jackson’s earliest stage costumes with his name handwritten on the inside label is in the collection.
Mr Vaccaro also has a photo of a young Jackson wearing the same costume.
There are gold and platinum records as well as personal items such as sketches, notes and a medical contract for surgery supposedly performed on Janet Jackson’s nose.
One of the sketches is by Jackson himself and entitled “Little Boy 1994“. Another is a sketch of Charlie Chaplin.
Mr Vaccaro, 63, from New Jersey, acquired the collection after nine years of legal wrangling with the Jackson family.
He said a company formed by the Jacksons had agreed to buy his Kramer Guitar Company in 1992, but then defaulted on $1.3m (€1.2m) in payments the next year.
Mr Vaccaro ultimately acquired the collection after paying off a storage and shipping bill owed by the Jackson family to a warehouse in California, he said.
Thriller star Jackson was charged in December with seven counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 and two counts of giving the child an intoxicating agent, reportedly wine.
Jackson has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and called them a “big lie“.
On Wednesday, it was reported that the district attorney who charged Jackson is convening a grand jury to hear evidence in the case.
The move is apparently designed to sidestep a public preliminary hearing.
Citing unnamed legal sources, the Santa Barbara News-Press said potential grand jurors have received summonses to appear later this month.
