Los Angeles: As the 10th death anniversary of Michael Jackson approaches, Billboard's consumer editorial director Ian Drew said that the King of Pop's music will always endure but it won't be played as much because of allegations of sexual abuse that continue to swirl even now.
Speaking from his Los Angeles office on Friday, Ian Drew said "there are certain people who will be offended or who will kind of be creeped out by it" no matter what.
Drew, Billboard's consumer editorial director, said Jackson's music stopped being as popular in the early 1990s when the allegations surfaced, though his streaming numbers went up with the release of HBO's 'Finding Neverland,' this year's bombshell documentary about two men who say Jackson abused them as boys.
And, he said, Jackson's estate has been smart about keeping Jackson's music relevant.
"Remember that he was in the red, he was broke beyond broke when he died, and now he's very much a billion dollar industry," Drew said. "And while recently (the music) was a little more tarnished, still there's something about those songs that stay with us and stick with us."
When it came to the allegations in the documentary, Jackson's family was in a tough spot with denying them while not victim-blaming, Drew said.
"I don't think they could have won either way," he said. "You run into a very risky field because even though they all say they knew him ... at the end of the day, and this is something Oprah said that I agreed with when I heard it, is you don't know what's going on in that room other than the people in that room, and those guys were the only other ones in the room with Michael.
"So no one can say 100 percent that he did or didn't do these things," Drew said. "And then you run into victim-blaming and that's a very risky proposition. So it's all a risk and there really is no good way ... to handle it."
Jackson died on June 25, 2009 after falling ill at home, bringing a tragic end to a long, bizarre, sometimes farcical decline from his peak in the 1980s, when he was popular music's premier all-around performer, a uniter of black and white music who shattered the race barrier on MTV, dominated the charts and dazzled even more on stage.
The men in 'Finding Neverland' first came forward with their stories years earlier in lawsuits. Both of them had previously denied the singer sexually abused them, but said having their own children and Jackson's death forced them to face the truth. Their lawsuits were dismissed for technical reasons.
Jackson, who was cleared in 2005 of charges that he molested another boy, acknowledged that he befriended numerous children, including some he invited into his bed, but denied molesting any.
With inputs from APTN.
