NAME: Michael Jackson

AGE: 45

NATIONALITY: American

CLAIM TO FAME: The king of pop who’s prone to trouble

HE is a 45-year-old kid living a life of fantasy in a dreamland called Neverland. The only problem is that he likes to share his world with pre-teens and teen boys who later accuse him of molestation. Michael Jackson is in trouble again.

Jackson recently surrendered to police in Santa Barbara, California, to face accusations of child molestation reportedly made by a 12-year-old cancer survivor. He was later released on a $3 million bail. Jackson, whose sumptuous ranch near Santa Barbara is called Neverland, has dismissed the allegations of molestation, as a “big lie” and claims that he is simply the target of multimillion-dollar extortion plot. But suspicion and circumstantial evidence has been collecting for more than a decade now. It was only a decade back that Jackson settled similar accusations for a reported sum of between $25 and $40 million. Subsequently Jackson — twice married, twice divorced — has been branded a serial paedophile, a practitioner of what psychiatric experts call “infantile sexuality”.

The 12-year-old cancer patient at the heart of the recent child molestation accusations is only the latest in a long string of vulnerable youngsters who — along with their unsuspecting, uncaring or greedy parents — may have been abused by the rather reclusive pop star. Michael Jackson, who didn’t enjoy his childhood because of the pressures of being a child artiste and having to earn for his family, may be trying to recapture his lost childhood through his friendship with young boys and having them at his estate for sleepovers. This is how Jackson and his sympathizers explain his behaviour. The self-proclaimed ‘King of Pop’ was a child star with the Jackson Five during the 1960s and made one of the best-selling albums of all time, 1982’s Thriller.

Jackson’s defence attorney Mark Geragos told a press conference recently that the beleaguered King of Pop would no longer allow himself to be “abused” by money-grubbers, promising fiery legal counter-attacks against anyone who see Jackson as “a lottery ticket”.

But this lawsuit doesn’t seem to be the only trouble besieging the pop star. It is reported that Michael Jackson has been borrowing from his own assets to keep a massive personal debt at bay. Drawing from various sources, the media recently reported that Jackson’s troubled finances hinge on a personal debt of around $200 million that comes due in several years. Facing flagging record sales, hundreds of lawsuits and now the prospect of a court case on child molestation charges that could cost him millions of dollars, Jackson has been dipping into his huge assets to satisfy creditors. His advisers recently recommended he limit to one million dollars a month, which is pretty hard for a man who is used to a fabulously expensive lifestyle.

Then there is the plastic surgery, that has given him a ghoulish appearance. Jackson has been married twice — first to Lisa Marie Presley and then to Debbie Rowe, his dermatologist’s assistant, with whom he has two children, Prince Michael I and Paris. Jackson has a third child, Prince Michael II born to surrogate mom.