In the summer of 1993, Michael Jackson was accused of child sexual abuse by a 13-year-old boy. No criminal charges were ever filed, and the case was settled out of court the following year, BUT THE MEDIA COVERAGE WAS BRUTAL. Tabloids ran with every headline they could find. Jackson canceled the rest of his world tour, his health suffered, and his name became a punchline.
What did he actually do that year? Here’s a partial list.
HE DONATED $1.25 MILLION TO CHILDREN AFFECTED BY THE LOS ANGELES RIOTS. He hosted 100 kids from the Challengers Boys and Girls Club at Neverland. He spent hours at a children’s hospital in Washington, D.C., playing chess with patients.
The World Painted Him As A Monster, He Proved He Wasn’t!
He sent a personal letter and a check to Mallory Cyr, an 8-year-old in Maine battling a rare intestinal disease that left her unable to eat normally.
In Bangkok, he gave $40,000 to fund rural school lunch programs. In Tel Aviv, he visited a children’s hospital and handed out toys himself. He donated new ambulances to children’s hospitals in Moscow and Buenos Aires. While in Japan, he visited a terminally ill Dutch teenager through the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
He gave $100,000 split across several children’s charities, including the Children’s Defense Fund.
He Wanted To Heal The World
In Rio and Buenos Aires, he gave away thousands of concert tickets to sick and disadvantaged kids. He arranged for 5,000 underprivileged children to visit Keiko, the real whale from Free Willy.
Working with Mikhail Gorbachev’s foundation, he airlifted 60,000 children’s vaccines into the Republic of Georgia. Through his Heal the World Foundation, he sent 30,000 gifts to children in war-torn former Yugoslavia.
THE BOTTOM LINE
This wasn’t a publicity push. Most of these visits weren’t filmed for the cameras, and several only came to light years later through foundation records and local news reports.
While the world spent 1993 deciding who Michael Jackson really was, he spent it quietly showing up for kids who had nothing to do with the headlines.