For years, Michael Jackson was the target of jokes, tabloid headlines, and endless criticism. Then he died. And almost overnight, the conversation changed.
Millennials remember a specific version of him. The one late-night hosts mocked without hesitation. The one the press called a freak every time he showed up somewhere. The baby dangling from the balcony. The surgery jokes. The trial.
Through the late 90s and into the 2000s, a huge part of the media had stopped treating him like the greatest entertainer alive and started treating him like a punchline.
COMEDIANS BUILT WHOLE SETS AROUND HIM. TABLOIDS PUT HIM ON COVERS EVERY WEEK — AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY.
Then June 25, 2009 arrived, tragedy hit. Michael Jackson passed away.
News Anchors Talked About Him Like They Had Always Been Fans.
Within hours, the same media outlets that spent years tearing him down were running tributes. The same culture that made him a joke was suddenly calling him a genius. Thriller was back on every playlist.
People noticed. It wasn’t subtle. And it was jarring to watch if you’d lived through the tabloid era.
When someone dies, the controversy loses its heat. What’s left is the work. AND MICHAEL JACKSON’S WORK IS HARD TO ARGUE WITH.
Thriller. Off the Wall. Bad. The moonwalk. The voice. You can dismiss a living person. A catalog like that is harder to walk away from.
Michael’s First Moonwalk Set The Stage On Fire
But media economics played a role, too. Scandal sold when he was alive. Once he was gone, legacy sold — and his legacy was worth billions.
Gen Z came into all of this without the baggage. They never watched the trial coverage. They never saw the late-night jokes. They grew up with his music on streaming, his performances going viral, clips of him doing things no one else could do.
TWO GENERATIONS. TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MICHAEL JACKSONS.
The one the media spent years building up to tear down. And the one the music never let anyone forget.