Entertainment News3 min(s) read
Published 14:56 17 May 2026 GMT
A longtime friend of Michael Jackson has claimed the late pop star privately admitted he was molested as a child, alleging the singer viewed the abuse as something “normal and natural” because of how he had been conditioned growing up.
Geoffrey Mark, an Emmy-winning producer and author, said Jackson opened up to him during conversations at gatherings hosted by their mutual friend, dermatologist Dr. Arnold Klein, in Los Angeles during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Mark claimed to the New York Post that Jackson revealed he had been “inappropriately touched by an adult” while working as a child performer.
“Michael told me he experienced abuse as a kid,” Mark claimed. “He didn’t use those terms, because he didn’t think of it as abuse or sex. It was 'playtime.'”
Mark alleged Jackson had effectively “normalized” the behavior because it was something he experienced repeatedly during childhood.
“It’s not like Michael said, ‘Oh, I was abused.’ That would never have crossed his mind,” Mark explained. “Because he had been conditioned that this was normal and natural.”
The producer said the topic surfaced after he shared his own experiences with childhood abuse during a dinner conversation about family and fathers.
“I shared that I really couldn’t chime in because my father had both sexually molested and physically tortured me,” Mark recalled. “And Michael found that revelation to be strange.
“He almost sort of cocked his head like a dog, like he was not understanding,” Mark added. “It was something he thought was normal and natural, and did not understand why, when it happened to me, I was upset about it.”
Mark said Jackson never identified the alleged abuser or went into graphic detail, but he believes the singer carried “a heavy emotional load” throughout his adult life. He also suggested Jackson may have struggled to understand healthy boundaries later in life because of his childhood experiences.
Mark emphasized that he does not believe Jackson was “evil” or intentionally predatory.
“If I thought that Michael was evil or a predator, if I thought there was evil intent on his part, I probably wouldn’t be talking about it,” he said.
“Michael, to the best of my knowledge, thought that he was entertaining children the way he was entertained.”
The singer faced multiple allegations of child sexual abuse throughout his life. He settled one case brought by Jordie Chandler in the 1990s and was later acquitted in a 2005 criminal trial involving Gavin Arvizo.
After Jackson’s death in 2009, additional former child companions, including Wade Robson and James Safechuck, publicly accused him of grooming and abuse.
Mark said he cannot say whether the allegations were based in any fact, stating: “I can only react to what I saw and heard. I was not in the room when Michael was with the children."
He also believes Jackson turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with unresolved trauma.
“It is not unusual that an awful lot of alcoholics and addicts have had some kind of childhood, sexual or physical trauma,” Mark said. “It’s the underlying pain that causes one to reach out for medications to begin with – to dull the pain.”
According to Mark, Jackson often struggled with his identity away from fame and success.
“Everything was about the career and the money – because that’s what his father wanted,” he said. “Michael was unsure who he was and whether anyone liked him for being Michael.”
Jackson publicly spoke in the past about being physically abused by his father, Joe Jackson, during his childhood in Gary, Indiana.
However, in the 2003 documentary Living with Michael Jackson, he said he had “totally” forgiven him.
