Over the past 12 years, the distinguished Vanity Fair reporter, Maureen Orth, has become Sherlock Holmes to Michael Jackson's Moriarty
Over the past 12 years, the distinguished Vanity Fair reporter, Maureen Orth, has become Sherlock Holmes to Jackson's Moriarty.
If her exhaustive investigations, collected in her new book The Importance of Being Famous, have demonstrated anything, it is that Jackson has paid off several boys or their families, and that exactly what occurs when his young guests sleep in his heavily alarmed bedroom is never revealed to outsiders.
"Michael is the quintessence of innocence," says Carr. "If Jesus were here today, given how much he loved children, then - if the authorities had wanted to get him on something - probably they would have charged Jesus Christ as well."
"With child molestation?"
"Right."
"You're saying you think Jesus Christ could have found himself facing the charges that Michael Jackson does today?"
"Sure."
"Which implies that good and evil are at play in this case, in your opinion?"
"They are. Michael has done so much good. I have examined the facts. They don't add up. Which means there are sinister forces at work. I am against sinister forces. I will battle evil. I will step up."
"Imagine this isn't about Michael Jackson. Imagine you or I went on ABC and mentioned that we share beds with 12-year-old boys. What conclusion would people draw then?"
"But it is Michael Jackson. And he never said he slept with them. He said he shared his bed. That's like me saying I share my ice-cream. We are not eating from the same spoon at the same time. Why wouldn't he let them share his bed, and he sleep on the floor?"
"But what he said to Martin Bashir, in Living With Michael Jackson was, to be precise, 'I have slept in a bed with many children.'"
"Right. Now here's what he means by that. Just as, on that programme, he was hugging one boy; it is my understanding that you can sit on a bed with a child in your arms, and fall asleep. He is not talking about under the covers, overnight. He means on top of the bed; on the edge of the bed..."
And so we go on, in a reprise of the weird three-legged waltz that has passed for debate over the Jackson affair on US television, and promises to continue when the case gets to court.
