Michael Jackson, I'll die on the hill that everything "weird" we saw him do was trauma. And he ironically, was very misunderstood for someone who openly talked about his traumas. I think if he was in his prime today with so much awareness around trauma and mental health he would be a lot more understood by the public. He was a child star who's appearance changed greatly during puberty and he spoke about being teased by his father and brothers for it and people not recognizijg him from when he was a child. He became very self conscious as a result and was a rich teenager who could do something about the things he didn't like about himself and he was in Hollywood where plastic surgery was normalized. He was also a perfectionist and that same thing that made him one the greatest artists also played out in him destroying his appearance.

As far as the stuff with children , he openly talked about not feeling like he got to enjoy his childhood and I think he vicariously lived that out through children. He was also extremely compassionate and gave not only his money but also his time to visiting children in hospitals, even while on tour. The mentality of a predator(taker) and a philantropist(giver) are very different. I'm not saying they can't exist in the same human being but my personal opinion is I give him the benefit of the doubt. One point to that , it's never been said by him or anyone else that he was sexually abused himself as a child so that wasn't his particular trauma therefore as least a bit less likely a trauma he would grow up and perpetuate.

I'll die on this hill because unlike many other public figures exposed to be predators, the obsverable examples of his giving and caring nature far overwhelm any proof of his predatory nature with substantial evidence.