Jackson 5

The boy who never grew up is dead at the age of 50. Michael Jackson died this morning of a heart attack at his Los Angeles home.  TMZ reports that the singer was rushed to the UCLA medical centre where he was pronounced dead on arrival. His sister La Toya was seen sobbing at the hospital.

The world’s media is now cutting and pasting packages which condense several lifetimes of weirdness into the space of one bulletin. Jackson’s oddness has already been demonstrated with the roll-call of mourners - one of the first to confirm his demise was mystic Uri Geller who can bend spoons through mind-power alone.

Collating Jackson’s wackiness will take some time. The baby-dangling episode, the sinister stories out of the Neverland Ranch, his purchase of the bones of Elephant Man John Merrick, a chimp called Bubbles, a baby called Blanket, a brief and ill-fated marriage to Lisa Presley, an addiction to plastic surgery which saw his nose crumble and his black skin bleached white. To name a few.

Before we get to all that, listen to this song. And this one. And when you watch him above, and here, as a little 11-year-old kid, it’s hard not to feel real sorrow at the premature departure of a guy who with his abusive family background and his extraordinary musical genius, was probably always destined to be a screw-up. 

Anyway, the jokes have started. This one’s kind of nice though, from @davesag on Twitter:

#michaeljackson cause of death. a) Sunshine? b) Moonlight? c) Good times? d) Boogie.

All of the above.