Michael Jackson Once Pops Peter Pan Turns A Bad 50
The gates of Michael Jackson's Neverland were locked shut this week. The funfair was idle and the animals from the private zoo were long gone.
As the former King of Pop was set to mark his 50th birthday Friday it seemed fitting that the extravagant estate built as his homage to a fantasy of childhood remained empty - a site irrevocably tied to his financial and legal troubles, a symbol of a strange star's downfall.
This was meant to be Jackson's refuge - a place where he could play with children who were the age he was when he became a professional singer at 11. His goal seemed to be to recover that lost childhood. But it turned sour.
He was accused of two instances of child molestation at Neverland, in 1993 and 2003. Although he settled the first case without any admission of wrongdoing and was cleared of all charges after a media-saturated trial in the second case, the ordeals wreaked havoc on his already fragile psyche and turned him into a freak in the world's celebrity sideshow.
So there were no parties there this week, no stadium concerts like Madonna - the Queen of Pop who turned 50, 13 days before Jackson - and celebrated while on her wildly lucrative 'Sweet and Sticky' world tour.
Related: Hollywood, Bollywood
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