Moonwalker

I'd bet good money that there's not a man, woman or child on earth who saw the news yesterday and had to ask who it was talking about. When a person is so deeply ingrained in the public consciousness it becomes impossible for them to do, say or be anything without it being endlessly scrutinized.

There are a million things that not one of us will ever know for sure about him. Allegations plagued his adult life and rumors about his childhood and how good or bad it may or may not have been have been whispered for years.

I can't imagine growing up never knowing what it was like not to be famous. In a world that chases notoriety as the ultimate prize people rarely stop to genuinely consider how it can affect the people who have it, or how it might make them feel.

This is a man so famous that an emergency call from the day he died is being played on the news and nobody seems to have noticed how wrong, and invasive and sick that is. I changed the channel because I felt wrong listening to it, but how many other people listened? How many even considered how awful what they were listening to was?

To live a life where millions of people consider your every action, every word and every thought their business, to live a life where people only become more fascinated by you the more you hide would leave a mark on anyone. But when he tried to open up he was derided and treated like a freak.

What does it say about the way he feels about fame and children that his children aren't allowed to leave the house without masks? What was it that he wanted to preserve for them, which he never had?

Allegations and stories will never be proven. But his music and the way it affected people is unarguably real. The messages he wanted to give to people, the things he wanted to say, will last forever, etched in our memories.

Above all, a man died yesterday. Perhaps now he can be free of the eyes which have scrutinized him his whole life. May be rest in peace, and live on and do good through music which will never die.