You know that 1983 Rockwell song, the one with the chorus that goes, “I always feel like somebody’s watching me”? These days, that’s how I feel about Michael Jackson, who seems to be stalking me at every turn from beyond the grave. It’s a fitting soundtrack for this eerie feeling, given that Jackson – along with his brother Jermaine – provides the song’s backing vocals.

Since the release of the 2026 biopic Michael, the King of Pop has been back in the public consciousness like never before. Or at least, that’s how it feels to me: lately, I’ve noticed references to Jackson everywhere. On Saturday, before heading out dancing, I was listening to a podcast while getting ready. The episode had nothing to do with him, but within minutes the host was discussing the artist, the new film, and Netflix’s documentary Michael Jackson: The Verdict. When I arrived at the bar, “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)” was blasting. I hoped that would be it for the night, but the DJ went on to play at least three more of his songs, to an ecstatic response from the crowd.

When I fought my way through a crowd of sweaty bodies to reach the loo, the women ahead of me were engaged in a fierce debate about the musician: “Can we just agree that he was a weird guy, but a great musician?” one girl suggested. “Fine,” the other agreed, a little begrudgingly. Finally, as my partner and I got on the overground back home, stoned and sleepy, we heard a woman watching a video about Jackson, his soft-spoken voice erupting from her speaker. All we could do was laugh in disbelief. Jackson was haunting us; that was the only explanation.

Jackson has become inescapable this year. Since the release of Michael – which has been a major box-office success, bringing in $889.3 million worldwide – his biggest hits have reentered the charts: in May, Jackson’s “Billie Jean” was number 13 on the Official Charts, with “Beat It” at 22 and “Don’t Stop ‘til You Get Enough” at 23. Alongside this chart revival, his music is all you hear on TikTok or Instagram Reels. Influencers are using slowed-down versions of “Dirty Diana” in hopes that the trending audio will boost their content.

I want to make my position on the matter clear: I am a Michael Jackson hater. As a child born in the 00s, I loved his music. I was too young to be aware of the multiple child sexual abuse allegations made against him, which began in 1993; I just knew he was a musician who meant a lot to my parents. He was also the first celebrity whose death, in 2009, made me feel sad. It wasn’t until the release of Dan Reed’s two-part HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, which focused on Wade Robson and James Safechuck – two men who claim they were sexually abused by Jackson as children – that I learned about the alleged crimes at his Neverland Ranch in California.

In 2003, Jackson was arrested on charges of child molestation, a decade after he was first publicly investigated over allegations of child sexual abuse in 1993. In 2005, he was found not guilty on all charges after jurors concluded that the prosecution had not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. But the allegations and lawsuits against him did not end there. This past February, Frank, Dominic, Marie-Nicole and Aldo Cascio – who were close to Jackson as children – filed a lawsuit against his estate, accusing him of being a “serial child predator”. Like Robson, members of the Cascio family had previously defended Jackson against allegations of child sexual abuse. For more than two decades, Jackson was close with the family, visiting their home in New Jersey, hosting them at Neverland and taking them on tours around the world. In a 2010 interview with Oprah Winfrey, they denied that Jackson had done anything improper with them. But 16 years later, they have come forward alleging that they were repeatedly sexually assaulted by Jackson and groomed to protect him, claiming he described them as his “soldiers” — his front line of defence against these claims.

Despite the outcome of the 2005 case, I believe Jackson’s accusers. I believe they were most likely groomed into secrecy and, after years of unlearning his alleged manipulation, are finding the strength to come forward and share their stories. As we’ve seen in the continued legal ordeal faced by E Jean Carroll – the writer who accused President Donald Trump of raping her in the mid-1990s – there is very little benefit in coming forward about sexual assault or abuse. Since Trump was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll in 2023, he has continued to attack her publicly, while she remains embroiled in legal battles with the president. Jackson’s alleged victims have suffered a similar fate: in 2019, three Michael Jackson fan groups sued Robson and Safechuck in France for allegedly “sullying” Jackson’s memory. Even if you believe all the allegations against him are a scam, and that every single accuser is lying, Jackson himself admitted that he allowed children to sleep in his bedroom, which is extremely inappropriate at best.

As the two women in front of me in the toilet queue demonstrated, one of the main debates around Jackson is whether you can separate the art from the artist. We all listen to artists who have done bad things; artists are flawed because they are human, and human beings are flawed. But Jackson is where I draw the line. This is partly because many of his most ardent fans and supporters aren’t separating the art from the artist either; they are denying the sexual abuse allegations outright and insisting he did nothing wrong. One particularly popular conspiracy theory, which my mum has shared with me not once but twice, is that Jackson was protecting the children around him from Jeffrey Epstein. The claim may sound ridiculous, but it’s worth considering why so many people are eager to believe it. For many Black fans, the accusations of paedophilia feel like a sinister attempt to discredit an incredibly influential Black artist, whose impact on music continues to be felt today — just look at the cover of Drake’s recent album Iceman, which appears to nod to Jackson’s iconic diamond-encrusted glove.

I appreciate that it is difficult to admit you like Jackson’s music while also believing the allegations against him. It is a tense and deeply uncomfortable sentence to write, let alone say out loud to another person. I assume it is easier for many people to deny or ignore the allegations entirely: to push them down, keep dancing, and cause themselves as little discomfort as possible. But while we all prioritise our own happiness, I can’t help thinking of the adults who were once children, who say they were deeply scarred by Jackson’s alleged actions and have had to live with that trauma every day since. If I feel haunted by Jackson’s presence, I can only imagine how they are feeling this year. At the very least, our discomfort as listeners should not matter more than theirs.