can you please catch me up on whatever the latoya lore is
Latoya lore??? I mean depends what lore you’re talking about 😭😭 but I’m assuming your talking about her involvement with the 1993 allegations maybe??
Anyway for some context, from 1989 to 1997, Latoya was married to Jack Gordon, an entertainment manager, and suffered an incredible amount of devastating abuse at his hands during their relationship. Like unfathombly, almost to the point of death horrific abuse (excerpt from Latoyas book starting over. Tw for quite graphic descriptions of abuse):
“I was lying in a pool of blood on the cold marble floor of my New York City kitchen on April 21, 1993. My heart was beating so hard it felt as if it were about to bounce out of my chest. Every inch of my body was in excruciating pain. I started thinking to myself, This is it. I’m dying. What was my purpose here? I then heard my manager/husband Jack Gordon somewhere above me, talking on the telephone. “I’ve killed her,” Gordon said. “I think she’s dead. I’ve killed her.” As I listened to his panicked words, I recalled a conversation in which my brother Michael had warned me about Gordon a few years prior. “You have to get away from him or he’s going to kill you,”Michael had said not wanting to worry Michael any more than he already was, I didn’t say anything to him about how right he was to be afraid, both for me and for him.
The truth, as I knew it, was that something horrible was destined to happen if I didn’t follow his every order and work my hardest to earn him money. I know now that, in his mind, he thought he was my pimp, and I was his prostitute. To ensure my family’s safety, I did everything Gordon ordered me to do, even sitting in a closet all day without moving sometimes. That’s how powerful his control was over me. I became a pro at anticipating what might set Gordon off. But I wasn’t able to avoid being nearly beaten to death that night in my penthouse. He often invented excuses to punish me, but on this occasion, he didn’t give me any reason or warning.”
one of the reasons that Latoya was so trapped in this relationship was because Jack was mob affiliated, and would often make very real threats to her family members lives, particularly her siblings, if she didn’t do what he wanted. One of those things being to corroborate the allegations about Michael on a television broadcast in 1993:
“Gordon handed me a piece of paper. “Here, you’re reading this,” he said gruffly. “What is this?” All of a sudden it dawned on me: that press was here for me, and I didn’t have the slightest clue until just that moment. I felt the world close in around me as I was filled with rising panic. That was the kind of life Gordon had me leading. He was always forcing me to do things in the public eye without preparation or warning, and with the constant knowledge that if I didn’t perform impeccably, the consequences would be swift and painful.”
“I couldn’t even imagine what terrible words I was about to be forced to speak. But I knew there was no getting out of it, so I pulled myself together. Joseph had taught all of us children that whenever we did something, we should do it professionally and with as much enthusiasm and energy as possible. I didn’t want to be filmed looking down, with my face hidden in the piece of paper Gordon had given me. So I was trying to read words that I had never seen before, through these enormous sunglasses that obstructed my vision, while keeping my head held high, as if I were expressing my own thoughts. Even as I began to read, I still didn’t know what I was saying, but I did know that, whatever it was, if I didn’t read it properly, the way Gordon wanted me to, he was going to hurt me. Then, with horror, as I was speaking, I realized that the statement was about Michael. It wasn’t the positive message I had been preaching in public about the allegations against Michael. It was the worst possible thing I could say about a person who was innocent.”
“I truly believed that if I didn’t say what I had been told to say, Gordon and his mob buddies would surely kill Michael. Gordon had drilled this threat into me, again and again, until I knew it to be true. So, although it was an excruciating choice, I decided that it was better to continue reading and do whatever it took to save Michael in the moment. I figured, afterward, when I knew Michael was safe, Michael and I could discuss what had happened, and I could try to make him understand how I had been forced to say such things.”
Latoya was literally facing threats to her life and brutal physical and emotional abuse on a daily basis. Yet there are still people, guilters and fans alike, who minimise the suffering she went through to either prop up their own agenda that Michael was guilty and that Latoya believed the same (despite vehemently defending him after escaping Jack Gordon’s control) or that she was a liar and somebody who is on the same level as the people who betrayed Michael within his life (which I think is a disgusting thing to say for a multitude of reasons, and displays a purposeful lack of empathy.)
What’s more is that Latoya and Michael reunited in 2004, and guess what? Michael didn’t blame her for any of it. So why some fans still hold such contempt for her, I’ll never know:
So, in January of 2004, when the preliminary trial started, we all gathered at Neverland to stay for however long we were needed. Being together at Neverland felt a bit like the old days at Hayvenhurst, but even better, because after everything we had been through in our lives, we all appreciated our present closeness even more. During this time, I had the chance to sit down and have a conversation with Michael that was more than a decade in coming. I was finally able, for the first time, to get him one-on-one, and I took advantage of the opportunity immediately. We were sitting close together on a sofa just off the foyer of the main house. I looked at my brother and gathered my courage to speak.”
“”Michael, I need to talk to you, because this has been bothering me.” “Okay.” He smiled at me expectantly. “I want you to know that what happened-” “You don’t have to say anything, La Toya.” “What do you mean? You don’t even know what I’m going to say.” “You don’t have to say anything. I know you. I know your heart. I know that he made you do those things.” I was shocked that, after all this time, he knew exactly what I was talking about. “But I have to get it out,” I said. “You don’t have to, La Toya. I know better. I know who you are. I love you very much.” To hear him speak those words of forgiveness filled me with such gratitude, but I still felt that I hadn’t said enough. I kept trying to give voice to my apology, again and again. “I just want to tell you,” I said. But Michael had clearly forgiven me long ago, and he didn’t want to discuss it any further. He was just happy to see me, and to know that I was back in his life, and that we were all together as a family once again. “I know you, and I know that you would never do anything to hurt me,” he said. “I want you to know that I love you very much.”
“”I love you, too,” I said. Then, Michael looked right at me and spoke his famous phrase: “No, I love you more.” I started crying, I was so relieved and happy and overwhelmed. Then Michael hugged me to comfort me, and he started crying, too. We sat there for the longest time, just crying together, and embracing each other, and telling each other how much we loved one another and enjoying the feeling of being reunited at last. It was one of the most incredible moments of my entire life. I was so moved by hearing him say that he knew I would never turn against him or intentionally hurt him the way Gordon had forced me to do.”
Anyways yeah. Latoya doesn’t deserve half the shit she gets from people online, especially being a survivor of such horrific abuse. Anybody who purposefully misconstrues the very real suffering that she went through at the hands of Jack Gordon to fit their own narrative, wether that be that she believed the allegations about her brother, or that she somehow had a hand in his downfall and is unforgivable is either misinformed or, id argue, downright misogynistic.
(Very good article here if you’d like more info: https://medium.com/@ruckerjael/how-come-nobody-ever-apologizes-to-michael-jackson-addressing-the-latoya-jackson-misconceptions-c654163906cc)
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