Here’s some old school news straight from the vault of Hollywood’s forgotten tales…
The family of the teen boy, Gavin Arvizo, who accused the late Michael Jackson of molesting him in 2005, first went after actor Chris Tucker and former talk show host Jay Leno.
The Arvizo family met Tucker first, who later warned Jackson of his suspicions that the family had ulterior motives.
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Both Chris Tucker and Jay Leno testified at MJ’s child molestation trial against the accuser and his family.
Via ILOSM:
Tucker testified that he first met the accuser at the Laugh Factory, after the teen’s dad came up to him and told him his son “loved me and was dying of cancer,” said Tucker. Then the family asked Tucker to attend a (fundraiser) for the accuser. Tucker agreed, then testified that they told him the (fundraiser) “didn’t make any money, and they needed some money.” Tucker wired them $1500 and later took the accuser, and his siblings, on a shopping spree, as well as oftentimes taking them on outings with his own son. He eventually gave the accuser his phone number and said the accuser started calling him on a regular basis.
Here’s what CNN reported (via ILOSM):
In the final testimony of the defense case, Tucker singled out the accuser’s mother, who, he testified, had “mental problems.” “I told him to watch out for (the mother) because I felt suspicious,” Tucker said. “You need to watch out. Be careful.” […]bTucker said he thought the accuser — whom Tucker befriended in 2000 as the boy was battling cancer — was “smart” and “cunning,” telling jurors that the boy would reference his illness when asking Tucker for money.
The accuser’s younger brother, a key prosecution witness in the trial, was even more cunning, Tucker said, to the point that the “Rush Hour” star felt he needed “to check (the brother’s) pockets before he left my house.”
Tucker also said he flew the family by private jet to Miami in February 2003 because the accuser told him that he wanted to go there to be with Jackson — contradicting assertions by both the family and the prosecution that the trip was part of an effort by Jackson’s camp to enlist their help with a news conference.
Tucker said it was during the Miami trip that he warned Jackson about the Arvizo family.
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“I felt sorry for (the boy),” he said. “They did a lot of things I didn’t see, that my people were telling me to watch out.” he said.
Tucker said he started “getting nervous” when the accuser and his siblings began referring to him as the “brother.”
“I knew it was going a little too far,” he said.
Read more from the testimony here.
PHOTO: AP
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