On the eve of Michael Jackson’s death, I penned a column for FOX News in Michael Jackson’s defense arguing that he should be remembered for all his charitable accomplishments as opposed to the unproved accusations against him.

“Sure, Jackson was prosecuted twice, and although this reporter can’t acquit him of any charges, he was never convicted of a single crime,” I wrote. “He certainly didn’t deserve the tabloid innuendos that only fueled a toxic fire that was burning his reputation to a cinder in the court of public opinion.”

I stand by that statement, but there’s a difference between tabloid innuendos and facts, and to my surprise it turns out that although the most damning evidence against Jackson is indisputable, Hollywood and the media have paid little attention to it.

Even last week when the FBI released their own files on Jackson, including one report about a pair of Mexican boys that he may have molested in the 1980’s and a British boy who Jackson allegedly had phone sex with in 1979, it made little impact.

I was never a Michael Jackson fan, but I cheered in 2005 when he was acquitted on child molestation charges because his defense lawyer made a convincing argument that he was framed. I assumed that because the alleged victim’s mother seemed extortive, that her story and her son’s story were both lies.

I also convinced myself of what many others had, which is that Michael Jackson was just a strange guy who loved kids and didn’t want to hurt them.

There’s a darker side however, that cannot and should not be ignored even if Hollywood refuses to believe it. I learned about that dark side when I finally investigated the sexual abuse allegations in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death for a national news network earlier this year.

The first thing I discovered was a story reported by journalists Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner in their New York Times bestseller, Hollywood Interrupted, an investigative exposé of the entertainment community in Los Angeles.

Apparently, Jackson had a mysterious relationship with Frederick Mark Schaffel, a controversial gay pornographer who had a history of making films with young adult males over in Europe. When Schaffel wasn’t producing gay porn movies however, he had another job here in America – he was Michael Jackson’s personal videographer at Neverland.

When Jackson allegedly first ‘learned’ about Schaffel’s background, he immediately fired the pornographer and issued a public apology that pledged Schaffel would no longer be associating with him. However, a couple of years later Schaffel was allowed to return, and in 2005 he was named by prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in Jackson’s sexual molestation case.

Despite this stunning, contradictory display of hypocrisy, the media never probed into why Michael Jackson hired a gay pornographer – fired him – and then rehired him to film children who were visiting his ranch or why the celebrity superstar was paying such absurd amounts of money to him.

During the 2005 trial it was revealed that Schaffel had apparently signed two checks in the amounts of $500,000 and $1 million to an account that he and Jackson were the only signatories. Schaffel also alleged that Jackson owed him another $3 million for “producing fees.”

No one knows what that money was actually for, but Breitbart and Ebner obtained a source in the Los Angeles pornography world who said that Schaffel, as the authors put it “had a predilection for young-looking performers, preferably straight, who he would recruit in Eastern European countries like Hungary and the Czech Republic for both his personal and professional pleasure.”

Later, I located a source of my own in Hollywood’s gay community who knew Schaffel, and he confirmed that Schaffel had a very suspicious reputation in connection with the films he produced.

The next revelation came while researching the original 1993 sexual abuse accusations made by Jordan Chandler. To my surprise, Chandler wasn’t the only boy whose silence Jackson bought. After Jackson settled with the Chandler’s in 1995 for an estimated $15 million he paid $2 million to another boy named Jason Francia in 1996. Francia’s mother worked at Neverland as a maid from 1987-1991.

All of this time, I had thought Jackson had only settled with one alleged victim, but apparently he had actually settled with two. That also meant that there weren’t only two boys who had accused Jackson of sexual abuse, there were three – Jordan Chandler, Jason Francis and Gavin Arvizo. The recently released FBI files indicate there could be more.

The next day, I found hundreds of blogs reporting that Jordan Chandler admitted he lied and wanted to issue a public apology to Michael Jackson. The story was even reported by an online European news site and for a short time on Wikipedia as well. Apparently, Jackson’s fans weren’t above fabricating lies to clear their hero’s name.

After persistent attempts to contact Chandler’s family to confirm or deny that rumor, I finally reached Jordan’s uncle at his Santa Barbara law office.

“Jordan never recanted any of the allegations he made against Michael Jackson because they are all true,” Ray Chandler told me during a telephone interview. “You know,” he added, “from the very beginning this has been a nightmare for Jordan and the entire Chandler family. Hopefully, now that Jackson has passed away, this will be closure for Jordan – may Michael rest in peace.”

Later, I learned that when both Jordan Chandler and Gavin Arvizo were asked to describe Jackson’s genitalia to law enforcement officials the two boys both gave accurate descriptions. I also read that when the LAPD served their original warrant on Neverland in 1993, police found children’s games and books in Jackson’s bedroom along with pictorial books featuring photographs of naked boys. Police said that it was common to find children’s books and toys in pedophiles bedrooms because they help lure innocent children.

What really interested police however, was a special indoor alarm – the only one of its kind in the entire Neverland ranch – connected to Jackson’s bedroom hallway to alert him if someone was approaching his door.  One veteran LAPD detective who investigated nearly 4,000 sexual abuse cases said he believed the alarm was installed because Jackson was doing something in his bedroom he didn’t want anyone to know anything about.

Finally, I learned from Ray Chandler that when Jordan Chandler’s father, Evan, confronted Jackson face to face about sexually molesting his son, the singer reportedly didn’t take offense to the stinging accusation or even deny it. He simply smiled and in a soft, childlike tone and said, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

In other words, Jackson never denied he had sex with the 10-year old – he just didn’t believe he did anything wrong. There’s a big difference between the two.

These stories are not tabloid tales based on flimsy sources, but rather true facts, most of which Jackson brought upon himself by paying off his accusers and permitting sexual deviants to have access to the children he invited to his home. Still, the media hasn’t breathed a word of any of this since the pop-star passed away.

Instead, Democratic Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee reminded the nation during Jackson’s funeral service that everyone is always innocent until proven guilty. But anyone who is honest knows that just because someone isn’t proven guilty in court does not mean they’re innocent in the real world. If that were true, then O.J. Simpson would be innocent too.

Back in July when I listened to Lee tell her audience that she was proposing a Congressional resolution that would name Jackson as a “great humanitarian,” I wondered how his alleged victims – and any other victim of child molestation felt at that moment. Perhaps in the midst of showing our reverence for Michael Jackson, I thought we should all take a moment of silence to show our consideration for them too.

Michael Jackson copped a plea in Hollywood’s court of public opinion that he was just an unusual guy who never grew up and loved kids and as the judge and jury many of us accepted that plea because we didn’t want to believe the alternative. I ended my original l column by saying that, “Michael Jackson deserves an accurate place in history.”

I stand by that statement.

Mr. Ebner is one of the few writers left today willing to get down in the gutter with his subjects just to hear their truth. In his new book Six Degrees of Paris Hilton, Mr. Ebner takes you to the places they never show you on “Access Hollywood,” because if the general public could access the side of Hollywood Mr. Ebner uncovers, that tub of popcorn in your lap at the multiplex would serve only one purpose, that of a barf bucket.

I recently had the chance to ask Mr. Ebner about his new book and what his thoughts on the state of Hollywood are today.

Tell me about your new book Six Degrees of Paris Hilton.

The book is currently cataloging on Amazon under Biography, Famous People, Pop Culture, True Crime and Criminology. That sounds schizophrenic, but not half as pathological as the real life characters in the book. Six Degrees is a non-fiction Hollywood crime book that reads like “true crime” – partially because of my prose, and partially because, well, it’s Hollywood.

What was the genesis of the book?

The book was born out of a feature story I did for the now-defunct Radar magazine about the home invasion, robbery/extortion caper perpetrated on embattled “Girls Gone Wild” impresario Joe Francis. Through an intermediary, Darnell Riley – the guy who put the gun to Francis’ head and videotaped a whirling marital aid riding the crest of his buttocks – sent me an e-mail message from prison objecting to me calling him “Dildo Dude” in a blog post on HollywoodInterrupted.com. I wrote him in prison, and he basically said, “Look – I’m not going to pull an O.J. here. It’s not ‘if I did It,’ it’s ‘I did it…and then some.’” The “then some” became Six Degrees of Paris Hilton.

Has Hollywood always been this seedy or has it gotten worse in the past ten years?

Hollywood has always been seedy and infected with interlopers preying on the rich and famous. But the new breed of con artists and shakedown specialists are more relentless, brazen and, in fact, stupid than they were in the past.

Do you feel Hollywood is worthy of the idol worship the general public lays upon it?

Sure they’re worthy of the worship because, when the idols inevitably fall the general public has the opportunity to feel better about themselves.

How has living in Hollywood and the culture of Hollywood affected you personally?

Don’t let my Facebook friend-count fool you – I can count my real friends on one hand. My life has been compartmentalized to the point of near total isolation from any normal sort of social life. I live out of a post office box in Santa Monica and lay my head down in a 1969 VW bus. I shower at the gym and will have armed security at my book signing on February 11. Other than all that, life is peachy. Honestly, I’ve been trying to write my way out of this sewer since I started two decades ago but Los Angeles, not New York, is really the naked city of eight million stories. Six Degrees of Paris Hilton is one of them.

Have you had any problems with safety since you’ve written this book, any confrontations?

I’ve been mad-dogged a few times by the punks I’ve written about, and lawyers have been baselessly threatening me right and left, but the harassment thus far hasn’t held a candle to the way the thugs in Scientology handle their critics.

[Ebner was one of the first journalists to expose Scientology on its own turf]

Has hardcore investigative journalism, the sort you do, been lost to pandering to the rich and famous?

Tabloid culture notwithstanding, long-form investigative journalism has been dying since the advent of the internet. There just aren’t many outlets left for great think-pieces, and until the web media brokers realize that their servers will be well-served running more than just news aggregation and news/gossip flashes, there will be a lot of journalistic talent withering on the unemployment line. Big Hollywood and the Daily Beast are both a start in the right direction. Ron Burkle is plotting something serious with all his recent media buyouts. It’s slow and frustrating, but I won’t declare investigative journalism dead until there’s no place left to negotiate upwards.

What do you want people will take away from reading your book?

I would love for my readers to take away an experience that they are compelled to share with others. I didn’t write the book to languish in the “criminology” section at some soon-to-be-shuttered Border’s.

Do you feel Hollywood can benefit from having other voices in the political spectrum heard, like what’s going on at Big Hollywood?

Hollywood players will pretend that Big Hollywood doesn’t exist while, at the same time, deriding it vocally at any given opportunity. The more Big Hollywood mocks the Hollywood entertainment industrial complex and calls the shiny townsfolk out on their bullshit, the more they will listen – especially when the criticism speaks to their bottom-line. Hollywood can learn from a conservative viewpoint. Isn’t that obvious already? Oh yeah – they’re still denying it.

How many degrees of separation are you from Paris Hilton?

I ran into Paris the other night at a party celebrating the cast and filmmakers of “Milk.” She said she was going to sue me, but scotched that idea out of concern that Darnell Riley (the criminal anti-hero of my book) would kill her. So, I guess that puts me at ground-zero degrees of separation.

If to get into heaven you had to bring with you one of the lost souls of Hollywood who would it be, and why?

Crispin Glover, because both of us getting on the list and through the gates would be, with apologies to Baudelaire and “Usual Suspects” scribe Christopher McQuarrie, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled.

Thank you for your time, Mr. Ebner

Six Degrees of Paris Hilton will be in books stores Feb 3rd and is available now at Amazon.com

Witness Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s cavalcade of shiny, happy situational patriots appearing in a derivative public servitude announcement: A “Presidential Pledge” to President Barack Obama.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Forgive and forget? Right.

President Bush was not holding back Moore from “free[ing] one million people from slavery in the next five years.” Nor was he holding back the Obama-biquitous Will.I.Am from “chang[ing] how [he] live[s].” Ditto: Aaron Ekhart (“To be a better person,”) Marisa Tomei (“To integrate into my heart what I already know in my head which is that we are all in this together,”) Kutcher (“To the abolition to 21st century slavery,”) Anthony Kiedis (“To be of service to Barack Obama,”) P. Diddy (” pledge to turn the lights off, cause I used to leave the lights on but we want to conserve energy so I’ma turn the lights off, you turn the lights off,) and all-in-unison (“Because together we can, together we are, and together we will be the change that we seek.”)

Missing are pledges not to kiss the ring of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and other pledged enemies of America. Nor are there pledges not to make movies that glorify these tyrants. Nor are there pledges to take seriously that we are at war, will continue to be at war under President Obama and that our precious and under-appreciated military is fighting an avowed and evil enemy — so that, among other things, Hollywood can continue to make decadent crap that actually motivates our enemy to fight us harder!

Unfortunately, what happens in Hollywood does not stay in Hollywood.

For more mind-numbing background read Kutcher’s companion piece at the… you got it… the Huffington Post .

The conservatives, Republicans and sundry non-lefties I know in show business have had nothing to say but positive and helpful things about the coming Obama presidency.

“We wish him well.” “He is our president now and he needs our help.”

These are the types of things I keep hearing.

And this is exactly the right attitude and exactly the right message.

God bless, President Obama. Even though I didn’t vote for him, and disagree with much of his agenda, he has my best wishes and all of my best efforts.

But that doesn’t mean I will forgive and forget an era of narcissism, petty complaining and conspiracy theory peddling from the majority celebrity class that began well before Iraq. [See "Hollywood, Interrupted " -- my book co-written with Mark Ebner -- which was written before and during the build-up to the Iraq war and before the WMDs weren't found. The public behavior from Hollywood even then was almost uniformly deplorable.]

Conspiracy theories of America’s complicity in 9/11 dominated cocktail party discussions for eight tedious years. They couldn’t simply disagree with Bush. They had to ascribe evil to his motivations and make sure the whole world agreed on that flawed premise.

Yet, hating the president doesn’t mean one can’t still help out the country in a great time of need. But many went to foreign countries and demeaned it instead. Called those that disagreed with them rubes and hicks. The elitism of the celebrities against flyover country America could not have been more pronounced. They made a boat-load of movies that affirmed this narrow and patronizing world view.

And now they want us back.

We’re all Americans — NOW.

It’s a convenient lie the celebrity left peddles that they were with us during the initial Afghanistan phase of the war, and even after 9/11.

No syrupy revisionism will change this fact.

[As I was writing this piece, I received the following unsolicited email from a Big Hollywood reader: "Reminder to liberal celebrities: It's time to set your Fluctuating Patriotism Clock from "Hate America" to "Love America" on Jan. 20th. Remember, it's "Springsteen Ahead - Falwell Behind." Funny.]

Featured in Moore’s goofy, derivative and pretty-in-a-grotesque-way video is none other than Cameron Diaz who had this to say before the 2004 election:

We have a voice now, and we’re not using it, and women have so much to lose. I mean, we could lose the right to our bodies…if you think that rape should be legal , then don’t vote. But if you think that you have a right to your body, and you have a right to say what happens to you and fight off that danger of losing that, then you should vote…

Such mental insanity posing as erudition usually earns ostracism. But Diaz and her self-serious cohorts have no moral compass, no sense of proportion, no decency and, certainly, no shame.

This video illustrates that the current celebrity class are not citizens but serfs. They need a leader to put their minds in the right place to do the right thing. They are not heroic individualists seeking to extend America’s promise but conformists who chose to sit out and complain during the tough years in order to ensure their guy got in the next go-around.

The celebrity decadence during the “oppressive” Bush years was world class. The clubs raged. The boutique hotels rocked. The private jet industry at Van Nuys airport flourished. The party never stopped. And only a precious few (Thank you, dearly!!!) stepped up to support the American troops who have been valiantly fighting for Hollywood’s right to do lines off of each others’ buttocks at $10 million Hollywood Hills mansions.

They never spoke up against the movies that demonized our military.

They never made movies to counter the libel.

They took the easy route. And blamed Bush for everything.

Moore’s nauseating video — which, like Steven Soderbergh’s “Oceans” franchise, grants a pristine look into the modern celebrity’s sense of self-importance — is not a sign of desire to serve the country under Obama. Watch, by March this pledge like New Year’s resolutions will fall by the wayside. It is a sign that the Democrat is in the White House now. It is a sign that they get to sleep again in the Lincoln Bedroom.

Twenty years ago AIDS was the number one cause for the Hollywood left. Remember the trendy red ribbons at all the self-aggrandizing awards shows? Hollywood has moved on (dot org) to better blame-your-fellow-American causes. But President Bush didn’t. And aside from Bob Geldof and Bono , they ignore this president’s demonstrable goodness .

Amazing that Geldof and Bono could valiantly fight their battles and serve humanity without being paralyzed by the Leader of the Free World 2000-2008’s all-encompassing awfulness.

Remember this video: It is a instructive relic of the era of celebrity decadence and boutique anti-Republican activism under President Bush. It is a sickening display that they want fast and easy absolution for having comported themselves like ill-behaved children for eight difficult and war-torn years.

Good luck, President Obama. The rest of you can go to hell.