Report of Settlement Surprises Jackson Fans : Legal: Some believe payment would be an admission of guilt, others say he wants to get on with his music. But can his career survive the controversy?

Startled by reports that Michael Jackson is near a monetary settlement with the 14-year-old boy who has accused the star of molesting him, fans, radio programmers, celebrity publicists and professional scandal-watchers debated Monday what such a move would mean for the superstar.

Most of those interviewed expressed surprise at the reported eight-figure settlement since Jackson had recently vowed on national TV to prove his innocence, but still felt his career would survive the scandal.

“When you pay a settlement (in a case like this) I think most people perceive it as an admission of guilt,” said Tom Joyner, a syndicated radio host whose show is heard on Los Angeles station KACE-FM and in more than 30 other urban markets. “Personally I feel it is an admission, but if it is, I’m still a fan.”

In fact, Joyner and his band, Uncle Butchie and the Live House, recently recorded a song in support of Jackson, “We Believe in You,” and he said that the latest chapter in the matter does not diminish that sentiment.

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“I said when we did the song that if the accusations turned out to be true, we still stand by the song, which simply says that we support him. I even support him more if he’s guilty, because he needs support from people like us so he can get help and get back to being the entertainer we all know and love.”

The general feeling was that an innocent person would not pay such a settlement.

“If I was innocent of a charge like this, I’d fight it like hell,” said Ken Schlessler, the author of “This Is Hollywood,” a guide to show-biz scandals.

Schlessler notes that past scandals, such as those involving early filmmaker Fatty Arbuckle, rocker Jerry Lee Lewis and director Roman Polanski, hurt their careers.

Arbuckle, though acquitted of charges of murder and rape in 1921, was ruined professionally. Lewis, poised for superstardom when he legally married his 13-year-old cousin, was blackballed in the music industry in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, before re-emerging as a major attraction in country rock. Polanski, sentenced in 1977 for having intercourse with a minor, fled the United States and although he has continued to make high-profile movies has never fulfilled the promise of his early career.

But Jackson, he said, may well survive this episode no matter what the public perception is, due to the magnitude of his stardom and the current social climate.

“He’s got too many fans who believe in him,” he said. “And moral standards are not what they were even 10 years ago. People are bombarded with this on TV . . . it’s sensational one day and the next it’s old news and you go on to the next scandal.”

James Miller, manager of the Tempo Records store on Crenshaw Boulevard, concurs. “This is the ‘90s and things that would have killed an artist in the ‘50s and ‘40s don’t now. The attitude is that if that’s his lifestyle, that’s his lifestyle.”

Miller notes that though the charges against Jackson continue to be a big topic among customers, it hasn’t cut into sales of his albums and videos.

In fact, there’s a feeling that the settlement, even if construed as an admission of guilt, would allow Jackson to get going again as an artist because he would avoid fighting the charges.

At the very least, it’s seen by Jackson fans as a matter of expediency. At the National Assn. of Music Merchandisers convention in Anaheim on Monday, Jerry Jones, a guitar maker from Nashville, said, “It sounds like a no-win situation to me. As a businessman I can understand it’s sometimes best to bail out of a situation. It doesn’t change my opinion. I think he’s a great entertainer.”

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Greg Duncan, program director of KYSR-FM (STAR 98.7), said that the story is growing old for his audience. That, he said, not the question of what Jackson may or may not have done, is what’s hurting him.

“Our research has shown that people are tired of hearing about it and the appeal of his music has diminished a little,” he said. “If anything, (the settlement) keeps him in business, whereas if a jury found him guilty, he’d be out of business.”

On the other hand, some feel the public will find this an unsatisfactory conclusion to the story.

“It’s anticlimactic,” said Dana Kennedy, who has covered the scandal for Entertainment Weekly magazine. “If there was going to be a settlement, why not back in August? They could have saved a lot of grief. But if nothing ever comes out in trial and charges are never brought out in criminal court, it will just fade.”

Leslie Van Buskirk, senior features editor for US magazine, agrees. “This isn’t so much an admission of guilt as an admission of him just wanting it all to go away,” she said. “And as much as people want to believe the worst, they also want to believe the best. Everybody knows (the reported eight-figure settlement) is not a lot of money for him.”

But many feel that the very fact of his wealth and vulnerability itself may draw out the matter further.

“Another boy could easily come forward saying, ‘Hey, he just got millions,’ ” said KYSR’s Duncan. “If there are other victims you can bet this won’t be the only check he’s writing. I don’t think this will even be totally dead.”

Special correspondent Jim Washburn contributed to this story.