Opportunist (and rabbi) Shmuley Boteach today starts hawking The Michael Jackson Tapes, a new book based on 30 hours of conversations he had with the late pop star. Among its big revelations is Jackson’s admiration for Hitler, whom he called a “genius orator,” according to Britain’s Daily Mail. “To make that many people turn and change and hate, he had to be a showman and he was,” Jackson told Boteach, noting that Hitler’s bad ’tude could’ve been mitigated with just a little therapy, since “somewhere, something in their life went wrong.” In the romance department, Jackson reportedly told Boteach that Cindy Crawford flirted with him, he considered dating Liz Taylor, and while Madonna loved him, the feeling was hardly mutual—“she is not sexy at all,” he asserted.
Sara Ivry is the host of Vox Tablet, Tablet Magazine’s weekly podcast. Follow her on Twitter@saraivry.