We all know about Michael Jackson and Kevin Spacey, but what about Gauguin and Arthur Koestler?

When an artist is shown to have transgressed, his art too is forever spurned. Or is it? It seems to David Lister that there are bewildering inconsistencies over whom we choose to damn and whom we choose to indulge

Hitchcock's appalling treatment of his stars is well known, and Tippi Hedren has accused him of serial sexual harassment (Snap/Rex)

How did you spend your evening? Few people would dare respond that they were at home listening to a Michael Jackson album, or watching a Kevin Spacey movie. The disgrace of an artist is swiftly followed these days not just by their removal from the public sphere, but also from private discourse. And crucially, any affection for work once held in the highest esteem, is outlawed.

The documentary Leaving Neverland, in which two men recounted in graphic detail their alleged abuse as children by Jackson, was followed immediately by streaming services and, reportedly, Radio 2 banning his music. Even his glove has been removed from a children’s museum in the United States.

Commentators were united as one in saying that such was their disgust with the once revered King of Pop that they could no longer listen to his music (though in the muddled confusion that surrounds these issues, the hit show Thriller, built around his music, continues to draw the crowds in London’s West End)