The crush inside the vast record store on Oxford Street was getting scary. I wanted to back out, but the bodyguards behind me had linked elbows. We had to push forwards, through the press of screaming, chanting faces: "My-curl, My-curl, My-curl!" People were laughing and crying at the same time. A young man was jostled to the front of the crowd, a mobile phone pressed to his ear. He was yelling, "You won't believe this, Mum! Michael Jackson is right in front of me, I wish you could see him!" And Michael reached out gently, took the phone and whispered, "Hi, who is this? Yes, really, this is me." The chanting hushed as the whole store strained to hear Michael's murmured conversation. I heard him say, "I love you more," and then he handed back the phone, and the screaming started again. Outside, a surge of fans almost knocked an elderly woman off her feet as Michael emerged. There were at least 2000 people, and for the woman - who was, I discovered later, simply a passer-by - this must have been terrifying. What happened next, you may not believe. I have proof, because my brother-in-law, Shipi, was filming the scene from the 'chase' car, the bodyguard vehicle parked behind Michael's limo. Michael Jackson is a big man - in my imagination, before I met him, he was a man-child, but in reality he is nearly six feet tall with hands like a baseball catcher. He reached out an arm to steady the woman, and then half led, half carried her to the cars. The throng was too tight around the limo, so Michael ushered her into the chase car, and Shipi kept filming as Michael, very shyly, very formally, introduced himself. The woman, who might have been 80, acted with the poise characteristic of her generation, and politely demanded to be taken to her friend's house in Wimpole Street. So the biggest-selling black artist in history turned bus boy and, as they inched through the traffic, Michael told her all about his beloved children, and how badly he missed them.
The besotted frenzy of the crowd took a much darker turn hours later on Paddington's Platform Eight. Our limo pulled up beside our carriage on the Royal Train, which we had hired to take us to a charity spectacular at my football club, Exeter City. As we climbed out, Michael was separated from his minders. A knot of people lunged forward, and I saw him stumble. For a sickening moment he was out of sight amid the threshing bodies. I realised, with a lurch of horror, that he could have been kicked down onto the tracks, into the wheels. I was sweating with anxiety when he emerged, ten seconds later, scrambling under the arms of the fans with their posters and placards. We sprinted for the carriage door and I helped him through. He tumbled into a seat, his hair plastered to his face. I felt so badly for him that I couldn't even trust myself to ask if he was all right. He always calls me by my full name - not "Uri", not "Yuri" as the Americans say it, not "Geller" (as Shipi does when he is cross with me!). Michael invariably addresses me as "Uri Geller." And I had a sick certainty he was going to tell me, "Uri Geller, I could have been killed, and it was your dumb, stupid fault." But what he actually said, with a beatific grin that made me burst out laughing with relief, was: "I'm OK, Uri Geller. Don't worry. Don't be angry with the people out there, because they didn't know what they were doing. And I love them." I'm Jewish, but at that moment I thought of another man who said, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." And if that sounds ludicrous, it's because you don't know Michael. It's not as though I've known him for ever.
Back when the Jackson Five were ruling the charts, and when Michael was storming to the King of Pop's throne, I would have loved to have met him. He just never went to parties. And when enemies turned on him in the Nineties, I could smell the stench of an establishment fit-up, because I'd taken a serious kicking from people who used the same foul weapons - slander campaigns, innuendo, trial by media. I thank God the mudslingers haven't aimed the kind of dirt and filth at me that Michael has suffered. We were introduced by Mohammed Al Fayed, who is happy to be the man who owns Michael's favourite shop. People ask where Mo gets the millions to finance Fulham FC - they haven't seen Michael go shopping. He cuts a swathe through department stores like a bulldozer in a china shop. And I mean bulldozer: whole counters are wiped clean. I was with him in the toy department when a bodyguard mentioned his two step-children - that guy is a world champion kick-boxer, with the muscles to match the belts, but it took him three trips to get all his packages down to the cars. Somewhere in Devon, two kids own every fragment of Star Wars merchandise on the market. <-- he's talking about Matt Fiddes, so Mike did that for his kids and Matt screwed him in return?
Michael adores Star Wars. For our first meeting, I flew to New York, where he was recording Invincible, his $30 million album which was finally released last year. We were quickly friends, and he asked me to design part of the CD artwork. Later, we took his children to a private screening of Star Wars episode one, the Phantom Menace. Michael was agog in the seat next to me, whispering his favourite lines - but at one instant, when I turned to point out some detail, he was gone. I sat back, sadly. I thought I knew what this was: the silent goodbye of a man too shy for farewells. My new friend didn't want to send me off with false smiles and empty promises. We probably wouldn't meet again. But then I caught a movement at the edge of my vision and turned to see Michael at the back of the cinema, blissed out in his doll-like dancing, grooving on the soundtrack of Star Wars. He slips into fragments of song all the time - in the lift, in hotel corridors, in the car. Just as it is a revelation to watch him dancing for fun, it is insanely wonderful to hear that voice swinging a few bars of some soul standard.
Maybe if I'd ever seen Fred Astaire hot-step across a hotel lobby, if I'd ever overheard Sinatra shoo-bee-doo-bee-bopping to a blonde in a dark corner of a Vegas bar, I might have felt the same thrill. Maybe. Now there is open warfare with his record company, Sony. Industry insiders believe the real issue is not Michael's career but his ownership of the richest back catalogue in the business - the Lennon-McCartney songs. Michael believes the suits are enraged beyond all reason that a black man holds the gaudiest prize in their world. He also believes the Beatles rights are a bagatelle beside his own crown jewels - his children. When he flew to England in June for his Exeter speech, he desperately wanted to bring his children. And knew he couldn't. The paparazzi would have ripped him apart to get pictures of those beautiful kids. I believe Michael envies what John Lennon did when Sean was born, stepping back from his career and spending four or five years as a full-time parent. The brutal ambitions of his father for the Jackson children is well known. I have never asked Michael about his childhood, because when I am with friends I am interested only in the present moment. But my mother's ancestor, Sigmund Freud, would not have found it difficult to see the connection between a childhood all at sea on heaving emotions, and a father who insists on being a rock for his own children. For such a gently spoken man, Michael is hard as granite when protecting his son and his daughter. That love finds an echo in his affection for his fans. They shout out, "Michael, we love you," and he always answers, "I love you more." I have seen him shrug off his bodyguards to step into a crowd who had waited through a downpour to see him - he signed every poster, every album, and stood there for 20 minutes, listening to the fans' stories, until he was shivering. His foot was in bandages that day, because of a broken bone.
Later, I saw the dressing was sodden. It must have been agony, but his face never showed it. Oh yeah, his face - that's what everyone asks about. And this always shuts them up: "Ask me anything," I say, "but ask yourself first why you feel free to comment on his colour and his looks, when you profess that you never judge anyone by their skin or their face." He changes his hotel room every few days, and I have to remember next time I call to ask for Mr Robinson instead of Mr Brown or Mr Williams. With each switch, he checks all the drawers and cupboards himself. "Lost your passport?" I joked once. "I don't want to leave any gifts behind," he told me earnestly. He keeps everything his fans give him. I couldn't credit this at first, but he truly keeps everything, and always has. If you ever gave Michael a drawing, or a letter, or a soft toy, a jewellery case overflowing with diadems or a plastic hat from McDonalds, he has kept it. "I have packets of M&Ms from 30 years ago," he promised me. "Some day, I'll build a museum for it all." This week, I have been talking with senior engineers from a space agency, about an eight-year plan to finance a base on the moon by enrolling some of America's super-rich into a private space race. The idea was Michael's: "I want to moonwalk," he said one day, and I told him not to be embarrassed about dancing when I was around. "No, see, really. I want to walk on the moon." There is no doubt that this extraordinary man will get exactly what he wants. The man in the moon better expect a visit. And the suits in the music industry can expect more rockets too.
The besotted frenzy of the crowd took a much darker turn hours later on Paddington's Platform Eight. Our limo pulled up beside our carriage on the Royal Train, which we had hired to take us to a charity spectacular at my football club, Exeter City. As we climbed out, Michael was separated from his minders. A knot of people lunged forward, and I saw him stumble. For a sickening moment he was out of sight amid the threshing bodies. I realised, with a lurch of horror, that he could have been kicked down onto the tracks, into the wheels. I was sweating with anxiety when he emerged, ten seconds later, scrambling under the arms of the fans with their posters and placards. We sprinted for the carriage door and I helped him through. He tumbled into a seat, his hair plastered to his face. I felt so badly for him that I couldn't even trust myself to ask if he was all right. He always calls me by my full name - not "Uri", not "Yuri" as the Americans say it, not "Geller" (as Shipi does when he is cross with me!). Michael invariably addresses me as "Uri Geller." And I had a sick certainty he was going to tell me, "Uri Geller, I could have been killed, and it was your dumb, stupid fault." But what he actually said, with a beatific grin that made me burst out laughing with relief, was: "I'm OK, Uri Geller. Don't worry. Don't be angry with the people out there, because they didn't know what they were doing. And I love them." I'm Jewish, but at that moment I thought of another man who said, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." And if that sounds ludicrous, it's because you don't know Michael. It's not as though I've known him for ever.
Back when the Jackson Five were ruling the charts, and when Michael was storming to the King of Pop's throne, I would have loved to have met him. He just never went to parties. And when enemies turned on him in the Nineties, I could smell the stench of an establishment fit-up, because I'd taken a serious kicking from people who used the same foul weapons - slander campaigns, innuendo, trial by media. I thank God the mudslingers haven't aimed the kind of dirt and filth at me that Michael has suffered. We were introduced by Mohammed Al Fayed, who is happy to be the man who owns Michael's favourite shop. People ask where Mo gets the millions to finance Fulham FC - they haven't seen Michael go shopping. He cuts a swathe through department stores like a bulldozer in a china shop. And I mean bulldozer: whole counters are wiped clean. I was with him in the toy department when a bodyguard mentioned his two step-children - that guy is a world champion kick-boxer, with the muscles to match the belts, but it took him three trips to get all his packages down to the cars. Somewhere in Devon, two kids own every fragment of Star Wars merchandise on the market. <-- he's talking about Matt Fiddes, so Mike did that for his kids and Matt screwed him in return?
Michael adores Star Wars. For our first meeting, I flew to New York, where he was recording Invincible, his $30 million album which was finally released last year. We were quickly friends, and he asked me to design part of the CD artwork. Later, we took his children to a private screening of Star Wars episode one, the Phantom Menace. Michael was agog in the seat next to me, whispering his favourite lines - but at one instant, when I turned to point out some detail, he was gone. I sat back, sadly. I thought I knew what this was: the silent goodbye of a man too shy for farewells. My new friend didn't want to send me off with false smiles and empty promises. We probably wouldn't meet again. But then I caught a movement at the edge of my vision and turned to see Michael at the back of the cinema, blissed out in his doll-like dancing, grooving on the soundtrack of Star Wars. He slips into fragments of song all the time - in the lift, in hotel corridors, in the car. Just as it is a revelation to watch him dancing for fun, it is insanely wonderful to hear that voice swinging a few bars of some soul standard.Maybe if I'd ever seen Fred Astaire hot-step across a hotel lobby, if I'd ever overheard Sinatra shoo-bee-doo-bee-bopping to a blonde in a dark corner of a Vegas bar, I might have felt the same thrill. Maybe. Now there is open warfare with his record company, Sony. Industry insiders believe the real issue is not Michael's career but his ownership of the richest back catalogue in the business - the Lennon-McCartney songs. Michael believes the suits are enraged beyond all reason that a black man holds the gaudiest prize in their world. He also believes the Beatles rights are a bagatelle beside his own crown jewels - his children. When he flew to England in June for his Exeter speech, he desperately wanted to bring his children. And knew he couldn't. The paparazzi would have ripped him apart to get pictures of those beautiful kids. I believe Michael envies what John Lennon did when Sean was born, stepping back from his career and spending four or five years as a full-time parent. The brutal ambitions of his father for the Jackson children is well known. I have never asked Michael about his childhood, because when I am with friends I am interested only in the present moment. But my mother's ancestor, Sigmund Freud, would not have found it difficult to see the connection between a childhood all at sea on heaving emotions, and a father who insists on being a rock for his own children. For such a gently spoken man, Michael is hard as granite when protecting his son and his daughter. That love finds an echo in his affection for his fans. They shout out, "Michael, we love you," and he always answers, "I love you more." I have seen him shrug off his bodyguards to step into a crowd who had waited through a downpour to see him - he signed every poster, every album, and stood there for 20 minutes, listening to the fans' stories, until he was shivering. His foot was in bandages that day, because of a broken bone.
Later, I saw the dressing was sodden. It must have been agony, but his face never showed it. Oh yeah, his face - that's what everyone asks about. And this always shuts them up: "Ask me anything," I say, "but ask yourself first why you feel free to comment on his colour and his looks, when you profess that you never judge anyone by their skin or their face." He changes his hotel room every few days, and I have to remember next time I call to ask for Mr Robinson instead of Mr Brown or Mr Williams. With each switch, he checks all the drawers and cupboards himself. "Lost your passport?" I joked once. "I don't want to leave any gifts behind," he told me earnestly. He keeps everything his fans give him. I couldn't credit this at first, but he truly keeps everything, and always has. If you ever gave Michael a drawing, or a letter, or a soft toy, a jewellery case overflowing with diadems or a plastic hat from McDonalds, he has kept it. "I have packets of M&Ms from 30 years ago," he promised me. "Some day, I'll build a museum for it all." This week, I have been talking with senior engineers from a space agency, about an eight-year plan to finance a base on the moon by enrolling some of America's super-rich into a private space race. The idea was Michael's: "I want to moonwalk," he said one day, and I told him not to be embarrassed about dancing when I was around. "No, see, really. I want to walk on the moon." There is no doubt that this extraordinary man will get exactly what he wants. The man in the moon better expect a visit. And the suits in the music industry can expect more rockets too.
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