New Afterword by Shaye Areheart

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Shaye Areheart were Michael Jackson's editors at Doubleday Publishing Company, which published
Moonwalk in 1988.

Michael Jackson had an infectious laugh and a wonderful sense of humor. When Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and I visited him for
the first time at his home in Encino in 1983, he was a gracious and charming
host. Waiting with him to say hello were his mother, Katherine, and his
sisters, La Toya and Janet, looking as young and fresh as high school students.
Michael was dressed in what I would come to regard as his everyday attire --
black loafers, white socks, black slacks, a white (or sometimes blue) oxford
long-sleeved shirt over a white T-shirt. He was sweet and funny and a little shy
, but it was obvious that he was honored to have Jackie in his home and pleases
that she and I wanted him to write a book.

We talked and nibbled on the spread of food Mrs. Jackson had put out for us, and then Michael asked if
we'd like a tour of the house and grounds. We saw his trophies and plaques, the
gold records and many photographs of Michael with people like Fred Astaire,
James Brown, and







Elizabeth Taylor, and, well, seemingly anyone who was famous in America in 1983. Michael had impeccible manners and he wasn't in the least
boastful about any of this, but you could tell he was proud -- a little boy from
Gary, Indiana, had managed all of this!

The last room we toured had a very large glass terrarium with a lid on it. It was a low table, and it was hard
to see what was inside. Jackie and I were looking around admiring some very
beautiful birds in cages, oblivious to what Michael was up to, when suddenly he
turned from the terrarium and said with a sweet smile, ''Here, Shaye, you want
to hold Muscles?'' Languishing across his outstretched hands was a very pretty
boa constrictor. I took it. It felt like damp silk and, much to my surprise,
began to move sideways, so that I was in danger of dropping it. I exclained to
that effect, and Michael protectively retrieved his snake with a look of abject
disappointment on his face. It was only much later, when he teased me about it,
that I realized he was hoping -- wildly hoping -- for a shriek from me and,
maybe, a hysterical dash out of the room. He was a kid at heart -- then and
always.

Michael was making the music video for his song ''Thriller'' while we were in Los Angeles, and he invited us to come see what he was up to.
We went out to the studio the next day and met John Landis, who was directing
the video, and saw the set, which was riddled with the holes that the ghouls
would emerge from. Michael and John began joking about the insurance mess they
would be in if we got hurt, and suddenly we were being ushered to Michael's
trailer, where we began to talk about what the book could and should be. He was
a very visual person and he thought he might like it to be a coffee-table
picture book with a lot of text. We weren't set on a particular format so we
were open to discussing anything and everything. It was then that Michael asked
Jackie if she would be willing to write a forward to the book once it was
completed and she agreed. We went back to New York with a book deal in hand, and
the adventure began in earnest.

(part two)

Over the four years that I intermittently worked and traveled with Michael while he was creating his book, Moonwalk, I saw his delight in the world, his fresh perspective on what most of us would call reality. Michael was an artist, and artists are not like us; they don't want to work in an office, to live conventionally, to never ruffle feathers. Michael lived music, he breathed music. While walking down the stairs or riding in a car, he would open his mouth and a bit of a song he was working on, or a melody that was running through his head, would rise to the listener's ears, and all withing hearing range would feel quite amazed to be in the company of someone who was so obviously a musical genius. Michael, we all know, was deprived of a childhood, and it haunted him and kept him in ''Neverland''. He realized how important and special childhood was, even as those who were lucky enough to have one did not. He had lived in the land of the grown-ups for too many years, and he saw with wonder and a growing uneasiness that adults frequently live in a treacherous world of brutality, backbiting, and fear. Having been introduced to it too soon, Michael never wanted to live that way. He was deprived of man of the most basic aspects of childhood, and so instead of playing and goofing off, he worked. He traveled from nightclub to nightclub, from venue to venue, from a hundred inebriated people in a smoke-filled room to the Ed Sullivan Show. This was no childhood; this was hard work, and pressure on the shoulders of a little boy with a gorgeous voice and electric stage persona of someone five times his age. When he was old enough and financially secure enough, Michael Jackson created his own world, a place where there was peace and kindness, where ever candy imaginable was available in dispensers that don't take money, where a movie theater with popcorn and soda pop sat excitingly empty, the projectionist waiting to hear your wishes, a place where chimps dressed in sailor suits and fun was the only accepted currency. Michael loved being in the company of children, because, as he told many times, ''Children don't lie to you. Children are pure and innocent and good. Being with children is like being blessed, like being with angels.'' Jackie and I asked Michael to write about his life, because even at the age he was when we initiated the project, he had spent almost twenty years in show business. He was a great performer, a singer, a songwriter, and a dancer whom Fred Astaire admired. What did this amazing young man have to say, what stories did he want to tell, what had he experienced? As it turned out, Michael had been in the public's eye for so long that he had become very protective of those things his fans could not see, did not know. He had been written about at every stage of his life. Facts had been telegraphed, as had falsehoods. He liked the idea that he could set the record straight in his own book, in his own words, but, too, there was an overriding desire to leave some things for himself and for those people he loved the most. On our second trip to L.A to see Michael, we brought along the designer J.C. Suares and a hodgepodge of art supplies and big sheets of drawing paper. We stood around Michael's huge dining room table and he talked about what he'd like the book to be. Michael, who loved to draw, and J.C. sketched out pages, and we all talked about the endless possibilities. Eventually, Moonwalk became the book you are holding in your hands -- a smaller size but dilled with some of Michael's favourite images, and a drawing of himself and a signature that he did for us on a blank sheet of paper so we could use it as part of the title page. He loved his fans and liked the idea that everyone who owned the book would feel as if they had a signed copy. Michael had an amazing eye. It was he who dreamed up the white glove, the bits of white tape on his fingertips, the uniforms. It was he who thought that marching down steps with dozens of blue-suited policemen would look cool, that running through the streets with hundreds of men in uniforms would be dramatic and thrilling for the viewer. He sought out the best talent to work with and he oversaw every aspect of his music videos, which he actually thought of as short films and always referred to as short films. I was with him a few times when people would come to the house to try to get his approval on the merchandise they wanted to create.He wanted it to be of the finest quality, to be worth the money people would pay; he wanted it to last. He was a perfectionist. Look again at the music videos; really look at every detail, not the care taken with every shot, every outfit, the lighting. His hand was in everything, his unerring eye was always the final arbiter. (end of part two)

(part three)
I wish I could say he gave the same attention to his book. While he loved books and carried them with him wherever he went, creating one was just not as
exciting as finding the right note or step or guitarist, so the writing of this
book took a long time. Still, he wanted Moonwalk to happen or it would not have.
He gave me amazing access. After one writer who was helping him was unable to
capture what he wanted, he suggested to Jackie that maybe I could come out to
L.A. and ask him questions, and he would record the answers. The tapes could be
transcribed, and he could read them and add material or be inspired by one story
to tell another. I had never interviewed anyone. I was clumsy at the task, but
he was easy to work with and forgiving. We spent many afternoons talking in his
private sitting room and library off the second floor of the house in Encino
with the tape recorder running.
It was a pleasant, wood-paneled room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a fireplace. Usually, we'd sit in front of
a fire, Michael stretched out on a sofa, me cross-legged on the floor worrying
with the tape recorder. All I had to do was get him started, and he would
tell story after story about his family and his childhood, about
what it felt like when Motown finally called Berry Gordy and Diana Ross entered
his life. He talked and talked, and then we would get the tapes
transcribed. Michael would read the transcriptions and fiddle with them and so
would I.

In the evenings, we would sometimes see a movie in the screening room. I remember him taking his friend and advisor Karen Langford and
me to the L.A. County Children's Museum, which they kept open for us after
hours. We exhausted ourselves leaping against Velcro walls, standing in front of
spinning lights, and throwing ourselves into the pools of plastic balls. On
the way home, he asked his driver to pull over somewhere near the intersection
of Hollywood and Vine and jumped from the car to dance on his star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame, singing some perfect little bit of a song before leaping
back in, and off we went into the night. It was exhilarating to be in his
presence. He was exciting and funny and brilliant.

A few years passed this way-- I had a full-time job back in New York at Doubleday Publishing
Company and Michael was busy making videos, writing songs and recording his next
album. Finally a real writer was given all of the material we had amassed and
quickly shaped it into a narrative. When Stephen Davis turned in the final
manuscript, Michael had left on the Asia portion of his Bad tour. Our CEO,
Alberto Vitale, wanted to get the book done as soon as possible -- after all, it
had been almost four years. I explained that Michael was in Japan and we'd have
to wait months for him to return from this portion of the world tour so that he
could read everything.

''So go,'' he said to me. ''To Japan?'' I asked, shocked. ''Why not?'' he answered with his signature brevity. So I called
Michael's people and asked if I could join him on tour to go over the final
draft of Moonwalk. Michael said okay but suggested I meet him in Australia,
where his schedule would be slightly less hectic than in Japan. He was going to
Melbourne first and then on to Sydney and Brisbane. I would join him in
Melbourne and stay as long as it took to get what I needed.

It was in Melbourne that I got to see Michael in concert for the first time. He was an
electric performer, and I saw this again and again as we traveled and he did
show after show. The crowds were huge and mad for him. I wasn't on tour with him
anywhere else, but I can promise you that Australians loved Michael
Jackson!

We could work together on the book only on the nights that he didn't have a performance. I had brought two copies of the manuscript with me
from New York. The first night we got together, I asked Michael how he wanted to
work. I suggested that he could read a page while I read the same page, and
he could give me any corrections that he might have. He just stared at me with a
bemused look on his face. So I said, ''Or I could read it to you, and you could
stop me whenever you want to make changes.'' He grinned and said, ''That's a
much better idea! Read it to me.''

So for two weeks in early November 1987, in Melbourne and Sydney -- when Michael had the time -- I sat at one end
of his bed in jeans and he sat at the other in Chinese red silk pajamas, and I
read every word of Moonwalk as he patiently corrected mistakes and added
material, more near the end. When the last page was turned and we were done, we
celebrated, and I took the final manuscript and flew back to America.

I saw him in December in L.A. when he got home from the tour, and we discussed
what should be on the cover and how the book should be advertised and promoted.
He had made it clear tha he wasn't willing to do any appearances, TV or radio,
but he did suggest that I could be the one to talk about the making of the book
when it came out, and I did a little.

Then without warning, Michael had a crisis of faith about the book shortly before we were to go to press. His
lawyer, close advisor, and friend John Branca, who had been involved with the
making of the book in so many wonderful ways, called me at Doubleday to break
the news. I was stunned. The book was completely done -- introduction,
photos, designed cover-- everything was set to go to the printer. Jackie and I
were very pleased with the way it had turned out, but now Michael had changed
his mind.

For about a week, he and John and Karen and all of us at Doubleday struggled with this dilemma. I think he suddenly felt terribly
exposed. He had never said so much about himself and his family and his life.
He had never done a book before, and books are powerful. Once the words are
printed, they are there forever. Would people like it? Had it revealed too much?
Would he feel comfortable having the world know his feelings and thoughts?
Eventually, he calmed down and let it go, and we started
press.

Moonwalk instantly became a #1 New York Times bestseller and a bestseller around the world. The year was 1988 and Michael was very happy and
proud of the attention the book was receiving and so, of course, were
we.

I hope you have enjoyed Moonwalk and that you feel like you know the real Michael Jackson now, because he was an extraordinary man. I have never met
anyone like him, and I doubt I ever will.

Shaye Areheart
New York City
2009