Michael Jackson: FOR ME LOVE IS SOMETHING VERY PURE
Shmuley Boteach: In trying to preserve childlike qualities in your life you Michael, you have shied away from talking about overt sexuality. Like when Oprah
asked you about your sex life, you responded something to the effect that, “I’m
a gentleman and I don’t talk about that” [ ]
So you were brought up to be shy and modest about things pertaining to love and romance?
Michael Jackson: Yes, we don’t talk about it.
SB: You have been married twice. Michael. Do you still believe in romance or have you had some negative experiences and it is therefore more difficult to
believe?
MJ: No, I believe in it, but I am shy about it. None of us have invited our parents to our weddings. We don’t believe in it. We are too shy. I wouldn’t dare
in a million years to have my mother at a wedding of mine. I can’t have myself
walking down the aisle and my mother sitting there. That’s why we all ran off
and got married secretly and my mother reads it in the paper and she doesn’t
mind. Because we are just like her. She would have done the same thing.
SB: So love has to be something hidden and concealed?
MJ: It’s like private, like mushy stuff.
SB: And mushy stuff is always private?
MJ: Yeah.
SB: Well, I also believe that romantic love thrives through mystery and concealment. But we can’t overdo it. Your parents should definitely be at your
wedding. So romance is something you believe in but you have been taught to be
shy about it?
MJ: I am shy. I don’t know how good I am at it because I am shy. I am very different in that way. I have heard guys be really poetic with girls and, “Oh
baby, this and that.” I am not like that. I am like straight to the point and
say it simply.
SB: So what do you do in things like music videos when you’re expected to portray romance and do love scenes and things like that?
MJ: That’s why it is my job to cast the girl, because it is my job to think they are cute. So I can do it if I really like them, like some of the girls you
see in my videos. I have cast them because I really like them and it caused a
problem afterwards because they start to really like me, and I don’t want to get
that serious, and it becomes a problem sometimes.
SB: You probably face this all the time because not only are you famous, but you are the kind of guy who women want to be around—soft, gentle, not afraid to
express his emotions. Women die for guys who aren’t afraid to show vulnerability
and softness, whereas a lot of the guys in Hollywood are stereotypically
self-absorbed, self-obsessed, and can’t commit. So do you often find that this
happens, that women get clingy?
MJ: What do you mean?
SB: Like you said, it is supposed to be a professional thing. You just film something with a female costar, but afterwards they become attached.
MJ: Yes, it happens.
SB: How do you break the news to them that you don’t reciprocate?
MJ: When they see me running the other way. Yeah. Some of them follow me around the world and it is so hard.
SB: That probably makes them chase you even more because they probably are drawn to that boyish shyness. To be sure, many women like “bad” boys. But for
the same reason, a lot like shy guys. In the same way they believe that they can
redeem the bad boy and polish up this coarse diamond, they believe the same
thing about the shy guy. They think, “Only I can bring him out of his shell.”
But I guess after a while, with you running halfway around the world from them,
they get the message. But you never tell them directly?
MJ: No, because it would hurt them too much.
SB: What did Cindy Crawford want from you last night?
MJ: I have seen Cindy from afar several times, and she was with other guys, and we have met up at other functions . . . from afar. I think she felt this was
her chance to really meet me. She probably admires me. A lot of the people come
over. What you saw was nothing.
SB: You have seen celebrities behave like that, like a pack of dogs, chasing after someone who is more famous than them? It was so degrading.
MJ: Yes! It’s worse.
SB: What did she talk to you about?
MJ: [Imitating Crawford] “How are you?” I go. “I’m all right’ “Oh, you sure you are okay? Oh. I just love your work, and I love what you do. How long are
you in town?” I said, “I am working here. I’m recording’
SB: Do you think there was a romantic interest?
MJ: Yeaaah. I kinda think so.
SB: Was she asking you out?
MJ: Those girls flirt. . . they flirt. She is pretty.
SB: It was blatant. A banker who was with us at the table said to me, “Cindy Crawford, when she is up close, she is just another gal.” I said. But what is
she doing here?”
MJ: Did you see Donald Trump come over?
SB: Now he is an interesting man.
MJ: A woman I really liked and respected was Princess Diana.
SB: Why?
MJ: Because she was classy and sincerely cared about people and children and the plight of what was going on in the world. She didn’t do it for show. I like
the way she made her kids wait in line to get on a ride for something.
SB: Was she a feminine kind of woman?
MJ: Very feminine and classy. She was my type for sure, and I don’t like most girls. There are very few I like who fit the mold. It takes a very special mold
to make me happy and she was one of them. For sure.
SB: Because of her love of kids?
MJ: It takes a lot to find a mirror image, a mirror image. People always say that opposites attract and I think that is true, as well. But I want somebody
who is a lot like me, who has the same interests and who wants to help and they
gotta go to hospitals with me and care. .. That’s why you saw Lisa Marie and me
at those kinds of things. She cared about that stuff, too.
SB: Did you ever think of asking Princess Diana out?
MJ: Absolutely.
SB: So why didn’t you have the nerve to ask her?
MJ: I have never asked a girl out in my life. They have to ask me.
SB: Really?
MJ: I can’t ask a girl out.
SB: If she would have asked you out?
MJ: Absolutely. I would have gone. Brooke Shields asked me out every time you saw us out together. It was her idea to go out and do it every time. I sincerely
liked Brooke Shields too. I liked her a lot.
SB: Does she like kids?
MJ: Yes. My first girlfriend. Tatum O’Neal, she’d won the Academy Award for Paper Moon … I was sixteen, she was thirteen. And was I naive. She wanted to do
everything and I didn’t want to have sex at all, because there were a lot of
values associated with being a Jehovah’s Witness. I said, “Are you crazy?” One
of those was to be kind to everyone.
When I held Tatum’s hand it was just magic, better than anything, kissing her, anything. Her, Ryan Q’Neal and myself went to this club and were watching a
band and underneath the table she was holding my hand and I was melting. It was
magical. There was fireworks going on. It was all I needed. But that means
nothing to kids today. She grew up too fast. She wasn’t into innocence, and I
love that.
Now Brooke Shields, she was one of the loves of my life, we dated a lot. Her pictures were all over my walls and mirrors. I was at the Academy Awards with
Diana Ross and she just came up to me and said, Hi, I’m Brooke Shields. Are you
going to the after party?” I said “Yeah, and I just melted.” I was about
twenty-three. . . during Off the Wall. I thought, Does she know [that
photographs of her are] all over my room?” So we get to the party and she says,
“Would you dance with me?” And we went on the dance floor. And man, we exchanged
numbers and I was up all night, spinning around in my room, just so happy. She
was classy. We had one encounter when she got real intimate and I chickened out.
And I shouldn’t have.
Lisa. . . we’re still friendly, but she’s running around. She just changed her number and we don’t have the new one yet.
SB: Can you immediately tell innocence?
MJ: Right away, although I find it harder to tell with women because they’re so smooth. But with men, I can usually tell, because they’re more open and like
puppies, while girls are more like cats. You know how if you’ve been on vacation
and get home and a puppy is all over you, while with a cat, it’s, “Hey, I don’t
need you. You walk over to me and pick me up.” They give you attitude. They’ll
walk right by you even though they haven’t seen you in three months. Women are
very smart. Walt Disney always said they’re smarter than men. and (he] always
hired more women.
[ ]
SB: The same principle of not being overexposed. Would you advise women in relationships to do the same thing? Would you say to people today who get bored
of one another, You know, fifty percent of marriages end in divorce and so much
of it is that husbands and wives just get tired of one another. They get weary
and bored. Would you say that if there was more – mystery, if they learned to
hold back and leave room to discover one another, then there would be more
adventure in their relationship?
MJ: Yeah, yeah. I think going away is good. Like they say, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” I totally believe in it. Going away is really important. I
don’t understand how people can be together all day with each other and be
totally fine. I think it is sweet and beautiful. . .
SB: Have you seen marriages like that?
MJ: I have seen couples, yes. I don’t know how they do it. Because creatively they have to do so many things.
SB: So the women you have dated, the ones who were smart enough not to throw themselves at you, were they the ones that you were more interested in, the ones
who weren’t always available and you had to chase them a bit?
MJ: The ones who were classy and quiet and not into all the sex and all the craziness because I am not into that.
SB: They are the ones that you are more interested in?
MJ: Aha. I don’t understand a lot of things that go on in relationships and I don’t know if I ever will. I think that is what has hurt me in my relationships
because I don’t understand how people do some of the things they do.
SB: Mean things?
MJ: Mean things and vulgar things with their bodies. I don’t understand it and it has hurt my relationships.
SB: So for you love is something very pure?
MJ: Very pure. It shocked me some of the things.
SB: What was it about Diana, that kind of a woman, her dignity, that kind of innocence? Do you see that often in people where they have a regal bearing to
them?
MJ: No. we don’t see it and that’s what I love. I think she truly cared about people’s feelings and really tried to make the world a better place. I really
believe that her heart was out for other people. You could see it in some of the
photos where she is touching those little baby’s faces and they are sitting on
her lap and she would be holding them. That is not faked. You could see it. When
you see the queen come out she has got these gloves on and she is waving from a
distance, you can see the heart. You can see.
You put your money where your mouth is and you go in those huts and go in those ditches and sit with them and sleep there. That’s doing it, that’s what I
do. Remember when you said you saw my picture in China in some hut, some lady’s
hut. I go in there and I touch the people and I see them.
SB: When you are in a meeting, are you able to see who is the hard-nosed businessman, bottom line is everything, he’ll manipulate, lie, whatever it
takes, and the ones who are pure, more innocent, who you want to do business
with? Can you see immediately? Or, on the contrary, do you see with a child’s
eyes and see goodness in everybody, which is why you have sometimes ended up
with people who aren’t the nicest people?
MJ: That’s true, too. It works both ways, but you can detect it and feel it in another person. There is this man in LA and he works in a vinyl record shop
and he has got to be in his fifties and he has the spirit of an eleven-year-old
boy. I always stare at him and he stares at me and there is like this telepathy
going on. He talks like a kid and the way he moves his eyes. I say to myself,
“This is so interesting.” I’d like to get to know him better and find out what
is this. I mean it. It’s amazing. I feel it. I feel it in children right away,
of course. I pick up on it like that and children can tell it in you.
SB: It’s almost like a relief. Here is someone who understands me?
MJ: Ye all. Their eyes light up when you come over and they want to play and they feel it.
SB: Michael, have you never met a woman like that who loves those same things: who’d play hide and seek with you, who’d love the water fights with
you?
MJ: Not yet. The ones I have had are jealous of the children. All of them. They get jealous of their own kids and start competing with them. That rubs me
in a bad way.
SB: Theoretically, if you were Adam in the Garden of Eden and you found an Eve like that, would that be your ideal woman?
MJ: Absolutely. I haven’t found it [women who want to play]. . . I think more guys are more apt to goof off. Even when they are much older, their thirties,
and a woman will come in and say, “What are you doing? Don’t do that. Are you
crazy?” The guy will go. “What, we are just having fun?”
SB: Women almost feel that it is immature if they behave that way, no?
MJ: Yes, but if you look in history you never see real serial killer women.
SB: Yes, but they don’t play the way boys do.
MJ: I know they don’t.
SB: Even at a younger age they are playing with dolls and they are marrying Barbie and Ken. In other words, the quintessential thing is – that if boys are
shooting spit balls at each other, the girls will say, “Stop doing that.” Even
then they want to be older. It is almost against their gender. Have you ever
found girls who like the practical jokes that you like? Have you ever found a
woman who collects comics?
MJ: It is a rarity. If I find one I will go nuts. Especially, if she has those qualities and is beautiful inside. It would be a home run for me. That’s
why guys hang out. Because they can do that.
SB: Thinking about mothers and fathers, mothers are really good at doing homework with their kids and being more nurturing. But the rough playing is what
the fathers do. They get on the floor and get dirty, wrestle, build castle with
them in a sandpit. Isn’t that interesting? It creates an imbalance in the book
to an extent. On the contrary, it is the girls in school that are always
ridiculing the boys for being immature. “Loоk at those boys. Look at the way
they are behaving.” Maybe the women need to be taught the art of playfulness as
much as the men.
MJ: Do you not think it’s embedded in them biologically? Biologically, as a breed, don’t you think women are just a different species?
SB: They are definitely different, but the question is, “Why don’t they want to play?” The funny thing is this: when they play, it’s when they flirt. In
other words, if you chase them round the room and there is something romantic
going on, then they will run around with you and laugh and giggle. But it’s
specifically when it is romantic. They don’t do it with each other. You don’t
see two girls running round the room, playing hide and seek or wrestling each
other, the way they’re prepared to suddenly when it’s a boyfriend. A lot of fans
— the women who are interested in you — would do all these things just to make
you happy. But you don’t know if they were doing it because they are really
enjoying it. It seems that it’s only romance that makes women playful. But then,
sometimes it bothers men, because the women become like a tease and, you know,
they have this power over you with these little games they play. I have got to
find four or five women who fit into this opening chapter who are very
successful but who have retained child-like qualities and, so far, we have come
up with one. When you think of Bill Clinton don’t you think of a guy as being
pretty playful? He goes to McDonald’s and he jogs and. . .
MJ: Riding his bike at the White House. Did you see it? He was riding his bike in the White House to get him to the next meeting. A great shot of him In
Vanity Fair. Can you think of Hillary doing that? Nope, not in a million years.
I can think of little girls who would join in with play. Girls who are
tomboys.
SB: Okay, when they are tomboys. But when they get older, do they still play to the same extent?
MJ: Do you think it is in their heart that they can just be themselves and be dignified?
SB: What women seem to look forward to more than anything else is falling in love. They don’t look forward to the playfulness in the same way. But once
they’re in love a carefree playful side is released.
MJ: I have to play.
SB: Is there a difference in how your male fans and female fans relate to you?
MJ: Sometimes. But I am finding today, and it is so true, that guys today are really changing and I have watched it happen through my career. Guys scream with
the same kind of adulation that girls do in a lot of countries. They are not
ashamed. They are shaking, “I love you.” We have guys chasing us around.
SB: But die fanatics are the women.
MJ: Yeah, they are loyal, women. They have been loyal. They are activists. They will fight you about me.
SB: Do you find it easier to be closer to motherly figures in your life like Elizabeth Taylor, your own mother, who you always praise, and your sister Janet?
Do you find that women are more child-like than men? Are they gentler, are they
less competitive, less mean? You have been around some mean women, as well, who
behave in a masculine – aggressive way, like Madonna. You told me -that she can
be mean. Is that a feminine trait or do you feel that she has a real masculine
streak in her? Do you find it easier to be closer to women?
MJ: In some ways, yes, and some ways, not. It depends on the age. I have seen some women who are very bitter and mean and they become ladies later. They come
into their own and they become good people. I have seen it in my brothers’
ex-wives who were horrible. They were like nightmares when they were young. With
time and age they become good people. But they were horrible, just horrible.
Then with time they just level out, that’s what I like when they become truly
good.
SB: But, intuitively, do you find women easier to get along with? Are they softer than men? I mean. I personally find women more naturally nurturing, more
refined, possessed of a greater nobility of spirit. I have to tell you.
MJ: I am trying to be real honest with you.
SB: But many of your closest friends seem to be women.
MJ: Women are softer than men. Yeah, that’s true.
SB: Do you think that a child star as cute as Shirley Temple, do you think a boy star could be that cute?
MJ: Yeah, but he wouldn’t have the same. . . Shirley Temple just had something that was meant to give us bliss and make us smile.
SB: Are you more protective of Paris because she is a little girl?
MJ: Paris can stand [on] her own sometimes – much more. Prince won’t stand up for himself. People can push him about and he won’t stand up. She won’t take
anything from anybody. She fights. She’s tough, very tough. It’s true, man.
Prince will let people take complete advantage of him and won’t say
anything.
SB: He is more like his father, like you.
MJ: I was like that. My mother always told me. “Don’t let people hurt you. You are too much like me.” She would cry. “You are too much like me. I don’t
want you to be like me. I hurt so much.” Because people take advantage.
SB: But you never toughened up. It seems that you would rather be taken advantage of than do the taking advantage of. It hurts to be taken advantage of.
But it doesn’t hurt as much as being a mean and aggressive person. Mean-
spiritedness is a form of internal corruption and it makes it impossible to be
happy. Notice that evil people never seem happy. They are miserable and they
seek to make other people just as miserable as they are.
MJ: Yeah. I’d rather suffer…. I hate to say it because I suffered a lot. God, have I suffered. But I would rather suffer.
SB: You have seen the ugly side of people.
MJ: I have seen the worst… the nightmare of the human condition. I would never even think that common man would be capable of behaving in such a way.
[ ]
MJ: Lisa was great. She was a sweet person. But it is hard to tie me down. I can’t stay in one place one time so that’s why I don’t know if I [can] really be
completely married all the time.
SB: Did you want to be a father to her kids?
MJ: Yes.
SB: Do you still stay in touch with the children?
MJ: Yes, and with her.
SB: But marriage is too confining?
MJ: Yes. I don’t know whether I am disciplined enough because I am such a rolling stone. I have such a life when I am always on the move and women don’t
like that. They want you to be settled in one place all the time but I have to
move. I have been in the same city as where my house is and still check into a
hotel just to feel like I am going somewhere. My house is right there. I guess I
am just moving all the time, moving.
SB: You have gotten used to it. That’s your lifestyle.
MJ: I love being on the move, love it.
SB: It impresses me that everywhere you go you take your children with you. So you are on the move but it is almost like your household moves with you.
Prince and Paris aren’t unsettled because of it because their source of security
is always with them. But what about the families who don’t have the resources
for that, and most don’t? They don’t have enough to be able to fly the kids
around here and there. Businessmen who have to travel, they fly economy just to
afford their own fare, and they can’t possibly bring their kids along every
time. Should they not travel?
MJ: I feel bad for their children. I feel bad for their children. I always ask pilots and stewards “How do they do it? The children suffer. Absolutely.
They suffer.
SB: You wouldn’t be doing this if Prince and Paris were going to suffer as a result. You are doing it because you have the resources to bring them where you
are.
MJ: I couldn’t hurt them like that.
SB: Do you want to find them a Rose Fine kind of figure [Michael's childhood tutor], a bit of a motherfhood figure?
MJ: That would be nice. That would be sweet. If the person is completely sincere, like Miss Fine was, who would read to them and teach them and give them
the right values and teach them that there’s no difference and that we are all
the same people. She used to always rub my face and I never used to understand
why. She used to say I had beautiful hands. And I used to say, (“Why, don’t all
hands look alike?” But now I see what she means because now I do it to my kids.
I rub their face like that because they are so sweet. [Laughs] I never
understood why she did it to me. Then you grow up and you realize that it is an
endearing thing to do, to say, “I love you.”
[I asked Michael about his celebrity friends. Why could he connect with them more than with noncelebrities?]
MJ: Yeah, but I don’t really have Hollywood friends. I have a few.
SB: Why don’t you? Why don’t you hang out with more celebrities?
MJ: Because I don’t think they are all real people. They love the limelight and I don’t have anything in common with them. They want to go clubbing and
afterwards they want to sit around and drink hard liquor and do marijuana and do
all kinds of crazy things that I wouldn’t do. We have nothing in common.
Remember the line I told you? Madonna laid the law down to me before we went
out. “I am not going to Disneyland, okay? That’s out.” I said, “But I didn’t ask
you to go to Disneyland.” She said. “We are going to the restaurant and
afterwards we are going to a strip bar.” I said, “I am not going to a strip
bar.” Guys who cross-dress! Afterwards she wrote some mean things about me in
the press and I wrote that she is a nasty witch, after I was so kind to her. I
have told you that we were at the table eating and some little kids came up. “Oh
my God. Michael Jackson and Madonna. Can we have your autograph?” She said. “Get
out of here. Leave us alone.” I said, “Don’t ever talk to children like that.”
She said, “Shut up.” I said, “You shut up.” That’s how we were. Then we went out
again and went to the Academy Awards and she is not a nice person. I have to say
it. She is not a nice person.
SB: Did the people around you feel that it was important to be seen with her?
MJ: They knew nothing about it. This was totally between her and me.
SB: So you save it a chance and it didn’t work?
MJ: Yeah. I gave it a chance like I try and give everything a chance.
SB: You basically saw that your values do not match those of most Hollywood people.
MJ: No, they do lots of crazy things that I am not into and at the time I was with Madonna she was into these books, a whole library of books of women who
were tied to walls. She said. “I love spanky books.” Why do I want to see
that?
SB: I think a lot of it is the image. She once said something to the effect that she would much rather read a good book than have sex. I think the other
vulgar stuff is part of the outrageous image she tries to cultivate.
MJ: She’s lying [about preferring to read a book]. I can’t judge. I don’t know if she has changed or if she [is] trying to claim she has changed.
SB: Why does she say mean things?
MJ: I think she likes shock value and she knows how to push buttons on people. I think she was sincerely in love with me and I was not in love with
her. She did a lot of crazy things and that’s how that went. I knew we had
nothing in common. But I am pretty sure that having a baby has to change you. I
don’t know how much she has changed, I’m sure she is a better person than
before.
SB: She has two children now.
MJ: Yeah. I know. How would you like getting a phone call and she is telling you that she is putting her fingers between her legs. I would say, “Oh Madonna,
please.” She said, “What I want you to do when you hang up the phone is to rub
yourself and think of me”. That’s the kind of stuff she says. When I see her she
says: “ This is the finger I used last night”. Wild, out of control.
SB: But you were raised that all things romantic should have a certain modesty…
[ ]
Have you ever found women who are a bit more modest to be more attractive for that reason?
MJ: Yeah. I don’t like the women who are always saying, “My nails need to be done. I have to do my toes. I need a manicure”. I hate all that. I like it when
girls are a little bit more tomboyish. If they wrestle, climb a tree. I love
that… It is sexier to me. I like class though. Class is everything.
SB: If a woman walks around with all her cleavage showing…
MJ: Frank loves it.
(Michael gestured to Frank Cascio, who was sitting right next to us. We all laughed.)
SB: A man might want sex with a woman like that. But it doesn’t mean that he would want to fall in love with a woman like that.
MJ: Of course you want to look. I am in love with innocence and I tell Frank that.
[ ]
MJ: I don’t like clubs now, I did all that when I was eleven, eight and- going back—nine, eight, seven, six, Fights break out, people throwing up,
yelling, screaming, the police sirens. Our father never let us become a part of
it other than to perform and leave. But sometimes in having to do that you would
get caught up in some of the craziness. I saw it all. The lady who came on right
before, when The Jackson’s were little. “And now next, The Little Jackson 5,”
was the lady who took off all her clothes. Threw her panties into the audience
and the men would grab them and sniff them. I saw all this. Her name was Rose
Marie and she put these things on her breasts and moved them around and she
showed everything. So when I became sixteen, seventeen and guys would say.
“Let’s go clubbing.” I would go. “Are you crazy?” And the guys would be like,
“No, are you crazy? We can get girls, we can get liquor.” But I had done that. I
did that when I was a baby. Now I want to be a part of the world and the life I
didn’t have. Take me to Disneyland, take me to where the magic is.
SB: Let me ask you about loneliness. So wherever you travel, you, thank God, have an entourage. People you’ve been with for a long time, Frank and Skip
[Michael's bodyguard at the time, a very pleasant and decent man from New
Orleans]. But it’s still not like having a wife in your life or something. Do
you get lonely? Or is there so much going on in your life that it doesn’t really
happen?
MJ: Like lonely for like a wife? For like a mate? like that?
SB: Yeah.
MJ: I’ve been through two bad divorces and I just got out of the second one. Even when married to those women that I was married to, I’d go to bed hurting. I
was hurting. I was crying last night as I went to sleep and I didn’t sleep good
last night. And I cry. Shmuley, because I feel this. . . and I’m not trying. I’m
telling you the honest truth and if you don’t believe me you can ask Frank.
Frank knew how I was hurting. I just was feeling all the pain of the children
who suffer and I was hurting so much. That’s why I was trying to reach any child
I knew who had pain, from [Michael mentions a little girl who was battling
cancer and whose family he met at our home] to Gavin [Michael's later
accuser].
I was trying to like, calling/dialing and I woke up the first thing, the first person I called was [the little girl's] house and she had gone already. It
hurts me. But I think that’s where my real love comes from, Shmuley. If I can
help in that way. I’m fine and I don’t need the other [romantic love].You know
if I meet some girl somewhere and I think she’s beautiful, which I see a lot of
them, that’s great. I mean, I’ll go on a date or something. Nothing wrong with
that. Jennifer Lopez looked awfully good the other day, she did. I was shocked
’cause I never thought. . . She looked good [Michael laughs as he says
this].
SB: But have you given up on women understanding you? You tend to think that children will understand you a lot better?
MJ: I’m not easy to live with in that way for a wife. I’m not easy and I know I’m not easy. Because I give all my time to someone else. I give it to children,
I give it to somebody sick somewhere, to ‘the music And women want to be the
center. And I remember Lisa Marie would always say to me. “I’m not a piece of
furniture. I’m not a piece of furniture. You just can’t . . .” I say, “I don’t
want you to be a piece of furniture,” and you know, there’d be some sick little
girls calling on the phone and she’d get mad and hang up on them. And, you know,
I feel that’s my, that’s my mission. Shmuley, I have to do it.
SB: What if you found a woman who was that soft, who was incredibly soft?
MJ: like a Mother Teresa or a Lady Diana or. .. That would be great. It would be perfect.
SB: Would that be better than having to do it on your own?
MJ: Absolutely, and Lisa was great with going to the hospitals with me, and she was so sweet about that. They would tie the babies to the bed or chain the
children down. We’d go unchain. . . we’d go free all these babies. I hated that
and she, she discovered a lot of that injustice with me. Countries like Romania
and Prague, Czechoslovakia and all that, Russia. You should see what they do to
the children in those. . . you’d be shocked. They chain them to the wall like
they’re animals and they’re naked and they slept in their tinkle and their feces
too. It’s just so sad. It made me sick. So we brought clothes and toys and just
love and love. I love them and I went back every day visiting them, hugging
them, wanting to take each and every one of them to Neverland.
SB: When you started becoming this childhood star, did you realize that your childhood was slowly slipping away? You won a contest at age eight. In 1964 you
were chosen as lead singer for the family band. Did that make you feel excited
or were you worried? Did you think to yourself, “Where is all this headed?
What’s it going to lead to?”
MJ: I didn’t think about it. I didn’t think about the future. I just took each day as it came. I knew I wanted to be a star. I wanted to do things and
make people happy.
SB: Did you know what the cost was going to be in terms of childhood?
MJ: No way. No way.
MJ on phone: Tell the guys to let the music talk to them and not to, like, jump on it right away. Listen to it a couple of times and let the melody create
itself. That’s the tiling, let the music speak to them. Alright? Goodbye.
SB: Is that your dream that one day, like part of the messianic future, as far as you’re concerned, that all these kids will come and live in Neverland and
live happily ever after?
MJ: Yes.
SB: And If you had the resources truly you would just. . .
MJ: I would do it, Shmuley. I would do it. I would love it.
SB: Lisa Marie was good about at least visiting. So she had no problem going and doing some. of the compassionate, things of giving these children love
and making them feel special?
MJ: She had no problem doing that but her and I had several big arguments cause she’s very territorial with her children. Her children were [her major
concern]. . . and I said, “No, all children are our children,” and she never
liked that coming from me. She was very angry about that. Plus, she had a fight
with me one time when two little boys in London killed this other kid and I was
going to visit them ’cause, the queen gave them adult sentencing of life. These
were like eleven- and ten-year-old boys and I was going to go to the prison and
visit them. She said, “You idiot. You’re just rewarding then for what they did.”
I said, “How dare you say that.” I said. “I bet if you trace their life you can
find they didn’t have parents around, they didn’t have any love, nobody there to
hold them look in their eyes and say “I love you.” They deserve that, even
though they’re going to get life, I just want to say I love you and hold them.”
She said. “We’ll, you’re wrong.” I said, “No, you’re wrong.” Then the
information came out that they came from broken families, were never watched as
little kids, attended to. Their pacifier was those Chucky movies with the
stabbings and the killings. And that’s how they became conditioned to that.
SB: Did she admit then that you had a point?
MJ: Nope, she thinks I’m rewarding bad kids.
SB: Did she want you to be a father to her children?
MJ: Well that at was once asked of her. She was asked that question on TV and she said. “No, they have a father. Their father is Keogh,” that other guy. But I
was really good to her children. Every day I’d bring them home something and
they’d be waiting by the window for me and hug me. I love them. I miss them so
much.
SB: Did she get used to living in Neverland or was it too isolated?
MJ: Lisa didn’t live at Neverland. We visited Neverland the way. . . I lived at her house in the city and every once in a while we visited. Neverland. If d
be like our big fun weekend.
SB: And her children liked it?
MJ: Are you kidding me? They were like in heaven.
SB: And you were happy to show it to them?
MJ: Mm hmm.
SB: Did it have more meaning to you suddenly when you had a family you could show it to?
MJ: Yes, yes. It’s just a place to make families, to bring them together, to bring people together through love and playful spirit and nature. It makes
families closer, Neverland. It’s healing.
SB: Since you idolize the family was it very hard for you when you had to go through that divorce then?
MJ: Which one?
SB: With Lisa.
MJ: Was it hard for me?
MJ: Yeah, and she – promised me that before we married, that would be the first thing we’d do was have children. So I was broken-hearted and I walked
around all the time holding these little baby dolls and I’d be crying, that’s
how badly I wanted them. So I was determined to have children. It disappointed
me that she wouldn’t keep her promise to me, you know? After we got divorced she
would hang out with my mother all the time. I have all these letters saying,
“I’ll give you nine children. I’ll do whatever you want.” and of course the
press don’t know all these stories and she just tried for months and months and
I just became too hard-hearted at that point. I closed my mind on the whole
situation.
SB: So she thought maybe you could get back together?
MJ: Uh huh.
SB: But children were a major, major issue?
MJ: Of course.
SB: She had the kids and that was it.
MJ: She had hers and I wanted us to feel like we all were one big family and have more. Just. . . my dream is to have nine or ten children, that’s what I
want.
SB: You’re still very young. Do you think that will happen?
MJ: Yeah.
SB: But then it means getting married again.
MJ: Yeah.
SB: Are you happy to do that?
MJ: Uh huh. . . or adopt.
SB: Is it possible Michael, that you’re attracting the wrong kind of girl because of your celebrity?
MJ: It’s hard. That’s why it’s hard, it’s hard for me. It is hard. It’s not easy for celebrities to be married.
SB: Do you thinк that you could only really marry celebrities so that they don’t need you as much?
MJ: That helps, in my opinion. And they understand what you go through. They’ve been there.
SB: They help you for the right reasons, then?
MJ: Yeah, they’re not after, you know? What you’ve made [the money] or, you know? [singing] ‘That’s what you are. . . ” [He won a Grammy for that.]
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