Michael Jackson (115 page)

Standing in the empty main house after his death, I remembered the four or five occasions – all press events to announce certain
charities in which Michael was involved – I was invited to the estate during the seventeen years Michael lived there: 1988 through
2005, certainly many of the most pivotal and, also, confounding years of his life. The house and surrounding grounds were
always filled with laughter and music, even if at times it seemed a somewhat eerie and unreal place. In the past, I had only
been permitted access to the living and dining rooms and, once, as I recall it, into the kitchen. I believe I was in the library
once with Michael’s attorney John Branca as well. But now, on this strange day, I had free reign to explore the entire estate.
There’s something very sad about an abandoned home, and Michael’s was no exception. Seeing it empty was a strange experience.
Even Michael had never seen it that way; he purchased it furnished and then added his own –
many
of his own – pieces. He would have been astounded to see the place so completely empty. How lucky Michael was to live here,
I thought. To have come from such meager beginnings in Gary, Indiana – and I’d also been to that small clapboard house, incidentally – to
this sumptuous estate was, without a doubt, a journey like no other. I remember him pointing out the barbecue area outside
the kitchen and telling me, ‘You can take all of Hayvenhurst’ – the estate he and his family bought in the early 1970s and which
he remodeled in the 1980s after buying out his father – ‘and fit it right there in that little corner. How about that!’

But what must it have been like, I wondered, for Michael to walk the bricked halls of the main house in the middle of the
night, fearing that he might spend almost twenty years of his life in a jail cell? That had to have been the flip side of
living at Neverland in his final years there. How did he ever survive the fear, the anguish? And then I thought, My God! If
he had gone to prison, maybe he would still be alive! But, then again, what kind of life would that have been for Michael
Jackson? No, I decided, he would rather be dead than be in prison. No doubt about that, I’m afraid.

As I walked into Michael’s bedroom, it was as if his spirit still remained. I looked at the fireplace and imagined it lit
with a warm glow. I thought about the painting of The Last Supper that had once been placed over his bed, with Michael in
Christ’s place. I thought it was the most ridiculous and maybe even blasphemous piece of art I’d ever heard of when I learned
that he’d bought it for this room. But suddenly, standing there, it seemed to make sense to me. Crucified by the circumstances
of his life, it was as if poor Michael Jackson had no chance at all.

I thought about him alone at night in that very room, trying in vain to sleep. Rising, pacing the halls, going back to bed...
surrounded by bottles of pills and who knows what else... taking anything to escape the insomnia, the anxiety. The never-ending
tape loop of his thoughts. I walked into his bathroom and over to his sink. I looked at the tile on the counter – each one seemed
to be a royal crest from a different European family. There I stood, gazing at the very mirror into which Michael had stared
day after day, while probably wondering the same questions that many of us have asked ourselves at one time or another in
our lives: Why do I look this way? Why do I feel this way? What can I do now to make that one crucial change that will help
me, if not to truly love myself, at least to achieve some peace of mind? And I looked into my own eyes. I studied the reflection
of a man in the mirror who had spent so many years of his own life trying to comprehend another person’s journey, looking
for threadbare clues that might answer the simple question: Why? As I did, I began to realize that, as is always the case
with our most legendary celebrities and icons, while their gifts, talent and dynamism are often unparalleled, they are at
the very core no different, no more or less unique, extraordinary and difficult to understand than anyone else. I began to
feel at one with the sheer humanity of Michael Jackson, and all its complexity, fallibility and grace. I never thought such
a thing possible about somebody at once so magical and yet so mystifying to the point of madness. Our lives had been so different.
But, finally, I think I understood the truth about Michael – a truth that, in the end, is far easier to understand than the
man who personified it on the greatest stage of all for a generation. Like most of us, he was a man who did the best he could
with the cards he’d been dealt, sometimes with magnificent results, sometimes with tragic failure; the results of which were
magnified a thousand times over because of his astounding success, and the vulnerable young age at which he achieved it. Indeed,
staring at my own reflection in Michael Jackson’s mirror, I began to feel such empathy for him, such pity for him...and such
great love for him as well. But more than anything, I felt immeasurable sorrow for him and for what his life should have been
like – could have been like – in only...

Michael Jackson at the age of twelve in 1970. (© 1970
Soul
magazine. All Rights Reserved.)

The Jacksons posed for a family photo in June 1970. Top row: Jermaine, fifteen; LaToya, fourteen, Tito, sixteen; Jackie, nineteen.
Bottom row: Michael, eleven; Randy, seven; Joe; Janet, four; and Marlon, thirteen. (© 1970
Soul
magazine. All Rights Reserved.)

Michael in 1971. (J. Randy Taraborrelli Collection)

An early publicity photo of The Jackson 5 (1969). Top Row: Tito, sixteen; Jackie, eighteen; Jermaine, fifteen. Bottom Row:
Marlon, twelve; and Michael, eleven. (Retro Photo)

By the time The Jackson 5 played the Los Angeles Forum in 1970 ‘Jackson Mania’ was in full bloom. Michael seems to be doing
his best James Brown impression here. (Retro Photo)

By the end of 1972, the family was enjoying tremendous success. Top row: Jackie, twenty-one; Katherine (with newly frosted
hair); Joe; Janet, six; Jermaine, eighteen; Michael, fourteen. Bottom row: Marlon, fifteen; Randy, ten; Tito, nineteen; and
LaToya, sixteen. (J. Randy Taraborrelli Collection)

Diana Ross was credited with discovering The Jackson 5. Here, she seems to be telling Michael and Marlon, ‘Now here’s what
I want you to say…” (J. Randy Taraborrelli Collection)