Michael Jackson (16 page)

Along with their incredible success in the music industry came, for the Jacksons, the inevitable lure of available women.
Women of all shapes, sizes and colours began to proposition them, appearing backstage after concerts and offering to do all
sorts of ‘favours’ for them. Though Michael and Marlon were too young, Jermaine and Jackie saw no reason not to take advantage
of their young fans' overworked libidos. Tito wasn't really interested in groupies, though. He just wanted to settle down – and
also get out of the household and put some distance between him and Joseph.

In 1972, Tito announced that he wanted to marry seventeen-year-old Delores (Dee Dee) Martes, whom he had met at Fairfax High
School a few months before the group became famous. Joseph and Katherine were extremely upset, concerned that Dee Dee might
be a gold-digger and Tito too inexperienced to see it. The least he could do, they argued, was insist that his fiancée sign
a pre-nuptial agreement. He did, and she agreed.

Michael felt strongly that Tito was letting their fans down by marrying, and attempted to convince him to change his mind.
‘Think about all of those girls out there who love us,’ he said, trying to reason with his brother one day in the Motown offices.

‘They don't even know us, Mike,’ Tito said. ‘We can't live our lives for perfect strangers.’

‘But they
do
know us,’ Michael argued, according to a witness, ‘and we owe them, Tito. We owe them.’

‘So what are we supposed to do?’ Tito wanted to know. ‘Put up with Joseph for the rest of our lives? If that's the case, I
don't even want to be in the group, then.’

Michael stopped arguing with Tito at that point, perhaps fearing Tito's next step might be to just quit the act.

Joseph and Katherine had hoped that Berry Gordy would insist that Tito, as a Motown recording artist, remain single. When
Joseph presented the situation to Berry, however, he wanted no part of it. ‘Keep me out of it,’ he said. ‘As long as Michael
isn't getting married, I'm cool.’

Joseph's face darkened. ‘Michael ain't the only one in the group, Berry,’ he said, according to his recollection. ‘Thanks
for nothing.’

The wedding took place in June 1972 in a small, unpretentious chapel in Inglewood, California. Joseph spent most of the evening
glaring at Dee Dee and her family. Katherine was nicer, though one suspected she was just trying to get through the day. (Their
first baby, a son named after Tito, was born about a year later. Tito was on tour, so LaToya acted as Dee Dee's Lamaze labour
coach.)

Young Tito Jackson may have been off the open market, but Jackie and Jermaine were young, single and ready to explore whatever
fame might bring their way in terms of female companionship. Joseph had been a terrible example to them in the past, and he
didn't improve with time. In fact, when the boys became famous, he starting having liaisons with their fans! With him as their
guide, was there any reason to think the brothers would act in a responsible manner? By 1972, the older Jacksons had left
a long trail of broken hearts as they toured the country, city by city. Then, they rented an apartment near their house in
Encino, where they could hang out with their female conquests away from Katherine's scrutiny.

Rhonda Phillips was one of ‘those’ girls. Today, she is a forty-nine-year-old divorcée who lives with her three children in
Long Beach, California. Back in August 1972, she was eighteen when she met her idol, Jackie, who was twenty-one. She had been
selected from the audience by one of the group's road managers when the brothers were on stage at the Forum in Inglewood,
California. Backstage, Jackie gave Rhonda a slip of paper with an address on it and told her to meet him at that location
in an hour. As she mulled over his offer, she sensed someone behind her, and turned around. It was Michael. ‘He was just a
cute little guy,’ she said. ‘He had big teeth, a flat, wide nose, a perfectly combed natural; he looked like any pretty fourteen-year-old
black boy you'd find in the neighbourhood. He noticed the slip of paper in my hand.’

‘Did Jermaine give you that?’ he asked.

‘No, Jackie.’

‘He wants you to meet him, doesn't he?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Rhonda said. ‘I don't know if I should – ’

Michael cut her off. ‘Don't,’ he said. ‘I don't think you should meet him.’

Rhonda asked Michael why she shouldn't go. She remembered his answer: ‘My brothers don't treat girls too good. They can be
mean. Please, don't go.’

Rhonda remembered thinking that Michael was only fourteen; what could he know? She changed the subject and asked him for his
autograph. She thrust forward the piece of paper Jackie had given her, he scribbled on it and handed it back to her.

The group's representative had arranged the cab fare for Rhonda to meet Jackie. She was taken to the Jacksons' apartment in
Encino. As the car pulled up to the curb, she happened to turn over the slip of paper in her hand and realized that Michael
had written more than just his name on the back of it. There was a message: ‘I hope you don't go.’ It was signed ‘Michael
Jackson’.

She went inside the apartment complex, found the Jacksons' and had sex with Jackie. ‘I won't be able to see you after this,’
he told her when they were finished. She began to cry.

‘Suddenly, I was ashamed,’ she recalled many years later. ‘He held me for a little while and then told me that someone from
Motown would be waiting outside to take me home. He kissed me, and I left. The whole thing took less than half an hour.’

As Rhonda was walking down to the street, a white Rolls-Royce pulled up. Michael and Marlon were sitting in the back seat.
The car pulled up to the curb. The boys got out and Marlon ran past Rhonda up to the apartment. Michael came over to her.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, his tone accusatory. ‘Were you up there with Jackie?’

‘Yeah, I was,’ she answered.

‘Did you have sex?’ Michael wanted to know.

Rhonda began to cry.

Michael shook his head sadly. ‘I'm sorry,’ he said. ‘Did he make you do it?’

‘No, of course not. I wanted to.’

‘You
wanted
to?’ Michael asked, seeming astonished. ‘But why would you
want
to?’

Rhonda got into the car. She rolled down the window. Michael was still standing at the curb. ‘Are you gonna be all right?’
he asked.

‘Yeah, I will be,’ she answered.

‘By now, I was sobbing,’ Rhonda recalled. ‘I rolled up the window and the car pulled off. I looked out the back window and
the last thing I saw was Michael Jackson standing there waving goodbye to me.’

During these salad days, Michael, fourteen, often shared a room with his brother, Marlon, fifteen and Jermaine, seventeen.
Jermaine would wait for their security man, Bill Bray, to go to sleep before sneaking down to the lobby to pick up girls.
Often, he would bring them back to the room and then instruct Michael and Marlon to, as Marlon recalled it, ‘play sleep’.

Yolanda Lewis is, today, forty-six, married, and living in St Louis. In an interview, she recalled an experience she had with
Jermaine Jackson in 1972 when she was sixteen. ‘I was a real groupie,’ she remembered, ‘and the boys did a concert in Cleveland,
where I was living at the time. Afterwards, a group of us girls went to the hotel where we knew they were staying. We had
our J-5 buttons and posters, just wanting autographs, hoping to see the guys, maybe get a picture with them. Jermaine came
down and struck up a conversation with a few of us. He was sweet, shy. He pulled me off to the side and asked me if I would
like to come up to his room. Of course, I said yes. He was so handsome, with his big natural and white teeth.

‘We got up to the room, and I walked in behind Jermaine. It was pitch-black, with just a night light on in a corner.

‘ “Michael and Marlon are sleeping,” he whispered to me. “So we have to be quiet. Take off your clothes. Quick.” He wasn't
exactly romantic. I jumped into bed with him and he climbed on top of me. As he climaxed, he shuddered so loudly I was afraid
he would wake up Michael and Marlon, who were sleeping three feet away in the next bed. Or at least I thought they were sleeping.
As I was slipping out of the room, I heard Michael say to Jermaine, “Nice job. Now, can we
please
get some sleep?”’

It would be a couple of years before Marlon began playing around with groupies. However, Michael was never a player; he simply
wasn't interested, and thought his brothers' behaviour towards their female fans was deplorable. After years of traumatizing
overexposure, it was as if the very idea of sex had become abhorrent to him.

A person who has known Michael since 1974, once told me, ‘I was having a conversation with Rebbie when she said, “Michael
doesn't have time for girls.” I asked, “What kind of guy doesn't have time for girls?” She said that there were special circumstances
with Michael. When I asked her what she was talking about, she told me a horrible story.

‘She said that when Michael was fifteen years old, a certain member of his family, someone he trusted – I won't say who, even
though Rebbie did – decided he was old enough to have sex, and that he
had
to have it. This person then arranged the services of two hookers for Michael. He told them to work him over, and then locked
Michael up in a room with them. Rebbie said that this incident absolutely traumatized her brother. I don't know whether or
not Michael actually had sex with the hookers. Rebbie didn't say.’

Certainly, if this story is true, such a scenario must have had a deep psychological impact on Michael, as it would on any
youngster going through puberty. After that happened, it's been said, Michael turned to prostitutes, not for sex – but for conversation.
It was as if Michael had retaliated against his brothers' actions with groupies by trying to reassure himself that women were
good for more than just fun times in bed. James McField, the group's former pianist and band director, recalled, ‘Sometimes – maybe
once, maybe twice – Michael just needed to have someone to talk to and – maybe once, maybe twice – a woman would be introduced to
him as someone very nice that he could be with, to have the company of a female. But he wouldn't have sex with her, to my
knowledge. As far as I know, nothing intimate would ever happen. He liked nice girls, pure girls who appeared to have no street
background.’

One such ‘date’ remembered meeting Michael after a concert in New York. ‘I was hanging around backstage, working Madison Square
Garden's dressing area,’ said Lillias Harris, ‘when someone who introduced himself as an employee of the Jacksons came over
to me and asked me if I wanted to spend an evening with Michael. “Hell, yeah,” I said. He asked me how much, and I told him
I would do it for free. I wanted to have sex with Michael Jackson. Who wouldn't?

‘He brought me back to the dressing room. Michael was there, alone. I walked in, and he told me to close the door. The first
thing out of his mouth was, “Why are you a prostitute?” I answered, “Because I need the money.” He said to me, “Would you
like to have sex with me?” and I said, “Yes, of course I would.” He asked me how much it would cost. I told him, “No charge.”
He seemed interested. So, I undid my blouse and showed him my breasts. He then turned his head, repulsed. “Stop. I can't have
sex with you,” he said. “Please put them back,” he added, referring to my breasts.

‘When I asked him why, he told me, “Because I just can't.” I thought he meant he couldn't get an erection, he looked so sad.
Then, he said, “Can we talk about you and your life?” I didn't want to talk, that's not why I went there. So I gave him my
telephone number.

‘ “Anytime you want to get off, you call me,” I said. Michael looked at me and asked, “What does that mean,
get off
?” He was totally sincere. “It means screw, Michael,” I told him. “Anytime you want to screw, call me. Get it?”

‘He said, “Oh, okay. Maybe I'll call you someday. I doubt it, though.” And then I left.

‘He struck me as lonely and naive,’ Lillias Harris concluded. ‘He was a nice, mixed-up, good-looking guy who wanted female
companionship. No way was he about to have sex that night, though. He was scared to death. I wondered if he would ever call
me. He never did.’