Michael Jackson (73 page)

Actually, Jordie had seen Michael on several occasions over the years, the first time being at a restaurant in Los Angeles
when he was about four. The young boy didn’t approach Michael, of course, but instead gawked at him while the entertainer
ate his food.

That same year, 1984, was the year Michael was burned filming the Pepsi commercial. Like thousands of fans, Jordie – still just
four – sent a letter and picture of himself to the Brotman Memorial Hospital where Michael was recovering. He included his telephone
number in the note. Two days later, much to his parents’ excitement, Michael called Jordie to thank him for the note, and
to also tell him that he thought he was ‘a beautiful young boy’.

In 1989, when Jordie was nine, Michael’s manager Frank Dileo contacted Jordie’s mother to ask if she and her family would
like four tickets to see Michael in concert in Los Angeles. Of course, she accepted. They enjoyed the show but, though they
attempted to do so, did not meet with Michael backstage after the concert. As the years went on, Jordie continued with his
adolescent fan-worship of Michael Jackson.

In the spring of 1992, Jordie got the idea for a spoof of Kevin Costner’s film,
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
, which he called
Robin Hood: Men in Tights
. For a twelve-year-old, he was amazingly creative. Jordie and his father, Evan, wrote the script (along with Evan’s friend,
J. D. Shapiro) and with the help of some of Evan’s show-business friends, father and son actually got their script produced
into a major movie. Though the movie, produced by Mel Brooks, was not a commercial success, the youngster had two more ideas
in mind and was working with his father on them. To young Jordie Chandler, it seemed as if almost anything was possible. Now,
he was face to face with his idol, the so-called ‘King of Pop’.

Jordie was dark-haired with big, luminescent eyes. He was on the verge of manhood, but certainly not there yet. His face was
lean and angular, its raw-boned sharpness softened by its olive complexion. Anyone looking at him would say, ‘That kid is
going to be stunning in about ten years.’ However, standing before Michael, he was just a boy with a big smile on his face.

June wrote down a telephone number and handed it to Michael. ‘You should call Jordie sometime,’ she suggested, as if the notion
of a twelve-year-old being ‘friends’ with a thirty-three-year-old pop star was the most natural thing in the world.

‘Mom!’ Jordie protested, embarrassed.

‘No, Jordie,’ she said, according to a later recollection from, Jordie. ‘You guys can be friends.’

‘For sure,’ Dave Schwartz said as he walked into the room. ‘Give him a call, Michael. He’s your biggest fan.’

‘Yeah, okay,’ Michael said as he signed the final paperwork for the rental car. He took the paper from June and stuffed it
in his pocket. Michael then looked over his glasses and took in the twelve-year-old. ‘So, look, I’ll call you, Jordie,’ he
said. ‘Okay?’

‘Sure,’ the youngster answered. He flashed a dazzling smile at the singer. ‘Oh, boy!’

‘Yeah,’ Michael exclaimed, seemed tickled by the youngster’s enthusiasm. ‘Oh, boy!’ he repeated.

Of course, Michael Jackson had long associated himself with children, regularly visiting with ill children on his concert
tours and inviting underprivileged youths to tour his ranch. His philanthropic activities, including those executed by his
Heal the World Foundation, were well known. In the past, Michael had often been seen in the company of young celebrities,
such as Emmanuel Lewis and McCauley Culkin, as well as with many youngsters who are not famous, which was why Jordie’s mother
and stepfather saw nothing unusual about encouraging a friendship between the pop star and their son.

‘One of my favourite pastimes is being with children,’ Michael had explained in an interview, ‘talking to them and playing
with them. Children know a lot of secrets and it is difficult to get them to tell. Children are incredible. They go through
a brilliant phase, but then when they reach a certain age, they lose it. My most creative moments have almost always come
when I am with children. When I am with them, the music comes to me as easily as breathing. When I’m tired or bored, children
revive me. Two brown eyes look at me so profoundly, so innocently, and I murmur, This child is a song.’

In the early nineties Michael Jackson’s interest in children was viewed by most quarters where it was known about as odd,
but not necessarily inappropriate.

Michael was thought of as not only a virgin, but asexual. He was viewed as ‘damaged goods’, a brilliant entertainer who gave
his all to his work because he had no personal life in which to find satisfaction. No one believed he actually had romances
with girls like Tatum O’Neal or Brooke Shields, no matter how much he insisted that such affairs of the heart had taken place
in his life. Mostly, where Michael’s personal life was concerned, one felt a sense of sadness about it. He was an oddity,
a brilliant performer and legendary recording artist whose image was perplexing and eccentric, but not sexual. Even when he
grabbed his crotch during his performances, the action didn’t have a sexual connotation to it as much as it did the imprint
of another clever bit of choreography. Then, of course, there was all of that business about his ‘lost childhood’…

‘He’s a man who has never had a childhood,’ Bert Fields, one of Michael’s attorneys, explained to me – as if I wasn’t aware
of Michael’s background. ‘So he’s having his childhood now, you see? His friends are little kids. They have pillow fights.
It’s all innocent.’

I had a discussion with Michael along those same lines in 1991, after the original publication of my biography of him. I saw
him and LaToya at a Record Collectors’ Convention in the parking lot of Capitol Records in Hollywood. He was wearing a bright
red shirt, black satin pants… and a black surgical mask. When LaToya went off in search of records by The Partridge Family,
Michael and I began talking about the music of our youth and, somehow, we began talking about his childhood. ‘I missed my
childhood,’ he said, sadly.

Having personally witnessed just a bit of Michael’s childhood in Encino, I offered the opinion that perhaps his childhood
wasn’t as bad as he remembered it. The biggest misconception about him is that he has lived his life sheltered from ‘the real
world’, and that this is why he has practically withdrawn from society. In fact, Michael has had more life encounters than
most people. An immensely gifted performer, he has travelled the world many times over, entertaining people of all colours,
races and religions. He is intimate with the exhilaration of a thunderous ovation, of a standing-room-only crowd. He knows
what it is to be ‘special’, to be able to make demands and expect them to be met because of who he is. He knows what it’s
like to have great wealth, to be able to give his mother a million dollars so she won’t have to work. He has experienced the
pleasure of giving, of being charitable, of seeing the faces of deathly ill children light up just because he is who he is.

‘A lot of kids starve, Michael,’ I reminded him. ‘A lot of kids are poor, they become addicted to drugs. A lot of kids don’t
live in mansions with servants. A lot of kids have it a lot worse that you did. In fact,’ I said, maybe feeling a little too
self-confident, ‘I think you had a pretty good childhood. You travelled. You had friends. You did what you wanted to do, didn’t
you? You performed. You entertained. It was fun. I think you miss your childhood, yes. But I don’t think you missed out on
it.’

Michael stared at me, angrily. ‘No, it was horrible,’ he countered. ‘I had a terrible childhood. All of that performing. All
that recording. The fans took over my life,’ he said, pointing at me. ‘I never got to play,’ he complained. ‘It was awful.’

‘See you ‘round,’ he said, turning his back on me. ‘I’m going to find ‘Toya.’

The memory of that brief exchange has stayed with me over the years, especially when the common explanation to Michael’s increasingly
unusual behaviour became that he had ‘missed out’ on his youth.

A week after meeting him, Michael Jackson telephoned Jordie Chandler. As the two discussed their lives and hobbies, Jordie
expressed an interest in playing video games. Michael then invited the boy to his ‘hide-out’, an apartment he maintained in
Century City, California, which most of Michael’s family and staff members had only heard about, but had never actually seen.
Michael explained that he had an arcade at the apartment and felt sure that Jordie would have fun there. Of course, Jordie
wanted to go. However when he asked his mother for permission, she denied it citing upcoming school tests for which the youngster
needed to study. But in the weeks to come, Michael continued telephoning Jordie; the two became fast friends.

On 27 June 1992, Michael embarked on his Dangerous concert extravaganza, the first of thirty-nine performances on the first
leg of the tour taking place in Munich, Germany, at the Olympic Stadium. It was a complex production with the expected bombastic
special effects and lighting, dancers, musicians and others involved in the fantastic multimillion-dollar presentation. In
all, Michael would perform eighteen numbers – including hits such as ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Something’, ‘Thriller’, ‘Billie Jean’
and ‘Beat it’ – and four from the current
Dangerous
album. At the end of the show, in front of nearly 75,000 people, Michael appeared to strap on a jet and rocket right out
of the stadium. (Actually, a stunt double did the trick, which was orchestrated by illusionist, David Copperfield.) Even without
John Branca at the helm, Michael was making winning decisions; he sold the rights of his Dangerous tour to HBO for twenty
million dollars, the highest sum ever paid for a live concert. When the network broadcast the final show of the first leg
of Michael’s tour, HBO gained its highest rating up until that time.

Because Michael was involved in every aspect of the show, from sound to lighting to costumes all the way down to ticket sales,
it demanded all of his focus. How he managed to even give Jordie Chandler a second thought during this time is remarkable,
yet he did just that. For the next nine months while on the road, Michael telephoned his new friend on a weekly basis. For
Michael, it was as if Jordie had become his lifeline to the real world, to his home, as he performed in front of hundreds
of thousands of adoring strangers. In fact, Michael also had eleven-year-old Brett Barnes with him from Australia, as well
as nine-year-old Prince Albert von Thurn und Taxis, son of Gloria von Thurn und Taxis of Bavaria and already one of the richest
kids in the world. His staff was used to having to accommodate children while on the road with Michael, no one ever questioned
it. However, even though he had other youngsters with him, Michael’s thoughts were of Jordie. According to what Jordie later
recalled of his late-night, long-distance conversations with him, Michael told him about Neverland. ‘It’s a place where boys
have rights,’ Michael said, promising to take Jordie there as soon as the Dangerous tour was completed.

Michael also told Jordie about his charity work, how he had raised funds for needy children’s organizations round the world
with his Heal the World Foundation, and his plans for a World Congress of Children to bring together youngsters from one hundred
nations. ‘Children,’ Michael explained, ‘are the hope of the world.’ Sometimes, Michael said, he sent his staff members to
a toy store in one of his pick-up trucks. The employees fill the truck with toys until ‘there’s not a single inch left’ in
the pick-up bed, and bring them to Neverland. Then, ‘as they gather all around me, smiling and laughing,’ Michael distributed
the toys to all the needy children. He promised to introduce Jordie to Elizabeth Taylor one day, telling him, ‘she’s really
old, but she’s still cool. She’s won, like, fifteen Oscars!’ (Taylor has actually won two.)

When Michael returned home from the final stop on the tour’s first leg, Japan, on 31 December, he found that Elizabeth Taylor
had decked out Neverland for the Christmas holidays, with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of elaborate decorations.
Though Michael, raised a Jehovah’s Witness, never celebrated Christmas, he was still overwhelmed by Elizabeth’s kind gesture.
He called Jordie to tell him about it. ‘You should see it,’ he said, the youngster later recalled. ‘It’s like a Winter Wonderland.
The only thing that would make it better would be having you here. Then, it would be absolutely perfect.’