Michael Jackson (74 page)

Michael was too busy in January, however, to entertain any guests at Neverland. On his agenda was the NAACP [National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People] Image Awards on 16 January, President Clinton’s Inaugural Ball on the 19th and then
the American Music Awards on the 25th – each performance requiring days of rehearsal time. Then, he had the Superbowl on the
31st, where he performed with a 750-member choir and a 98,000-person flashcard stunt to promote the Heal the World Foundation.
At the end of the show, 3,500 children joined Michael on stage for ‘Heal the World’. 120 million people watched Michael’s
performance.

On 10 February 1993, Michael gave an internationally televised interview to Oprah Winfrey. During it, Michael and Oprah gave
the world a nighttime tour of Neverland and Michael then revealed, for the first time, he suffers from Vitiligo. He also spoke
of his ‘girlfriend’ Brooke Shields. When Oprah pushed to learn if Michael was still a virgin, he clarified that he was ‘a
gentleman. You can call me old-fashioned, if you want.’ When asked about plastic surgery, he said he had ‘very little. You
can count it on two fingers.’ Elizabeth Taylor made a surprise appearance, as if just passing through, to declare that Michael
‘is the least weird man I have ever known.’ (Michael later presented her with a $250,000 diamond necklace to thank her for
the compliment.) It was a terrific, ratings-winning broadcast, drawing an audience of more than ninety million; the fourth
most-watched entertainment show in US TV history.

The next day, Michael called June Chandler to invite her, Jordie and his half-sister Lily, to his estate for the weekend.
With Michael so much in the headlines as a result of the interview with Oprah, it must have seemed surreal to June that he
had invited her and her family to the same place she had just seen displayed on television, even offering to put them up for
the night. June accepted Michael’s invitation.

June and the children arrived at Neverland Ranch early on Friday afternoon. The servant who greeted them suggested that they
be seated in the parlour and wait for ‘Mr Jackson’ as he scurried off to fetch soft drinks. June, Jordie and Lily sat side
by side on one of the couches and looked at their surroundings, their mouths agape. Simply put, they could not believe their
eyes. Was it possible that they knew a person who lived
here?

Though the twenty-five-room, mock-Tudor mansion’s living room was large-scale and packed with opulent furnishings, there was
also a sense of warmth and elegance about it, with pine-panelled walls, fine Italian antiques (a little over-done but, of
course, for Michael excess is never enough), and big, over-stuffed furniture, the kind into which one would sink six inches
upon being seated. Here and there, were eccentric treasures: life-size mannequins of senior citizens and youngsters having
tea; giant oil paintings of Elizabeth Taylor hanging in elaborate, carved and gilded frames; the white, bugle-beaded gown
Diana Ross wore in the final scene of
Lady Sings the Blues
encased in a large glass box – with pink lights glowing around it. There were pictures of children, everywhere, both boys and
girls. The house was perfectly still; nothing stirred. It was quiet as a tomb, no music, not a sound.

Outside, as far as the eye could see, were more than 2,000 verdant acres of bucolic landscape, reminiscent of the English
countryside. It was impossible to imagine that anyone
owned
this place, it was so expansive, with its deep blue four-acre lake way off in the distance. Statues paid homage to Scottish
author J. M. Barrie and his creation Peter Pan. From more than a hundred speakers, disguised as rocks in the flowerbeds, emanated
Disney music (never Michael’s own music, to which he rarely listens). There was a zoo with a menagerie of alligators, giraffes,
lions, a twelve-foot albino python and a seventy-thousand-pound elephant named Gypsy (a present from Elizabeth Taylor). There
was also ‘Cricket’, the thirty-four-inch-tall stallion and Petunia, the potbellied pig, and Linus, the two-foot-tall sheep.
Of course, Bubbles the chimpanzee also lived on the property, often sitting in the cinema with Michael, eating free candy
from the sweets counter. ‘Sometimes he takes off his diaper and goes on the floor, but mostly he’s very clean,’ Michael had
told Jordie. Then, of course, there were the many rides: the Ferris wheel, bumper cars, steam trains… and, for the little
ones, a carousel, fire trucks and frog hoppers. Some might have found it disturbing that hundreds of security cameras were
positioned all over the estate, hidden inside little bird-houses. However, Michael viewed it as a necessary precaution. If
any one of the thirty full-time gardeners or ten ranch hands didn’t smile enough, or seemed otherwise unhappy, he would be
dismissed – another necessity. After all, this was supposed to be a happy place.

‘So, how do you like my home?’ It was Michael, walking into the room, flashing a smile of genuine pride and satisfaction,
and holding a tray with four soft-drink bottles. ‘I was going to put them in glasses,’ he said of the refreshments. ‘But I
couldn’t find any in the kitchen,’ he joked. ‘I’ve been gone so long, I was lucky to even find the kitchen.’ He was funny,
June later recalled, funnier than she imagined he would be.

For the rest of the day, June, Jordie and Lily played games, swam, zipped about in the master’s $7,000 black-and-lavender
golf cart, and then watched first-run films (loaned to Michael by major Hollywood studios) late into the evening in his private
screening room. The next day, Michael took them all to a toy store an hour away, which had been closed by the managers for
a few hours to allow the Jackson party private shopping time. ‘You can have anything you want,’ Michael told Jordie and Lily.
As June watched, the two children ran through the store, pulling more than ten thousand dollars’ worth of toys from the shelves
and piling them into three shopping carts.

Saturday night was spent enjoying Michael’s amusement park under a full and magical moon, first on the rollercoaster and then
the Ferris wheel. When the cart carrying Michael, Jordie, June and Lily got to the top of the Ferris wheel, the operator stopped
the rotation, just as Michael had earlier instructed. The four of them then sat high above the ground – June, Michael and Jordie
shoulder-to-shoulder, and Lily on her mother’s lap – surveying all that was Michael’s pride-and-joy. A slight breeze rustled
the leaves of old trees. There seemed to be twinkling lights as far as the eye could see. ‘I don’t know where there are more
lights,’ June said, breathlessly, ‘in the sky or on the ground.’ All four were lost in their own thoughts as they sat in silence,
the moon bathing them with silvery radiance. However, Michael looked glum in the dim light.

‘Do you know how much time I spend up here alone,’ Michael said, softly, ‘just sitting up here by myself? I have all of this,’
he declared, motioning to the acres below, ‘yet I have… nothing. The things I really want in my life are the things I don’t
have.’

‘You have us, now,’ Jordie said, putting his arm around Michael’s shoulder.

Michael smiled. ‘My new little family,’ he concluded. ‘The only thing that matters in life is having someone who understands
you, who trusts you and who will be with you when you grow old, no matter what.’

On Sunday morning, June, Jordie and Lily departed for Los Angeles after their unforgettable weekend. Another visit was planned.

The following Saturday night, Michael showed up at June’s home in a limousine ready to whisk them back to Neverland. However,
when June, Jordie and Lily got into the stretch automobile and greeted Michael, they discovered another boy sitting on the
singer’s lap, eleven-year-old Brett Barnes, who Michael introduced as his ‘cousin’. (They’re not related even though the youngster
did introduce himself as ‘Brett Jackson’.) Apparently, Jordie would not be the sole focus of Michael’s attention during the
weekend ahead.

As June tried to keep the conversation going, Brett and Michael appeared to be in their own world with an easy rapport between
them, one that made what Michael had with Jordie seem, perhaps, not so unique. It was a tense drive to Santa Barbara.

When Michael and his guests finally arrived at Neverland, they were immediately surrounded by uniformed guards, maids, butlers
and other functionaries, all gathering and grinning to one another excitedly. Michael nodded and smiled and shook hands. He
then instructed two of the guards to take June’s suitcases to one of the guest cottages. ‘Oh, and Brett’s belongings go in
my room,’ he added nonchalantly as Brett ran off with one of the maids. Michael then embraced and kissed his remaining guests.
‘You have Neverland at your disposal,’ he told June, ‘so have a ball. I love you all,’ he said with genuine warmth. ‘And just
wait,’ he added, ‘tomorrow will be another great day.’

Like many celebrated people, at his core, Michael Jackson was conscious of a certain emptiness. He admitted it, and often;
it didn’t take much prodding for him to describe himself as ‘the loneliest person on the planet’. Over the years, especially
as he got older, bleakness crept into his soul. When he was on stage, he came to life and was without peer; offstage, he felt…
joyless. However, when he met Jordie Chandler, all of that seemed to change.

‘Michael is a sad person,’ confirmed someone who has been associated with him for twenty years. ‘He has had a difficult life,
always been a loner, a misfit. If he hadn’t become a star, he would be the guy living in Gary, Indiana, alone in a one-bedroom
apartment with no friends and a job developing film at a photolab. What really attracted Michael to Jordie, was the youngster’s
humour. Whenever a person can make him laugh, that’s someone he will want in his life. Jordie made him laugh. He would make
fun of Michael, of the way he dressed, of his clumsiness, his driving. Michael was amused by Jordie’s irreverent manner. He
felt he could be himself around him.

‘They used to dance together, Michael showing Jordie choreography steps and Jordie catching on remarkably fast. Jordie was
intelligent; Michael loves smart kids and Jordie was tremendously creative. Michael said that Jordie could one day be an amazing
film director. “He has a vision,” he told me. “I think he could do wonderful things.”’

They probably would have been a perfect couple of buddies – if not for the fact that Jordie was thirteen and Michael was thirty-four.

‘I truly don’t think there’s a devious bone in his body,’ June said of Michael. If she thought anything was unusual about
Michael and Brett at Neverland, she didn’t indicate as much after she and her family returned to Los Angeles.

It wasn’t long before Michael invited them all to his ‘hide-out’ on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, about ten minutes from
June and Dave Schwartz’s home. ‘Do you have an amusement park there, too?’ Jordie asked him. Michael laughed, ‘No, silly.
It’s just my place to go where no one can find me.’ Then, lowering his voice as if to share an important confidence, he added,
‘As soon as someone finds out about it – whoosh! – I move to another hide-out. Once,’ he continued, ‘a person knocked on my door
that I didn’t know and – whoosh! – I moved to another hide-out, the next day.’

Why?’

‘Because if one stranger knows where I live,’ Michael answered, ‘then millions more will follow.’

‘So how many hide-outs have you had?’ Jordie asked.

‘Hundreds,’ Michael said, grinning. ‘Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds.’

Jordie, Lily and June had fun at Michael’s hide-out, as expected, and, as the days passed, became privy to more of his secrets.
For instance, on 9 March, Michael was honoured with a
Soul Train
award for Best Album (
Dangerous
) and Best Song (‘Remember the Time’). At the show, he sat in a wheelchair on the stage and performed ‘Remember the Time’
while surrounded by a host of dancers. He explained that he had hurt himself during rehearsals.

However, the next day at Neverland, he threw the crutches aside. ‘It’s a miracle! I can walk! I can walk!’ Michael exclaimed,
the jokester in him coming forth. Michael had never been injured; it appeared he had used the wheelchair and crutches as a
publicity gimmick.

A couple of days later, Michael took Jordie, Lily and their mother to Las Vegas where they all stayed at Jackson’s private,
$3,000-a-night suite in the Mirage Hotel. Michael and Jordie stayed in separate rooms, while June and Lily shared another
suite.

The night after their arrival, June and Lily turned in early, exhausted by their fun time in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, Michael
and Jordie watched
The Exorcist
. Jordie was so frightened by the film, he asked – or Michael suggested, depending on which of them tells the story – that he
be allowed to stay with Michael in his room. In whatever manner the circumstances evolved, the two ended up sleeping together,
Michael in silk pyjamas, Jordie in a T-shirt and sweat pants.

The next morning, when June went to Jordie’s bedroom she found that he had not slept in his bed. As she stood in the doorway
trying to figure out what had happened, she caught Jordie slipping out of Michael’s room. ‘What is going on?’ she asked. ‘Where
were you?’