HOME VIDEO PLAYS
- Huh?
- MICHAEL JACKSON: I think every child is born to do a certain thing.
I knew I wanted to be a...a star.
HE GIGGLES
Just being on the stage.
Just looking out over a sea of faces...
CHEERING AND SCREAMING
..when they're chanting and screaming.
And I wanted it.
Because I wanted to be loved.
That's the real truth - I wanted people to truly love me.
- A lot of people ask, who was Michael Jackson really?
I mean, he was a child star
who became the most famous man on the planet.
- LOUD CHEERING
- This is a man who changed the music industry.
I mean, he is a musical genius.
- But he was also accused of abusing children...
..and died without a cent to his name.
I mean, this is the ultimate story
of power, celebrity
and money.
- CROWD SCREAMS
- And now the battle is raging for the truth
and Michael Jackson's legacy.
- The number one artist in the world!
- That level of megastardom is not healthy.
People are not gods.
- Tonight, Jackson is wanted by police
of multiple felony counts of child molestation.
- The Jackson machine just keeps right on rolling.
- Are you guys ready for me?
Whenever you're ready.
People don't know my brother.
They never did.
They thought they did.
And I think it's important for
the public, the world, to see...
..I don't want to say the truth,
but from a family member's perspective.
And that's important to me,
so you get it right and you understand,
as opposed to reading nonsensical things in the media.
INTERVIEWER: - What do you do mostly?
I mean, you know, in your spare time.
- Sports. - Yeah.
- Messing around.
I go swimming all the time.
Like swimming.
And play basketball.
Catching lizards and things. Messing around.
- My memory of Mike is
basically a child
that was far older than his age.
Mike was always just feisty.
- No. Sit down.
Now, I would like to show you...
- As young kids, we would have a photo shoot.
He would stand there, and then he would get out the picture and say,
"No, put Jermaine here, Jackie here, and I will be in the middle."
And this is a little kid talking to his siblings.
ARCHIVE PROGRAMME: - Northwestern Indiana is not like any other part
of the state because it is solely industrial.
One factory next to another for miles.
The negro population of Gary, Indiana is 45.8%,
the highest percentage in any city north of the Mason-Dixon line.
- Growing up in Indiana,
it was humble beginnings.
My father, Joseph, worked in the steel mills.
And we were a large family from a small home.
It was two bedrooms.
In one of the rooms, the brothers slept and there were six bunk beds.
And my sisters and I, we slept on a, a let-out sofa in the living room.
We were a family that loved music.
And when Mike was around eight or nine,
he would do riffs constantly
and no matter what you would sing to him, he would do it even better.
My father, he saw them performing together and he says,
"Geez."
He became their manager
because he saw a bigger and brighter future.
They used to do shows, what they called back then,
was the Chitlin' Circuit.
It was famous black artists,
but they were performing for a black audience.
- Don't be afraid. Don't be ashamed.
We want black power.
- To perform during that period of time was very challenging,
based on the fact that we were kind of relegated
to certain areas of our country
and not very welcome in some parts.
But we learned how to deal with it
and how to break down the barrier
that they thought they put in front of us.
- # ..I know
# And bring it back to Tobacco Road. #
- I met Michael when they were coming in to audition to be on Motown.
I had to kind of just look at him and shake my head.
I said, "My God, this kid is amazing."
- It was an exciting time.
They wanted it so badly.
And then finally, there they are, signed to Motown.
- # When I had you to myself
# I didn't want you around
# Those pretty faces always made you
# Stand out in the crowd
# Cos someone picked you from the bunch... #
- Michael, he had something that nobody else had,
and his performances were meticulously done.
Watching their growth over their years
was sensational.
- We've got some great guests - the incredible Jackson 5.
- CHEERING
- One of the hottest recording groups today is the Jackson 5.
The only American group to have four consecutive number one records.
- Kids nowadays don't know how big the Jackson 5 were.
They were our Beatles, our black royalty.
You had Beatlemania, you had Jacksonmania.
- SCREAMING
REPORTER: - Not since the heyday of the Beatles, has the music world
seen anything like the Jackson 5,
about to receive yet another platinum record.
- But you have to give a lot of credit to the original Jackson two -
Mr and Mrs Joe Jackson.
- I decided to deal with the boys
as much as I possibly can,
getting them prepared to be in show business.
- They come to us originally from Gary, Indiana -
the Jackson 5.
- APPLAUSE
- It was just amazing...
..to see this black family post-segregation
who were so famous...
..and that you could identify with.
Showed black people that we can make it in America.
- ARCHIVE PROGRAMME: - It's called Los Angeles, the city of the angels.
People from all over the world,
drawn by a city of limitless boundaries
and one that offers unlimited opportunity.
- Growing up in Indiana,
Mike would have this little projector thing
that you put over your eyes and you would click it
and it would show a different slide of LA.
He would say, "Oh, this is so beautiful.
"I would love to live there one day."
So moving to Los Angeles
was simply amazing.
We were so elated and excited just to see the beauty of the city.
And it was such a different life.
We moved to this huge mansion
and my father just said,
"I think this will be a perfect place."
And you know, what my father said goes.
- Let's introduce Mr Joe Jackson,
the father of...
- APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH
- There you are. There you are.
OK. We're going to find out who's boss around here.
Do you have to ever discipline this lively group you've got here?
- I have a way, you know, like when Randy don't do right,
we make him take out all the garbage or something.
- Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, but what about Michael?
If Michael... Michael always does right?
Is he always...? - No, not all the time.
The way we discipline Michael is sort of like,
we don't give him as much money to spend.
Mikey.
- Do you think it's a good profession for them?
- Yes, I like for them to...
- I moved to Los Angeles...
..to work for the family
out of Joseph's office.
When Joseph spoke to me about coming to work for the boys,
he presented himself as a really concerned, loving father.
Joseph grew up dirt poor
before civil rights.
And to take from nothing
and build that act was huge.
And all of a sudden, now he's living in a wealthy house in Encino,
he's got a Rolls-Royce.
He really was chasing the American dream.
- At that point, they were portrayed as this happy, loving family.
But my experience, can't speak for anybody else's,
but my experience of what I saw,
that was the farthest thing from the truth.
I went to high school with Michael's baby sister, Janet,
and Michael was also a very close friend.
When I would be there and Joseph would pull in,
you know, the speaker or the phone would ring and it would be like,
"Joseph's here," and everyone's like, "Oh, God, Joseph's here."
We weren't that, you know, savvy back then about this stuff.
But knowing that there was just weirdness.
- I found out later Joseph...
..had done some really awful stuff.
Joseph would put Michael in the closet,
in the dressing room, in the dark and lock it
so that he was...he would do what Joseph would tell him to do,
And nobody figured out what was going on.
- He wasn't as cruel as people think.
But Mike had a fear of my father, we all did
because we felt, "OK, what did we do wrong?
"He's going to discipline us."
And you were kind of afraid of that.
It just put something in your belly
and you would say to yourself,
"Oh, no."
His eyebrows would grow, go up
and his eyes would turn...
..a deeper green,
a deeper green than they were.
And you knew he was angry.
Everybody would say, "I don't want to get in trouble
"because Joseph's going to strangle us."
- We're right, almost in the middle of a recording session
with the Jacksons,
and we're going to bring the boys in right now.
All five of them.
Here they are.
Now, I don't have to give any introduction to these gentlemen,
do I?
You knew them originally as the Jackson 5.
They're the Jacksons now.
They record on Epic.
- This is really a special picture to me.
Both of our hair is kind of big.
His face looks completely different.
So this was earlier, I guess.
He still looks like a great looking kid, you know.
When the Jackson 5 came to Epic,
they were a good pop group.
But Michael was so much the centre of it,
the star.
He just wanted to be perfect in a way.
He wanted to be the best dancer ever
and best singer,
the best entertainer.
He wanted to be a great.
- You guys are really riding a big high now,
as far as producing records and so on.
Do you think this is the peak of your career now,
or have you gone down a little bit?
Are you expecting bigger and better things?
- Well, we're looking forward to doing other things,
like producing other people
and producing ourselves in the future
and going into acting and that type of thing.
- LOUD TRAFFIC DIN
ARCHIVE PROGRAMME: New York is the most exciting city in the world,
but New York has never seen anything like The Wiz,
a new musical motion picture being made here that stars Diana Ross.
- The Wiz was the black version of The Wizard of Oz.
And Michael really wanted to be in that movie.
- My father didn't want him to venture off into movies...
..because he felt it would break up the group,
and he would go in a different direction,
and he wanted to keep the brothers together.
As he always said, "I want to keep my boys together."
But this is something that Mike saw.
He loved opportunity and he went for it.
- How did you feel when you heard you got the part in The Wiz?
And especially playing with Diana Ross.
- I was very happy.
I would talk to Diana on the phone.
I'd say, "You're going to film The Wiz next week, huh?"
Or next month. And she would say, "Yeah."
Next thing I notice, I was in it.
- Mike and I were extremely close.
So we moved to New York together.
And going to set every day,
he just embraced it with great joy.
But most of all, what he would always say,
"I'm learning so much, LaToya. You have no idea."
- Hey, fellas, is today the day you're going to help me get down from here?
- ALL: - Help you down?
- What is going down
in that hayloft you call a head?
- Living in New York,
we were so used to being with family,
being controlled by my father,
but, yeah, you could do what you wanted.
It was so wonderful.
DISCO MUSIC PLAYS
- Is Michael there?
Hi, Michael. Come on in. You can come right in. Hi.
How are you?
You just walked in. How are you?
Michael, this is Jane Hall. - Excuse me. - Come sit over here.
- It's been a long day for you, and you're unwinding here?
- Erm, you mean today?
No. We're all finished with the movie, but I'm just relaxing now.
- Just hanging out in New York. - Yes. Studio 54!
- When you hear the name Studio 54,
what... What does that do? Does your pulse quicken
and your feet start moving?
- Yeah. I'm ready to have a good time.
It's where you come when you want to escape.
It's really escapism.
- But you're Michael Jackson, you don't have it so bad.
What are you escaping from?
- I'm not escaping from anything.
It's just a change of pace.
- Right... - It is a change of pace.
- He doesn't escape from anything.
If anything, he's one of those people who are very recognisable...
- Doing The Wiz
and all the work that he had done...
..and the growth that came with it...
..took him mentally in a different direction,
saying, "I want to do a solo album."
- By Michael doing The Wiz, he had a chance to meet
great composer, arranger - Quincy Jones.
And Quincy had worked with Sinatra,
I mean, the greatest music people ever.
- PHONE RINGS
MICHAEL JACKSON: - I called Quincy up one day.
I said, "Quincy, I'm ready to do an album, a solo album.
"But I want a real good producer to work with me."
I said, "Can you recommend somebody?"
And he said, "Why don't you let me do it?"
# Whoa!
# Lovely... #
- I remember getting a copy of Off the Wall,
and when I heard Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough,
I was just astonished to hear, "Oh, my gosh."
I said, "Michael, this is going to be...
.."it's going to be phenomenal."
- This is the album that's caused the storm right around the world.
It's Michael's Off the Wall album
and, hopefully, we've got Michael in LA on the phone now.
Let's have this. Oh, here we go.
Hello. Michael? - Hello. - How are you?
- He's the first artist to have four top ten singles
with his Off the Wall album.
He keeps breaking records. It's just amazing.
- Oh!
- It had to happen.
- I feel like I'm overawed.
- He had earned the right to be Michael.
- CROWD SCREAMS
- He felt that it's now my time.
- CHATTERING
- Mayor? OK.
- Let's get the mayor back here.
- Yeah.
- I'm rolling.
- Hey, guys. What'd you think of this?
Were you ever afraid when you saw that big crowd?
- Never afraid. - Never afraid.
- It's a lot of excitement and it's nice to see the fans all come out
to greet us at the airport. I think it's, I think it's wonderful.
- What do you have to say for Atlanta?
I'll start here.
- Love it, I can't wait, tomorrow night.
I love it.
- We love you, Atlanta.
- We love you very much.
Tomorrow night, everybody be out there
because we're going to do our best. Have a good time.
- INTERVIEWER: - At this point, Michael really is kind of the mainstay
of the Jacksons. Has it always been that way?
- Um, yes. Yes.
- Michael has always been sort of the star?
- Yeah. He's been highlighted the most cos he's the lead singer
and he's up front, you know.
As a little kid, we put him up front because he danced so much
and had so much energy.
- I think my brothers,
some of them felt that once he do this,
he's never coming back.
He's going to abandon us.
And that was kind of disturbing to some of them.
And then the others were just, "Well, let's see where it goes.
"Let's see where it leads."
- I remember the boys being in the office,
and one of them distinctly said if it wasn't for them,
Michael wouldn't be who he was because they were the ones,
and Joseph was the one who made Michael who he is
and he basically wouldn't be shit without them.
And it was them that built him.
And Michael's just sitting there listening to this.
And he sat there and he took it.
I just remember thinking,
"How mean. Why are you guys being so mean to him?"
I just, I wanted to go in and, like, hurt them
because they were being mean to Mike.
- SHOUTING AND SCREAMING
- I think Michael had grown up feeling under Joseph
that he wasn't anything more than a commodity.
And I think in that moment it crystallised for Michael
that he was nothing more than a commodity to his brothers.
And I think it broke his heart.
- Oh, hi, Steve. I didn't see you.
Fine. How are you?
- If things got difficult for Mike,
he always had a very loving relationship with my mother.
It was a very...
..trusted relationship.
If something upset him, she would always make sense out of everything.
- # Don't look so sad... #
This is one of your favourite songs.
# I know it's... #
- My mother was a very religious person.
She was a Jehovah Witness.
And she always thought if you had a personal relationship with God,
then he would show you the way.
- It's strange being back here.
I haven't lived here for many years.
Yeah, it was such a strange time, you know, with Michael being
suddenly so famous
and we're just going door-to-door trying to save souls.
Michael would say,
"Hi, my name is Joe."
That was his middle name, so he wasn't lying.
"This is my friend Christian.
"We're here to talk to you about the wonderful hope of God's kingdom."
And the people would kind of stare.
They would think,
that guy really looks like Michael Jackson.
You can kind of see it in their eyes.
The Jehovah's Witnesses are millennialists,
so they believe that Armageddon is coming any day now,
when God's going to cleanse the Earth of all the evil people.
And so our job as Jehovah's Witnesses was to go door-to-door
and try to recruit people to save them
so that they could join the religion and then, you know,
hopefully make it into the paradise that was going to come.
Michael had a tough upbringing, and I think that he had a, you know,
fantastical view of what he wanted the world to be.
And I think this idea of, uh,
God bringing a paradise just was very appealing.
And I think that was a big part of his enthusiasm
for going door-to-door, he genuinely wanted to tell people.
- MICHAEL JACKSON: - We did missionary work door-to-door.
We did 90 hours a month.
It was just a wonderful time for me because it allowed me
to get out into society and to see people.
I was totally deprived of seeing people open their doors.
I don't go to other people's houses. I don't know what they live like.
So when they would open the door and say, "Come in," I would come in.
- I was 15 when we started hanging out together.
I think he felt safe with us
because he had no other space where he didn't have something,
some place where people wanted something from him
because of his fame.
We just liked him because of who he was,
and that he was part of this joint community
where we were all working to do God's will.
But at the same time, I think he was conflicted about who he was.
Because, even though he was very devout,
I think Michael had a lot of ambition
around being perceived as
very successful, very talented.
He was raised in this paradigm
where success is how you get validation, right,
and from the time he was a little kid.
So I don't think he ever lost that.
Michael sometimes would stand in front of a mirror
and say "100 million, 100 million,"
because he was he wanted to sell 100 million albums
on his next album.
And I think that really fed him.
- Michael's ambition, I believe,
was to make the greatest album ever heard.
But he also knew the power of motion pictures.
He wanted to use video to drive sales.
I mean, rock bands have been doing that for years.
- I'm not like the other guys.
I mean, I'm different.
Um...
I'm a monster.
- Michael, I think this is going to be the Citizen Kane of the videos.
I really do. It's going to be the most revolutionary thing
in the history of videos, you know?
I mean, it's a new art form now, but I think this is leading the way.
Beat It and this one is leading the way.
- What a great looking kid.
Film-makers, they usually know
when they have something.
And I knew we had something.
Music video was new at that time
and this is pre-internet.
And Michael's videos were special.
You could tell.
- Some prominent black musicians are complaining
that they are being left out of the video market,
specifically the music television cable operation.
- We are looking for a certain sound and a certain point of view.
- Bob Pittman is the 29-year-old whiz kid who created MTV
after a successful career as a radio station programme director.
- We are not all things to all people.
We are cable television.
And what cable television does best is specialise -
one thing per channel - so you know exactly what you're getting
when you turn on the channel.
- It was almost impossible for a black artist to get on the cover
of any of the major magazines or TV shows.
- Over Christmas, I watched MTV.
I saw no black star.
- Plenty of black stars, but only black stars who do rock and roll...
- And MTV refused to play Michael's video.
- ..you don't see R&B.
- He was outraged.
It was pure, blatant racism. Plain and simple.
- Prejudice is ignorance.
Music has no colour.
I don't believe in that.
What I do, I don't want it labelled black or white.
I want it labelled as music.
- A few of us at Epic and the president of CBS records,
we all went up there and explained why they had to play those videos.
- They said, "You can't continue with a programme like this
"without honouring some of the best music that America has to offer.
"And some of the best music America has to offer is made and performed
"by black artists."
Period. End of discussion.
They only could look at the bottom line and say,
"You can't ignore these tracks."
And once they played Michael...
..it took off.
- TV REPORT: Michael Jackson's album Thriller has been topping
various record charts, so it should come as no surprise
that Thriller is number one on Billboard's chart
of most successful pop albums.
- Well, the title song from that blockbuster album,
now the subject of the most talked about music video to come along.
Take a look at this.
- Thriller was an amazing piece of work.
Like, everybody loved it
and it just got bigger and bigger.
- We love you! We love you, Michael!
- TV REPORT: - Michael Jackson was partying in New York.
The occasion - for selling 23 million albums.
- He exploded.
Everybody wanted a piece of him.
Everyone wanted to see him.
CHANTING: - Michael! We want Michael!
- Michael Jackson's Thriller
is now the highest selling solo album
in the history of recorded music.
- The number one artist in the world!
- He is, simply put,
probably the most exciting and intense performer of the decade.
- PEOPLE SCREAM
- You have something within your records that
everybody just loves.
- Boy, I couldn't say.
I just created it.
- Where do you think the gift came from? - God.
- CROWD CHATTERS
Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention?
I need your attention right now.
I am saying for the last time,
as chairman of the Walk of Fame,
if you do not back up, this ceremony will be cancelled.
SCREAMING AND CHEERING
Ladies and gentlemen,
Michael Jackson!
We welcome him to the Walk of Fame.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
- The Thriller album was fantastic.
It was far exceeding anyone's expectations
about how big it was going to be,
and Michael was becoming sort of transcendent as a pop star.
But he was still very idealistic, very devout.
I mean, nobody had been that famous in the Jehovah's Witnesses yet.
It was very much at odds for the church for someone to be famous,
because any kind of notoriety could be considered controversial,
potentially.
Even his deciding to do the Thriller video.
The church was very paranoid about any demon influence
and anything with demonology,
and so zombies rising from the dead or anything related to the occult.
Suddenly, the hammer came down from the headquarters of the church.
And so when he realised that this was going to be a problem for him,
he panicked.
He wrote, "Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress
"that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult."
And he had to put that at the beginning of the video
in order to get the church to go, "OK, you can release it."
It really created some tension.
On the one hand, fame brought him all this opportunity,
and I think he liked the adulation, it was very validating.
But I think he started to feel handicapped by the fact
that he couldn't pursue all his creative stuff,
that the church was constantly tightening the screws and saying,
"No, you can't do this. No, you can't do that."
And later on, he just made a decision.
He disassociated himself,
which basically meant he was leaving the church.
You know, I left the church in 1990.
And when you leave, the church completely cuts you off.
You know, you lose your whole foundation, you lose your family,
all of your friends.
You're really adrift in so many ways.
And when he left, he lost the thing that had grounded him for so long.
- INTERVIEWER: How long have you had this beautiful beast?
- Gosh.
During, um... A little bit before Thriller, I had him.
Probably about, almost a year. Almost a year now.
- And this type of snake is not dangerous?
- Well, I don't think so. Some people might.
- Could it be dangerous? - Yeah, they squeeze.
They can really squeeze.
Erm...
I think he's great. - What other animals do you have?
- After Thriller,
I saw a completely different Michael Jackson.
I was his personal cinematographer
from 1981 to 1987.
And when I first met him,
Michael was really humble.
He was a true cool dude.
But after the Thriller album,
his personality started to get a little bit different,
more, um, eccentric.
- PEOPLE TALK OVER EACH OTHER
- Step, step, step. - Watch your step.
- I could see he enjoyed being around kids.
- Hello!
- Whoa! - HIGH PITCHED: - Whoa!
- We're going to do our own interview here.
OK. This is the Michael Jackson interview show. OK?
- So, how old are you, young man?
No, not how old are you.
What show are you on?
- My show is Webster.
- And who are you playing on the show?
- Out of nowhere, Michael's good friend was Emmanuel Lewis.
Emmanuel Lewis was a star of the TV show Webster.
And then one day Michael calls me up and he goes,
"I need you to come over."
So I get there and he has Emmanuel with him.
They're dancing to one of his new songs
that never, ever was released,
and he's holding him like a baby.
And I could see Michael had a connection with children.
- MICHAEL JACKSON: - When a child steps in the room, I'm totally changed.
I feel their energy and I feel their spirit.
When I look in their eyes,
I feel healed.
- What I saw,
Michael liked...
..kids because of the fact that they weren't domineering,
they weren't asking for something.
You know, because you had too many of these producer bigwigs
coming over.
What I called and what he called "suits".
And when the suits would come over,
it was a different atmosphere because they wanted something.
But then Michael got so big,
now it's just a business.
- REPORTER: - Jackson's image has been pressed into plastic.
In the short six months since they first came on the market,
Michael Jackson toys, dolls and other products
have been selling with a fury.
- Jackson has become a mini conglomerate.
He is setting up five separate companies
to handle his business interests.
Albums, video cassettes, concert tours,
merchandising tie-ins.
This year, Michael Jackson is expected to earn
more than $50 million.
- Michael Jackson made recording business history today
by closing the deal on the Beatles catalogue.
From now on, all those royalties go to Jackson.
- Michael Jackson has a new manager.
Jackson has hired the vice president of promotion for Epic Records,
Frank DiLeo, to manage his booming career.
Formerly, Jackson was managed by his father, Joseph Jackson.
- Mike decided to end the relationship with my father.
And his thinking and his thoughts were,
I need a manager who's much bigger and better
and someone who really knows what they're doing in this big industry.
But I think the part that became difficult
was the people that entered into his life
because this business can be very overwhelming, cut-throat,
and people will say and do anything to get into your circle
and to manage you.
And that part of it...
..destroyed him.
- Michael Jackson has not a song on his lips,
but a bottle of Pepsi-Cola.
This week, he signed up for $5 million or more
to promote Pepsi in concerts and commercials.
- A lot of people are asking,
why would Michael Jackson do commercials?
Well, the reason is,
is that these commercials are going to be just extraordinary.
They're using state of the art technology,
they're going to be creative masterpieces, no expense spared.
- They asked me to direct them
because I had success
and a relationship with Michael.
We were going to shoot two promotional commercials.
Even though Michael confessed to me
that he never drank Pepsi in his life.
We went down there and started shooting
and the plan was there was an explosion,
Michael would come down and dance.
Pyrotechnics added too much
and all hell broke loose.
- LOUD BANG
SCREAMING
CONFUSED SCREAMING AND SHOUTING
REPORTER: - The scene was wild as hundreds of fans tried to see
Michael Jackson as he was carried into a Los Angeles area hospital
with second and third degree burns on his scalp.
- CROWD SHOUT AND SCREAM
- I'll never forget the image of Michael being taken away
in a stretcher,
but smart enough to take his glove, the famous glove, and wave it.
But it was the beginning of a dark time.
- ECHOING SHOUTS AND SCREAMS
- I remember in the early years,
Michael would just come out and hang out.
It was just, it was casual, it was normal.
But at that point,
Michael started going out a lot less.
Everybody was like worried.
He would call all the time.
He would constantly reflect back
on things from his childhood.
- When I went to the house after the Pepsi burn...
..with Michael, there were some times where we would talk
and he would come a little close
and then I would say to myself,
"What is on his nose?"
And those were stitches.
Physically or visually, you could see that it had been,
you know, worked on.
I have a shot of Michael when he's leaving the Hayvenhurst house
and that was when I saw the change.
You know, the transition from the Negro look
to look like something different.
- It was heartbreaking.
Michael was trying to erase something off of his face,
and it was all the nastiness
and all the things that Joseph said about him.
But I think that set Michael on a very unhealthy pattern and path
for the rest of his life when it came to,
uh, facial reconstruction and his skin colour.
But I don't think anybody was prepared
for how extreme it would get.
- Michael!
CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK
PHOTOGRAPHERS: - Michael! - Michael!
- Michael, Michael!
- CACOPHONY OF CALLS
Not since Thriller five years ago
has the record industry been so focused on a single album.
It's called Bad.
- It's Michael Jackson and Bad right here on Kiss FM.
- REPORTER: - They were queuing all over America, snapping up
the first copies of Michael Jackson's latest offering.
But after five years of comparative seclusion, he's changed his image.
- It's a lot of talk.
A lot of people are talking about it and how foolish he looks.
- The look...
Well, the new look is not too hot,
but the album is great and he's a great entertainer.
- I was a fan of Michael Jackson since I was a kid
from, you know, the Jacksons.
You know, I loved Off the Wall.
I was a talent manager at the firm that managed Michael Jackson.
And it was our job to manage his career and public image.
I remember when I met him, like, up close and personal,
I was just surprised at, like, how white he was.
I mean, and just almost like, almost like translucent.
- That was good. Beautiful.
- You know, we were wondering if he was bleaching his skin
or maybe it was make-up.
I can remember one instance
and we had made this video.
It was like a multimillion dollar video,
we had David Fincher, you know, direct it.
I remember at one point he literally kind of broke down in tears
and he was kind of ranting like,
"I look like a monkey. I look like a monkey."
And I was like, thinking, "What?"
I mean, he looked great in the video,
but in his own mind, he, you know, he hated the way that he looked.
And some people mentioned, I think it's called baking, where they,
you know, could lighten him up throughout the video.
I mean, that word, "I look like a monkey."
First, it was kind of shocking from him.
I'm thinking, here's this huge, amazing artist,
and his own issues with self-image
actually became a form of like self-sabotage with his career.
- I remember a lot of the black community felt
like he had deserted them
and thought that he didn't want to be black.
And it was really difficult because he was in the tabloids every week.
He sort of became a joke.
- First problem is the sex problem.
The problem being, we don't know what sex he is.
- AUDIENCE LAUGHS
- The latest of the Michael Jackson rumours -
are Michael Jackson and his sister LaToya Jackson,
actually the same person?
I'm here with Lars Bundquist of the IOFCIRA -
the Institute of Facial Changes in Recording Artists.
And I understand you had a grant for the last six years
to study the facial changes in Michael Jackson.
- That's correct, Dave. And it's been a full-time job.
- To most of us, he's just Wacko Jacko.
And if some of the press are to be believed
he sleeps in an oxygen tent,
often with a chimp, a snake and an alien.
- When you think of Michael Jackson, you don't first think
what a great artist, what a definitive performer.
You think, what a weird guy.
- Record stores have been reporting disappointing sales
for the new album.
Some have already begun taking down the Bad promotional posters.
- The Bad album had been released in the late '80s,
but it hadn't been as successful as Thriller.
We had to get him back to basics as an artist, as a singer,
and get away from the wacky personas and the trappings
and everything else and stuff.
- CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK
- We had to make him more relatable to the public,
to answer the questions that people had about him,
about his skin, about Bubbles,
about everything.
Because up to that point, Michael hadn't done a major interview.
People hadn't heard him talk,
people didn't know anything about him.
And then Michael's managers had this idea
that he should do an Oprah Winfrey interview.
- OPRAH CHATTERS
- And the whole objective for that interview
was to humanise him to the world.
Oprah was calling every day, like five or six times a day.
Nothing was left to chance.
His whole career, his reputation
were dependent on this interview going well.
- Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Jackson.
Hey. - Hi, Oprah. - Hey, hey.
Well, how nervous are you right now?
- How what? - How nervous are you right now?
- Mm, I'm not nervous at all, actually.
- You really aren't?
- No, I never get nervous.
- You don't? - No.
- Not even for your first interview and it's live around the world?
I thought you'd be a little nervous.
But that's great, because if you're not nervous, I won't be nervous.
I just wanted to let the world know that...
- We were all watching it on TV, and it was pretty eye-opening.
I think it really was the first time that I can recall
where he ever sat down for a length of time,
answered the questions that we all wanted to know.
and was really pretty candid.
I was actually surprised how candid he was.
- The main thing in that Oprah interview that was talked about
was his answer to his skin colour changing.
- The colour of your skin is obviously different
than it was when you were younger.
And so, I think, um,
it has caused a great deal of speculation and controversy
as to what you have done or are doing.
Are you bleaching your skin?
And is your skin lighter because you don't like being black?
- OK, number one, this is just the situation -
I have a skin disorder that destroys the pigmentation of the skin.
It's something that I cannot help. OK?
But when people make up stories that I don't want to be who I am,
it hurts me.
- So it is...
- It's a problem for me, OK?
I can't control it.
I'm a black American.
I'm proud to be a black American.
- Yes!
- The black community was really relieved to hear that.
You know, I remember people saying,
"Oh, well, that's why it was, of course.
"Of course, Michael wouldn't desert us. He has a disease."
- It makes me feel some of the pain that he's feeling,
because I can look in his eyes and I can see the hurt in his eyes.
You know, he looks like he's so lonely and so hurt, you know?
And it makes me want to just reach out to him.
- And it worked.
And it really changed a lot of people's perceptions of him.
It felt like Michael was back on top.
- My name is Rosibel Smith.
In 1993,
I was working the Sexually Exploited Child Unit.
A case had come in involving a young boy who was 13 years of age.
And that the perpetrator was Michael Jackson.
We knew that it was going to be a huge case.