The Michael Jackson Tapes

by Shmuley Boteach

  Michael and His Fans’ Love: A Two-Way Street

  Shmuley Boteach: Let me ask you this. Given that you were somewhat disadvantaged as a child, not being given the love that you needed, how do you overcome what you weren’t given? How did you learn to make up for the basic tools that you were deprived of?

  Michael Jackson: I think music and dance helped me a lot, like therapy. To be able to express your feelings through songs and your emotions on stage and getting all that love back a thousandfold through the fans.

  SB: That compensated for what you didn’t get?

  MJ: Yeah, ’cause when a fan walks up, I mean honestly when somebody walks up to you and says, “I love you so much,” it makes my heart feel so good. I could never get tired of it.

  SB: Really? Do you not sometimes feel that a sicko fan, a stalker, takes it too far?

  MJ: No, nope. I just love it. I just love my fans. I love them to pieces and what makes my heart happy is when I see they support my beliefs about family and children. They have these big billboards of children and babies and they’re with me, they get it, you know? They get what I’m saying.

  SB: So what you didn’t get from your parents you get from your fans, but there’s one big difference. Parents are supposed to give you unconditional love, even if you don’t deserve it. Bill Clinton’s mother, Virginia Kelly, was once asked which son she loved more. Bill, who made her real proud as president of the United

  States, or Roger, who had drug issues and was accused of being a deadbeat dad.

  MJ: One of her kids?

  SB: Roger, Bill Clinton’s brother.

  MJ: Has a drug addiction?

  SB: Sure, I’m almost positive he was in prison for selling drugs. MJ: Really?

  SB: And he was a deadbeat dad, didn’t pay alimony and stuff like that. And she was asked, “One son is kind of a bum and the other is president, do you love Bill more?” And she said, “What? Are you crazy? I love both my children, I love them equally.” So there’s got to be a difference, Michael, between how the fans love you, and how your family does. Parents love you unconditionally, but the fans love you because you can sing and because you can dance, or do you feel unconditional love from your fans?

  MJ: That’s hard, ’cause I’m not in their skin. Umm, I think after discovering who I am and how I see them and make them feel good about themselves, they love me unconditionally. I know they do. . . I feel it, I see it. You go with me sometime and we go out and you’re gonna run into the diehard fans, you’re going to see something. It’s unbelievable, it’s like a religious experience. They sleep on the street, hold up candlelight and they have their families out there, it’s just so beautiful. I love seeing the children come, that makes my heart so happy.

  SB: So it’s the case of originally they loved you because of song and dance, but then they went beyond that point.

  MJ: Yeah, they discovered what I’m about, what I’m trying to say. . . There’s a message in the music that’s more than just a beat and a rhythm. There’s some real depth.

  SB: Why do you have such fanatical fans? Can I tell you how fanatical they are? I haven’t even shown you, but that one article I published about you, after Neverland and your birthday, has generated so many hundreds of letters by email to us. You’ve got to see it. Half of these people run their own Michael Jackson website. There’s something like hundreds upon hundreds of Michael Jackson websites.

  MJ: Yeah, yeah.

  SB: How do you account for that? I mean everyone has fans. It’s like when we talked about the Spice Girls the other day. Sure they had fans, but where are the fans now? Why are yours such diehard fans?

  MJ: I think ’cause they, I’ve been given the gift that God has given me and I haven’t been a “here today gone tomorrow” artist and it allows people, the public, to grow up with me. When they grow with me it’s more an emotional contact and they feel attached to me like I’m their brother. I have people walk up to me [and say] “Michael!” start talking, grabbing me just like they’re my brother or sister. I play as if, you know, you’ve got to go along with it. They really feel that you belong to them.

  SB: You’ve known them for their entire life?

  MJ: Yeah, all my life and I have to go right along with it. ’Cause I’m on their wall, they hear me every morning, and pictures are everywhere. It is like a shrine and some religions say it’s idol worship but I don’t believe it’s idol worship.

  SB: Okay, why isn’t it idol worship?

  MJ: I have never written once, nor have I heard, [the fans claiming that I’m a god.] Perhaps there were some banners that say, “You are God.” We do have footage like that but we don’t show it on television. We have banners that say that. I don’t think it’s anything bad ’cause what I’m talking about is love, let’s restore the family. . .

  This is shocking stuff coming from Michael’s mouth, and truly captures the very essence of how his life went off the rails. Arrogance is at the heart of all human corruption, and it doesn’t get much more arrogant than this. Here you have a man who was once a devout Jehovah’s Witness, with all their emphasis on purging even an iota of idolatrous conduct from one’s life, saying that it’s no big deal that his fans have banners declaring that he’s God. And I understand that they don’t mean it literally. But Michael should have been at the forefront saying, “Everything I have, every talent of which I am possessed, comes only from God and to him belongs the glory.”

  Instead, we had a sad spectacle of a man allowing himself to be worshipped by a bunch of lost souls who sleep outside his hotel room, desperate for an object of veneration to fill their inner emptiness. Michael should have been the first to tell them to go home and find something truly worth worshipping, to stop obsessing over a rock star and cultivate their own lives and real relationships. Instead, like so many other men and woman who have fallen in love with their own graven image, he became addicted to the adulation until he felt the need to play the role and act as if he were indeed a god.

  Michael and I are both students of the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament) and I often told him that the Bible can be distilled into one short sentence. There is only one God, and it isn’t you, so make room in your life for the real Creator. I told Michael many times, “Michael, in life we all end up humble. In that there is no choice. One way or another, we will end up with our arrogance deflated. Rather, the choice lies only in how it will come about. Either we humble ourselves, Michael, or God will humble us.” How tragic for Michael that he could not humble himself before it was done for him.

  SB: So it’s not idol worship because you yourself have subordinated yourself to the higher value saying that I represent this?

  MJ: I’m representing the higher being. I’m not saying I’m God, but I’m saying heal the planet, heal the world, save our children, save the forest. There’s nothing wrong with that. Right?

  SB: Idol worship is where it’s about me.

  Yes, I know. I could have been much more forceful at the time in telling Michael that his words were abhorrent. But I justified holding my tongue in the belief that I had to first build trust before I could really be tough on him, as I increasingly became. I regret my cowardice and my fear that I would lose my intimate relationship with my friend, the superstar. I did, however, correct it a few months later as I increasingly lectured Michael on how his need to be worshipped was ruining his life and alienating him from God. As I predicted, it led to the demise of our relationship. Ordinary mortals do not criticize deities. At least I wasn’t burned at the stake.

  MJ: Yeah, no that’s not what I’m about.

  SB: The opposite is “I may be a hero, but I’m a hero for a higher cause.”

  MJ: If you saw my show you would see it’s totally not about me. Big giant screens show them cutting down the rainforest and hungry children reaching out. It’s just so beautiful. People start to cry and get emotional. It’s so wonderful.

  PART 4

  THE KATHERINE JACKSON INTERVIEW<
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  Michael mentioned to me that he wanted me to interview his mother for this book. I wanted to discover her impressions on who Michael was, what made him unique, and what was the source of his pain. But more than anything else, knowing what a devout Jehovah’s Witness and deeply religious woman Katherine Jackson was, I wanted to know how she felt about Michael leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses Church. It always seemed to me that the church had a salient effect on Michael. It kept him humble and grounded even after he became the biggest star in the world. Having God as part of his life reminded Michael that he was not a deity. He was a mortal man, flawed and incomplete. In the years after he abandoned the church, Michael began to exhibit unhealthy signs of a Messiah complex. He saw himself as the children’s redeemer when in truth it was their parents who had to be their redeemers. The trouble with anyone who sees themselves in a superhuman light is that they are above criticism. And the refusal to accept guidance and criticism would later prove fatal for Michael.

  Katherine Jackson was visiting New York City, and I met her in her suite in the Four Seasons Hotel. When I walked in, she was reading the Bible. In fact, on both occasions that I met with Mrs. Jackson she was reading the Bible as I entered. A religious and pious woman, she exuded a grace and nobility of spirit that was noticeable and impressive.

  On Her Children’s Fame and Talent

  Shmuley Boteach: So I just want this to be more of a conversation. First of all, I wanted to meet you and it’s a great pleasure. I’m friendly with Michael. He always talks about you. In fact, you’re one of the central figures in the book.

  Katherine Jackson: Oh really?

  SB: Oh he adores you. When we went to visit Neverland we saw the Katherine Train and Mount Katherine. And when he talks about you his eyes close and he almost goes into some rapturous ecstasy.

  KJ: [Laughing] He is such a good son. He really is a good son.

  SB: Oh he worships you. I mean you are one of the great matriarchs in America. I mean, who can claim to have had a family that has achieved the things your family has achieved? You must be very proud of your children.

  KJ: I am. I am very proud of them. But, you know, you have to pay the price.

  SB: If you ever want me to turn this tape recorder off, I’m happy to. KJ: You mean whenever I want to?

  SB: If you ever want me to turn it off, I’ll turn it off.

  KJ: That’s all right. Just whatever you want to ask me, I’m ready. SB: You mean pay the price in terms of fame?

  KJ: Yeah. When it comes to fame, you know, you pay the price. Some is good and some is bad. People like to hear bad things. People make up things about you and it hurts in a way because you find a lot of people. . . they get on television and they say a lot of things about you they don’t even know about. And it’s not true and this is what happens. So you have to be strong to get through this.

  SB: How do you account for the extraordinary musical talent in your family?

  KJ: Well, I’ve always loved music. My husband did too. My sister and I when we were young we used to sing together all the time and now the funny thing about it, my father, coming from Indiana. . . East Chicago, Indiana. That’s where I was raised. My father used to keep the radio station—we didn’t have television in those days—used to keep the radio station on a station called, “Supper Time Frolic.” And every night it would come on and it was all country western.

  He [her father] gave my son Tito a guitar. After I got married and I moved to Gary, my father brought a guitar over for Tito as a gift. And the boys what they did, after they got television, they used to watch, whenever Temptations, you know they would come on, that was back in the sixties. It really started when I used to sing with them.

  SB: That I haven’t read. You used to sing with them?

  KJ: You haven’t read that? Yes. No, no, not professionally.

  SB: No, I understand. At the house. . .

  KJ: When they were little, when they were very young. I don’t even think Michael was born at the time and whenever. . . We had [to pay] for a month of TV. And you know, how you get that and then you pay so much a month. And our TV broke down and it was snowing and cold and we didn’t have. . . the kids didn’t have anything to do. So we would sing songs. They were songs like “Old Cotton Field Back Home.” I don’t know if you’re familiar with those songs, folk songs really. And even before then when my husband and I first married we used to sing together just around the house doing nothing, harmonizing, and we always loved music and my husband’s family was musical. He plays the harmonica, he used to, and the guitar and his brother played the saxophone and the other brother played the trombone and my father played guitar. So we just love music and I guess that’s where it stemmed from.

  SB: So you don’t see it as something genetic?

  KJ: Well it could be because my. . .

  SB: There’s no real family that has this record of. . .

  KJ: My grandfather or great-grandfather, I would say grandfather, my mother used to tell me stories about how they would keep old wooden windows where they used to throw the windows open, you know, and they would sing and you could hear their voices echoing across the countryside and there was nothing else to do. That was the cheapest thing you could do was entertain and entertain yourself and your family because there was not much money in the black families at that time so they entertained themselves with music. Guitars and harmonicas.

  SB: So do you think those families were happier than the families today with money?

  KJ: Oh yeah, I think so. I really believe that. Because even when I was in Gary I think I was much happier, in a way. I’m happy today but . . . the families are closer and I think that every family feels that when they’re poor, they’re closer.

  SB: Some of the questions that I have. . . Let’s first begin with Michael. He wanted me to meet you because he said many times that you can tell me the kind of stories that he may have forgotten. For example, what made him who he is? And I don’t mean the musical side. Most Hollywood stars who have made a lot of money and who are world-famous are arrogant and self-centered. They’re not interested in kids. That’s the last thing they’re interested in. They’re interested in themselves. First of all Michael lived at home until he was about twenty-seven years old, which is amazing. I mean who’s ever heard of. . . Macaulay Culkin moved out when he was like eleven [I was exaggerating]. How do you account for his softness, his gentility, his love of animals, his love of children, his sensitivity to life? He’s like a boy, things surprise him and startle him. How do you account for all of that?

  KJ: You know all those questions you ask it’s hard to answer in a way. But, they used to own a cat each and I said, “You can have a cat but you can’t bring them in,” and things like that for years before we came to California.

  SB: So here he was already demonstrating this from the earliest age.

  KJ: The love of animals from an early stage and Janet was another one that loved animals even when she was [young]. We don’t have a law but you had to keep your animals out there. Animals just run stray. Animals everywhere.

  After we came to California he was able to get animals, so they had snakes and he had sheep. Here in Encino we had a little zoo. We had a giraffe.

  He loved those things. You know I think it’s because. . . I’ll tell you what I believe. That it was because when we were back in Indiana, it was really a bad place. Gary, Indiana, was really a bad place. And my husband, he wouldn’t let the kids go out and be with. . . the neighborhood kids.

  SB: Why didn’t any of this go to Michael’s head? Why did he stay at home? He said to me, “I’m old fashioned, you stay home until you get married.” Did you raise the values with him? Was it the religious faith he was raised with? Michael is a fundamentally soft, sensitive person. Where does that come from?

  KJ: I’d hate to say it.

  SB: Are all your kids like that?

  KJ: Most of them, yes. I’d say that—and I hate to say it. I used to tell him all the time
that he was too much like me and I didn’t want him to be that way.

  SB: That’s exactly what he says.

  KJ: [laughs] I used to tell him, “I don’t want you to be that way. You’re a man. You have to be strong. You know. But he’s gentle. He’s just a gentle person.

  SB: So what you’re saying is that his softness comes from you. He was much more attached to you than he was to his father.

  KJ: Oh yeah.

  SB: So he took after your example.

  KJ: Oh yeah.

  SB: And he actually believes in being soft and he’d rather be hurt than inflict pain.

  KJ: Nothing bad.

  Religion in Katherine’s and Her Children’s Lives

  Shmuley Boteach: And are you “soft” like that because of your religious faith? Michael talks about your religious faith all the time.

  Katherine Jackson: No, I’ve been like that all the time. I wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness all the time.

  SB: You were a Jehovah’s Witness when you were young?

  KJ: I was not. I used to be Baptist. My mother raised us going to church school every Sunday and being in the Junior choir.

  SB: So you were raised Baptist?

  KJ: Yes.

  SB: And did you go to church? Were you a religious Baptist?

  KJ: Yes, I went to church but I didn’t like what I saw in the Baptist church. And so after I got to judge religion by the way the people act and they were doing it and that’s why I got out of it.

  SB: And where was this?

  KJ: In East Chicago, Indiana.

  SB: ’Cause you saw things that turned you off and you decided to seek a better religion at the age of what. . . Twelve? Thirteen?

  KJ: Yeah. Twelve, thirteen. My sister and I were studying to be a Jehovah’s. . . Well, we were just studying with the people next door who were. ’Cause Jehovah’s Witnesses come around and they teach the Bible to people. My mother found it and she got angry with us and made us stop. So after I got older, and I got married, and moved away, I remembered that. And that’s when I started to study.