The Michael Jackson Tapes

by Shmuley Boteach

  SB: They are famous for being good, but you are famous and you are good, there’s a very big difference. Even Diana, Diana was a good woman. I didn’t know her. You did. She had many saintly qualities and did a huge amount of good. Still, she loved the glitzy life. But you love children. Why?

  MJ: I am not trying to be philosophical but I really think it’s my job to help them. I think it is my calling. I don’t care if people laugh or what they say. [Children] don’t have a mouth to society and I think it is now their time. From here on out it is their time. They need the world’s awareness and they need issues to deal with, and this is for them. And if I can be that light, that pedestal just to shine some light on who they are, and the importance of who children are, that’s what I want to do. I don’t know how God chooses people, or plays chess with people, and he does put you in position and sets you up. Sometimes I feel like that, like this is my place. I think about from Gandhi to Martin Luther King to Kennedy to myself to yourself. Do you think these are self-made men or, from birth, do you think God said, “Aha!” And smiling a little bit. . . . Do you think that just happened on its own by their fathers, or they were supposed to do this? I am asking you this question?

  SB: I think it is the confluence of both. Great men and women are born with the potential for greatness. But it usually has to be squeezed out of them through the crisis of an external event. There is greatness in people but external events help them develop it. Greatness is the synthesis of a man or woman’s innate potential matched with their ability to rise to a great challenge. And when you don’t have an answer to the question of why God gave you such phenomenal success, you start to wither under the burden of fame. You need to have something like a mirror that deflects all that attention, all that light, that is being shined on you, onto a higher cause or you’ll be scorched by its intensity.

  On the other hand, Michael’s attention wasn’t consistent, and often didn’t measure up to the ideal he set for himself and spoke about publicly.

  SB: A little girl I met last night is fourteen and she’s an orphan. Her mother died when she was seven, and she never knew who her father was. She came to the Lion King last night because she is a friend of [name withheld] and her great wish was to meet you. So I told her I would bring her by for a few minutes this week so she can meet you.

  MJ: Oh, who is taking care of her?

  SB: She lives with her grandmother and she has a godfather who brought her to the play last night. Her godfather tries to take her out and see plays and things occasionally.

  MJ: Did the kids have fun at the show?

  SB: Oh yes they loved it. It was beautiful. This orphan girl’s school is a few blocks away from your hotel. Maybe I’ll bring her and let her take a picture with you.

  Michael later agreed to a very short meeting with this girl, but he took very little interest in her and never asked about her again. Why Michael seemed to take an interest in some kids, and had little to no interest in others, is not something that I ever understood. For example, in another instance, a little girl with leukemia whose mother had gotten in touch with me, asked if she could bring her daughter to meet Michael. I invited them both to our home, where they met Michael over dinner. Later, whenever Michael would come to our home for Sabbath dinner, I would usually invite the little girl, her mother, and her three siblings. They subsequently became personal friends of my family, and our friendship has continued in Michael’s absence. For everyone who said that Michael was only interested in little boys, I can attest that he showed genuine and ongoing concern for this young girl, and called her mother several times to check on her condition.

  Knowing Ryan White and Other Children Battling Cancer

  Shmuley Boteach: Wasn’t there was a young boy you were very close to who got AIDS from a blood transfusion?

  Michael Jackson: Ryan White. The hardest for me is. . . I am going to answer but I don’t understand when a child dies. I really don’t. I think there should be a window where there is a chance of dying but not in this window of time. When a child dies, or if the child is sick, I really don’t understand it. But I listen to Ryan White, twelve years old, at my dining room table at Neverland telling his mother how to bury him. He said, “Mom when I die, don’t put me in a suit and tie. I don’t want to be in a suit and tie. Put me in OshKosh jeans and a T-shirt.” I said, “I have to use the bathroom,” and I ran to the bathroom and I cried my eyes out. Hearing this little boy telling his mother how to bury him. That hurt me. It was as if he was prepared for it and when he died he was in OshKosh jeans and a T-shirt and a watch that I gave him. And I am sitting alone in this room with him and he is lying there and I felt so bad I just wanted to hold him and kiss him and say that I love him, which I did all those things when he was alive. I took care of him and he stayed at my house. But to see him just lying there . . . I spoke to him and I said, “Ryan, I promised you that I would do something in your honor on my next album. I will create a song for you. I will sing it. I want the world to know who you are.” I did Gone Too Soon. That was for him.

  SB: Do you think he heard you when you said that? Do you feel in touch with the soul of some of the people you love and have lost? Do you still feel close to them?

  MJ: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

  SB: So you had to deal with his death and other people who you were close to?

  MJ: That hurt me so much. One other boy came to me and he was as white as snow, literally as white as snow or a white piece of paper. He was dying of cancer and he just loved me and he came in my bedroom and he saw the jackets I wore and the videos and he put them on and he was in heaven. They told me that he wasn’t going to live. That any day he could just go and I said, “Look, I am going to be coming to your town.” I think he was in Kansas City. “I am going to open my tour in Kansas City in three months. I want you to come to the show. I am going to give you this jacket.” He said “You are gonna’ give it to me?” I said, “Yeah. But I want you to wear it to the show.” I was trying to make him hold on. I said, “When you come to the show I want to see you in this jacket and in this glove,” and I gave him one of my rhinestone gloves, and I never give the rhinestone gloves away. He was in heaven. When I came to the town he was dead and they buried him in the glove and the jacket. He was 10 years old. God knows, I know that he tried his best to hold on. SB: Do you feel angry at God for things like that happening?

  MJ: No. I just don’t understand them. I wish we knew more about the other side. I know it promises everlasting life and being in heaven. But why suffering and why pain before crossing over to the white light, whatever it is? It should just be the most beautiful experience, whatever it is.

  MJ: [The story about the boy] was a true story. I wish you could’ve seen his face, Shmuley, I wish you could’ve seen it.

  SB: And that was a promise story, right? You said to him “I promise if you stay alive. . .” Right?

  MJ: Yeah, I was trying to get him to hold on. They said he was gonna die and I said, “I know I can do something about this.” You know? And I was trying to get him to look forward, to hold on and I said “Wear this to the show” and he was so happy. When I got to the town, he was dead. Killed me, killed me.

  SB: How do you feel, describe the feeling to me for just a minute. How do you feel when you’re around [a little girl with cancer whom Michael and I knew]?

  MJ: I love her.

  SB: You know that you could make a difference with them and you know that just being around you, part of their illness almost goes away. You know the ancient Rabbis said that every time you visit someone sick you take awayof their illness. But with you, it’s almost like you take away fifty percent of their illness, you know? I know you know that.

  MJ: Yeah, yeah. I love making people. . . I don’t like to see anybody hurt or suffer, especially children.

  SB: Do you feel that you have a healing power that was given to you? Or is it because of the celebrity? In other words, being a great celebrity, when you show a child attention, they feel
really good. They know how famous you are, they feel like “wow, someone that famous cares about me, I must be special.” But is it beyond celebrity? Is it something in you that you had before celebrity?

  MJ: I think it’s something that I’m supposed to do because I always had this yearning to give and help and make people feel better in that way.

  SB: You had this before, when you were Michael Jackson the boy?

  MJ: Yes.

  Being Dad with Prince and Paris

  Michael Jackson: [To Prince, who is with us]: Prince, what makes Daddy laugh?

  Prince: Three Stooges.

  MJ: He’s right. I love them. The fat one. . . I scream with laughter. I keep The Three Stooges with me wherever I go. It makes me happy. I have watched them all my life.

  Shmuley Boteach: What is it about them? Is it the fact that they can like hurt each other and no one gets hurt and everything’s funny?

  MJ: Yeah, Curly is the killer. Remember Curly—the fat one, right Prince? [Prince starts jumping around, imitating Curly] Yeah, he loves it too. I love them.

  SB: That’s what makes you laugh out loud?

  MJ: Yeah, I scream. I scream, I keep the Three Stooges with me wherever I go. It makes me happy. I love them. I’ve watched them all my life.

  Prince: Daddy. I want to see Peter Pan.

  MJ: Me too.

  Prince: I want to go fishing.

  MJ: I’ll take you fishing one day as long as we throw the fish back after we catch it.

  SB: Do you feel, maybe, based on everything that you have done for children, that God showed you extra kindness by giving you two really outstanding children who are so attached to you. . . that amid the malice and mean-spiritedness of people, God gave you these two incredible gifts in your life?

  MJ: That would be a nice thought. I think they are a gift. I think all children are a gift.

  SB: Do you love children more after having Prince and Paris?

  MJ: I love them as much and more. It’s hard for me to say “my children” because I don’t see any territoriality. Maybe because I used to get hectored by my ex-wife Lisa about that because all she used to care about was her own and not others.

  I know it would make a huge difference in their future if we do what we say we are going to do [with our child-prioritization initiative]. It’s that time, that chance to say, “You, you are special to me. This is your day. This is not Christmas. It’s not the day we are celebrating for Christ that’s about the day he was born. This is about you and me. I am giving you my love.” That would make a big difference. If I had that day with my father and my mother, that would have made all the difference. And I love my parents. My mother is like a saint. She is. . . she is not of this earth. She is unbelievably wonderful. I don’t have a bad thing to say about her. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?

  SB: So the first thing you want Prince and Paris to know, before they know their ABC’s before they know how to dress, you want them to know that their daddy loves them.

  MJ: Yeah, yeah. To make them hold their hands and look them in the eyes and tell them, “I love you.” That would be remembered forever. I do it to Prince and Paris every day.

  SB: That’s the one thing that will never be taken away from them. That’s the beginning of all knowledge—to know that you are loved.

  MJ: Loved, truly loved. . . to touch their hand, because kids go a lot by touch, and they need to be held, and people know those kinds of things. But they don’t know the power.

  Playfulness

  Is it responsible for a grown adult to be playful in a way that other adults would dismiss as immature? Or are the adults who are doing the dismissing being old and crusty?

  Shmuley Boteach: Give me some stories about playfulness. Tell me about your water balloon fights.

  Michael Jackson: Water balloon fights?

  SB: Yes, at Neverland.

  MJ: I think the best way to break the ice with someone you don’t know is to play. You bond quicker through play than any other way. Through shaking a hand to usually having a conversation is not as easy as play. I think it’s the best way and I think breaking ice with a good water balloon fight or running around together, riding bikes, looking at each other, laughing, smiling, it’s the best way to really get to know somebody in the beginning. And they realize that you are just fun and simple and your first association with them is through fun. I think that’s important, don’t you?

  SB: Yes. But I want you to describe it. You have this water balloon fort at Neverland, and you organize two different teams. When we stayed with you we didn’t have a water-balloon fight, remember, because it was raining?

  MJ: We have two teams, the red team and a blue team and you challenge each other. There are water balloons, there are cannons that shoot sixty feet on each side and there are sling shots where you can sling the water balloons and they have these shower buttons. And if the red team can get over to the blue team and push their shower button three times. . . . And the only way for the red team to turn off the blue team’s side is for the red team to run back over and turn it off and we get to hit them. When I say shower, it’s like a sprinkler and fountains, it is like a shower all over the place and you get flooded with water. If you hit that button three times, whoever does that first is the winner. And then the loser has to sit on this round thing with his clothes on and you throw this ball and he falls in the water. They are soaked and then they have to go to the swimming pool and dive in with their clothes on. So it is a real fun fiasco.

  SB: So when you have guests who come to Neverland you often break the ice through the water balloon fights. Children and adults?

  MJ: Adults too.

  SB: And how do they respond? Do you sometimes see real serious people suddenly melting?

  MJ: Oh they love it. They laugh and we videotape it and once everybody has dried off and had dinner, we show it in our movie theater on the big screen and everybody is laughing and screaming and they realize how much fun it was. It is a wonderful thing.

  SB: Do you ever do this with big music executives?

  MJ: No. . . yes. . . with movie people like Catherine Byrne and Stephen [Spielberg]. . . we have had some big ones.

  SB: What about children with cancer, people like that?

  MJ: Sometimes we have it in the grass. I like it better in the fort. There’s bridges. You run across and it is fun, great fun.

  SB: Tell me some more stories like that. Let’s say you are in the middle of a big Sony meeting or a big movie meeting with all these crusty corporate American suits. Have you ever been able to break the ice in these serious negotiations because you are more childlike? They are very rigid, everything is about numbers.

  MJ: You don’t understand. One thing you don’t know about me is how silly I am. Every time I get in these meetings and everyone is uptight I laugh through the whole thing and I can’t stop giggling and I have to keep apologizing and my lawyer looks at me and says, “I’m sorry. He does this sometimes.” Then they start laughing and they all start laughing and so it becomes fun and light-hearted because they look too serious sometimes and I like it to be a little more light-hearted. I can’t help it. I really can’t help it.

  SB: Does that break the ice when you do that? Do people feel closer, does it make tough negotiations easier? Do they feel that they have bonded more when that happens?

  MJ: Yes, I think so. I think there is a commonality amongst all of us that we really are all the same. Things can be really humorous and we can laugh at the same things. There’s that commonality in mankind. Really, we are all the same. Really.

  SB: Laughter is the quickest way we can achieve something in common? MJ: Everybody’s funny bone is the same color, isn’t it? We are all the same, really. I have seen that a lot.

  SB: What about practical jokes you do, and things like that? Do you remember Michael Steinhardt at the zoo? He was one of the best money managers on Wall Street, but he was famous for having a bucket of water fall on some guy who was too serious, a
t the biggest meetings. He was a legendary practical joker.

  Steinhardt, who is a dear friend, is a world-renowned Jewish philanthropist and co-founder of Birthright Israel. He is a great lover of animals and has his own private zoo. I took Michael and his children, together with mine, for a visit at his home. Michael later visited again on his own so that his kids could see the animals.

  MJ: Are you kidding? That’s my most favorite thing in the whole world, to prank people. I love doing it, but I am afraid that some people will get mad even though sometimes I don’t care. But I do it all the time. I carry stink-bombs and water balloons. After every video, on the last day the whole room stinks like rotten eggs and it all turns to a big mess and everybody knows what I do and everybody knows that’s when it’s done. And then I walk out. I love it.

  SB: Do you see very serious people becoming more childlike in front of your eyes when that happens?

  MJ: Yes, and they talk about it and how funny it was. It is fun. SB: You will remember that on Friday night at my home one of the guests was a woman who is in her early forties and a successful real estate mogul. She has over 100 employees. But at what price? She is not married, she doesn’t have children. She said she didn’t have time to date. I said, “What about Friday nights?” “Well,” she said, “I am ashamed to tell you that I am normally at the office until 11:00-12:00 p.m., even on Friday nights.” So, she has given up a lot of her personal life in order to have this big business. What would you say to someone like that?

  MJ: I would try and show them some of the wonderful things that they are missing and not to be overly serious and not too much of a workaholic, even though I am a workaholic. But you must stop sometimes and have fun. There is so much fun to be had because once . . . our time can be so limited on the planet and I think real family and great memories and doing things with children are some of the most wonderful treasures. I have had some amazing good times. When I am sad I start reflecting on the good times to make me feel better. I do it in bed at night sometimes when I get down on myself. I put the most wonderful thought in my head, some wonderful experience and I feel a chemical reaction taking over in my body where I am actually there and I love that. I get upset if some idiot, I mean worse than a Stooge, a complete idiot writes something stupid and so untrue and so unlike what happened at the event or something I was at. And I get so angry and I try not to be angry because I am hurting myself. And I start thinking about me flying through the air with the wind in my face. I do it in Africa. I go way up high and I am so happy up there and I am flying. I think it is one of the most wonderful things I have discovered and I love it. It’s the freedom. It’s bliss. It’s quintessential bliss, I think. It’s the height of fun.