Remember the Time: Protecting Michael Jackson in His Final Days

by Bill Whitfield

  People have often wondered why Mr. Jackson kept his children’s faces covered with masks and veils when they were in public. The tabloids said it was weird and crazy, but they didn’t understand the reason for it. If no one knew what his children looked like, they could occasionally go to public places without him and have a somewhat normal experience. When they were away from their dad, they could be everyday kids doing everyday things.

  For the first few months, any time we took the kids out, either the nanny or the teacher was with us. But starting around late April, he started asking me and Javon to take them out on our own, run errands with them, take them to the playground. When we first took the kids out without Grace or the teacher? That was a big deal. That’s when we felt we’d really established a level of trust. He was so fiercely protective of his kids.

  I remember one day we left the house to take the kids to go and get ice cream. Mr. Jackson stayed at home. This was in February, still cold out. We were halfway to the store, and Mr. Jackson called and asked if Blanket was wearing his hat. He wasn’t. He’d forgotten it. Mr. Jackson said, “Turn around and come back and get it.”

  The kids weren’t even really going to be getting out of the car where we were going, but he insisted. If it was cold out, his kids needed to have their hats and mittens on, period. We turned around, went back to the house.

  Javon: People laughed at the idea of him being a father, laughed at the kids’ names and the masks and all that. Like, how weird it must be for Michael Jackson to be a father. But the more you got to know him, you saw that being a father was the most normal thing about him. We were on post this one time, and he called down to say he’d run out of laundry detergent and could somebody run and pick him up some more. Before that moment, I’d never stopped to imagine Michael Jackson in the laundry room, washing his kids’ clothes, but that’s really how he was a lot of the time.

  He didn’t spoil them, either. There were the extravagant trips to FAO Schwarz and all that, but that was only for holidays and birthdays, or as a specific reward for doing well on a test or doing their chores. If they didn’t do well, he was just as quick to take their privileges away. There was one time we were supposed to take the whole family to the movies. We’d run the whole pre-detail, rented out the theater for the afternoon, made all the arrangements. But that morning, one of the kids did bad on a test or hadn’t finished some assignment, so he canceled it. We were downstairs, cars ready to go, and Prince ran out and said, “Daddy said we can’t go.”

  You see all these celebrity kids on TV all the time, bratty and spoiled and arrogant. Michael Jackson’s kids were the opposite. They never asked for much, and when they did, it was always “please” and “thank you” for everything. And when one of them did misbehave, it didn’t take too much discipline to straighten them out. One little talk or one little time-out and they’d learn their lesson.

  Bill: When Prince first got the dog, he didn’t know how to take care of it, how to housebreak it and pick up after it and all that. So in those first few weeks, the dog got in the habit of using the garage to go to the bathroom—the garage we were working out of.

  Javon: It stank. Place smelled like shit. We had to smell it while we were on the job. We were in brand-new suits and everything, and we smelled like shit. We had the trailer, but the garage was our post too; that was our working environment. That was where we washed and maintained the vehicles. We didn’t want to be backing into the garage and driving in shit.

  Bill: We thought eventually Prince would clean the shit up. Nope. He’d come out to that garage, step right over a pile of shit, go to his dog, grab a treat, give him a treat, turn around, hop over the same pile of shit, and run back in the house. Just leave the shit there.

  Javon: We stepped in it a few times. Bill would instruct us to clean it up. He’d say, “Whoever’s coming on shift, you gotta clean it up.” So we were the ones cleaning it up. I’d complain all the time. I’d say, “We didn’t sign up for this shit.”

  Bill: There were points where it came to a standoff. “I ain’t cleanin’ the shit.” “Well, I ain’t cleanin’ the shit. You clean the shit.” “No, you clean the shit.”

  Javon: So sometimes the shit would just stay there. But when Mr. Jackson stepped in that shit? That’s when the shit got serious.

  Bill: We were taking him to a meeting. Important meeting. He was all dressed up, nice suit, got his designer shoes on, and he came walking across the garage toward the vehicle and he just stepped right in it.

  Javon: He chewed Prince out, big time. Hit him with the responsibility speech. “You wanted the dog, Prince. It’s your dog. It’s your responsibility. It’s not the guys’ responsibility.”

  After that, Prince walked a tight line. Anywhere the dog went, in the garage or out on the property, Prince would come behind with a broom and dustpan and clean up after it. Wasn’t a problem anymore.

  Bill: Prince was the big brother, for real. He was very bright for his age, very take charge. Mr. Jackson relied on him to help look after the other two, and Paris and Blanket always looked to Prince for guidance.

  We always tried to run everything on a tight schedule. To make that schedule work, we always tried to leave at a certain time. But with Michael Jackson? It was rare that we left on time. His look had to be flawless before he’d go to any public event. There were times he’d get all the way to the car and say, “Wait, wait, I have to go back.” And he’d turn around and go back in. He had a hair out of place or something—and this was after the stylist had worked on him for two and a half hours. Prince was the only one brave enough to literally grab his dad and say, “Let’s go!” He’d go through the house, making sure his little brother and sister were dressed, putting them in the car. If we got somewhere on time, it was usually thanks to Prince.

  Javon: All three of them were familiar with the nature of their father’s life. It was like they were born ready for everything that he had to go through. The motorcade shows up at four in the morning, you get in, go here, fly there, have school in a hotel room. Ireland one day, Las Vegas the next. It was second nature to them.

  In public, Mr. Jackson never called them by their names. He’d never say, “Paris, come here,” or “Blanket, come here.” He didn’t want somebody in earshot figuring out who they were and snapping a picture. So all the kids had code names. Blanket’s was “Kooco.” Paris’s was “Osh Kosh.”

  I actually can’t remember Prince’s code name because we never had to use it. He never got out of line. He knew the rules better than the other two. One time, we were at FAO Schwarz and Paris slipped and called Prince by his real name. He checked that real quick. He went up to her and said, “Don’t call me that! You know not to call me that. Use our code names, sis.”

  Bill: I remember one night Mr. Jackson was having a business dinner with somebody and it was getting late, and he asked me to take the kids home. So I was driving them to the house, and Paris and Prince were in the back where some of our gear was stored. Spare radios and such.

  We didn’t use our actual names on the radio. I went by “BB” for Big Bill. I had my earpiece on, and I’d just called the house—“BB to base. This is BB.”—to let them know I was en route. A few minutes later, I heard somebody say, “Base to BB. BB come in.”

  I said, “This is BB. Go for BB.”

  The voice called back. “BB come in. Base to BB.”

  This went back and forth a few times, to the point where I was getting annoyed. I was yelling into the radio. “This is BB! Go for BB!”

  Then I heard all this giggling. Paris was on one of the spare handsets in the back, disguising her voice. I didn’t even know it was her. We all started laughing, and I said, “Okay, you got me.”

  Moments like that are what I really remember. You can imagine how if you were a kid and this was your world, code names and security guards, you’d be like any kid and use your imagination and have fun with the life you know.

  Prince grasped who his father was. M
aybe he didn’t know the whole story, but he had seen enough to understand why all the secrecy was necessary. Blanket, I think he was too young to really get it. Paris, she grasped it a little. She knew the rules, but sometimes she’d get excited and forget them.

  Javon: Paris was Daddy’s Little Girl. She was this little girl surrounded by nothing but men. She had a big brother telling her what to do. She’s got a little brother telling her what to do. Mr. Jackson telling her what to do. You’d think she’d maybe be a little tomboyish because of that, but she was always very much a girly-girl. Always smiling, always cheerful. She has these bright blue-green eyes that just light up a room. Loved playing with dolls, having little dresses. Me and Bill, we both have little girls, so we were total softies for her. The boys couldn’t get away with much, but Paris could just look at you with those big green eyes and instantly you’d just want to give her whatever she wanted.

  I remember this one time we were at Circus Circus. Prince and Blanket wanted to get on the Buccaneer. Bill went with them and I stayed with Paris, who was playing those little carnival games there, where you can win stuffed animals. She was playing the fishing game; it’s this fishbowl filled with all these yellow magnets on the bottom with a few red ones sprinkled in, and you’ve got to hit a red magnet and pull it up. She wanted to win her daddy a teddy bear. She tried five or six times and looked back at me and said, “Javon, can you please help me get this bear?”

  I knew what I was supposed to do. I’m supposed to stand back, keep watch, not get distracted. But she was just begging me, so I radioed Bill and asked if I could help her. He said, “Just go on ahead, as long as you keep an eye on her.” I tried three or four times and finally got it for her. She was so thankful. She just wanted to win her daddy a teddy bear so bad. It was the smallest little bear, but she just had to win it for him. She started gushing, “Thank you, Javon! Thank you!” And she jumped up and gave me a big hug.

  Just the way she said thank you, my heart melted. She was the sweetest little girl.

  Bill: Any time we were on our way back from a detail with the kids, we would call Mr. Jackson to let him know that we were en route back to the house. We were driving back that night from Circus Circus, and Paris was so excited. She was like, “I wanna talk to Daddy! I wanna talk to Daddy!” She wanted to get on the phone to tell him she was bringing him this teddy bear she’d won for him. When she did that, Blanket almost lost it. He was suddenly real jealous. Now he wanted to go back and win one too. “Can we go back? Can we go back? I wanna win Daddy something!”

  Blanket was an interesting little fella. When we’d get in the cars in the morning, Paris and Prince were always quick to speak up and say good morning. Blanket was very shy. Mr. Jackson would have to nudge him. “Say good morning to the guys, Blanket. Are you going to say good morning?”

  He didn’t say much, but you talk about mischievous? We called him “the Little Rebel.” Feisty little guy. Mr. Jackson would always say, “Bill, keep an eye out for Blanket. He likes to run off.” And he did. If we were in public, Prince and Paris followed the protocol; they held hands and stayed close. Blanket would try and slip out of sight, run off and do his own thing.

  Javon: Any time we closed down a bookstore to go shopping, Mr. Jackson wanted everyone to go through the store together, section by section, so that they wouldn’t get separated. They’d do the History section, then the Science Fiction section, and so on. Blanket? He’d take off for the Kids section immediately. You’d have to go chasing him through the store, and he’d catch a little attitude when you went and brought him back to the rest of the family.

  Bill: One time we were driving past the New York–New York casino, where they have this big amusement park and all these rides out front. Blanket looked over at it and said, “My daddy’s roller coaster is better than that one.”

  That was Blanket right there. There was this other time, I remember, he got in the car and he sat right behind me, where Mr. Jackson normally sat. I said, “Blanket, you need to move over. That’s where your daddy sits.”

  He said, “I know!”

  He didn’t sit in that seat by accident; he did it on purpose. He was little, but he didn’t see himself that way. “I’m gonna sit where my daddy sits!” Like that was going to be his seat one day.

  Most of the time, driving with them, we kept the curtain between us closed. Being security, your job is to be as unobtrusive as possible to the client. It’s very much a speak-when-spoken-to type of relationship. But more and more, the kids started to engage us. Mr. Jackson did too, from time to time. They got familiar and comfortable with us, and there was a lot more driving with the curtain open. One time, we were driving and Blanket started to say something, and Mr. Jackson kinda shushed him. The kids kept giggling and Mr. Jackson kept going, “Shhh! No, I didn’t! No, I didn’t!”

  Blanket said, “Yes, you did, Daddy. You said that Bill looked like—”

  “Shhh!”

  So now I was curious. I said, “Bill looks like what?”

  I looked in the rearview mirror. Blanket and Mr. Jackson were both staring at each other like, Who’s gonna tell him?

  Blanket looked at me and said, “Bill, Daddy says you look like the Thing!”

  “The Thing? What’s the Thing?”

  “You know,” Blanket said, “the guy from the Fantastic Four! Daddy said you look like the Thing from the Fantastic Four.” And I was like, Wow. Okay. The brother’s got jokes. Then Blanket said, “And Javon looks like Frozone from The Incredibles!”

  We all had a good laugh about it. So I was the Thing now. Cool. Gradually, we started developing a rapport with them, seeing their sense of humor, understanding them better.

  Javon: Mr. Jackson was always concerned that we were taking good care of ourselves. He’d always say to us, “Do you guys work out? Do you guys eat right? Don’t eat a lot of junk food; it’s not good for you.” For the most part, he and the kids were very healthy eaters. He’d let them go to McDonald’s sometimes, go get hot wings, ice cream, pizza, or whatever, but that was only as a treat.

  In their cooped-up little world, just going to a fast food restaurant and ordering from the drive-through counted as an adventure. We’d pull up to the speaker box, and all three of them would climb over each other in the backseat, trying to be the one to get up to the window and place the order. “You ordered last time!” “No, you did! It’s my turn!” Just to keep the peace, Mr. Jackson would let each kid place their own order themselves.

  One time, after the boss, Prince, and Paris had all ordered, it was Blanket’s turn. He had to stand up on the seat to be able to reach the speaker box. He got up there and said, “Can I please have two Krispy Kreme donuts with sprinkles?” We were at McDonald’s.

  Bill: Blanket loved Krispy Kreme. We were always looking for ways to let the children get out and see new things, so I made arrangements with the manager at one of the local Krispy Kremes to bring Mr. Jackson and Blanket in the back to see how the doughnuts are made. About two-thirty in the morning, we went in there and watched them. Workers showed him everything. Stayed there a couple hours, just walking around, learning how all the machines operated. We took home about five boxes of doughnuts.

  They took their little excitements where they could get them. There were times we’d be driving somewhere and Mr. Jackson would say, “Bill, the kids are hungry. Can we just find a McDonald’s?” We’d go to the McDonald’s, grab some food, pull over in a parking lot somewhere, and me and Javon would get out of the car, let him and the kids sit inside and eat. He didn’t tell us to get out of the car. We just did it. So he could have that moment with his kids. We knew how little privacy he had, so we gave him as much as we could.

  The biggest indulgences for the kids were their birthday parties. For those, Mr. Jackson went all out. He’d come to us with a big list of everything he wanted. He’d say, “I want you guys to find a clown. A magician. A popcorn machine. A cotton candy machine. An inflatable jumper.” He’d be real specific
about it, too. “Make sure you find a clown that can make balloons into different animals.” One time, the only clown we could find that did balloon animals wasn’t available; she was booked. Mr. Jackson said, “Just do whatever you can to get her here.” We ended up paying her more than triple. Her rate was $75 an hour and we paid her $250 an hour.

  We’d arrange to have everything delivered—the jumper, decorations, big-ass cakes. We’d hire the clowns and the magicians, put them all through security checks and have them sign non-disclosure contracts. The paparazzi always knew when it was birthday time. Low-flying helicopters would hover over the house in the hopes of getting a photo of Mr. Jackson or the birthday kid. So we’d have to work around that too.

  Javon: Whoever’s birthday it was, we’d follow the same routine. We’d arrange to have FAO Schwarz closed down so they could shop undisturbed. Then we took them out to a special birthday lunch. Chinese food most of the time. The Wing Lei restaurant at the Wynn hotel, that was one of their favorites; there was a private room in the back they’d reserve for Mr. Jackson whenever he came. After lunch, he’d rent out a movie theater so the kids could go see a movie. And while they were out at the toy store and the movies, the house was being decorated. They’d come back and: “Surprise!” We’d have the magician, the clown with the balloons, the cotton candy. The whole place would be decked out for a party.

  Bill: And there’d be nobody there. There were no other guests, no other children. It was just the clowns, Mr. Jackson, me and Javon, sometimes the teacher or the nanny. The kids didn’t have any friends.

  Javon: The only person who was ever there was Marlon Brando’s son Miko; they were friendly because Mr. Jackson and Marlon Brando were tight. A couple times, Miko and his kids came by to celebrate, but it was usually just us.