Before I departed Neverland a few days later, Michael and I had further agreed that at some point soon he would come to New York for a few months and we would work hand-in-hand to help him regain his equilibrium and implement a plan of action to improve the lives of children and parents.
Most significantly, sitting in his bedroom and library before I left, we began the tape-recorded conversations that serve as the very soul of this book.
The Struggle to Do the Right Thing
Immediately after our family visit in August, and in order to continue the recorded conversations for this book, Michael and I arranged to meet in Los Angeles and again at Neverland, and by October or November he arrived in New York City, where he installed himself at the Four Seasons Hotel. Yes, he was coming to work on his album, but really he was coming so we could spend time together to implement our plan.
Throughout that late fall, we saw each other almost every day. Much of the time we were busy meeting with people who might help us or participate in a series of public events where Michael could show a much more serious side of himself. I brought Professor Stanley Greenspan, one of the top childrearing experts in America, to get to know him. I introduced him to my hero Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate, and his wife. I took him to see a few friends of mine in finance to try and help him get his financial life under control. Nothing came of it, but they at least sat him down and told him his true situation, which basically was that he was bankrupt and on his way to financial oblivion. It was a complete effort on his behalf.
In addition, Michael stopped what I saw as his destructive secrecy. The trust between us was total—at least that’s what I was led to believe. My access to him was unlimited. If I walked into his hotel room when he was taking a shower, he would pop out in a towel and yell, “I’ll be out in a minute.” Often I would arrive at his hotel suite and wake him up because I told him how important it was for him to break out of his pattern of staying up most of the night and sleeping most of the day (something for which Elvis was famous as well).
For those few months Michael probably came as close to living a normal life as he ever had or would. My objective was to stop getting him to see himself as an aloof deity who was beyond reproach. He was a man who happened to sing and dance better than almost anyone else alive. But he was a man nonetheless. He was not to be worshipped and he required the healthy ingredients of a normal life like anyone else. To achieve this end, we saw each other nearly every day, even on the Sabbath, when Michael would come to our home across the Hudson River in New Jersey with his two children for the Friday night Sabbath meal. Those Sabbath dinners were extremely important because Michael not only immersed himself in a nourishing, spiritual environment but also mixed comfortably with the other guests who regularly attended our Sabbath meals. This may sound like no big deal, but for Michael, who had rarely been treated as a mortal, sitting next to other people and simply conversing was a very big deal.
We would tell our Shabbos guests beforehand that a well-known personality would probably be joining us for dinner and would they mind simply treating him like everyone else. It was interesting watching Michael making small talk with people around the table. And after a few awkward starts—Michael was always very shy in public—he did a respectable job and charmed our guests. Friday nights I usually have a prayer service for members of our community at our home, and one Friday night when Michael came we were dancing and singing in a giant circle—about thirty of us—and Michael joined the circle and danced with everyone else. I remember how much he smiled that night, like it was liberating just joining, rather than always being aloof from, the crowd.
We’d also spend time talking about the basic requirements of a healthy life. I would say to him, “You have to get up at a normal hour, and you have to go to sleep at a normal hour. Life needs structure. Your kids have to play with other people’s kids, and they have to go to parks and to school. Even if you are divorced, your children need access to both parents to grow up as secure and well-balanced as possible. You cannot isolate yourself. You need normal friends who can tether you to the earth and to whom you are accountable. You need family who will love you unconditionally, and you must reconcile with them if you have fallen out. Most of all, you need God, the architect of humanity and the source of all blessing, who gives us rules by which we all thrive. You have to stop making the rules up as you go along.”
I talked to Michael about the importance of struggling to do the right thing, of replacing his desire for attention with a hunger for righteous action, and of understanding that the effort was as important for happiness as some perfect result.
I talked to him about one of the things that most distinguishes Judaism from Christianity. It is not the belief in Jesus as God or deity. Rather it’s the belief in the perfection of Jesus. When Christians ask, “What would Jesus do?,” they are using a model of perfection to guide their actions. And I think that makes a lot of people feel that they can never attain that high station of perfect action. I think in America we don’t like ourselves. We harbor a high degree of self-loathing because we’re not realistic about, and we dismiss, our humanity. What a shame that I have an ego; what a shame that I’m married and I’m attracted to people who are not my spouse.
In Judaism there are no perfect figures in the Bible. They are all flawed. The greatest of prophets, Moses, can’t get into the Promised Land because of sin. We all struggle to do the right thing amid a predilection to do otherwise.
Christians define righteousness as perfection; Jews define righteousness as struggle. We wrestle with our nature; we try to do better always. We acknowledge from the very outset the tendencies within us that are altruistic, that are greedy, that are giving, that are self-absorbed, and that are selfless. There’s a constant struggle and we do our best to make the right choice simply because it’s right—even when we sometimes are falling very short of our own expectations. In that sense we are more forgiving of ourselves, although we are not forgiving of our unacceptable actions.
My point to Michael was that yes, he had demons, probably more than most. But that was okay as long as he wrestled to overcome them.
I quickly noticed that there were two Michael Jacksons: the shy, soft-spoken humble child from Gary, Indiana, whose only desire in life was to be loved and cherished and the raunchy, bizarre, aggressive, and aloof King of Pop whose principle desire was to retain the adoration of the masses at any cost. Michael need not feel defeated in having a bifurcated personality, and in Jewish thought much is made of the constant inner struggle between “the good inclination” and “the bad inclination.” If Michael chose to struggle and ensure that what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature” were mostly triumphant, he would not only be vindicated with a wholesome and blessed life but would also be righteous.
Strange as it may sound to the reader, I also believed strongly that Michael needed a wife, a soul mate who could share his journey and steer his broken existence back to a place of healing and redemption. My belief was that he could not rehabilitate his life outside of a meaningful relationship with a woman. I wished greatly for him to marry. Some would say that it was naïve to presuppose Michael’s heterosexuality. But I never saw any indication of his being gay, and it is not for me to question a man’s sincerity when he firmly avows to me that he is attracted to women and is fully capable of a loving relationship with a woman.
The Michael I knew and observed frequently remarked on the attractiveness of women and was open to thinking about the possibility for a better marriage in the future. Additionally, he never expressed interest in men or made any kinds of comments that would indicate he was homosexual or that there was some hidden truth about his sexuality. What I now believe is that Michael didn’t trust women and thus did not feel safe with them. When I learned of Michael’s use of pornography (which came out in his 2003 trial), and combined this knowledge with everything he told me about his childhood exposure to adult sexuality of
a largely degrading, overwhelming kind, I could see how he may never have experienced a sense of innocence around sex or never matured beyond an adolescent sexual self.
I realize that one of Michael’s most recent biographers claims to have evidence that Michael was gay. I never saw anything that would lead me to that conclusion. Michael never even hinted that there were any men around to whom he felt attracted and I never saw any man who could possibly have been Michael’s lover. Michael knew that I have a gay orthodox Jewish brother whom I love and respect and he met my brother on several occasions, so he also knew that I would not have been shocked had he shared with me that he was gay. But he never did. I therefore pursued what I saw as my responsibility of encouraging Michael to rebuild his family with a wife. For the sake of his children as well, I was adamant that a maternal presence be introduced into his life. But he told me that while he was not averse to marriage—he had tried it twice and failed—he was very concerned that most women would marry him for his money.
There was one woman in particular who struck a positive note with Michael that fall, and his experience of meeting her gave me hope. I had known Katie Couric from the Today Show. She has interviewed me for two of my books and we stayed in touch. She asked if I would introduce her to Michael, so I arranged a lunch for the three of us that took place at Michael’s suite at the Four Seasons.
The meeting was warm and pleasant and as soon as Katie departed, Michael turned to me and said, “Shmuley, you’re always encouraging me to date. But the women I meet aren’t right for me. Someone like Katie might be perfect. She was smart, natural, and wasn’t intimidated being around me. She’s obviously very special.”
“Well Michael,” I replied, “I guess they don’t call her America’s sweetheart for nothing. But are you seriously suggesting that you want to go out with her?”
“Yeah,” Michael said, “maybe for coffee or something.”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
Michael giggled nervously. “Shmuley, you know how shy I am.”
“Okay,” I said, “do you want me to ask her for you?”
“Yes, would you?”
Wow, I thought, what do I do now? No doubt, Katie would find the invitation kind of strange, but what the heck. As a relationships counselor and author I had always done matchmaking. That night, I reached Katie at home. I said to her, “This is going to be one of the strangest calls you’ve ever received, Katie, but guess what, Michael wants to know if you want to go out with him for coffee?”
Now it was Katie who giggled nervously. “Shmuley, I guess you don’t read the celebrity magazines. I’m dating someone.” I knew, as everyone did, that Katie was tragically widowed and was raising her two daughters as a single mother. But indeed I had no idea that she was in a relationship. “I guess not,” I said sheepishly, and I apologized for the call. “No, don’t apologize,” she said. “You had good intentions.” And I would not have revealed this story if not for the fact that Katie told the story on the David Letterman show in August 2009. But clearly this and many other demonstrations of Michael’s heterosexual leanings gave me a strong belief that Michael was attracted to women.
On my birthday, November 19, my wife made a party for me and invited close friends, including Michael and his children. It was fun and a perfect chance for Michael to participate in the everyday flow of family occasions and begin to establish a wider circle of friends. (It always struck me that November 19, 2003, my birthday three years later, was the day before he was arrested on charges of child molestation.)
Then we spent our second Thanksgiving together. He came over to our house just with his kids. Imagine, he had nowhere else to go, no family, no old friends. After dinner, I noticed something interesting. Michael had brought a goofy video for the kids to watch on TV. He sat down, and me, my wife, and my kids sat next to him. Michael practically sat on his hands, almost to show me that I had nothing to fear. And I felt bad for him. True, I never left him alone with my kids, but I didn’t think he would ever have harmed them, God forbid. But to see that even in the full view of the parents he was trying to prove his uprightness was to see how damaged he’d been and how suspicious he thought the world was of him. It made me pity him.
In December Michael attended, at my invitation, his first big public event in many years where he was a participant—not the headliner. It was the Angel Ball fundraiser for research into cancer, with lots of A List guests in attendance. (Denise Rich’s daughter, Gabrielle, a gifted and beautiful young woman whom I knew at Oxford when she was a student, died of leukemia at age 27, and the ball raises money to help fight the disease.)
We met President Clinton, and Elie and Marion Wiesel and Professor Stanley Greenspan came with us as our guests.
In the rush of celebrities who came over to meet Michael, at one point Michael was pushed so hard he claimed he injured his back and unfortunately was forced to leave the dinner early. When we got back to his hotel, I discovered for the very first time the drug problems that would later claim Michael’s life. Coming back with us to the hotel were the Wiesels and members of my family. It was a great honor for Michael to have one of the most respected humans alive, and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, befriend him and accompany him back to his hotel suite with his wife. We were all going to have coffee and chat. But Michael told me he had to lie down due to the terrible pain in his back.
Professor Wiesel offered to call his personal physician to attend to Michael, and about half an hour later one of New York’s most prestigious doctors walked through the door. He went into Michael’s room and spent about a quarter of an hour there. When he came out, he looked ashen-faced. He stood by the door of Michael’s bedroom and said to us, “Michael has just asked me for a quantity of drugs that would kill a horse.”
I was shocked. I ran into Michael’s room. “Michael, the doctor just said that you asked him for enough drugs to kill a horse.” Michael seemed very calm. “Shmuley, he’s wrong. I have a very high tolerance. I’m used to this. I’ll be fine.” He was defending what he just asked for.
“Look Michael, what you think doesn’t matter. Years ago you admitted to an addiction to prescription painkillers. Maybe your tolerance level is extremely high. But even the doctor doesn’t want to administer the level of painkillers you’re requesting. You’re playing with your life here. This stuff is poison. You have to get off it. You’re just going to have to get used to the pain. We live with our pain and we grow from our pain. You’re not supposed to just medicate it away. You can’t pay people to take it away. You can’t dull it with doctors. And this doctor is a real doctor and he won’t give it to you, and none of us will let you have it.” The doctor departed and Michael did not get the medication he requested.
The next day Michael came to my home for Sabbath dinner with Prince and Paris and made a point of telling me that the reason he was standing, rather than sitting, at the table was that he did not take any painkillers for his back, as per our conversation the night before. He was trying to impress me with his capacity for growth. He wanted to show that he got it.
As the weeks progressed Michael and I continued to work on promoting our Heal the Kids initiative, which focused on inspiring parents to have regular family dinners together, read bedtime stories to their children, and provide them with a loving and protective environment. We met with many dignitaries who could be helpful to the organization and made plans for two major public events right after the New Year. The first was a seminar in parenting that would take place at Carnegie Hall and which would be introduced by Michael, and the second, a joint lecture Michael and I would deliver about a children’s Bill of Rights at Oxford University in England.
Just before Christmas, Michael went home to Neverland for the holidays. That’s when I got my first real view of how careless Michael was with money. He had a whole floor at the hotel, one of the most expensive in New York. He kept the floor for the three or four weeks he was away. When he came back, I asked him why he didn’t
give the rooms back. And he said, “What were we supposed to do with our stuff?” I said, “Michael, you pack it in suitcases and put it in hotel storage. Then it’s ready for you as soon as you come back.” It was yet another glimpse of the kind of recklessness that was undermining Michael’s life and leading him down the road to bankruptcy.
And this financial picture is significant. One of the main factors that killed Michael was the crazy schedule of fifty concerts for 2009 in the O2 Center. Michael was not in the psychological, emotional, or physical position to get through one concert, let alone fifty. But he was forced to agree to it due to his horrendous finances, accumulated through years of reckless spending. And when Michael panicked under pressure, he turned to ever larger doses of prescription drug medication for salvation.
Making Changes, Making a Difference
I had always heard that Elvis met with spiritual personalities on a regular basis and his question to them was, “I was a truck driver from Memphis and then I became the most famous entertainer in the world. So why me? What am I supposed to do with this? To what purpose is the fame meant to be consecrated?” It was his inability to find a satisfactory and compelling response to this important question that made fame his incarceration.
When you can’t devote your celebrity to a higher cause it becomes a terrible weight. You become a burden to yourself. You’re the biggest star in the world, but you’re imprisoned and can’t even walk outside. To make matters worse, you become Elvis even in your own mind. You can no longer think of yourself in natural, organic terms. Rather, you see yourself from the perspective of your fans. You begin to lose your innate humility and regard anyone who doesn’t treat you with due reverence as someone unworthy of your friendship and trust. Those who criticize you are quickly shunted aside. You gravitate toward sycophants. Now if you can liberate yourself by devoting that burden to something higher then you’re free. But if you can’t you get crushed under its weight. And that’s what was slowly happening to Michael.
The Michael Jackson Tapes Page 4