SB: I love my kids very much, but I don’t love other people’s kids as much. But when I see Prince, he melts my heart because he is such a warm and loving kid.
MJ: That’s how I want them to be. Since they were very little I taught them to love everybody.
SB: How are you going to preserve that as they grow older? You are going to have to protect them, obviously, from that News of the World thing.
A rare picture of Michael’s children had just appeared in News of the World, a British tabloid, a few days earlier. Prince and Paris had gone from Neverland to Los Angeles for a doctor’s checkup. In the back of a limousine with tinted windows, Prince was playing with the electric windows, which then opened, and a photographer quickly took his and Paris’s picture. Michael was devastated. He called me in the middle of the night from Neverland to see if something could be done to have the picture removed from their website. A day later, a lawyer fired off a letter, but the picture remained. Michael often told me that he is protective of his children’s images, and put those silly scarves on their faces when they are in public so that they can’t be photographed, to protect them from kidnapping. My own thoughts were that he hated people speculating as to their paternity and whether or not they had a resemblance to him.
Here, Michael was right. It was always grotesquely unfair to two innocent and vulnerable children for the world to speculate as to whether Michael is their true father. It is simply nobody’s business. Could you imagine inviting a dinner guest to your home who sat there scrutinizing your children’s eyes and hair to determine if they were your biological children or if they were adopted? Could you imagine being asked by your neighbor, “Is this your husband’s son, or does he come from a sperm donor?” But Michael’s handling of the subject, in particular by veiling the children in public, was typical and unfortunately extreme and weird. To be sure, the children do need to be protected from a prying public. But they also need a normal upbringing and balance must be found.
MJ: I teach them to love everybody and to be kind and to be good in their heart. But they have that naturally. I didn’t have to program it. . . they have it naturally.
I have to say, Prince and Paris did really seem to be extremely gentle and well-mannered children. And exceptionally close to their father.
MJ: What you don’t know about me is how much I love film and art and I want to direct so badly. I could scream, I want to show the world through the eyes of a child because I understand them so much. Their pain and their joy and their laughter and what hurts them. And I see the world through their eyes and I want to portray that on film. That’s my real passion. I love it. It’s too much.
SB: So as a director you can give the whole world your view of how children are because they can see it through your eyes, even if you do a movie for adults?
MJ: Yes, and I searched my heart many times and I said, “Can I do a real serious film for adults?” And I know I can. But I don’t think I would enjoy it. I don’t think I would enjoy it. I know I can do it, but I wouldn’t enjoy it.
SB: If there was one movie that you could have directed, which one would it be?
MJ: ET, The Wizard of Oz, 400 Blows, which is a great movie by François Truffaut. I love Shane and I am crazy about To Kill a Mockingbird. That’s the story that I see and every time I see it I have a lump in my throat in the same place. Have you seen it? Oh, I can’t wait to show it to you. Please see it with me. We’ll turn off all the phones and we’ll just watch it.
SB: Can the kids watch it?
MJ: Absolutely, they will learn. It’s about racism in the South. It’s about a man who is put on trial saying that he raped a white woman. There are some hard areas but it is seen through the eyes of children. Man this movie will wear you out. I love it too much. It is definitely one of the best movies. I wish I had directed it. Oh God, it is so sweet.
Do Black People Have Greater Musical Talent than Whites?
Shmuley Boteach: Let me ask you a question. . . Well, but I mean, that’s what makes you unique—that you are talented across the board. Do black people have more rhythm than white people? When you speak about dancing and everything. . . I mean, it’s like a joke, but it’s not just a joke that white people have no rhythm. When you speak about, like, the natural rhythm and everything and the way these black kids in the ghetto, the way they dance, you always talk about that. It’s like natural. . . you always see it around here in Manhattan? These kids on the street who busk. It’s amazing!
Michael Jackson: It’s amazing, and it is natural. . . they have a natural rhythm that nobody can explain. It’s a natural talent.
SB: Do you see white people having that rhythm?
MJ: It’s not the same and I’m not saying it out of being. . .
SB: But the sense of timing. . .
MJ: Stan would always tell me, and he would go to all the black clubs. . . he would sit in the Apollo Theater, he called it Cut-time rhythm. He said he had to have the black rhythm so he hung out with the blacks to get that cut-time rhythm [mimicking noises]. You know that’s what rappers do now—they do cut-time rhythm. That’s what it’s all about, it’s that natural rhythm thing.
SB: That reflects their inner rhythm?
MJ: Yeah, yeah. But you take a little black child and they got the rhythm of a grown-up, like a real dancer. And it’s just a natural ability, you know?
SB: Without trying to penetrate this too deeply, traditionally, Africa was more childlike than Europe. Europe prided itself on its sophistication, its perfumes, its fancy clothes. Africa was dismissed as “more primitive” but therefore much more natural, more organic. They were much closer to the earth. So it could be that they never detached themselves from those natural rhythms?
MJ: But how does that become genetic?
SB: I don’t know.
MJ: Could you take a Scottish or Irish child and put him in that same situation, let him be born in Africa among those. . .
SB: Well, that’s the whole question about Elvis, right?
MJ: Elvis always hung out around blacks.
SB: And he acquired that rhythm, right?
MJ: Yeah, he acquired that rhythm, he wanted to do the steps, and he talked black and acted black. We knew Elvis very well and Lisa Marie and myself always talked about how. . .
SB: Had he not been a white man, you don’t think he would’ve been as successful, right?
MJ: Not nearly. Not nearly because it would’ve been expected of him. Remember the slogan that Philips, who owned Sun Records, he said, “If I could only find a white man with a black man’s sound, I could make a million dollars,” and in come walks Elvis Presley.
SB: Now, you ask an incredible question: “How does that become innate, you know?” And especially science today doesn’t believe in acquired characteristics. You can’t transmit characteristics to a child that have been acquired in a lifetime. So, if you have great musical talent, you can give it to Prince. But if someone taught it to you, you can’t give it to Prince. He’d have to get it on his own. It’s not in the genes.
MJ: Yeah, yeah.
SB: When I was in my preaching competition, the first year, when I came in second, I lost to this Caribbean preacher and we were so close. I lost by like 3 points out of 130 points and everyone said to me, “He had timing, you didn’t.” He knew like, you wait, you know the way a preacher has to build up. And all my friends said to me, “Shmuley, he had rhythm.” [both laughing]
In 1998 I became the first rabbi to ever become a finalist in the London Times Preacher of the Year competition, the world’s most prestigious religious speaking competition. I was the favorite to win, and had already won in a preliminary TV playoff. But in the actual finals, I came in a close second to a Seventh-Day Adventist Caribbean preacher named Rev. Ian Sweeney. The following year, just days before the millennium, I won the competition and set a record for most points garnered in the competition. I say this not to brag, but clearly I had learned something about timing that Ian seemed to know na
turally. I continue to love public speaking.
MJ: But you’re amazing.
SB: No, but I mean he had it. I told you, the black preachers are the best in the world. They’re the best speakers. Look at Martin Luther King. There is no other. . .
MJ: I cry when I hear him talk. I get goose bumps.
SB: Or even Jesse Jackson, or some of the preachers here. Reverend Floyd, here in Manhattan, is supposed to be the best in the country. . .
MJ: But you’re so eloquent. I mean, you paint pictures with your words and it makes you think. . . You go everywhere. It’s brilliant.
SB: But it’s about being moved by the spirit and kids are moved. MJ: But where do you get the words?
SB: You know, I was describing in the book what happened on Friday night when you came to our house for dinner. It was fascinating.
MJ: What happened?
SB: All of us adults started having dinner and you went upstairs to play hide and go seek. And you were like the pied piper, kids came to you immediately. Little by little. . . the adults came to the third floor, the second floor. They really felt like they were missing out, like everyone was having fun and they weren’t. They were having their political conversations. It’s like the pied piper, and they want to pretend they’re only going up there for the kids.
MJ: I loved when your friend attacked you . . . I loved that! I loved when he did that.
My friend Cory Booker, who at the time was a Newark City councilman, ran into the room where Michael and I were playing hide-and-seek with the kids, and tackled me, breaking the bed. It was of course all in jest and we all laughed. Cory was the president of my Oxford University student organization, the L’Chaim Society, when he was a Rhodes scholar there. Today, as mayor of Newark, he is one of America’s most admired and successful leaders.
SB: He’s very innocent and he’s attacked for it as a politician. All his advisors say you need to be more tough.
MJ: No, no. I wish I could’ve known Edison and Einstein and Michelangelo.
SB: We talk about all of them, by the way, in the book. Edison was so childlike.
MJ: I know, I see it, I saw him. . . laughing, giggling. I saw the footage, I see what he writes about. It’s beautiful man, it’s great stuff. I love that.
Michael’s Relationship with His Accuser and Other Children
For many years Michael was known for all the things he did for children around the world—how he would personally visit them, hug them, and offer love and support for a suffering child, a child with cancer. He was also condemned by many for his love of children with it seen as a sign of his unhealthy and perhaps criminal relationship to children.
Shmuley Boteach: I said to someone today that the attention you give to children with cancer seems very healing to them. I’ve seen it. You know when you give that kid attention that you can heal them?
Michael Jackson: I love them. I love them.
SB: It’s also the fact that you are very famous and suddenly you channel all that attention that you normally get and you stick it onto someone else, and it is like this beam of light. I don’t deny that celebrity can have a restorative effect, but it often has a very corrosive effect. Do you try to use your celebrity to help these kids?
MJ: I love them so much. They’re my children, too. I remember we were in Australia and we were in this children-with-cancer ward and I started giving out toys. And I’ll never forget this one boy who was like eleven and when I got to his bed he said, “It’s amazing how just seeing you I feel so much better. I really do.” I said, “Well, that’s so sweet.” That’s what he said and I have never forgotten it. It’s amazing and that’s what we are supposed to do.
SB: Your devotion to Gavin [who would later be Michael Jackson’s accuser] is impressive. I have spoken about it in a thousand forums now. That was one of the nicest things I have seen. That you tried to help him and his family.
MJ: He’s special.
In my presence, Michael gave Gavin affection and attention, which seemed very curative to the boy. Michael’s characterization of the boy in the 60 Minutes interview, however, as having arrived at Neverland unable to walk, and Michael having to carry him is, as I said earlier, entirely fictitious. Gavin and his siblings ran all over Neverland. They extensively drove and even banged up some of the go-carts, and came with us twice on the quads on thousands of acres of ranch. Still, Michael did give him affection and encouragement in my presence.
On another occasion Michael told me how upset he was after a phone conversation with Gavin in which he communicated how much pain the chemotherapy was causing him:
MJ: I spoke to Gavin [Michael’s accuser] last night and he said, “Michael, you don’t know how it hurts me, it hurts.” He started to cry on the phone and he said, “I know you understand how it feels. It hurts so bad.” I said, “Well, how many more do you have?” He said, “Maybe four. But the doctor said maybe more after that.” It took his eyelashes away and his eyebrows and his hair. We are so lucky aren’t we?
SB: Do you feel that when you speak to people like Gavin, part of the pain goes away for them?
MJ: Absolutely. Because every time I talk to him he is in better spirits. When I spoke to him last night he said, “I need you. When are you coming home?” I said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I need you Michael.” Then he calls me “Dad.” I said, “You better ask your Dad if it is ok to call me that.” He shouts, “Dad, is it ok if I call Michael, ‘Dad?’” and he says, “Yes, no problem, whatever you want.” Kids always do that. It makes me feel happy that they feel that comfortable.
SB: Do you feel like a universal father to children, that you have this ability to love them and appreciate them in a way that others don’t?
MJ: I always feel that I don’t want the parents to get jealous because it always happens and it rubs fathers in a strange way. Not as much as the mothers. I always say to the Dads, “I am not trying to take your place. I am just trying to help and I want to be your friend.” The kids just end up falling in love with my personality. Sometimes it gets me into trouble, but I am just there to help.
SB: I asked you what parents can learn from children, and you identified a few things—love of fun, innocence, joy. What other things can we learn from children? For example, when you are around Gavin, what do you learn from him? Are you just there to help a child who has cancer? What do you get from the experience? Is it just you showing pity, compassion for a child who is in trouble? Or do you feel this is the reason you are alive?
MJ: I feel that this is something really, really in my heart that I am supposed to do, and I feel so loved by giving my love, and I know that’s what they need. I have heard doctors, and his doctors, say that it is a miracle how he is doing better and that’s why I know this magic of love is so important. He got cheated out of his childhood and I think I can reflect on a lot of that because of my past. When you were ten you weren’t thinking about heaven and how you are going to die and he is thinking about all of that. I had little Ryan White in my dining room telling his mother at the table, “Mother, when you bury me, I don’t want to be in a suit and tie.” He said, “Don’t put me in a suit and tie. I want to be in jeans and a T-shirt.” I said, “Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom.” And I ran to the bathroom and I cried. Imagine a 12-year-old boy telling his mother how to bury him. That’s what I heard him say. How could your heart not go out to someone like that?
SB: Since you were deprived of that childhood and now you are trying to confer it as a gift to all these children, do you heal yourself through that?
MJ: Yes. Yes, I do. Yes I do. Because that’s everything. I need that to keep living. Do you see what Gavin wrote in the guest book, about his hat? It’s a sweet story.
Gavin had written that Michael had given him the confidence to take off his hat and not to be ashamed about the baldness caused by chemotherapy.
SB: I have told that story all over the world.
MJ: I like giving them that love and that pride to
feel that they belong and they are special. He was hiding and he was ashamed that he had a bald head and he had cancer. Everybody has made him feel like an outcast and that’s how he came here and I want him to let go. He is such a beautiful child, he doesn’t need that hat. I told him, “You look just like an angel. Your voice sounds like an angel. As far as I am concerned you are an angel. What are you ashamed of?”
SB: Do you feel that children appreciate you more than adults?
MJ: Oh yeah, of course. Adults appreciate me artistically as a singer and a songwriter and a dancer and a performer. What is he like? Who is he? He’s weird and he sleeps in an oxygen chamber and all those crazy horrific stories that people made up that had nothing to do with me.
SB: The children see right through that and they reciprocate your love. I saw that with Gavin.
MJ: They just want to have some fun and to give love and have love and they just want to be loved and held.
SB: Did you fight to hold onto this sense of caring? Was there a time when you said, “I don’t care about anybody else. I am going to get a massage now and hang out in the Jacuzzi? The concert is over, so I’m just going to think about myself.” Or even then were you thinking about what you could do for kids?
MJ: Truly in my heart, I love them and I care more than anything. I am still taking care of Gavin. He had chemotherapy yesterday and he is weak and not feeling good and it just touches your heart. Your heart goes out to the world. I think I am a lot like my mother. I don’t know if it is genetic or environmental. I remember when we were little she would watch the news and even now she has to watch the news with tissues. I’m the same, I start crying when I watch the news about the woman who takes her kids and throws them in the lake, one drowned, the other survived. So I invited the kids over and went to the funeral, paid for the funeral and I don’t even know these people, but you hear these things. It’s like asking, why aren’t there more people like Mother Teresa? Why aren’t there more people like Lady Diana?
The Michael Jackson Tapes Page 25