Michael Jackson

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Once alone in the Jacksons' living room, I tried to figure out what had just occurred. As I was putting my tape recorder and notes in my brief case, Katherine walked in. She looked disheartened. ‘Did you just interview Michael,’ she asked. ‘Please be nice to him. The press is so mean these days.’ She shook her head, at a loss. ‘I don't know what to tell you,’ she said. She slumped into the chair opposite me, practically speechless with fatigue. It was disconcerting. In the past, she always had such dignity and poise.

  ‘I'm worried about him,’ she said, finally looking at me. Her eyes were full of warmth and concern. ‘There's so much pressure, things are so… difficult.’ When she realized she was, perhaps, saying too much, she stopped herself. ‘Would you let yourself out?’ she asked me, abruptly.

  I had a sinking feeling in my stomach as I walked out the front door. What is going on in this household? I wondered. While walking down the driveway, I looked up at the mansion and saw a face peering out from one of the upstairs windows. It was Michael. When he realized that I had spotted him, he ducked out of sight.

  The next morning, I received a telephone call from Joseph. Just before I had pulled out of the Jackson estate's gates, I had seen him in the driveway. I stopped to tell him what had happened. His cocoa-coloured, weather-beaten face broke into a wide grin. He shrugged his shoulders, ‘Well, that's my boy,’ he said. Now, on the telephone, he could not have been more apologetic. ‘I'm sorry about that, man,’ he told me. ‘I was thinking about it, and I wanted to explain.’

  According to Joseph, Michael had told his record company that he no longer sought direct contact with the media for fear of questions about ‘that girl, you know, the one we got that problem with.’ I knew he was referring to Gina Sprague. ‘Plus some other stuff that's going on,’ Joseph continued. ‘But when he said he didn't want to do no interviews, the label [Epic executives] forced him to. Me, too. I told him he needs to talk to you and the other guys in the press. It's the right thing to do,’ Joseph said. ‘So, what can I say? He did it his way. Sorry. Guess he wanted some control in his life, huh?’

  ‘Guess so, Mr Jackson,’ I said. We spoke for about fifteen minutes. He seemed fine, as if nothing unusual was going on in his life. ‘Come on by sometime and do a story on LaToya,’ he told me. ‘We got some plans for her. Just wait till you see what we're going to do. Girl's gonna be a big star. Huge, I'm tellin' ya. Huge.’

  When I hung up, I thought about Joseph's explanation. Michael's tactic might have been ludicrous, I thought, but it's true that desperate people take desperate measures to make a point… especially when nobody will listen. I felt a grudging admiration for the way Michael had gotten what he wanted. He had manipulated the situation in order to make a mockery of the promised interview. I never wrote about the episode. Instead, I cancelled the feature. Michael got what he wanted: no story.

  Katherine Tells Joseph to ‘Get Out!’

  By the summer of 1982, Katherine Jackson simply couldn't take any more of Joseph's unkind behaviour. Whatever had happened with Gina Sprague, it had certainly been a nasty bit of business. Joseph wouldn't learn, however; either his appetite for women was insatiable or he simply couldn't fill whatever emptiness he felt in his heart. Looking back on it now, it seems he may have been inflicting his own pain on Katherine to make her identify with him, so lonely and marginalized did he feel in the family. Whatever his hidden motivation – and maybe even he didn't understand it – Katherine suspected he was having another affair.

  One day, after a series of ‘hang-ups’ – when she answered the phone there would be no one on the other end – Katherine walked into the kitchen to tell Joseph that she was leaving the estate to go shopping. He kissed her goodbye, on the top of the head. As she walked down the driveway, the telephone rang again, just as she suspected it might. She calmly walked into the guest house and, once there, took a deep breath and picked up the extension. She listened in as Joseph spoke to the woman with whom he was apparently having a romantic relationship. He sounded sweet, happy. Katherine later recalled her heart tightening in her chest. She felt unsteady and breathless, as if she'd been punched in the stomach.

  Once the conversation was over, Katherine's steps carried her down the driveway and back into the front door of her home. She found Joseph in the living room, his feet up on the couch, as if he hadn't a care in the world. Holding him with her eyes for a moment, she couldn't believe, as she would later tell it, that he would do this to her… again. She cleared her throat, loudly.

  ‘Oh. Hi, Kate. I thought you were gone,’ he said, springing to his feet.

  ‘I'll just bet you did,’ she responded. ‘I heard your conversation with your little girlfriend,’ she remarked, spitting out the words. ‘You bastard, you.’

  Then, she let him have it. She pummelled him with her fists. She pulled his hair. She threw a vase at him. When he ducked, she lunged for him, again. There was no stopping her. ‘I don't want you any more, Joseph,’ she screamed at him. ‘I don't need you, any more. I want you out of this house. You're nothing to me, now.’

  Joseph was floored, at least for a moment. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said, his hands up in defence. ‘Not even going to give me a chance to explain, huh?’ he asked. Now, his tone was even, well-controlled. It seemed as if he was trying to act unconcerned. How upsetting, Katherine would later say, for him to act as if he didn't have enough invested in the moment to even be troubled by it.

  ‘Doesn't anything ever get to you?’ she asked, angrily.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, sadly. ‘You did, Katie. When I first fell in love with you.’

  ‘Get out!’

  As he turned to walk out of the room, a shaking Katherine Jackson grabbed a silver-framed photograph of the two of them from a table and hurled it to the floor with everything she had in her. She was filled with such contempt for Joseph, she didn't even know what she was doing. The glass smashed to smithereens, a fitting metaphor for her life.

  The next day, 19 August 1982, Katherine quietly filed for divorce. Her action got practically no press coverage. She was discreet, not wanting to jeopardize the family's image with a public and volatile divorce. In her petition, she said:

  ‘Approximately one year ago, Joseph told me that we were running short of money. I asked him questions about the business and he told me to “stay out of the business”. I am informed and believe that within the last year, Joseph has spent in excess of $50,000 on a young woman and has purchased for her parcels of real property from our community funds. I am fearful that unless restrained by an order of this court, Joseph will continue to dissipate community funds and transfer community funds in jeopardy of my community property rights.’

  Though Katherine had only a vague idea of exactly how much community property existed, she wanted to keep Joseph from transferring or otherwise disposing of any of it. The property she was aware of included her interest in the Encino home, furniture, furnishings, and other personal property, her interest in Joseph Jackson Productions and in various bank accounts. She made a list of the rest of the community assets: a 1979 Mercedes-Benz (colour not indicated in legal documents), a 1971 blue-grey Mercedes-Benz, a 1971 white Rolls-Royce, a 1978 brown Mercedes-Benz, a 1971 blue Rolls-Royce, a 1974 G.M.C. motor home, a 1981 Toyota truck, a 1980 white Cadillac limousine, a 1978 Ford van, two boats (day cruisers) with trailers, and a Keogh financial plan.

  There was only one snag in Katherine's declaration of independence. Jerome Howard, who would become her business manager in 1988, recalled, ‘She told me that after she filed for divorce, she naturally expected Joseph to move out of the house. However, he refused to leave. So what could she do?’

  ‘This is my house, too,’ Joseph told Katherine, defiantly. ‘You're my wife, I love you, and it's going to stay that way.’

  Michael could not remain neutral and uninvolved. ‘You have to kick him out,’ he told his mother. ‘Or call the police. Or get a restraining order. But he can't stay here just because he wants to.’
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  Katherine would not discuss the matter with Michael, or any of her children. This was her cross to bear, not theirs.

  ‘This is killing me,’ Michael told his oldest sister, Rebbie, according to her memory. ‘I will never get married. I will never trust a person in that way. I couldn't bear to go through this again.’

  ‘But, Michael, this is their life, not yours,’ she said in her most compassionate voice. ‘You will live your life differently. Trust me.’

  ‘But how do you know that?’ Michael asked, his eyes red from crying. ‘Mother never planned any of this for herself, did she?’

  ‘No, I'm sure she didn't,’ Rebbie said, embracing him. ‘I'm sure she didn't.’

  Did Michael Get His Way?

  In August 1982, Michael began work with Quincy Jones on a new album at Westlake Studios in Los Angeles. The album would be entitled Thriller with a budget of about $750,000 to produce, and nine songs carefully selected by Michael and Quincy from about three hundred. The sessions went well; Michael was satisfied with the work. However, once they played back the album – the ‘master pressing’, as the final mix was called – it didn't sound as good as Michael thought it should. In fact, to his ears, it sounded terrible. He was crushed. Never one to shy away from a good old-fashioned ‘scene’, Michael ran from the studio, sobbing.

  To solve the problem, each song had to be remixed, bringing up the level of some orchestration and voices and toning down others. It was time-consuming, tedious work at the rate of two songs a week, but in the end it proved to be worth the effort. Quincy Jones along with one of Michael's managers, Ron Weisner, and his attorney, John Branca, sat with Michael in the Westlake Studio as he listened to a playback of the album. To Michael the music now sounded terrific. He was optimistic, bobbing his head to the rhythm and smiling broadly as each cut played.

  ‘Mike, you know, the record market is off right now,’ Ron Weisner told him as the title track, ‘Thriller’, blared from the speakers. He had to almost shout to be heard above it.

  ‘Yeah, Mike,’ Quincy agreed. ‘You can't expect to do with this one what you did with Off the Wall.’

  ‘These days, two million is a hot album,’ Ron added.

  ‘Yeah, it's a tough market. Nobody's having hits,’ Quincy said.

  ‘Turn it down,’ Michael shouted out at the engineer. ‘I said, turn it down.’ His smile was now gone. ‘What's the matter with you guys?’ he wanted to know. ‘How can you say that to me? You're wrong. You are dead wrong.’

  ‘But, Michael – ’ Quincy began.

  ‘Look, don't even talk to me,’ Michael said, turning away from Quincy. ‘I've had it with you, Quincy. Don't ever tell me anything like that again,’ he added, angrily. ‘What kind of attitude is that to have?’

  John Branca sat in a corner and watched the scene. A wry smile touched his mouth; he'd been around Michael enough to know how this scene would climax.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Michael announced as he stormed out of the studio.

  By the next day, Michael had worked himself into a fully fledged fury. He telephoned John Branca and told him how angry he had been at Ron and Quincy for predicting that Thriller would ‘only’ sell two million copies.

  ‘I know,’ John recalls saying. ‘Don't listen to those guys, Mike. You're the one who knows. They don't know.’

  ‘But Quincy should know,’ Michael said.

  ‘Well, maybe not this time,’ John told him. ‘You're the man. Call Walter [Yetnikoff] and he'll tell you the same thing.’

  ‘No, you call him,’ Michael said. ‘And tell him this. Tell him the record is cancelled, John. It's over. I ain't even submitting it to CBS.’

  ‘But Mike – ’

  ‘No, John. If Quincy and Ron don't have faith in it, then forget it,’ Michael said. ‘I'm not even going to let the album come out. Thriller is gonna be shelved for ever,’ he said. ‘I'd rather it go unheard than see it not get the attention it deserves.’

  ‘But, Mike – ’

  ‘Let me tell you something,’ Michael said, cutting him off. ‘There are winners in this life, Branca, and there are losers.’ Before John had a chance to respond, Michael hung up.

  Ten minutes later, John telephoned Michael to tell him that he had passed on the message to Walter Yetnikoff and – no big surprise – Walter wanted to talk to Michael. He wanted Michael to call him. ‘What? No way,’ Michael said. ‘Tell him to call me.’

  ‘But, Mike – ’

  ‘Tell him to call me.’ Michael hung up.

  Whereas most of the CBS artists were intimidated by Walter Yetnikoff, Michael was not at all cowed by him. After all, he'd dealt with Berry Gordy, one on one. Walter called, as instructed.

  According to Walter's memory, when Michael told him what had occurred at the studio, he tried to calm him down. ‘What the hell do they know?’ he said of Quincy and Ron. ‘You're the superstar, not them. Jesus, Michael. We trust you. Not Quincy, all due respect to the guy. And certainly not one of your managers. You're the superstar.’

  ‘You think?’ Michael asked, coyly,

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘So you agree?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Okay,’ Michael decided. ‘Then it can come out.’

  Michael Jackson had created a melodrama surrounding the completion of Thriller, there was little doubt of that. Would he really have cancelled the release of the album simply because Quincy had predicted it would only sell two million copies? Perhaps. However, the more likely scenario is that Michael was just trying to, as they might have said in the Jackson family, ‘get his way’. The manner in which he handled the situation couldn't exactly be described as ‘artful’ or ‘strategic’. It was more like the dynamics of a family flare-up – one party has a tantrum, just as people in big families often do with one another… then pushes and pushes and pushes until he gets his way, and until he feels validated. Such tactics would work for Michael many times in the future. Obviously, there is no road map to success. Few entertainers ever reach a goal of stardom at all, and if one finds a way to go about it, he has to be given credit. It would seem that Michael Jackson had certainly found a way that worked for him.

  Thriller is a… Thriller

  On 1 December 1982, Thriller was released to a market of seasonal shoppers. It seems ironic, considering the impact Thriller would have on the record industry, that when CBS released the album's first single (in October, a little over a month before the issuance of the album) many observers thought Thriller would be a disappointment. The auspicious pairing of Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney for the mid-tempo ‘The Girl is Mine’ (which the singers co-wrote while watching cartoons) appeared to be of greater interest than the song itself which, while cute, was lacking in substance. Many in both the black and white music communities felt that Michael and Quincy Jones had gone too far in consciously tailoring a record for a white, pop audience. If this first single was an indication of what else would be found on Thriller, Michael seemed to be in big trouble.

  And then came ‘Billie Jean’.

  Dark and sparse by Quincy Jones production standards, ‘Billie Jean’ prowled in rhythm like a predatory animal. It's a disturbing song Michael wrote about a girl accusing him of fathering her child. Joseph Jackson's extramarital affairs and his daughter, Joh'Vonnie, must have come to mind when Michael wrote the lyrics. However, there was another experience Michael had, which was the catalyst for ‘Billie Jean’.

  In 1981 a female fan wrote Michael a letter to inform him that he was the father of her baby. She enclosed photographs of herself- a young, attractive, black woman in her late teens whom he had never met – and of the infant. Michael, who often received letters of this nature, ignored it as he does the others. This teenager, however, was more persistent than the rest. She loved Michael, she claimed, and longed to be with him. She wrote that she could not stop thinking about him, and about how happy they would be as they raised their child, together. She was obviously disturbed.

  In
months to come, Michael would receive dozens more letters from this woman. In one, she claimed that the baby and Michael had similar eyes and wondered how he could ignore his flesh and blood. It wasn't long before Michael began having nightmares about the situation. He fixated on her, wondering where she was, when she would show up at his front gate, and what he would do then. It seemed to some in the family that he had become as obsessed with her as she was with him.

  One day, Michael received a package from her. When he opened it, he discovered another photograph: her high school graduation picture. In it, she smiled with girlish innocence. Also in the box was a gun. In a note, the fan asked that Michael kill himself on a certain day, at a certain time. She wrote that she would do the same – right after she killed the baby. She had decided, she wrote, that if the three of them could not be together in this life, perhaps they could in the next. Michael was horrified. He took the photograph, had it framed, and displayed it in the dining room on a coffee table, much to Katherine's dismay. ‘God, what if she shows up?’ he fretted. ‘What will I do? I have to remember this face. Just in case. I must never forget this face.’

  She never showed up at Michael's gate. In fact, he later learned that the poor young woman ended up in an insane asylum.

  After ‘Billie Jean’ came out, Michael said that he wrote the song with his obsessed fan in mind. Ironically, Quincy Jones did not want to include it on the Thriller album; he did not think it was a strong enough song to be a part of the collection. Michael so believed in the song, he and Quincy had strong disagreements about its merit. When Michael came up with the title of the song, he asked LaToya, ‘You don't think people will believe I'm talking about that tennis player, do you?’ He was referring to Billie Jean King; LaToya didn't think so. Quincy Jones did, however, and wanted to change the title of the song to ‘Not My Lover’. Of course, Michael vetoed that.