by Donald Bogle
Michael remained in full gear with his career, possibly the most successful in the history of popular music. His new album, Dangerous, was released on November 26, 1991. The reviews were basically good, with some critics calling attention to the Michael of music and the Michael of the headlines. In the January 1, 1992, issue of Rolling Stone, Alan Light wrote: “Dangerous might seem to be a chance to separate this dancer—the ‘eccentric’ Michael of the chimps, the Elephant Man bones, the hyperbaric chamber—from his dancing and singing, which remain among the wonders of the performance world and, lest we forget, were the real reason we paid so much attention to Jackson in the first place. . . . But of course this polarity between Jackson’s on- and offstage lives is exactly what makes him so fascinating, and the triumph of Dangerous is that it doesn’t hide from the fears and contradictions of a lifetime spent under a spotlight.” Light added: “The aggressive yet fluid dance grooves Riley helped construct—and his emphasis is on writing grooves, not traditional songs—prove a perfect match for Jackson’s clipped, breathy uptempo voice.” He also commented: “Exactly half of Dangerous is concerned with affairs of the heart, and Jackson’s greatest fears are brought right up front—there’s not a single straightforward love song in the bunch. Instead we get betrayal in ‘Who Is It’ and repressed lust in the titillatingly titled (and determinedly heterosexual) ‘In the Closet.’ ”
Though Dangerous would ultimately not top Thriller’s commercial success, Michael nonetheless had another successful piece of work. He also had his ATV catalog, which seemed to assure him of a lifetime of financial security. Its value had escalated. But troubled times began not too long after Taylor’s Neverland nuptials—after the release of Dangerous.
Now that Michael was out of the Encino home, his relations with his family—with the exception of his mother, Katherine—grew distant. His sister La Toya had also left home but under far different circumstances. Described by most as basically a sweet-tempered, perhaps slightly spacey young woman, she had run off with a onetime family friend Jack Gordon, who managed—or most would say mismanaged—her career, much to the grief of the Jackson clan. In 1989, she posed nude for Playboy, which became one of the best-selling issues in the magazine’s history. In 1991, she posed again for Playboy and also published a book simply called La Toya, which recounted the torments of growing up Jackson under the dominating and brutal hand of Joseph. Family secrets should remain family issues, the Jackson family (like most others) felt. Katherine and Joseph were convinced their daughter had been brainwashed by Gordon, which may have been partially the case. Some years later, La Toya revealed that she had gone from one domineering man (her father) to another (Gordon). Interestingly, in her book, she spoke warmly of her siblings and took pride in their accomplishments. But the aspect of the book that drew the most attention was its portrait of a dysfunctional family. It was a horrifying tale that no doubt forever tarnished the Jackson family’s image. Later La Toya made public statements that distressed the family all the more. In an interview in Tokyo, La Toya accused her father of having incestuous encounters with his daughter Rebbie and herself. “She says her father regularly came to the bedroom she shared with her older sister, Rebbie, and violated the older daughter while La Toya lay terrified in the same bed,” the Chicago Tribune reported on November 3, 1991. “When Rebbie left home to live with another family as a teenager, [La Toya] Jackson says, her father began to molest her.” It was all sordid stuff that frankly no one knew whether or not to believe. But it had been put into the public arena.
Though Michael appeared above the fray, he was certainly troubled and hurt by the comments of a sister to whom he had been so close. The family had been damaged, especially Katherine, who valued privacy for her children and even Joe. Michael also grew alienated from brother Jermaine, for whom he seemed now to have a great disdain. When Jermaine was set to work on music for his album You Said with L. A. Reid and Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, he was later stunned to learn that Michael “offered them very substantial amounts of money to work on songs for his new album,” recalled Clive Davis, “and surprisingly they had agreed to do it. Everything they wrote during this immediate, well-defined period of a couple of weeks would be for Michael to use.” At this time, Davis recalled having dinner with a “totally disconsolate” Jermaine in Paris. “He was crying, indeed sobbing at times, so deeply hurt that his brother would do this to him.”
Upset, angered, and feeling betrayed, Jermaine wrote the song “Word to the Badd!!” which accused Michael of lightening his skin, of undergoing plastic surgery, of being a “child,” not a “man,” in essence of forgetting who he was. Before the release of Jermaine’s album, the song was leaked to radio stations. It was an attack on Michael that Jermaine defended by saying: “I know people are going to go off on a tangent and say that Jermaine is jealous. But it’s not true. Michael and I have never feuded. The only reason I wrote this song—and it came from the bottom of my heart—was to help my little brother get a grip on reality. I never meant to discredit him.” No one believed that. As Clive Davis said of Jermaine, “He came off as petty and desperate. Of course, no one knew about the dramatic situation that had triggered his anger and generated the song in the first place.”
When Michael learned the song was set to go onto Jermaine’s album You Said, to be released on the LaFace Records label in which music mogul Clive Davis had an interest and which was distributed by Davis’s Arista Records, he called Davis. “How could you let my brother do this? I don’t want you to release that record.” Davis recalled that he “felt it would be wrong for me to tell an artist to take a song off his album.” He told Michael that it was really a problem between the two brothers. “You’ve got to deal with him directly.” Later Jermaine told Davis that Michael “confronted me with the problem. We really had it out.”
Some years later the New York Post reported that Jermaine had tried to sell a proposal for a tell-all book about Michael. “Jermaine waxes lyrical on all aspects of Michael’s life, including how the family has always been suspicious of the singer’s feelings for boys,” wrote the New York Post, which had seen a copy of the proposal. “Jermaine also says that he suspects that his younger brother may have been a victim of sexual abuse by their dad, Joseph. ‘There were times when Joseph and some of these men he’d describe as “very important business people,” would meet late at night in our hotel suite with Michael, and Michael alone,’ Jermaine writes. ‘I always felt something was wrong with that and Michael would always be sick for days after these “meetings.” In an unexpected way, one might feel sympathy for Joe Jackson, as two of his children were so eager to depict him in such a way—and as one questioned if there was veracity in the accounts. In any case, the proposal did not sell. Still, later Jermaine would write a book with a more sensitive portrait of Michael in which Jermaine also defended him. La Toya would also write another book with a different perspective. But certainly word of Jermaine’s proposal had to have upset Michael.
• • •
The days of that hip and fun-loving guy with the quick boyish smile and jaunty manner from Off the Wall and Thriller were gone. The emotional strain was evident. Now he had an almost ghostly appearance, partly because of his vitiligo. Using a special makeup to cover the splotches and give his skin an overall even color, he looked much lighter. Later, additional plastic surgery gave his nose an eerie look, almost as if it were not a nose at all. His lips were redder, and his eyes had been darkly lined or tattooed. Because of the chronic pain from the burn injury, he still took medication that could make him seem spacey, and he also continued to wear hairpieces to hide a scalp that looked raw and was bald. In time, the hairpieces became long and very dark, giving him almost the look of Elizabeth in posters for her movie Suddenly, Last Summer. Often he wore hats as well. Stories circulated that he was denying his race, that he wanted not only to be white but also to be a white woman, which hurt him more than was realized. But as a friend commented: “To Michael, Elizabeth was
a saint, a goddess. And it’s tragic—all those surgeries [Michael had]. If you look closely, in the beginning, he’s trying to look like Elizabeth. His ruined face, his appearance, was a tribute to Elizabeth gone terribly wrong. I think he wanted it to be the greatest fan letter ever written.”
He was seen in the company of children more and more, both at Neverland and on the road. The Cascio children frequently were by his side, even traveling with him. Such children as Macaulay Culkin and Corey Feldman were guests at Neverland. He also spent time with the young teenager Jordan Chandler, whom he called Jordie, the boy’s mother, and his half sister. Other children visited Neverland, usually accompanied by their parents. For a long time, the public at large seemed willing to overlook his time spent with children. It was accepted as the case of a great artist who marched to the beat of his own drum. Michael Jackson, however, was rarely thought of as merely eccentric. He was Wacko Jacko, as the tabloids had dubbed him.
• • •
On February 3, 1992, Michael announced at a press conference his plans for an ambitious four-part Dangerous tour that would carry him through Europe, Asia, South America, and North America. It would raise funds for his newly established Heal the World Foundation, an international children’s charity. With hopes of raising $100 million by Christmas 1993, he planned for some of the money to go to pediatric AIDS “in honor of my friend, Ryan White,” Michael said. “I am looking forward to this tour because it will allow me to devote time to visiting children all around the world, as well as spread the message of global love, in the hope that others will be moved to do their share to help heal the world.” It was a pretty lofty endeavor and a sincere one. At that very press conference, Pepsi—yes, Pepsi—announced it would donate a reported $20 million to sponsor the tour.
The first leg of the Dangerous tour, from June through December, carried him throughout Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, Romania, and Japan. Fans expected a Michael Jackson concert to be almost exclusively Michael Jackson. Yes, there would be opening acts, background singers, and backup dancers. But mainly it was Michael singing and dancing, going almost nonstop throughout the show. For Michael, there could be no compromises, no shortcuts. At the end of a performance, with his adrenaline still pumping, it could take hours for him to come down. He said: “Your adrenaline is at the zenith of the universe after a concert—you can’t sleep. It’s maybe two in the morning and you’re wide awake. After coming offstage, you’re floating.” Once he did come down, he was soon preparing for the next evening’s show. There were also the public appearances—for the benefit of the fans. “I loved being onstage. I loved doing the shows,” he said. But it could be difficult to relate to people who came up to him afterward. “I’ve never liked people-contact. Even to this day, after a show. I hate it, meeting people. It makes me shy. I don’t know what to say.” Aside from the performances, the traveling itself, with the different time zones and the climate changes, proved grueling and exhausting, enough to wipe out the sturdiest of performers. Always contending with anxieties and preperformance tensions, he held himself together remarkably well. In turn, there had been record turnouts to see him. The film rights to the concert were sold to HBO for $21 million in 1992. It received HBO’s highest ratings and was shown in sixty-one countries. He took medication to ward off his anxieties, to preserve his energy, but the medication took its toll.
Upon his return to the States in December, he was exhausted.
Once back in California, he didn’t have much downtime, but still he tried to unwind. Aware that Michael was now free to celebrate holidays, birthdays, and other special occasions now that he was no longer a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, in early January 1993 Elizabeth arrived at Neverland with husband Larry to give Michael his first real Christmas celebration. Toys and games were exchanged—in front of video cameras. Later, that videotaped Christmas would be shown publicly when his home movies aired on television.
Then came a whirlwind of other activities. On January 31, 1993, his spectacular performance at halftime during the Super Bowl game actually increased the halftime ratings of the broadcast by 8.6 percent over the previous year, reported Forbes. “Since that 1993 show, the halftime performance has become a huge part of the game,” wrote Gordon Block in Bleacher Report, “and made the game much bigger than the sport of football. It’s a cultural event and one that is almost impossible to miss.” At Michael’s request, the National Football League donated $100,000 to Jackson’s Heal the World Foundation.
Soon afterward, about ninety million television viewers around the world tuned in to see him interviewed by Oprah Winfrey at Neverland. Earlier in the day, Elizabeth had been interviewed by Winfrey. During Michael’s interview, she appeared by his side. Michael agreed to the interview mainly as a way to kick off the next leg of the Dangerous tour. But Winfrey managed to ask questions that made the interview more than a promo piece. Michael revealed his father’s brutality. Elizabeth also, by way of explaining what drew Michael and her together, briefly referred to her father’s physical abuse. This was quite a public revelation, though viewers didn’t seem to realize this. Michael also discussed his plastic surgery and his vitiligo, explaining that he wore heavy makeup to disguise it. Viewers might not have believed him and may have dismissed it as just an excuse to be lighter, but his brother Jermaine later spoke of having splotches of discolored skin as well. Still, Michael had been guardedly forthcoming. When asked by Oprah what about Michael was most misunderstood, Elizabeth made the statement that many would question but which she had no doubts about. “He is the least weird man I have ever known,” she said emphatically.
Michael had accomplished what he wanted, not only stating facts about himself that he could control but also creating a buzz that was sure to help his Dangerous tour.
The year was off to a spectacular start.
• • •
Not scheduled to continue the Dangerous tour until August, he again spent time with Elizabeth, although arranging occasions together could be difficult for both. His health was as fragile as hers. Both continued to medicate themselves with high doses of painkillers. When Elizabeth was honored by the American Film Institute with its Lifetime Achievement Award on March 11, 1993, Michael arrived on crutches. A few months later, the two were together to meet Nelson Mandela on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday celebration in Culver City. Shortly afterward, Michael arrived on the set of The Flintstones, in which Elizabeth was appearing. It would be her last feature film. Photographs of the two reveal beaming smiles—and for Michael there was a sweet contentment in his eyes.
But suddenly everything changed as he continued preparations in the States for the next leg of the tour—scheduled to begin in Bangkok on August 24 and later to hit Singapore on August 29. He learned that he was accused of having molested thirteen-year-old Jordan Chandler. Though Jackson consulted his lawyers, he appeared not to understand the gravity of the situation. “Michael dismissed the demands as extortion and left the country to begin his Dangerous tour in Bangkok,” said Margaret Maldonado. The American public also learned of the accusations as the tabloids went into overdrive to report on the case. Maldonado said: “The fact that the American press was having a field day was kept from my brother-in-law by a tight net of advisers who closed him off from outside contact.” On August 18, Los Angeles’s Police Department’s Sexually Exploited Child Unit began an investigation of Michael.
On August 21, three days before his Bangkok opening, a search warrant was issued, permitting police to search Neverland. The Jackson family, which at first may have also dismissed the accusations, was now shaken by the search of Neverland and then a lawsuit.
The details of the allegations against Michael were not pretty. In fact, they were shocking, chilling, and disturbing.
According to Jordan Chandler, he was five years old when he first met Michael at a restaurant that Chandler, his mother, and stepf
ather frequented. The next meeting occurred when Michael, having car problems, went to the car rental company owned by Chandler’s stepfather. Aware that Jordan was a great Jackson fan, the stepfather called the boy and suggested he should come to the car rental place to see Jackson. Chandler got to speak to Michael that day. Afterward, he received phone calls from Michael, who was on tour part of the time. According to Chandler, the calls sometimes lasted three hours. Then came trips to Neverland for Jordan; his half-sister, Lily; and his mother, June. The family slept in guest quarters. There was a trip to a Toys R Us store where “we were allowed to get anything we wanted. Although the store was closed, it was opened just for our visit.” On another occasion, Jordan, Lily, and their mother were flown on a private plane to Las Vegas as guests of Michael’s. They stayed at the Mirage. June and Lily shared a bedroom. Jordan ended up sleeping in the same bed with Michael but “there was no physical contact.” Afterward, on trips to Neverland and at Jordan’s family home and at hotels in New York, Florida, and Europe, Chandler said he slept again with Michael. Then there were innocent kisses, then kisses on the lips. Eventually, there was, according to Chandler, sexual contact, initiated by Michael.
The court papers stated: “These sexually offensive contacts include but are not limited to defendant Michael Jackson orally copulating plaintiff, defendant Michael Jackson masturbating plaintiff, defendant Michael Jackson eating the semen of plaintiff, and defendant Michael Jackson having plaintiff fondle and manipulate the breasts and nipples of defendant Michael Jackson while defendant Michael Jackson would masturbate.”
But there were aspects of the backstory of the case that made the lawsuit that eventually followed highly questionable. Jordan Chandler’s father, Evan Chandler, who lodged the lawsuit, was divorced from June. A dentist with aspirations for a screenwriting career, Evan had already collaborated on the screenplay for Robin Hood: Men in Tights. When he learned of his son’s meeting and friendship with Jackson, Evan Chandler was pleased, even boasted of the friendship to patients. Carrie Fisher, who was one of Chandler’s patients, said he was known as the “Dentist to the Stars.” She remembered that he frequently talked about how much he and Michael liked each other. “And the most disturbing thing I remember him saying was, ‘You know, my son is very good-looking.’ Now I ask you—what father talks about his child that way?” He also told Fisher about the fabulous trips Michael and his son went on—and that they were “sleeping in the same bed.” That comment stopped Fisher cold. He explained that his wife was always around, so things were fine.