The Father-Manager
Shmuley Boteach: What if someone were to say, “Michael. Look. So you disagree with the way your father raised you. He was a strict disciplinarian. He could be tough and even mean. But his methods worked.” And even you, now, you can say that professional success is not what primarily matters, and I would agree with you. But you were the one, in one of our first conversations, that said, “I owe my father a lot. He taught me how to move and how to dance.” And being a big star, you've repeatedly said, is
very
important to you. So what if someone said, “You're wrong and he's right. He made you what you are today. So how dare you be so ungrateful?” Especially, Michael, since he grew up in such poverty and wanted to save you from his fate of working in the steel mills. He thought, “Better Michael practice and rehearse as a kid, rather than play on the monkey bars, because at least this will give him a good income later and he can live a life of dignity.”
Michael Jackson: He did a brilliant job with training me for the stage as an artist, but [as a] father he was very, very strict. I hate to judge him, but I would have done things a lot different as a father. I never felt love from him. I remember being on the airplane and they used to have to carry me on the plane because I hated turbulence and I would be screaming and kicking because we would take off in storms. I remember it very clearly. He would never hold me or touch me and the stewardesses would have to come and hold my hand and caress me.
SB: Was he an angry man?
MJ: I think he was bitter. I don't know why. Man, he is not like that anymore, but he was tough. The toughest person I have ever met. SB: What if someone said to you, “Look Michael. You can't have it both ways. He was a great manager but not a warm and affectionate
parent. He taught you how to move and he taught you discipline.” Are you going to say that you would be prepared to give up being the biggest recording star in order to have had a loving childhood? Or do you feel the choice is not necessary, that you could have been who you are without?
MJ: He could have done all the other things with me and had time to be a father sometimeâplay a game or catch a ball. I remember I told you the one time he put me on a pony. I don't think he even realized how that is marked in my brain forever.
SB: That was one of the most moving stories about fatherhood that I have heard. That a single gesture on the part of a father to a son could make such an indelible mark is astonishing and very moving.
MJ: I think about it today and I wish he had done a little more, just a little more. To this day I would have felt totally different about it.
SB: And maybe you wouldn't have been as eager to prove yourself. If you were shown a lot of love as a child, maybe you wouldn't need the world to love you and you wouldn't be the superstar. Would you be prepared to give it up in order to be more loved as a child?
MJ: No. I would never give it up. That's my job. I was given this for a reason. I really believe it and feel it. . .
SB: . . . that God has chosen you, given you this special. . .
MJ: I really believe that. If you could see some of the faces around the world and people say, “Thank you, thank you for saving the life of me and my children. Can I touch you?” and then they start crying. It's like healing. We are given this for a reason. . . to help people.
SB: So what Shirley Temple did for you with those posters [that you could put up in your hotel rooms to feel safe], you are doing for people around the world and to a much bigger extent.
As you'll discover later, Michael instructed his advance staff to put up pictures of Shirley Temple on the walls of his hotel rooms before a performance.
MJ: Oh yeaaah. Oh yeaaah. That's it and I just wanted to say, “Thank you” [to Shirley Temple Black for inspiring Michael in his
low moments] and I started to cry so badly that I just couldn't get the words out and she touched my hand and rubbed it like that.
SB: Michael, when you say to her that you didn't know if you could continue, and then you had a look at the posters of her movies when she was a kid, what was going to defeat you? What was it? The mean-spiritedness that people were showing? The fact that you always had to work to keep up to be the best? All those things?
MJ: Working hard, not having a chance to stop and play and have a lot of fun. We got a little bit in the hotels with pillow fights between me and my brothers and stuff like that and throwing stuff out of the window. But really we had hurt a lot. I remember we were on our way to South America and I was at home and it was time to go and I started crying so bad that I hid. I did not want to go and I said, “I just want to be like everyone else. I just want to be normal.” And my father found me and made me get in the car and go, because we had to do a [concert] date. Then you meet people on the road, somebody on your floor, could be a family, and you know that you have to have as much fun as you can in a short time because you are not going to see them again and that hurts. You know that the friendship won't be a long one. That kind of stuff really hurts bad, especially when you are a little kid.
SB: Your whole life you have had to put your career before your nurturing relationships. So do you have something nurturing in your life today? A car can't run without gas, and you can't continue without love being given to you. You can't just give love and never get it back. And to say you get it from the fans is not enough, Michael, because they love you for what you do and not for who you are. They love you for the electricity and excitement you bring into their lives.
MJ: I get it back through the happiness and the joy that I see in the eyes of the children. They saved my life so I want to. . . give it back [Michael starts crying]. They saved me. I am not joking. Just being with them, just seeing them. It really has.
SB: When you grew up, did you feel promises were broken to you? MJ: My father broke a big one that I'm angry with to this very day.
He cajoled me into signing a contract with Columbia when I was
eighteen with the promise that I'd get to have dinner with Fred Astaire.
Earlier of course, Michael implied that Fred Astaire lived in his neighborhood. I did not ask him about the discrepancy.
MJ: My father knew that I loved Fred with all my heart. He knew I would sign without reading the contract, and he walked away happy and he never did anything about it. He'd say he was sorry or whatever. It broke my heart that he did that. He tricked me.
SB: Did you ever tell him how upset you were?
MJ: No. He doesn't know to this day how much he hurt me. That's why I won't make promises I can't keep.
One of Michael's fatal flaws was his inability to see the corruption that was slowly overtaking his life. He swore he would never be like his father, and that meant never breaking a promise. But in his last years Michael was plagued by numerous lawsuits that claimed he regularly broke promises he made. A failure to honor commitments became something that marked much of his later life, which I too unfortunately witnessed. Michael meant well, but as in so many other areas of life, he could not summon the courage to live by his convictions.
Michael's Appearance: An Ugly Man in the Mirror
Shmuley Boteach: You have to live a long happy life. But do you really think that one day you will decide to become a recluse and disappear?
Michael Jackson: Yeah.
SB: Live at Neverland and lock up the gates. Will that be it?
MJ: Yeah. I know I am.
SB: But why? Because you don't want people to see you growing old?
MJ: I can't deal with it. I love beautiful things too much and the beautiful things in nature and I want my messages to get out to
the world, but I don't want to be seen now. . . like when my picture came up on the computer, it made me sick when I saw it.
SB: Why?
MJ: Because I am like a lizard. It is horrible. I never like it. I wish I could never be photographed or seen and I push myself to go to the things that we go to. I really do.
He was referring to the public lectures I was having him do, like Oxford University in England and Carnegie Hall in New York. But it was very important that I push Michael to get out of his reclusive mode and to appear in public to serve a higher calling.
SB: Michael, some people have written that your father used to say that you were ugly. Is that true?
MJ: Uh-huh. He used to make fun of. . . I remember we were on a plane one time, ready to take off, and I was going through an awkward puberty when your features start to change. And he went, “Ugh, you have a big nose. You didn't get it from me.” He didn't realize how much that hurt me. It hurt me so bad, I wanted to die.
SB: Was that a hostile remark aimed at your mother, “You didn't get it from me?”
MJ: I don't know what he was trying to say.
SB: Do you think it is important to tell children they are beautiful?
MJ: Yes, but not to overdo it. You are beautiful inside. Do it that way. Prince looks in the mirror as he's combing his hair and he says, “I look good.” I say, “You look okay.”
SB: Don't you think your father instilled in you a belief that you are not handsome? So you tried to change your appearance a bit, and you are still not happy. So really you have to begin to love your appearance and yourself and all of that.
MJ: I know. I wish I could.
SB: We all have problems with our appearance. Look, I have this scraggly beard. When I do TV appearances, the people I work with always tell me to cut it, to trim it. But my religion doesn't let me cut my beard, and it gets long.
MJ: Would you like to cut your beard?
SB: Yes, to be honest I would. Not completely. Just trim it. But God and my religion are more important to me than looks and appearances.
MJ: You are not allowed to?
SB: Essentially, no. I roll it up here. A lot of rabbis cut their beards and some don't. . . .
MJ: When they cut theirs, is that against the rules?
SB: The rules are interpreted differently by different rabbis. The Bible says you can't use a knife on your face. So some people take that to mean, literally, a knife. So these are the people who cut their beard with an electric shaver but not with a razor, a naked blade. To others the meaning of the verse is any kind of sharp object that cuts the beard. But my wife, Debbie, says, “I didn't marry a man who is going to try and conform to society. I married a man I wanted to respect and you are a rabbi. Be proud of who you are.”
MJ: She doesn't mind the beard?
SB: Not only doesn't she mind, she would be very upset if I cut it at all. She said to me just this morning, “If you really love and respect me you would never say that because it bothers me that you want to trim your looks to fit in more.” My wife wants me to live always by my principles.
MJ: That's amazing.
SB: The other night, Thursday night, you looked fantastic. [Michael had gotten all dressed up for Denise Rich's Angel Ball cancer fundraiser]. You were the best-looking guy there. So you don't like being photographed?
MJ: I wish I could never be photographed and I wish I could never be seen. Just for entertainment so I design the dance the way I want it to look, and the film the way I want it to look.
SB: Now you want to do movies?
MJ: I love movies, but I can control it, you see. I can't control how those pictures come out with the lighting and my expression at the time.
Arggh
.
SB: If a child said that to you, “I hate being photographed,” what would you say to that child?
MJ: I would say, “You don't know how beautiful you are. It's your spirit that's. . . ”
SB: So why are you prepared to say that to everybody except yourself?
MJ: I don't know. [He said this in a voice of confusion and resignation.]
SB: You see from your fans that tons of women are throwing themselves at you. So that must mean that you are handsome and desirable. You feel all the time that they want to fall in love with you?
MJ: When I think about itâI would never say this on TVâbut if I went on stage thinking about what goes through women's heads, I would never go out on stage. If I was suddenly to start thinking about what they were thinking about. . . sex, or what I look like naked, then, oh God, that would be so embarrassing. I could never go out. That's so horrible.
Here again you see how Michael immediately associates women with prurience. The sexual displays to which he was apparently subject as an innocent and vulnerable child in nightclubs may have done lasting damage. As far as Michael was concerned, the screaming women at concerts wanted to have sex with him. Sex, to Michael's mind, seemed to be what was most on a
woman's
mind.
SB: A lot of people like being a sex symbol. You don't like it because you are shy about it. Do you know when some women speak to you that it's what's on their mind?
MJ: Umhum. They tell me.
SB: I want to have sex with you?
MJ: Aha.
Michael's Fear of His Father
Shmuley Boteach: You know, Michael, I used to judge my father a lot and one day I stopped judging him because he had his own challenges. He has had a very difficult life that began in abject poverty
in Iran. And it wasn't easy for Jews growing up in Iran. Who knows what his childhood was like? Do you still judge your father?
Michael Jackson: I used to. I used to get so angry at him. I would just go in my room and just scream out of anger because I didn't understand how a person could be so vicious and mean. Like sometimes I would be in bed sleeping, it would be 12 o'clock at night. I would have recorded all day, been singing all day, no fun, no play. He comes home late. “Open the door.” The door is locked. He said, “I am going to give you five seconds before I kick it down.” And he starts kicking it, breaking the door down. He said, “Why didn't you sign the contract?” I go, “I don't know.” He goes, “Well, sign it. If you don't sign it you are in trouble.” It's like, “Oh my God, why? Where is the love? Where is the fatherhood?” I go, “Is it really this way?” He would throw you and hit you as hard as he can. He was very physical.
SB: Did you begin to feel that you were a moneymaking machine for him?
MJ: Yes, absolutely.
SB: Just like Macaulay Culkin described? So you felt used?
MJ: Yes. And one dayâI hate to repeat itâbut one day he said, and God bless my father because he did some wonderful things and he was brilliant, he was a genius, but one day he said, “If you guys ever stop singing I will drop you like a hot potato.” It hurt me. You would think he would think, “These kids have a heart and feelings.” Wouldn't he think that would hurt us? If I said something like that to Prince and Paris that would hurt. You don't say something like that to children and I never forgot it. It affects my relationship with him today.
SB: So that if you didn't perform for him he would stop loving you? MJ: He would drop us like a hot potato. That's what he said.
SB: Did your mother always run over and say, “Don't listen to him. He doesn't mean it.”?
MJ: She was always the one in the background when he would lose his temperâhitting us and beating us. I hear it now. [Adopts female voice.] “Joe, no, you are going to kill them. No! No, Joe, it's too much,” and he would be breaking furniture and it was terrible.
I always said if I ever have kids I will never behave like this way. I won't touch a hair on their heads. Because people always say the abused abuse and it is not true. It is not true. I am totally the opposite. The worst I do is I make them stand in the corner for a little bit and that's it and that's my time out for them.
SB: I think you are right. I hate when I hear things like that the abused abuse. It means that you are condemned to be a bad person.
MJ: It's not true. I always promised in my heart that I would never be this way, never. Ifâand it can be in a movie or in a department storeâI hear someone arguing with their child, I break down and cry. Because it reflects how I was treated when I was little. I break down at that moment and I shake and I cry. I can't take it. It is hard.
SB: When my parents divorced, we moved away and my father lived 3,500 miles away from us. And it was difficult to be close to him. But I love him, and I try never to judge him, and I have made a great effort to be much, much closer to him. We have to take seriously the Bible's commandment to always honor our parents. The Bible doesn't say, “Honor them if they've earned it.” It simply commands us to honor them. Just by virtue of them having given us life they have earned it.
MJ: I am scared of my father to this day. My father walked in the roomâand God knows I am telling the truthâI have fainted in his presence many times. I have fainted once to be honest. I have thrown up in his presence because when he comes in the room and this aura comes and my stomach starts hurting and I know I am in trouble. He is so different now. Time and age has changed him and he sees his grandchildren and he wants to be a better father. It is almost like the ship has sailed its course and it is so hard for me to accept this other guy that is not the guy I was raised with. I just wished he had learned that earlier.
SB: So why are you still scared?
MJ: Because the scar is still there, the wound.
SB: So you still see him as the first man. It is hard for you to see him as this new man?
MJ: I can't see him as the new man. I am like an angel in front of him, like scared. One day he said to me, “Why are you scared of
me?” I couldn't answer him. I felt like saying, “Do you know what you have done?” [voice breaks] “Do you know what you have done to me?”
SB: It is so important for me to hear this. Because as your friend and as someone who is asked constantly about you, it is so important for me to understand these things. It is so important for the world to understand this. You see Michael, no one would have judged you as harshly if they had heard this. They would have made more of an effort to empathize with your own suffering rather than just condemning you. Do you call him Dad or Joseph?
MJ: We weren't allowed to call him Dad when we were growing up. He said, “Don't call me Dad. I am Joseph.” That's what he told us. But now he wants to be called Dad. It is hard for me. I can't call him Dad. He would make it a point: “Don't call me Dad. I am Joseph.” I love when Prince and Paris call me “Daddy,” or when you hear little Italian kids call “Papa,” or Jewish kids call “Poppy.” Sweet, how could you not be proud of that? That's your offspring.
SB: From what age did he tell you not to call him Dad?
MJ: From a little kid all the way up to
Off the Wall
,
Thriller
.
SB: He felt he was more professional that way?
MJ: No. He felt that he was this young stud. He was too cool to be Dad. He was Joseph. I would hate him to hear me say this. . . .
SB: I read somewhere that your mother was thinking of getting divorced and she filed or something.
MJ: I don't know if she filed, maybe. No, no, she didn't file. She wanted to, many times, because of other women and because he was difficult. But in the name of religion she only can divorce on the grounds of fornication. And he has been in that area before and she knows it. But she is such a saint that she won't part with him. She knows he is out doing other things and fooling around and she is so good and he will come home and lay next to her in the bed. I don't know anyone like her. She is like a Mother Teresa. There are very few people like that.
SB: So she is a long-suffering, saintly kind of woman. Do you feel that she has suffered too long? That she shouldn't have put up with it?
MJ: We used to beg her to divorce him. We used to say, “Mother, divorce him.” She used to say, “Leave me alone. No!” We used to say, “Get rid of him.” We used to scream at her, “Divorce him” when we were little. But many years we'd hear the car coming down the drive. He always drove a big Mercedes and he drives real slow. “Joseph's home, Joseph's home, quick!” Everybody runs to their room, doors slam.
SB: You were that scared of him?
MJ: Yeah. I always said, “When I come home and walk through the door I want the kids to go “Daddy,” and jump all over me and that's what mine do. I want just the opposite. I don't want them to run.