‘So you’re happy to accept me because you now know who I am?’ Michael asked. The biggest misconception people had about my brother was that his legendary shyness made him timid, but he was a man of principle, especially where his roots as a proud black man were concerned and he wasn’t afraid to speak up on this when riled. Michael took back his ID and came right out with it: ‘You are an ass, and we don’t want to spend our money in here any more.’ Then we walked out to the Mercedes the man had failed to spot when we arrived.
On the drive home, Michael was exasperated. ‘Can you believe that? What is this area about? What are they teaching their kids?’
We had always been told by our parents that no one is born with a prejudice. It is something that is taught, ignorance passed down from generation to generation. The more Michael brooded, the more fired up he became. He told me to drive to Tito’s.
That afternoon, Tito’s acoustic guitar and our free-styling lyrics captured an angry inspiration for a song we called ‘What’s Your Life?’. That was how Michael liked to work. When a true experience inspired a song, he liked to get it down on his tape recorder or in the nearest studio. We recorded that song within an hour at Tito’s studio, also in Encino. It went like this:
FIRST VERSE: All my life I’ve been asked such questions
As who I am and what I do
When I tell them, they are happy
’Cause I am rich, it gets me through
If I were a poor boy, would they accept me
Am I rich? What’s it to you?
And what’s your reason for asking?
Is my life one big interview?
THE HOOK: What’s your life? What you do?
I do this, how ‘bout you?
What’s your goal in life ’cause
I want tips, to get through
Are you rich? Are you poor?
Are you bold? Are you sure?
Will you bend, do you break?
Are you strong, to endure?
What’s your life? …
Those lyrics sum up the conversation we shared in the car.
Michael eventually bought two llamas from elsewhere. He called them Louis and Lola. Those llamas stood as high as us, and were the most serene and beautiful pets you could imagine. He also bought two deer called Prince and Princess, two peacocks, Winter and Spring, and a giraffe called Jabbar, after the tallest basketball player we knew: LA Lakers star Kareem Abdul-Jabbaar.
And then, there was Bubbles. The lovable chimp was first introduced by a handler called Bob Dunn, who’d raised him for the first six or so months of his life, training him to be domesticated, before his arrival at Hayvenhurst. But Bubbles was more than some novelty pet – he was a constant companion and Michael doted on him. The media would poke fun at this, but millions of dog and cat owners the world over find companionship in their pets, talking to them, treating them as substitute kids. Michael’s relationship with Bubbles was no different, yet it was deemed ‘weird’.
THE FIRST-TIME WE MET WAS AT Hayvenhurst. I’d heard from Mother about the new addition to the family so I went over to check him out. When I got to the top of the stairs, I heard Michael’s voice: ‘BUBBLES! No, Bubbles!’
On the way to his quarters, I saw his doors were open. Contrary to what’s believed, his rooms were not ‘a no-go zone’. The rules were probably no different from many other families: if the door was closed, there was an expectation of privacy. If open, we knocked and walked right on in. We simply respected each other’s boundaries. ‘I’d heard you had a chimpanzee in the house,’ I said, announcing my arrival.
Michael’s Murphy bed was down and Bubbles, wearing a diaper, was having a crazy five minutes, leaping and bounding over the bed, then swinging from the spiral staircase that led to the mezzanine balcony. He was throwing stuff around the room. It was like watching a hyperactive kid run riot.
‘No, Bubbles. Stop bouncing around!’ Michael said – and Bubbles stopped. It was fascinating watching them interact: when Michael spoke like that, Bubbles tilted his head and listened.
My brother’s authoritative voice, being all parental, amused me. It was like he had become a father overnight. Chimpanzees are six times stronger than man, so in theory, Bubbles could have yanked Michael’s arm right out of its socket, but he was so tame that he responded like a child and did exactly as he was told. It took only one or two ‘NOs!’ before he realised the command was serious and he then calmed down, skulked over to Michael and jumped into his arms to be petted.
He had his own wooden crib beneath the spiral staircase but he only slept there when his ass got real tired. Most times, Bubbles slept in the bed, under the duvet, and Michael slept on the floor in a sleeping-bag. I think it’s fair to say that he was the best-kept ape in the whole of California, if not America. Bubbles wore Poison by Christian Dior because Michael always wanted him to smell and look good. When Mother smells that scent on someone today, she’ll whisper, ‘Smells like that old monkey!’ He even had his own wardrobe, full of the latest designs for a two-or three-year-old boy. One time, in later years, when my son Jeremy was a toddler, I grabbed some clothes from the washroom and dressed him. When Mother saw him, she said, ‘You’re wearing Bubbles’ clothes!’ I hated to admit that Bubbles had the better wardrobe.
When Bubbles became hyper, he’d be jumping all over, grabbing candy and tossing it, causing a real mess. You always knew when he was becoming a handful because Mother would shout, ‘MICHAEL! Get that monkey out of here!’
The trouble with Bubbles was that he knew his way around the house, and he’d walk into the kitchen, open the fridge door and help himself. And if he wanted you to go somewhere, he’d take your hand and lead you there. Most of the time, he stuck close to Michael. He was so playful and everyone loved him. Michael always liked hooking up his video camera to the television and filming Bubbles with the family, laughing at the images on his ‘live cam’ screen.
I think the funniest thing was when the two of them played hide and seek. Michael would hide and Bubbles would cackle out loud when he found him. The chimp clearly enjoyed this game because he’d terrorise Janet’s poor dog in his own ape-style version of the game. Bubbles would walk up to Puffy, bop him on the head, then sprint off and hide. The dog would sniff him out and start barking. Seconds later, when Puffy returned to the kitchen, Bubbles would scamper back, bop him on the head and run off again.
Michael and his ape were inseparable in the house, in the studio, on tour, and sometimes at functions. Michael didn’t care what anyone said. I don’t think Bubbles was too fazed, either. Mother says that whenever Michael went to his dancing room on a Sunday, Bubbles went with him. I heard that once when Michael was doing one of his spins Bubbles, unprompted, sat down, closed his eyes and spun on his ass as the music played. Bubbles ultimately went to Neverland, but when the children came along, it was felt there was a potential for aggressive jealousy, a risk no one could take. He had grown into a 170-pound beast, so he was returned to Bob Dunn’s ranch in Symlar, California, where Michael visited him from time to time. I know the separation was hard for my brother, but at least he had true fatherhood to look forward to. I suspect that Bubbles was none too happy either at being wrenched from his owner’s side after almost a decade together.
Today, as of 2011, Bubbles is still alive and being cared for at the Center for Great Apes in Florida, where they are happy to report that he’s definitely turned into his father’s son: ‘Bubbles can be sensitive and dramatic. If he has any kind of cut or scratch on his body … no matter how small … he will show it many times during the day to his caregivers and ask for sympathy. Though he is able to throw sand with amazing accuracy, he is extremely gentle with the youngsters …’
After Michael’s death, La Toya went to visit Bubbles. She found him sitting in a corner ‘looking sad’. But the moment she walked in, he recognised her, jumped up and came bounding over. God bless that damn monkey.
IN ANY LARGE FAMILY, THERE’S ALWAYS one da
rk horse that busts out of nowhere and makes everyone sit up and take note. And I’m not talking about Michael, I’m talking about Janet.
We brothers had nailed our dreams to the mast early on. There were no surprises there. But no one saw the singer-songwriter blossoming in Janet. If anything, we had our youngest sister’s career path mapped out as an actress. So had she. After CBS’s Good Times, she landed television roles in Fame (as Cleo Hewitt) and in ABC’s Diff’rent Strokes (as Willis’s girlfriend, Charlene). Janet’s acting ability was as crystal clear then as it remains today. But, as she tells it in her 2011 memoir, True You, she wandered into the recording studio at Hayvenhurst one day, armed with lyrics ‘about my teenage-girl notions of loneliness and love’, wrote a melody, worked the mixing board and single-handedly laid down a track she called ‘Fantasy’. That was when she was nine. Just like Michael with his Quaker Oats bongos, she had been watching us all the time, especially when Michael and Randy took her along to rehearsals of the Jacksons. We’d watched our idols from a distance in Gary, but Janet had vicariously lived and breathed music with us, and the more Joseph heard her sing, the more he recognised a new talent to harness.
Long story short, my sister was 16 when she landed her first record deal with A&M Records, where our old schoolfriend John McClain had become senior vice-president of the A&R department. Having grown up around us, he was already like a protective big brother to Janet, so he naturally made her one of his top priorities at the label – and she soared on merit.
Unlike us, Janet felt she was pushed into her singing career. She went along with it because Joseph was insistent and she didn’t wish to defy him. But when you think of her enduring career, and how many No. 1s she’s amassed over the years, that was no bad instinct of my father’s. Again.
My abiding memory of Janet in childhood is of this impeccable flower who could do no wrong in any of our eyes. She seemed attached to Mother’s lap and couldn’t wait for Joseph to fall asleep so she could climb into bed next to Mother, on the other side. And then, before Joseph woke, she’d get up and slip back into her own bed. La Toya was actually the first sister to break into the music industry, releasing her first album La Toya Jackson in 1980, again with our father’s encouragement. Michael contributed to one of her songs, ‘Night Time Lover’.
I remember going to school with my middle sister and being ignored by her in our Jackson 5 days. She was determined to find friends because of who she was, not because of her access to us. For years, she acted like she didn’t know any of the brothers. I first realised this when I saw her walking in the opposite direction in the school hallway. ‘Hi, La Toya!’ I’d say, but she kept her head in the air. We only became her brothers again once we’d crossed the threshold of Hayvenhurst – the one place in the world where all brothers and sisters could be themselves.
WHEN YOU FIRST THINK OF SONGS, like ‘Beat It’, ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘Thriller’, you ‘see’ the music before you hear it because the visual of Michael’s music videos is seared into culture’s memory. That is the power and impact he always set out to achieve. Ever since ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ by the Buggles became the first video aired on MTV on 1 August 1981, Michael had wanted to stand out within this new medium. He felt the industry approach was lazy, going through the motions of executing just another promotional tool. ‘They need to be more entertaining!’ he said. ‘They need a beginning, a middle and an end – a story!’ Echoes of Mr Gordy.
The biggest game-changer of them all was the Thriller video, with a theme inspired by American Werewolf in London. Michael recruited that movie’s director John Landis for his $500,000-budget video. It was an astronomical amount of money for a music video. So much so that CBS Records refused to finance it. They felt the album’s sales had peaked and, therefore, it didn’t make financial sense. Michael’s vision was years ahead of the combined wisdom at CBS Records (which later became Sony) – and his balls made them more money in increased album sales after they had effectively given up the chase.
In the end, MTV and the sale of rights provided the funding and the 14-minute ‘film’ that followed was as pioneering as it was mesmerising. It heralded the start of a story-telling, cinematic approach to music videos. Michael’s thinking-outside-the-box took everyone else with him. He reset the rules and standard with everything he did. Before its official première in December 1983, he had gathered the family in the 32-seat theatre he’d built downstairs at Hayvenhurst with wood-panelled walls and gold-framed black-and-white photos of Shirley Temple, The Little Rascals and Charlie Chaplin. We took our places in the red velvet seats and Michael walked on to the small raised platform in front of the screen. He was nervous but excited, and explained that his new video was ‘shot like a film’ and he wanted our honest opinions at the end.
I don’t think there was one member of the family who wasn’t blown away. It was musical, choreographic, cinematic, makeup genius. What was funny was the reaction of the youngest kids in the family. Rebbie’s son Austin, then a toddler, freaked out afterwards whenever Michael went to cradle him. He screamed and bawled, convinced his uncle’s face was going to ‘change’ into that of a monster any minute. It was hard to explain to a kid that ‘I’m not really a werewolf,’ because that was exactly what he’d said in the video.
Unfortunately, the folk at the Kingdom Hall didn’t see the funny side. That epic video was, in Jehovah’s eyes, ‘evil and satanic’, because it celebrated the occult and the unseen world; ‘the great princes of darkness and the wicked spirits’ that the Bible warned against. That was why, at the video’s opening, there was a last-minute on-screen disclaimer added that read: ‘Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult.’ That was not Michael’s idea. It was there at the insistence of the Kingdom Hall after the elders heard back from two Jehovah’s Witnesses who were on set with Michael and became concerned by the video’s theme. He didn’t even write the disclaimer – director John Landis did.
This drama caused my brother a lot of unnecessary distress. He felt conflicted between his passion and his faith; he had only ever set out to be creative and entertaining, not offensive. I don’t know the full extent of the calls that went back and forth between Hayvenhurst and the Kingdom Hall, but I couldn’t believe there was even a fuss in the first place. It made me wonder why the elders hadn’t insisted on a disclaimer that said: ‘Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that I am not really a zombie but Michael Jackson.’ To me, the whole affair was that ridiculous. But Michael was typically compliant and didn’t voice any opposition. The whole thing was religion gone mad. I felt for Mother, too, because I know she came under tremendous pressure as the elders lobbied for the video not to be released, collectively failing to understand the distinction between creative brilliance and literal meaning. But contrary to what’s been long reported, Michael was not de-fellowshipped by his religion or threatened with it. Far from it. Instead, and from this point on, two slightly serious-looking elders would shadow him on tour just to ensure he didn’t stray from God’s path. As if Michael’s life wasn’t restricted enough, these two religious guards were posted as silent witnesses in the background to ‘monitor’ what he creatively did. When anyone asked who they were, they were just part of the entourage.
For the remainder of 1983 and throughout 1984, Michael still carried out his pioneering work as a dedicated Witness, going door-to-door to spread the word of Jehovah. When he could, he also attended the Kingdom Hall four times a week with Mother. The only difficulty now was that his fame was so great that he couldn’t walk up anyone’s path without causing a fuss or being praised – which defeated the object of honouring Jehovah. But if the Thriller video had taught him anything, it was the art of disguise. Obviously, he had learned not to dress up as a werecat, but he obtained a collection of props that included a fake moustache, spectacles, hats with attached wigs … and a fat suit.
When he experimented with these
different disguises, and went from door to door without being mobbed, he realised that his only chance of anonymity lay in becoming somebody else. From inside Hayvenhurst, he had only to look at the CCTV monitors to see the daily crowd of fans waiting at the gate and the numbers swelled after Thriller. I suspect it was then that he resolved to become the master of disguise and felt confident that he could fool everyone. Even those closest to him.
OUR FATHER HAD BEEN AN AMAZING coach, but he wasn’t really equipped for the Hollywood machine and Michael’s worldwide fame had outgrown him. The other brothers also recognised his limitations and had to explain to Joseph – at first in writing – that his managerial services were no longer required. It hurt him, too. ‘I can’t believe they’re doing this. I can’t believe they’re leaving me,’ he told Mother, the one person he allowed to see him vulnerable.
It can’t have been easy being dismissed by the kids whose careers he helped make, but as much as he’d lost his power base, it wasn’t as if he was shut out completely. All the brothers, including Michael, would continue to seek his advice over the years and we somehow knew he’d never be far away with another world-beating idea.
Ultimately, the managerial change had a knock-on effect to Michael’s wider management set-up – the Joseph-appointed team of Ron Weisner and Freddy DeMann who’d arrived in 1978. Michael was encouraged to find new management and his favoured candidate, Frank Dileo, vice-president of promotions at the Epic label, landed the job. With his vast experience and jovial manner, the man from Philly, nicknamed Tookie, was an indispensable asset for a long time. Those two were a double-act that gelled from day one. They reminded me of Abbott and Costello because Frank was the roly-poly guy with a thick cigar in his mouth, while Michael was the one doing all the mad capers. Frank was a deflector and mouthpiece – a front man – but his know-how also brought a new slickness to all that Michael did.