All language subtitles for Michael.Jackson.The.Life.Of.An.Icon.2011.

MichaeI Jackson's LA Residence
June 25, 2009

(FIRE PARAMEDIC SPEAKING)

(ALBERTO ALVAREZ SPEAKING)

I arrived at the hospitaI

Frank DiIeo
JACKSON'S MANAGER 1 984-89, 2009

and the Iady came out
maybe 20 minutes Iater, a nurse.

l stood up. She said, "Who are you?"

"I'm Frank DiIeo, I manage MichaeI.

"Is he okay?"

She hesitated, and I knew.

She Iooked me in the eye and said,

"No, he didn't make it."

l had them put him in a special room
and clean him up.

And that was the one nice thing,
is I got to be aIone with him.

And I got to kiss him on the forehead
and, you know, teII him what I feIt.

(BALLAD PLAYING)

When I started seeing the news cIips

David Gest
MICHAEL'S CLOSE FRIEND

the day he died,

my heart sank.

Michael was the most exciting performer

l had ever seen in my life.

He was the ultimate pop superstar.

He wanted, more than anything,
for his Iegacy to be

he is the greatest performer of aII time.

And that's what he became.

(SMOKEY ROBINSON SPEAKING)

(TITO JACKSON SPEAKING)

(FRANK CASCIO SPEAKING)

(KATHERINE JACKSON SPEAKING)

(MARTHA REEVES SPEAKING)

(BOBBY TAYLOR SPEAKING)

(J. RANDY TARABORRELLI SPEAKING)

(THOMAS A. MESEREAU, JR SPEAKING)

(WHITNEY HOUSTON SPEAKING)

(MICKEY ROONEY SPEAKING)

I grew up in East Chicago, Indiana.

Katherine Jackson
MICHAEL'S MOTHER

My mother and father divorced when
I was at a young age, about six years oId.

My mother was Baptist.

And my sister and I sang
in the Baptist choir.

lt made us have a love for music.

My father used to Iisten
to the country music aII the time,

and out of Chicago came a show,
on the radio, caIIed Suppertime Frolic.

And then on Saturdays,
he wouId Iisten to the Grand Ole Opry

that came out of Nashville.

Some of the peopIe were Ernest Tubb,
that's ancient.

Let me... Let the peopIe know how oId I am.
(LAUGHS)

(COUNTRY SONG PLAYING)

We had a cIub caIIed the Sub-Debs.

We used to give teenage parties
for aII the kids around there,

and that's where I met Joe.

l think l was around 17 years old.

He wouId aIways ask me for a dance
when the music was sIow. (LAUGHS)

He seemed very kind, very sweet.

Joseph was in a group.

Besides me Ieaving singing with my sister,
I started singing with him.

And we wouId sing
and harmonise together a Iot.

Then the chiIdren came aIong,
and I kept singing.

Rebbie Jackson
MICHAEL'S SISTER

2300 Jackson St,
in that IittIe house.

l was the only one born in that house.

We had two bedrooms in our home.

And l and my sisters, Janet and La Toya,
slept in the living room.

Living Room
Gary, Indiana 201 0

We had a couch that let out into a bed.

My brothers slept in one room.

Boy's Bedroom
Gary, Indiana 201 0

And that room had triple bunk beds.

And they slept on the bunk beds.

And then my parents slept in the other room.

Parents' Bedroom
GARY, INDIANA 201 0

KATHERINE: l don't know how l squeezed
all of us in that little house.

Jackson FamiIy Kitchen
Gary, Indiana 1 960's

Having all my children when l was young
and having them so close together,

every time I wouId get pregnant,
I was afraid to teII Joe. (CHUCKLES)

We didn't beIieve in abortion,
so that's why we got so many chiIdren.

The children around our neighbourhood,
especially the boys,

they were kind of bad, some of them.

They wouId break in peopIe's cars
and do things.

And our children were never allowed
to go out at night or play with those kids.

J. Randy TaraborreIIi
JACKSON'S FRIEND AND BIOGRAPHER

They weren't reaIIy sociaI
with the rest of the neighbourhood.

They cIung to each other,
and that's how the Jacksons were raised.

Poor? I mean, that was a way of Iife.

We had pIenty of food to eat.

We were like all the other kids in the area.

DAVID GEST: Michael never thought
he was poor when he was young,

because he did not know what poor was.

David Gest
MICHAEL'S CLOSE FRIEND

He thought
everyone Iived the way his famiIy did.

KATHERINE: We had
a rickety washing machine.

We weren't able to buy a new one.

Whenever it washed, it wouId creak.
You know, make noises...

(IMITATES CREAKING NOISES)

Something Iike that.

And MichaeI, I guess,
was about 1 1 or 1 2 months oId.

He was just dancing
to the rhythm of the washing machine.

And I knew then that he had a Iot of rhythm.

MichaeI wouId aIways do funny things,
anything for a Iaugh.

Anything for a Iaugh.

La Toya was always very persnickety
about the way she kept her room.

And she had this beautifuI...

I think it was a white satin bedspread
that she had just gotten.

Michael took some invisible ink

and he spread it aII over the bedspread,
squirted it aII over.

And then he had her come in
and Iook at it. She was Iivid.

MichaeI used to Iove teIIing me stories
about Gary, Indiana,

especially how he would have a candy store,

and he wouId seII candy
to aII the neighbours,

and to his brothers.

And he never made any money doing it,

but he showed signs of being
an entrepreneur at a very young age.

As kids, we had a Iot of fun.

Tito Jackson
MICHAEL'S BROTHER

You know, just pIaying around
in the neighbourhood.

Playing practical jokes, throwing balloons
out the car windows at bus stops,

singing and dancing to every song
that came on the radio.

MichaeI wouId use
some of the money from his candy store

to go and buy 45s,

because in those days,
that's what kids bought, 45s.

And if you were Iucky, you'd buy an LP.

But he started Iistening strongIy
to James Brown

from the time he was about five years old.

He had a great taste for reaI R&B,

gritty R&B, Iike WiIson Pickett,

the DeIIs,

great singers like Levi Stubbs.

We sang country songs
and we sang foIk songs.

And then
they started singing the Temptations

when we got a television.

My father had a guitar
that he kept Iocked in the cIoset.

One day, he didn't Iock the cIoset
and I started pIaying that thing.

l learnt every song on the radio
and made my brothers sing with me.

KATHERINE: Joseph had warned them,
"Don't play my guitar, now."

And so, Tito took it out and pIayed it,
and a string broke.

There was no way of hiding
that he hadn't had his guitar.

He punished him for it.

Then he said, "Let me hear you pIay."

And Tito pIayed for him.

Joe just said nothing eIse to him,
"You can pIay it if you want to."

Tito had been watching his father
play guitar,

but he wouId come to my house
and he and I wouId pIay.

Reynaud Jones
NEIGHBOUR - GARY, INDIANA

And I wouId pIay a IittIe something
on my guitar, and then show him,

and then give my guitar to him.

And then he'd try to play it.

And so we went back and forth like that.

There was a guy across the street
who had one snare drum,

and his name was MiIford Hite.

MiIford Hite
NEIGHBOUR - GARY, INDIANA

Reynaud said,
"MiIford, come over with your drum

"and Iet's see if we can, you know,
start a IittIe group together."

We played for a while
and then Jackie Jackson came over.

Okay.

Then after Jackie came in, Jermaine came.

TITO: Michael and Marlon were just little kids.

And we used to tell them to be quiet,
"Get out of here."

We used to kick them out the room.

And they used to beg to be in the group.

And we just said,
"Your IittIe brother wants to be in the..."

You know, you just said, "No, get out of here.
This is big boy stuff."

The schooI was giving a programme
and aII the parents were invited.

And MichaeI was singing soIo,
Climb Every Mountain.

And so Joe's father wanted to go aIso,
so he couId hear him.

And MichaeI starts singing.

I Iooked around, Joe's father was crying.

I guess he couIdn't imagine

that a 5-year-oId kid can keep harmony
and sing that weII.

But that's what happened.

TITO: We heard him sing
and we were so taken by that.

We couIdn't beIieve it
so we rushed him home,

immediateIy took him to the room.

And he was in the group, that fast.

The big thing back then was winning
the RooseveIt High SchooI taIent show.

GEST: ln the '50s and the '60s,

taIent shows were the key
to getting a career and a record deaI.

And that's what they dreamed of.

InitiaIIy, MichaeI was not our Iead singer.

It was Jermaine was our Iead singer
when we made it to the taIent show.

They came to me and asked me
if I wouId come over

Robert Hite
NEIGHBOUR - GARY, INDIANA

and give them some pointers
on tightening up the group.

I actuaIIy decided that we were going
to present the song My Girl,

because it was a song
that I had become very fond of.

Each person wouId get a chance
to step forward in the song,

and showcase what they couId do.

MiIford actuaIIy sang My Girl aIong
with them.

Reynaud was singing My Girl.

And aII of a sudden we said,
"Michael, sing My Girl."

(CHUCKLING) And he hit it, perfect pitch.

And that was it.

That was our secret weapon, quite honestly.

(UP-TEMPO SONG PLAYING)

When MichaeI came in,
the crowd just stood up.

(CHUCKLING)

They actuaIIy broke a coupIe of chairs
and seats in the auditorium.

It was such a surprise.

And that's when everybody recognised
the kind of taIent that was there.

MILFORD: We wanted to win and we won.

lt was a really happy moment.

It was just... 'Cause that was the thing to win,
RooseveIt's taIent show.

We win a RooseveIt's taIent show,
it's Iike signing a contract with Motown.

(CHUCKLES)

ROBERT: After the talent show ended,

Joe decided that Reynaud and MiIford
weren't going to be rehearsing with them.

And that's what kind of spIit everything off.

TARABORRELLI: Joseph was, in many ways,
a frustrated musician.

He had a band caIIed the FaIcons.

And I think to some extent
he wanted to Iive vicariousIy

through the success, the possible success,
of his children as musicians.

But Joseph is a very complicated person,

and it's not easy to paint Joseph
with a wide brushstroke.

Bobby TayIor
ARTIST, GORDY / MOTOWN RECORDS

Joe was a tyrant to them.

He was mean to them. He was eviI to them.

MichaeI was very afraid of Joe,

and a Iot of times,
he wouId stay over at my house,

just to get away from Joe,

because he feIt Joe had punished him
too much when he was younger.

He had taken a strap
and spanked him a Iot of times.

And he feIt it was too harsh.

He was a very strong, and often,
as they wouId teII it, vioIent discipIinarian.

MichaeI, Janet and Randy,
and a IittIe bit of MarIon,

I think they got easy street,
'cause they were the babies.

The ones who really got the spankings
in my family, if l remember correctly,

and l'm pretty sure l do,

was myself, Jermaine and Jackie,
the older guys.

l'm sort of like five years older than Michael.

So he was more of one of the little guys
that didn't get it the way the big guys did.

I think in Iater Iife,

he began to respect Joe more,

because he saw
that he wanted his kids to be somebody.

RONALD JACKSON:
My uncle worked in the steel mill.

He never wanted his kids to do what he did.
He wanted them to be better.

RonaId & Keith Jackson
JACKSON'S FIRST COUSINS

I seen the steeI miII, and I'm gonna teII you...

-It's Iike working for Satan...
-Do not work there...

...because it's 2,000 degrees out there,
and it's very dangerous.

So, his vision, l respect.

He wanted them to have a better opportunity,
and to do something they Iove doing.

TAYLOR: l think Joe did the right thing
because none of his kids went to prison.

None of his kids were out
on the street using dope.

TITO: l think l was raised right.

I think my father did a briIIiant job
to take us from Gary, Indiana,

which is a very poverty-stricken town,

and not too many peopIe get out of there
and make something of themseIves,

and he had a dream, and he stuck with it.

And he knew how to get there
and he got us there.

It's okay to have fun sometimes
but you have to prepare yourseIf,

because your aduIthood
is gonna be a Iot Ionger than your chiIdhood.

And if you didn't prepare for it,
you're gonna be on The Late Show.

So I think my father prepared his sons
for the future, to be men.

We were men at a very young age.

TARABORRELLI: l remember asking Michael,
"Why do you call him Joseph?"

And it was reaIIy cIear,
the way MichaeI expIained it,

that they thought of him as Joseph.

They didn't really think of him as their father,
they thought of him as Joseph.

And l thought that was very sad.

That had to hurt even Joseph,

to know that his chiIdren
feIt that way about him,

but that was the way he designed it.

Katherine Jackson
MICHAEL'S MOTHER

The worId now taIks
about how mean and eviI he is.

He's not that way.

He's just a firm person.

MichaeI's very cIose to my mother,
and she was Iike a comfort to him, I think.

KATHERINE: Michael and l had
a very special bond.

Michael used to always tell me
that he was so much like me.

And then I used to teII him, I said,

"I can see myseIf in you,
but I don't want you to be Iike me,"

because I thought I was too easy-going,

trust people too much,

and that's exactly how Michael is.

There was a mysticaI connection
that made them aImost, at times, one.

MichaeI and Katherine, two peas in a pod.

He was cIoser to no one eIse except for her.

TARABORRELLI: Katherine Jackson
was golden where Michael was concerned,

throughout his entire lifetime.

She aIways cared.

When he went through stages of acne,
she knew how to handIe him.

TARABORRELLI: lt was almost
as if they were

aligned with each other against the world.

And he couId aIways go to Katherine
for anything.

And she wouId be there for him, 1 00%.

They had been working on the music
for a Iong time,

and they wanted to be signed to a IabeI.

TITO: We would go to school in the morning.

Then after schooI,
we'd get home about 3:00, 3:30.

And my father'd have aII the mics set up
and amps on standby.

And we had enough time
to just drop our books,

and we would practise, like, four hours,

until about 7:00 or 8:00.

And after that,

we would get ready
to go to Chicago or somewhere,

and go do an engagement.

We would play for 45 minutes,

and take 1 5 minutes off
and do our homework.

By the time we was through with our day,
it was about 2:30 in the morning.

And we'd drive back from Chicago to Gary,
get home about 3:00, 4:00 in the morning,

then go to schooI the next day.

And that's what Iife was for us
for many years, a Iot of work.

MICHAEL: We would perform all night,
tell you the truth, every day.

Voice of MichaeI Jackson
Interview courtesy of J. Randy TaraborreIIi

We would be dancing, doing James Brown,

and a lot of people throwing money on stage,
and standing ovations.

And then, soon as we drove home,
we'd get up and go to school.

And we couldn't keep our pants up
'cause we had so much money in 'em.

l mean, change just broke 'em.

And there was this man's house,
who used to sell candy,

we used to stop there and just load up,
eat candy for days.

They had a studio at home
and they had these big mirrors and stuff.

And they wouId say, "Do it again,
do it again, do it again, do it again."

And next thing you know,
seven, eight, nine hours go by,

but they were looking for perfection.

Ronnie Rancifer
KEYBOARDIST, 'JACKSON 5' 1 967-77

They were focused,
that's what I Iiked about them.

They were serious about doing it,
and it was about perfection.

Johnny Jackson and Ronnie Rancifer
were part of the earIy Jackson 5.

They were not named members

but they were a part of the group,
and an integral part of the group.

Back then, we didn't have
the greatest instruments in the worId.

Other big name groups,
they wouId have big PAs and aII that.

Jacksons didn't have that,
but what they had was souI.

See... And souI goes a Iong way.

You can have $1 0 jiIIion
worth of equipment, baby,

but if you ain't got no souI,
you might as weII stay home. (CHUCKLES)

In 1 967 the Jackson 5 signed for IocaI
record IabeI, SteeItown Records.

They reIeased two songs on the IabeI;
'Big Boy'

and 'We Don't Have To Be Over 21
(To FaII In Love).

Neither appeared on any BiIIboard Chart.

One day, I was setting up a VIP section
for Bobby TayIor,

aII of a sudden, I hear the peopIe cIapping
and hoIIering...

WeIdon Arthur McDougaI III - A & R
EXECUTIVE, MOTOWN RECORDS 1 969-80

And so I come out of the office and I Iook
and there was the Jackson 5.

Well, they are pretty good.

Joe Jackson said,
"Listen, man, we wanna be on Motown."

And I said,
"Man, I can't get nobody on the IabeI."

And he said, "WeII, do you know anybody
you couId introduce me to at Motown?"

I was so excited about them,

I toId Bobby TayIor that Thursday
about them.

He said, "Okay, I'II Iook at 'em."

I met them in 1 968, at the RegaI Theater.

l was headlining the show.

They were the opening act,

and l was introduced to them
by the promoter.

Berry Gordy, President of Motown,
gave him permission

to produce any act that he wanted
and they wouId Iisten to it.

He, at that time, had a group
caIIed Bobby TayIor and the Vancouvers.

They had records on the radio
that were going reaIIy weII and stuff.

(R&B SONG PLAYING)

I Iiked the way he sang, 'cause he was
a star vocaIist in his own right.

He knew how to do it, when to do it,
why to do it, and why not to do it.

I saw this IittIe kid spinning and stuff,
I said, "Dang.

"Send him upstairs when they finish,
I want to taIk to this kid."

Never thought
about recording him at that time.

I said, "This IittIe guy,
I wanna see what's happening."

He was a kid that would worry you, bug you,
until you had to do something with him.

Instead of him going back
to Gary, Indiana, from Chicago

every night, he'd go and ask Joseph
if he couId stay with me,

and spend a night at the hoteI with me.

So he stayed in my face for 10 straight days,

from the time
that we woke up in the morning,

and l'd take and feed this kid.

It was pure. This kid wanted what he got.

He was a workahoIic.

Bobby TayIor worked hard.

I mean, I can't say it enough.
I want peopIe to know.

He worked harder on them
than he did with the Vancouvers.

My motivation was MichaeI.

I just figured this kid here,
he's an aduIt in kid's cIothing.

That was my onIy motivation.

Everybody around here knew
that MichaeI Jackson was "it."

The worId just didn't know it.

Bobby was pushing.

When I say he was pushing,

the next time I seen Bobby
or I seen the group,

he had caIIed me and said
he's working at the ApoIIo.

And come over to the ApoIIo,
he got a surprise for me.

And when l went to the Apollo,
the Jackson 5 was on the bill.

ApoIIo Theater
HarIem, New York City

The ApoIIo was known
as the greatest R&B showroom in the worId,

because many aIbums
had been made from there,

James Brown, Live at the Apollo.

Jackie Wilson played the Apollo.

Gladys Knight and the Pips
played the Apollo.

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.

Everybody who pIayed the ApoIIo was a star.

And everybody
who was underneath them on a biII

was trying to gain that national fame.

And if you make it there,
you're assured of stardom

because peopIe knew
that you've got something very speciaI.

lt was a very tough audience.

And if they did not Iike you,
and you were not a good Iive act,

even though you may have a hit record,
they'd boo you off the stage.

The Jackson 5 tore that pIace up.

I mean, I've never seen an act
that nobody never heard of,

didn't have a record,

and, I mean,
the peopIe kept hoIIering, "Jackson 5!"

On the same show was the 5 Stairsteps,
and they were young kids, too,

or they were about the same age
as the Jackson 5.

And they were compIaining,

they wanted to get the Jackson 5
off of the show

because every time they went on,
people just hollered,

"Jackson 5! Jackson 5! Jackson 5!"

And I said,
"Wow! I ain't never seen nothing Iike this."

Martha Reeves
ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS

My very first time that I saw MichaeI Jackson
was at the ApoIIo Theater in New York.

He and his famiIy were a seIf-contained act,
which was very unusuaI.

And yet there was a guitarist in the group
and a bassist in the group,

and keyboard and drums.

They'd won a contest.

They'd won
at the ApoIIo Theater Amateur Night,

and their prize was to open the show
for the great James Brown.

WeII, he broke out into this James Brown,
I Got the FeeIin',

and doing his little toes and dancing
and looking like James,

if James were a wind-up toy.

And it was amazing.

Rebbie Jackson
MICHAEL'S SISTER

He wouId perform and do the moves
and routine that everyone eIse was doing.

He used to do Fred Astaire
and James Cagney.

Then aII of a sudden, he wouId add
a IittIe bit of something in there, different.

And that was him feeling what he was doing.

He excited me. I saw aII of this in him.

I saw things that he couId do that I couIdn't.

He had the makings of a great singer.

MichaeI had universaI appeaI
back when he was reaI young.

I mean, we weren't reaIIy into marketing
or anything Iike that,

but it was aIready there.

I think the word for it,
the phraseoIogy, wouId be,

"A diamond in the rough,"
without very many edges to buff off.

With the rest of the brothers, now,

Jermaine stuttered.

And he always thought
that if he stuttered when he taIked,

that he would do it when he sang.

So I had to push Jermaine more than I had
to push anyone eIse.

And that's aII I used,
Jermaine, MichaeI and Jackie.

I did not use MarIon, did not use Tito.

They couIdn't sing, right?

And I toId them. "Learn. Listen and Iearn."

The complete group
was not just those five boys.

The compIete group
had two other ones with them,

one was Johnny Jackson, the drummer,

one was Ronnie Rancifer, the pianist,

which made the music for the group.

Without them,
there wouIdn't have been this Jackson 5.

Every producer
has their own method to the madness,

and Bobby's was pretty cooI.

He had the oId-schooI roughness on that,
you know.

You have to have
a certain kind of roughness,

a certain kind of discipIine.

He feIt MichaeI had something so speciaI,
and he toId that to him.

But he said,

"Do not think
just me teIIing you makes it happen.

"It does not.

"You've gotta work and continue to work
for what you achieve.

"It wiII never be easy."

He wasn't aIways patient.

He wasn't aIways saying things
that you wanna hear,

or saying it right.

But what he said and what he was doing
was just trying to make them stars.

Our Iast day at the RegaI Theater

is when I went to Joe, I said,

"Say now, why don't you Iet me
put these kids at Motown?"

And Joe said those words to me,
"Man, I thought you'd never ask."

We were in New York City.

Tito Jackson
MICHAEL'S BROTHER

And we had just finished
performing with James Brown.

We were opening up for him.

Bobby TayIor had been begging Berry
to check us out.

Berry Gordy - FOUNDER,
MOTOWN RECORD CORPORATION

And he wouldn't do it
because he had another kid on his label.

And he was catching a Iot of fIak
from the state

about working this kid who's underage.

Berry wouId say, "I never wanna have
anything to do with kids in this business.

"It's too much probIems.

"I can't even handIe one.
What am I gonna do with five?"

And the one kid was IittIe Stevie Wonder.

I drove MichaeI, MarIon,

Tommy Chong, who was in my band,
from Cheech and Chong,

from Chicago to Detroit.

l take Michael directly to Motown.

So I said, "Berry, I've got these kids here

"and they're number one coming
out of the bIock."

I said, "The Iead singer's eight.

"He can out-dance anybody you ever saw.

"Jackie WiIson, James Brown.

"If you cIose your eyes and Iisten to him
after I finish teaching him,

"the best singer you ever heard in your Iife."

It was not easy to get a chiIdren's group
signed to Motown.

And Bobby TayIor knew
that when he caIIed Berry

and said, "I've got something so speciaI,
you gotta see it,"

that Berry wouId jump once he did.

Because he wouId not have taken them
to Berry to waste his time.

TAYLOR: The next morning, Berry Gordy
called me from Los Angeles, and he says,

"l want you to bring them out here."

That's how they got to Motown.

Going to CaIifornia,
the happiest day of my Iife.

Katherine Jackson
MICHAEL'S MOTHER

Joseph had promised me that one day
we wouId go to CaIifornia.

I'd teII him, "No,"
I said, "Your promise came true,

"but you didn't bring me there,
the chiIdren did." (CHUCKLES)

Berry Gordy was having a party
for Diana Ross.

It was her birthday.

So he asked us to perform
at this party for Diana,

and of course we did.

And at that party was, like, the Temptations,
Smokey, the Vandellas,

the Supremes, Four Tops.

And here we are performing
their songs to them.

So we was quite nervous.

Dionne Warwick
SINGER

I first met MichaeI, he was,
I think he was 1 0 years oId.

He was flown out with his brothers

to sing for Berry Gordy, Jr.

Berry had invited a bunch of people
up to his home.

This IittIe bitty thing came in
and he sat down next to me

and he Iooked at me and he says,
"And who are you?"

l said, "l'm Dionne Warwick. Who are you?"

"l'm Michael Jackson."

I said, "Nice to know you, MichaeI Jackson.
And what do you do, MichaeI Jackson?"

He says, "Oh, I sing."

I said, "You sing? Can you sing?"

He said, "Yes, I can sing."

I mean, IittIe feisty, beautifuI young boy.

I said, "WeII, that's what we're here for.
We're gonna see if you can sing."

(UP-TEMPO SONG PLAYING)

Watching them perform was excitement.

Brenda HoIIoway
ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS

Everyone in the group was an individuaI.

And I feeI that every one of them
couId have gone on their own.

But MichaeI was the star.

SMOKEY ROBINSON: They came in
(CHUCKLES) and they sang a few songs.

They sang a coupIe songs
by James Brown, you know,

Smokey Robinson
ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS

and MichaeI did the James Brown dances,
and he reaIIy did them.

He's 1 0 years oId and he was dancing
Iike he was about 30.

How in the worId couId this IittIe boy,
and he was a kid,

be so taIented?

That's what everybody went away
taIking about.

I think aII of us
Motown artists were astonished

Kim Weston
ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS

because here's a kid that, you know,
seemed to have no fear.

You know, when the music hit, he was ready,
you know, or ready before the music hit.

He said,
"I want you to know something, too."

I said, "What's that?"

"You sang a song about my name, MichaeI."

I said, "Yeah.
You think that song was for you?"

He said, "Wasn't it?"

(LAUGHS)

He was an adorable child.
lt was a wonderful meeting.

They Ioved it. They enjoyed it.

That was our audition.

So l'm very proud of that moment in our life.

There was another worId about to open

David Gest
MICHAEL'S CLOSE FRIEND

and he was ready to deIve into it.

Marvin Gaye

Junior WaIker

When you went to Motown, it was...
Everyone was there.

The IsIey Brothers

Kim Weston

Edwin Starr

Jimmy Ruffin

It was Iike DisneyIand. You saw Smokey,
you saw Mary, you saw Diana Ross.

But everybody was trying
to perfect their artistry.

The feeIing at Motown was it was a famiIy,
a musicaI famiIy.

VaIerie Simpson & NickoIas Ashford

SINGERS / SONGWRITERS,
'ASHFORD & SIMPSON'

And we aII were a part of exceIIence
and greatness, musicaI greatness.

And we so were fans of each other's work,

so that when we saw each other,
it was just instant love.

We got, "We knew what you were doing.
I heard what you're working on."

And it just... We kept pushing each other.

When you start working
with the best in the business

RusseII Thompkins, Jr.
LEAD SINGER, 'THE STYLISTICS'

that are teaching you how to dance,
how to pIay this

and teaching you how to sing this,
putting you at the piano,

vocaI coaches, dancing coaches,
peopIe who teach you how to taIk.

When you work with that from the time
that you're a young man,

you grow up with so much influence.

So it wasn't just the fact
that Michael Jackson

was born with so much great taIent.
He aIways had it around him.

MichaeI Jackson studied aII the artists,
aII the great artists.

Jimmy Ruffin
ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS

He studied me, he studied Marvin Gaye,
he studied Stevie Wonder.

He studied everybody.

We were the best in the country at the time.

The first time I saw them perform
was in San Francisco

and I was Iike, "Wow."

It was Iike, "There's nobody that good."

Berry Gordy was Iike,
"Keep your cards cIose to your chest.

"Don't Iet peopIe know what you're thinking.

"Don't Iet the artists know
how much peopIe Iike 'em."

He was a shrewd guy.

Berry Iooked after every aspect
of an artist's career.

Now, some may compIain today
that they didn't get paid enough royaIties

and they never received
a Iot of their pubIishing.

But l'll tell you something.

Berry Gordy made these artists.

Everybody, I think,
had different reIationships with Berry.

AbduI 'Duke' Fakir
ARTIST, 'THE FOUR TOPS'

We had a great reIationship with Berry
and we stiII do.

He gave us... He promised us things
that he made come true,

that he couIdn't put in the contract.
But he promised them and kept his word.

What he saw in the Jackson 5
was a chiIdren's group that couId transcend

every age group.
And he nurtured their taIents.

He knew he had something speciaI.

I made him sit in whiIe I was doing the music

Bobby TayIor
ARTIST, GORDY / MOTOWN RECORDS

that they had to work with.

They were with me 20 hours a day.

Being attentive, if l saw somebody sleeping,

then l would send them back to the house

and teII them,
"I don't wanna see you for a week."

They worked hard, they reaIIy worked hard.

MichaeI now wouId stay
over at Diana Ross's house and rehearse.

He really liked Diana Ross
and she liked him.

HOLLOWAY: Diana Ross was
showing him off.

She just Iike...
She was the one that discovered him

and Iater on I found out that Bobby TayIor
actuaIIy discovered him.

TITO: l think we were just kids.

We didn't reaIise
aII the great accompIishments

that we had achieved.

Seeing HoIIywood and pIaying
with Diana Ross. I mean, we were in heaven.

Just those things aIone was priceIess to us.

MichaeI toId me when he came to LA,

it was Iike his whoIe worId had changed.

He couId buy as much candy as he wanted
because nobody wouId say no to him.

(R&B SONG PLAYING)

MichaeI and I went to see the Four Tops,

it was around 1 971 or '72.

MichaeI and David just came
to the dressing room

and in the dressing room
was aIso Stevie Wonder.

GEST: l said to Levi Stubbs,
"You're brilliant. l love your voice."

And MichaeI Iooked at him and said,
"I Iearned everything from you."

And he was cut off. Stevie said, "What?"

And he grabbed Michael
and flung him up against the wall...

And said,
"You Iearned everything from who?"

And he goes, "You, Stevie, you."

(LAUGHS) It was so funny. It was so funny.

Levi and I, we never forgot that.

Bobby TayIor and I wouId take
MichaeI to the goIf course with us.

He had never even picked up
a golf club in his life.

Yet, he was our greatest golf critic.

"WeII, Smokey, you know,
you hit your baII over in the woods

"because you didn't have your foot
standing right here..."

"Bobby, see, your cIub was not, you know..."
He's gonna teII us why we had a bad shot.

But it was fun. He was a great, fun kid.

RANCIFER: The first time l heard
I Want You Back in the studio,

I noticed a different kind of brightness
to the movement,

Ronnie Rancifer
KEYBOARDIST, 'JACKSON 5' 1 967-77

other than normaI Motown brightness.

It was going in a different direction,

which was good
because Motown's sound was diversified.

GEST: When you listened to I Want You Back,
you knew Berry had a knack to get

the best commerciaI record out of these kids

and make them a worIdwide success.

(SINGING)

When my sister and my mom first heard
our first hit record, l Want You Back,

my father had sent it over,
they didn't care for it.

I didn't Iike it at aII.

Because the songs that the chiIdren sang

was more Iike the, I shouId say, souI music.

And to me, I Want You Back
didn't sound that way.

AII the songs that was out then
sound so different,

so I guess Berry wanted
to bring out a different styIe.

LittIe did they know it was a very big song,
number one.

(SINGING)

It was just an unbeIievabIe track.

It just came out of the radio Iike Iightning.

Oh, them Jackson 5, that is a kickin' group.

"Wow, that's them?"
And I had to get used to the song

because even though it was a very big hit,

your brothers singing on a record,
on vinyI, and you hearing it

is something totaIIy different.

MICHAEL: Wejust don't have songs
that come and go,

Voice of MichaeI Jackson
Interview courtesy of J. Randy TaraborreIIi

we have songs that'll be around all the time.

Like, you'll hear 'em
on the FM cIassicaI stations,

by the Philharmonic Orchestra,
things like that.

So it's just not what people call it,
kiddie rock. lt's not that.

And a million sellers, a million selling.

J. Randy TaraborreIIi
JACKSON'S FRIEND AND BIOGRAPHER

It was difficuIt to beIieve
that they were Motown artists,

because they were just kids.

lt was as if they had some
kind of stardust rub off on them

because, you know, they were
becoming close to Berry Gordy,

Diana Ross, and to aII of my idoIs.

When I wrote Who's Lovin' You,
I was, you know, in my earIy 20s.

Smokey Robinson
ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS

But at Ieast, at that point,
I had had a chance to experience

some Iife and some Iove.

l was married. l got married when l was 19.

The subject matter
of the song is Iike a person

who has somebody who reaIIy Ioves them.

And yet they don't appreciate it.
They do the person wrong.

The first time I heard Smokey's
Who's Lovin' You,

my assistant was pIaying it
and it's one of those,

oh, party, red-Iight, basement-type,
you know, up on it.

But when MichaeI got ahoId to it,

and Bobby TayIor infused him up
with that funk,

man, Michael put that soul
in that song so deep, it was soulful.

(SOULFUL SONG PLAYING)

How couId he possibIy know
what that song meant?

He sang it Iike he had written it.

l sing Who's Lovin' You, orpart ofit,
in my live concerts

and many times, young peopIe have
come up to me after the concert and said,

"Oh, I didn't know
you sang MichaeI Jackson's song."

A kid, 1 1 years oId, singing that song
with that much emotion? It was incredibIe.

UnbeIievabIe.

He seemed as if he was an oId souI,

that he couId take a song Iike
Who's Lovin' You

and he couId actuaIIy interpret those Iyrics

in a way that made you beIieve

that he had those experiences,
when actuaIIy he was 1 0 years oId.

If you didn't know he was a kid,
you'd have thought he was an oId man.

(LAUGHS)

But he was singing it from his heart.

You know, MichaeI's Iife
was kind of paradoxicaI to me,

because when he was a chiId, he was a man.

So when he was a man, he got the chance
to be a chiId and he took it.

He had a way of interpreting a Iyric,
even as a very young boy,

that made you beIieve the song.

He knew how to perform.

This was, I think, something
that Berry Gordy reaIIy Iiked about MichaeI

because, not onIy was he a great vocaI taIent,

but he was a great performer.

Watching him, as a kid,
be so comfortabIe performing

Peabo Bryson
SINGER

probabIy heIped me
become a better performer, actuaIIy.

His voice was nearIy
as high as Stevie Wonder's.

Martha Reeves
ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS

I met Stevie when he was eight years oId

and I said, "Here's another IittIe youngster
who's far beyond his age, taIent-wise,

"but abIe to sing aduIt songs
in perfect-pitched voices,

"reaI high voices that hadn't changed yet."

His voice and his expressions and his...

WeIdon Arthur McDougaI III

A & R EXECUTIVE,
MOTOWN RECORDS 1 969-80

...charisma start taking these songs over.

Like, if Smokey feIt Iike he did his song

and more peopIe Iike the way MichaeI
did it than him,

that's because he did that with aII
of his songs at that time.

No matter who it was, the O'Jays, the DeIIs,
the Whispers or the BeatIes,

we wanted to be the best.

And that's what we were striving for.

Berry Gordy did not Iike the stuff
that Bobby TayIor was recording on them.

I wanted to do the boys a certain way,
but he wanted me to do 'em his way.

And I says, "I can't do 'em the way
you want me to do 'em.

"I must have my own head."

So he says,
"Okay, we're going back to Detroit."

Then he took over.

RANCIFER: Berry Gordy, in turn,
put his crew together.

The Corporation was estabIished
to bring fresh new materiaI

to the Jackson 5.

YouthfuI materiaI.

I think he probabIy feIt
that Bobby TayIor wouId

give them more aduIt materiaI
and forget that they were chiIdren.

He saw gaziIIions, right?

Then he took over.

Bobby TayIor did never get the recognition
he shouId have gotten

for working with them,

from the group or the pubIic.

Bobby TayIor produced 1 0 songs on the
aIbum: 'Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5'

During 1 969-70 the Jackson 5
reIeased 4 number one singIes in a row.

The Corporation, is
what they caIIed themseIves,

they topped themseIves
with those earIy songs by the Jackson 5,

they were absoIuteIy incredibIe.

AbsoIuteIy incredibIe.

KATHERINE: When my boys had
five gold records in a row,

I was very proud of them because I know
it was something that they wanted

and it was their dream.

And they were happy and I was happy.

The whole family was happy about that.

We did a show once for Jesse Jackson.

Dennis Edwards
LEAD SINGER, 'THE TEMPTATIONS'

You know, Jesse Jackson, he's the activist.

He's got an organisation caIIed PUSH Expo.

He booked the Temptations
and the Jackson 5.

They were just up and coming.

We were superstars at that time
and, oh, man, it was so many peopIe.

(PEOPLE CHEERING)

MCDOUGAL: When they did that show,

the Temptations got a great response.

When the Jackson 5 came on,
it was phenomenaI.

I mean, aImost bIew the roof off the pIace.

EDWARDS: They couldn't get us to our limos.

They had to back up an armoured car,
a Brink's car.

It's Iike a moment in history.

That's when they finaIIy made it
with the bIack R&B pubIic.

They were just ripe for stardom.

On the stage, he was a different guy.

He was reaIIy as much of an actor
in so many ways as he was a singer.

MICHAEL: A lot ofpeople always come up
to a lot of us and say

Voice of MichaeI Jackson
Interview courtesy of J. Randy TaraborreIIi

it's like two different people.

On stage and off stage.

When we was taIking, he's shy
and, you know, very soft spoken.

But just when he jumped
on that stage, he's Iike...

(SCATTING)

(SINGING)

Well, l mean, he was a different person

and l've never seen
that in another artist's life.

He was like two guys.

Anything he felt that he wanted to do,
he would do it on stage.

The moment he came off of the stage,

he was back to the IittIe boy he was
before he went on stage.

MICHAEL: When l get on stage, l really,
totally do. That's with a lot of performers.

Voice of MichaeI Jackson
Interview courtesy of J. Randy TaraborreIIi

I've Iearned that about comedians, too.

lt's like when l worked with Richard Pryor
in The Wiz.

A lot of people think he's the funniest guy
to be around 24 hours.

That's not true. He's really shy and quiet.

We were aII Iike that, too.

Singing or dancing
in front of, like, one person, can't do it.

But, like, it's 30,000, you feel so free,
so much easier.

lt's hard to explain.

What motivates MichaeI Jackson?

That was an audience.

Think about it.

He's shy, he won't Iook at you, right?

On stage, what is he?

He owns it.

So if I had peopIe Iooking at him,

I used to bring five, six girIs
every time, right?

And I'd say, "MichaeI, Iook at that girI, man.
They think you're cute."

MichaeI'd say,
"Dang, Bobby, they said that?"

I said, "You better go out there
and sing now, son."

I said, "You go out there
and you mess up now," I said,

"They're gonna teII aII the rest of the girIs
out there.

"You're gonna be one ugIy IittIe boy
everywhere you go."

He used to go out and do one take.

When we were on the road,
MichaeI wouId worry you to death.

I hear somebody knocking on my door
and say,

"Hey, man, what's wrong?" "Oh, man,
what you doing? I wanna come in."

So I'd Iet him in. I'd say, "Man, why don't
you hang out with Jackie and them guys?"

"Hey, man, they got somebody in their room."

(LAUGHS)

l said, "Well, how do you know?"

He said, "'Cause l was listening
to the door for about an hour."

(LAUGHING)

He was Iike a IittIe boy, I mean, he...

I said, "What were they doing?"

He said, "They were taIking,
but they won't Iet me in."

They were Iike IittIe kids
and they were very, very happy

and very carefree.

TARABORRELLI: Michael loved being
Michael Jackson at that age.

He Ioved touring,
he Ioved recording at Motown.

He Ioved his fans, he Ioved performing.

MCDOUGAL: They had dirt bikes
and they used to go on Saturday mornings.

They'd go to a pIace
where they couId ride them,

and MichaeI used to tear that thing up.

Man, he was fIying up and down
over the hiIIs.

l thought it was, you know, he was like
any other little boy.

But he was a little boy with a dirt bike.

I mean, they had two or three of 'em.

So, when peopIe say
that he didn't have a chiIdhood,

far as I'd seen he had a chiIdhood.

When he was a kid, things were a Iot simpIer.

And I think that, as they got oIder,
the famiIy became more divided

and other stuff happened
in Michael Jackson's life

to make him wish
that he was 12 years old again.

So, when he says
he missed out on his chiIdhood,

I've aIways feIt that what he reaIIy meant was
that he just missed it very much.

(SLOW SONG PLAYING)

The first time I met him was when he was 14,

Don BIack
SONGWRITER, 'BEN'

fuII of Iife, fuII of ambition.

It was at the peak of his powers.

Fire in his beIIy and just everything
about him was fabuIous.

I wrote it about friendship.

The story is about this boy
who's very seriously ill

and nothing's going right for him.

But a IittIe rat comes aIong one day,
he sees it in his bedroom.

But it was a lovely little mousey kind of rat.

And he befriends him.

And it makes the boy so much better,
it Iifts his spirits up.

And that's how I wrote the song,
about friendship.

lt can be about a rat.

"The two of us need look no more.
You're always running here and there."

But it could be about a best friend.

When MichaeI recorded Ben,
I remember going to the studio

and it was just magical. l just loved it.

l always remember Michael
getting very emotional about that song.

His eyes weIIed up a bit,

particuIarIy at the middIe bit.

I'II never forget that image.

The middIe bit was,
"I used to say 'I' and 'me,'

"now it's 'us,' now it's 'we."'

MichaeI just Ioved those Iines.

In fact, that's why, I think,
we repeat them in the song.

We do it again. (CHUCKLES)

There was a Ionging, I think,
for Iove and acceptance,

going aII the way back
to when he was a IittIe kid.

And you were abIe to hear that Ionging
in his voice.

Singing is passion.

Bobby TayIor
ARTIST, GORDY / MOTOWN RECORDS

You have to do it from inside of you.

It has to come from your souI, your heart.

And MichaeI Jackson had that.

It wasn't done for the posture of "I did this."

Dionne Warwick
SINGER

It was done because his heart said,
"This is what I need to do," and he did it.

MichaeI sings Iike an angeI.

He has the voice of an angeI and he does...

Kenny GambIe & Leon Huff

PRODUCERS / SONGWRITERS,
PHILADELPHIA INT. RECORDS

Every note is right on it and he was doing
that at nine years oId.

MICHAEL: l recorded Ben
l don't know how long ago.

I mean, I hear it aII the time stiII,
you know, go on and on and on.

Voice of MichaeI Jackson
Interview courtesy of J. Randy TaraborreIIi

Yeah, it's selling more now.

So, it's what you leave behind, l think.

BLACK: There are people who come along
once in a lifetime.

MichaeI Jackson, he onIy happens once.

(SLOW SONG CONTINUES PLAYING)

When you think about MichaeI Jackson,
you think about him as a kid.

Freda Payne
SINGER

Like when he did some
of those earIier songs, Iike Ben.

And then as he grew and evoIved
and became a young man,

I saw the metamorphosis
of a beautifuI, beautifuI fIower,

just bIooming and unfoIding.

MichaeI enjoyed what he was doing.

Mickey & Jan Rooney
JACKSON'S FRIENDS

That's why, transition from very young
to getting oIder,

it's just one year after another,
but doing what the good Lord Iet us do.

GEST: When Michael became a teenager,
his voice changed.

He reaIised that he wouId be singing
different types of music,

David Gest
MICHAEL'S CLOSE FRIEND

not kiddie pop songs
Iike he had been most of his career.

EDDIE HOLLAND: The first time we worked
with the Jackson 5 was very exciting.

Because the one thing I noticed
about the group,

Brian & Eddie HoIIand

SONGWRITERS,
HOLLAND-DOZIER-HOLLAND

that they were extremeIy down to earth,
very mannerabIe,

very, very poIite.

MichaeI recorded severaI songs
of mine and the HoIIands'

Lamont Dozier
SONGWRITER, HOLLAND-DOZIER-HOLLAND

and Forever Came Today
was one of my favourites.

(SINGING)

He had such pipes and drama in his voice

to be so young.

He was just one of a kind in that respect.

He reaIIy did the songs justice.

I think MichaeI knew how important Iyric
was to the song.

VaIerie Simpson & NickoIas Ashford

SINGERS / SONGWRITERS,
'ASHFORD & SIMPSON'

And it had to reach, touch something,
I think, for him to reaIIy wanna sing it.

And, you know,
he'd dance and sing at the same time

so it had to correspond with his body, too.

So it aII had to be one piece for him.

He didn't want fIuff.
He wanted something with Iegs on it,

something that was gonna Iast through time

and that's actuaIIy
what he ended up creating.

The bigger he became as an artist,

the more enamoured he seemed
to be over songwriters.

A Iot of peopIe have done those songs
and couIdn't get a handIe on 'em

like the Levi Stubbs or Diana Ross,

but he just had a knack, a gift.

He aIready had a cake
but then he put icing aII on top of it.

TARABORRELLI: Around 1974,

they started doing product at Motown
that perhaps wasn't the best.

J. Randy TaraborreIIi
JACKSON FRIEND AND BIOGRAPHER

As a fan, l loved songs
like The Boogie Man is gonna get you,

and Lookin' through the Windows,
and Skywriter,

but these songs weren't hits.

MCDOUGAL: Joe mentioned to me

severaI times that he feIt Iike
Motown was taking the group over,

taking them away from his direction.

What happened was that

Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder
and Smokey Robinson

were writing and producing
and doing a lot of things at Motown

that the Jacksons had begun
to want to do for themseIves.

And to see how Motown treated other artists

and how the other artists was making it,

it was kind of disillusion.

TARABORRELLI: The company was being
run at that time by Ewart Abner,

Berry Gordy was making movies
with Diana Ross.

And Abner felt pretty strongly

that they shouId not be writing
and producing their own music,

that they shouId just
accept the materiaI that came their way

and just do a good job with it in the studio.

GEST: Michael was very disillusioned.

He wanted to not onIy write his own materiaI

but produce it as well.

He realised

if he was to reach these goaIs,
he wouId have to go somewhere eIse.

KENNY GAMBLE:
Joe Jackson called me and told me

that they were Iooking for a pIace to go.

Kenny GambIe & Leon Huff

PRODUCERS / SONGWRITERS,
PHILADELPHIA INT. RECORDS

And of course, Huff and myseIf,

we tried to get them
for Philly lnternational Records.

But at the same time, CBS

was negotiating with them aIso.

I wanted to know
if there was a shot, a chance,

Ron AIexenburg
SNR. VICE PRESIDENT CBS / EPIC RECORDS

of being abIe to get invoIved.
And I was toId there was.

The next is, we sat down
and we started to negotiate.

They wanted a miIIion doIIars.

And I figured,
"Okay, that's aII I couId approve up to."

That was my approvaI IeveI.

l had to go through the ranks

and I said,
"We have a chance of signing the Jackson 5"

and they said, "They're done."

l said, "No, l'm sorry.

"I beIieve in them,
I beIieve that there's a big future,

"I beIieve that MichaeI Jackson

"could be one of the biggest stars ever."

That took care of that.

I was handed the Ietter and they said,
"There's your deaI memo, go sign 'em."

In order to move on and progress,

Katherine Jackson
MICHAEL'S MOTHER

Joseph said he had to do it

because he wanted the chiIdren
to get credit for their writings and aII of that,

and they couIdn't do that at Motown.

CBS offered them movies,
they offered 'em a TV show,

cartoons and everything.

And of course Gamble and Huff, you know,
we couldn't offer them all those things.

So they decided to go with CBS.

ProbabIy the most important signing
of my career.

TARABORRELLI: The Jackson g
left Motown Records and went to CBS.

Jermaine stayed behind
because he was married to HazeI

and Hazel was Berry Gordy's daughter.

KATHERINE: When my boys left Jermaine
back at Motown,

it hurt, because Jermaine wouIdn't come.

I don't know if it was upset or angry or
whatever or disappointment or whatever,

Tito Jackson
MICHAEL'S BROTHER

it just was a sad time, that's aII.
That's the word. It was sad.

Jermaine feIt
that he owed his aIIegiance to Berry

'cause Berry was the one
that gave us our start.

And I feIt the same way.

TARABORRELLI: Berry Gordy
maintained the name "Jackson 5"

and they really thought that maybe

it wasn't fair that Berry got to keep
the name "Jackson 5,"

so they went to CBS as the Jacksons.

ALEXENBURG: l was not prepared
for the rubbish that would come my way.

It was this fear, I guess,

that what the supposed "IiIy white" company

was gonna do to this bIack famiIy.

l received phone calls, l received threats.

There was a Iot of prejudice in the business.

BIack records usuaIIy had to cross over
from being R&B to pop stations.

Very rareIy did a pop station
just go on a bIack record.

It's the most ridicuIous thing in the worId
when you think of it now

because it's not Iike that any more.

But it sure was in the '60s and '70s.

Music business was segregated

and even though
the Jackson 5 had crossed over,

there was just always
this thing that was going on

that there was a difference

between R&B and pop.

Forget the coIour, Iisten to the music.

Does the music excite your audience?
Yes. PIay it.

Ron AIexenburg caIIed us and asked us

if we would produce them.

ALEXENBURG: l wanted to go
to proven winners

and that's why I picked up the phone
and caIIed Kenny GambIe and Leon Huff

and it was only at that time that l found out
that they were also

trying to sign the Jacksons and I said,

"WeII, pretend that you signed them
but they're gonna be on Epic Records

"and pIease produce them for me."

GAMBLE: That transition

was a trying time, because

they had a Iot of emotionaI things
going on with them

because this was the first time
that Jermaine was not recording with them.

GEST: When Jermaine left,

Randy came into the group

and Joe had been preparing Randy,
for a Iong time, to become a member.

And he fit in Iike a gIove.

This here gentleman is Randy Jackson,

The Jacksons
PHILADELPHIA INT. STUDIO 1 977

and he happens to be the youngest
and the ugliest member of the Jackson 5.

Now what's the excuse for you, so ugly?

(PEOPLE LAUGH)

'Cause l take after my big brother, Tito.

As soon as we found a recording date
for an artist,

we wouId start writing for them

and not onIy wouId GambIe and Huff
write for them,

but we had McFadden and Whitehead
who wrote for them.

-AII of our writers, aII of our staff...
-Dexter, Cynthia Biggs...

They wouId know
that the Jacksons were coming in.

DEXTER WANSEL: Kenny Gamble
and Leon Huff instructed me

to write a number one for them

to see if I couId come up with any materiaI
that they Iiked,

Dexter WanseI
PRODUCER / SONGWRITER

meaning the Jacksons,
and that GambIe and Huff couId approve.

And so, we wouId have prepared for them

maybe 20 songs
when they walked in the door.

And then we'd take those 20 songs
and we'd cut 'em down to maybe, like, 12.

The Jacksons themseIves were

interested in moving on with their career.

They wanted to write,
they wanted to produce.

So Huff and I, we heIped them produce.

Tito was exceIIent,
'cause he's a great guitar pIayer.

Kenny GambIe and Leon Huff
was very warm, nice peopIe.

They had a Iot of souI,

we had a lot in common with the music.

WANSEL: When l cut their tracks,

I aIways incIuded Tito

in the rhythm section.

And he told me Motown would not
let him play on their tracks,

but he pIayed on every one of mine.

(LAUGHS)

GAMBLE: Our studio was running
24 hours a day, so it was like a machine.

HUFF: Sometimes,

we might wanna work untiI the wee hours

of the morning.

Depends on how strong
your creative juices is flowing

at that moment.

And the Jacksons were used to curfews.

But that changed in Philly.

GAMBLE: Well, they were older,
they were teenagers then.

But they were stiII trying
to induce that oId system,

and MichaeI rebeIIed against it.

Because Michael wanted to hang out

into the wee hours of the morning, so...
And that's what he did.

MichaeI Ioved his time with GambIe and Huff.

He reaIIy appreciated working
with two geniuses

who wrote so many cIassic songs.

Can you teII us, what made you want
to sing in the first pIace?

-I don't know.
-You don't know?

WeII, you know how that goes with chiIdren.
They just don't know, do they?

MichaeI, at that time, was aIways shy

and really reserved.

We would say, "l wanna go get something
to eat," or "Let's do this."

And he wouId go, "Okay."

And he was very humble.

And l think he was pretty humble
through his life.

-What's your name?
-Christopher WanseI.

(PEOPLE LAUGH)

I was young when that video was made,
I was, Iike, one or two years oId.

Christopher WanseI
JACKSON FRIEND

The relationship with the Jacksons
started there

and it continued throughout life.

Can you sing?

He can't dance? I wanna see his dance.

-JACKIE: Come on, man!
-You don't have to.

CHRISTOPHER: l remember a lot ofjust,

I guess, excitement and just joy
with those guys at that point, you know,

'cause a Iot of peopIe that wouId record
wouId be serious,

you wouIdn't get a smiIe or anything,

but these guys were constantIy joking
Ieft and right.

JACKIE: What do you do, booger?

(LAUGHING)

WeII, other than being "the Bishop of SouI"

I'm aIso "the Monk of Funk"
and "the High Priest of Rock"

and "the Bishop of SouI."

MAN 1 : AII right!
MAN 2: Who said that?

I met MichaeI Jackson
when he first came to PhiIIy

BiIIy PauI
ARTIST, PHILADELPHIA INT. RECORDS

back in, I think, it was 1 974.

He was a very shy, young kid, you know.

And he was very excited to meet me,
you know,

'cause he... Mrs Jones...
It was at the height of Mrs Jones.

l welcomed him to the studio and told him
he was gonna enjoy it

and I'd do a good job, you know,
and he just Iaughed.

WANSEL: Michael's voice had changed,
obviously,

from the little boy

that couId hit aII those high, piercing,
l'll Be There notes

to a rawer sound.

But he was a great singer because

he studied the great singers,
he wanted to sing Iike them.

He knew what he wanted to do
with his voice,

Iike over-dubbing his voice
and doubIing his voice

and speeding up one voice and this one...

These are things that he was teIIing me,
you know. We're the producers.

He wouId say,
"GambIe, can I try this? Can I try that?"

I said, "Yeah, try anything you want."

-We let him express himself.
-HUFF: Yeah.

GAMBLE: You know, he was in there

through the mixes,
he was around me and Huff aII the time.

I remember when they were working
with GambIe and Huff in PhiIadeIphia,

and I Iiked their sound and I Iiked what they
did and they heIped them out a Iot.

And that's when
the boys first start writing, too.

GEST: Their first record
produced by Gamble and Huff,

even though it went gold,

wasn't a reaIIy huge aIbum for them.

It mid-charted in around the 50s

and he wanted something
that was number one.

When they did their second aIbum,
Goin' Places,

the album was really a flop.

He was used to selling

a miIIion or so aIbums on Motown.

And he really, in no disrespect to them,

wanted to produce and write
aII his own materiaI.

He wanted to be in charge.

ReIeased in 1 978 'Destiny' was the
first aIbum produced by the Jacksons.

When I first heard Destiny,

I Iiked it very much.
I was very proud of them.

I thought they did a reaI good job.

The aIbum re-estabIished
The Jacksons as a top seIIing group.

EDWARDS: He kept reaching
for higher plateaus

and he feIt, maybe, that if the group...

Dennis Edwards
LEAD SINGER, 'THE TEMPTATIONS'

Where he wanted to go,
they probabIy couIdn't go with him.

MichaeI was beginning
to think of himseIf as a soIo artist

and I aIways wondered
what wouId happen to the brothers

if Michael left the group.

Without Michael Jackson, that was gonna be
a tough road for the Jacksons.

And l also believed

that that's one of the reasons why
MichaeI put it off for as Iong as he couId.

Yeah, I figured he'd go soIo.

Jimmy Ruffin
ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS

He was too good.
He couIdn't carry his brothers forever.

KATHERINE: One ofthe lawyers called me in

and he toId me to teII the boys
to save their money

because MichaeI is gonna go soIo.

I said, "He can't do that."

And he said,
"WeII, he don't need his brothers."

I said, "They need one another."

TARABORRELLI: Josephjust felt
that what was really important

wasn't the individual success of the group

but it was the group itseIf
and it was the famiIy itseIf.

And that's easy to say
when you're not the Iead singer of the group.

ALEXENBURG: l saw Michael leaving
his father as a positive,

no longer persecuting him, abusing him

or saying things to him that were ugIy.

He seemed to onIy be
getting it from one source, his father.

MichaeI never feIt comfortabIe
with Joe as his manager,

'cause he was afraid of him.

And when you're afraid of somebody,
you don't wanna be around them.

That was his destiny, to be by himseIf.

His confidence IeveI was reaIIy high

and when he made the transition
from us to Quincy,

he was ready.

MichaeI reaIIy admired Quincy Jones.

Because

Quincy had produced Frank Sinatra,

EIIa FitzgeraId,

Dinah Washington,

And so many other acts
during his very iIIustrious career.

When he was about to do Off The Wall,
he went to him,

asking for suggestions

of peopIe that might be interested
in working with him.

And the story goes that Quincy Jones said,
"I'm avaiIabIe," and he said,

"l would love to work with you."

TARABORRELLI: l was in the studio
for the Off The WaII sessions,

and so, I was abIe to actuaIIy watch
MichaeI and Quincy work together.

And MichaeI reaIIy thought of Quincy
as sort of the father that he hoped

Joseph could have been for him.

One of the things that Michael told me
he loved about working with Quincy

was that Quincy thought
Michael's ideas were good ideas.

And if you Iisten to some of the demos,

those songs were complete
when Michael brought them to Quincy.

l mean, you could have just put them out.

And Quincy appreciated the fact
that MichaeI had this amazing abiIity.

There was a lot of respect there.

BRYSON: Quincy Jones has always been
smart about merging what he has to offer

with what the artist has to offer

and I think that's probabIy
one of Quincy's greatest gifts.

Peabo Bryson
SINGER

And he certainIy did that with MichaeI
in abundance.

GEST: l will never forget when
he brought Off TheWall over to my house

to pIay it for me.

It just jumped right out of the record pIayer.

It was the most unbeIievabIe aIbum

I'd ever heard to that date.

To me, that's one of the greatest aIbums
I've ever heard in my Iife.

RusseII Thompkins, Jr.
LEAD SINGER, 'THE STYLISTICS'

When the musicians that I know,

and we aII sit around
and we Iisten to the arrangements,

and the production that was done on that
album, the things that Quincy Jones did,

was fantastic.

Quincy Jones had horn pIayers
pIaying such fantastic Iicks

Martha Reeves
ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS

and had drummers and percussions
that MichaeI had to dance to,

and that onIy made him
even the more exciting.

Quincy was a great arranger,

MichaeI was a great singer,
and aIso had a great foresight

and it just was a marriage made in heaven.

EDDIE FLOYD: l had the pleasure

of coming up in the same era
and watching him

Eddie FIoyd
SINGER / SONGWRITER, STAX RECORDS

and once he got with MichaeI... Wow...
(CHUCKLES)

History speaks for itself.

TARABORRELLI: There wasjust no way

that these songs
weren't going to be big hits.

KATHERINE: An album would have
two very good songs on it

that they know is gonna be hits,
and then they throw anything on an aIbum,

to fill it out.

And he said, "Mother, I don't beIieve in that.
l think every song should be a hit."

And so, he just put good songs out there
and gave the peopIe

good product.

ActuaIIy, it made me start dancing again

when I went out,

'cause I was one of those
"I don't wanna sweat" guys. (LAUGHS)

When Off The Wallwas on,
you had to hit the dance fIoor.

It was just absoIuteIy astounding

and then he just
kept getting better and better.

AbduI 'Duke' Fakir
ARTIST, 'THE FOUR TOPS'

Such a God-given taIent, so precious.

TARABORRELLI: When he recorded ThriIIer,
Michael was very excited

and he said that he thought

this was going to seII hundreds
and hundreds of miIIions of copies.

Quincy kept telling Michael,
"You know what? Maybe five million.

"I mean, if we do 1 0 miIIion,
it's gonna be huge,

"but, you know, don't get your hopes up."

He was never pIeased
with what he accompIished.

He aIways wanted
to accompIish the impossibIe.

TARABORRELLI: Michael felt that Quincy
should have been on his team

with 1 00 miIIion.

And he toId his attorney,

"ThriIIer's not coming out.
Quincy doesn't believe in it.

"CanceI. The thing's not coming out," right?

So, Michael had a conversation
with WaIter Yetnikoff,

who was running CBS at that time.

And WaIter Yetnikoff toId MichaeI,
"Look, who cares what these guys think.

"It's not about what their impression is
of this music,

"it's what you beIieve to be the case.

"And if you beIieve this is
going to seII 1 00 miIIion copies,

"guess what, MichaeI?

"l'm with you.

"Let this thing come out.
Don't mess with this. Just let it come out."

And then Michael did.

But it couId have gone either way.

We were averaging a miIIion units a week,
which no other record had done.

Frank DiIeo
JACKSON'S MANAGER 1 984-89, 2009

Michael Jackson, that year with Thriller,
saved the record business.

Tower Records was going out of business,

CBS itseIf had had two bIack Fridays
where they Iaid off, Iike, a thousand peopIe,

other companies were Iaying off peopIe.
Everybody was Iosing theirjob.

But Thrillerwas so big,

it brought millions of people into the stores

and they not onIy bought Thriller,
they bought other product.

It was the music that wiII probabIy
infIuence contemporary artists

for a Iong, Iong time to come.

It gave us a...

A goaI, a buII's-eye or a dream to get to,

something to aspire to.

KATHERINE: After Michael made Off The WaII,
and then ThriIIer,

I knew then that it was Iike shooting a rocket
up to the moon.

Were you aware of the saIes?

I pretty much did the aIbum
and just sat back and watched.

He saw where he wanted to go

Freda Payne
SINGER

and he went there.

And nobody couId stop him.

He went to a IeveI

that only the very great have obtained.

He wanted to be the best
and he was the best.

(PEOPLE CHEERING)

TAYLOR: God took that little man
and he says,

"Okay now, you take over the music worId."

Bobby TayIor
ARTIST, GORDY / MOTOWN RECORDS

"It now beIongs to you."

ALEXENBURG: What made him so special

is that he was heId back

for so long

that when he was finally released,
all of it came out.

TITO: He just lit the stage on fire.

He stoIe the show from everybody,
incIuding the Jackson 5.

Tito Jackson
MICHAEL'S BROTHER

RANCIFER: Michael was into his fans.

To make aII these peopIe that happy,
it charged him up, it reaIIy did.

Ronnie Rancifer
KEYBOARDIST, 'JACKSON 5' 1 967-77

SIMPSON: My fondest memory
is the Motown 25.

ASHFORD: Yeah.
SIMPSON: We were on that show,

-and he premiered the moonwaIk. Wow.
-That was something.

VaIerie Simpson & NickoIas Ashford,

SINGERS / SONGWRITERS,
'ASHFORD & SIMPSON'

GEST: Michael called me

when he got home from doing Motown 25,

and said, "I've just given
the greatest performance of my Iife."

David Gest
MICHAEL'S CLOSE FRIEND

WARWICK: How excited we all were for him,

it was Iike, "I guess I've arrived,"
(LAUGHS) you know?

Dionne Warwick
SINGER

With an armfuI of Grammys.
It was wonderfuI.

In 1 984 MichaeI won an unprecedented
8 Grammys for 'ThriIIer'.

'ThriIIer' became the best seIIing aIbum
of aII time with saIes exceeding 1 1 0 miIIion.

ALL: (CHANTING) MichaeI!

During the eighties MichaeI had more
number 1 hits than any other artist.

GEST: Michael Jackson is

one of the greatest artists of aII time,

who transcended being IabeIIed
bIack, white, red, yeIIow,

it didn't matter,
he appeaIed to everybody, everywhere.

I think he came here ready
'cause he aIways wanted to be a superstar.

He was wearing IittIe rings on his fingers
when he was a IittIe man, you know.

TARABORRELLI: He was very conscious

of the iconocIastic nature
of "MichaeI Jackson,"

J. Randy TaraborreIIi
JACKSON FRIEND AND BIOGRAPHER

and what it would mean historically.

ALEXENBURG: Michael's image
was very important to him

because Fred Astaire
and the peopIe that he studied,

Jackie WiIson, James Brown...

How are they being revered? Why are they
so terrific and what did they do?

And he was a great student.

Ron AIexenburg
SNR. VICE PRESIDENT CBS / EPIC RECORDS

It just didn't come upon him,

he studied his craft, he worked at it.

GEST: He was directing his career,

he was so street smart

and he knew how to make a campaign work,
and more importantIy, how to make it Iast.

He beIieved that the biggest stars
Ieft the biggest impression

and it was bigger than just their art,
you know.

What you thought of instantly

when you thought of these ceIebrities

and with MichaeI,
what you began to think of instantIy

was the fedora hat, it was the one glove.

On the show that we did together
at Madison Square Garden,

he came out with a suitcase

and inside was the glove,
and he had the hat,

and he had everything he needed
to show them,

"Nobody does it better than I
and these are my trademarks."

TARABORRELLI: The total package
of Michael Jackson became very important,

especially with the advent of video culture,

which happened at the exact same time

that Billie Jean and Beat lt
were becoming hit records.

'BiIIie Jean' was the 1 st video by a bIack
artist to receive heavy rotation on MTV.

MichaeI never officiaIIy Ieft The Jacksons.
'Victory' (1 984) was their Iast aIbum together.

GEST: lt was an immense pressure
to be in the public eye

and he kept wanting
to look better and better.

He was very, very seIf-conscious.

MichaeI feIt under pressure

where his image was concerned

because of who he is.

He was a black guy, he was an inner-city guy.

How couId he be the darIing
of white society?

He had to change.

I think aII that was what Ied
to the first pIastic surgery, in 1 978.

I went to interview MichaeI
at his home in Encino

and he showed up at the door
with bandages on his face

and his eyes were bIack and bIue,

and I thought that he had been
in some kind of a fight.

He expIained to me
that he had faIIen on stage

and broke his nose.

This was why he had that first surgery.

His next major one was in 1 981

and he stayed with me for four weeks.
I took care of him.

l always felt that he looked so good
after that second one,

he never needed to do more.

TARABORRELLI: And then after that,

there were all kinds of other things
that were going on

that it was really hard to determine,

you know, what he was doing
and when he was doing it.

REBBIE: l think he should have stopped
before he did, yes.

Being vuInerabIe and Iistening to others,
he just kept going.

Rebbie Jackson
MICHAEL'S SISTER

DILEO: Steve Hoefflin, l believe,
and I said to MichaeI,

did too many operations
and made MichaeI not secure, but insecure.

GEST: One ofthe ways
Steve stayed close to Michael

was constantIy teIIing him what he needed.

Steve wouId probabIy disagree with that,
but I feIt

you just went a bit too far.

The disease that MichaeI had, vitiIigo,

Katherine Jackson
MICHAEL'S MOTHER

MichaeI suffered from it and he...

He didn't wanna be spotted up and he...

He went to a skin doctor
and had him to get his whoIe face one coIour

but below, his legs and things
were still spotted up

but he didn't show that part of his body,

VitiIigo Sufferer

onIy parts of his body Iike his hands
and his face and his neck and chest.

That's the part that he had bIeached out
so it wouIdn't Iook so bad.

Some people have their own ideas
of what they think it is,

but I know what it is.

TARABORRELLI: lt always felt unfair to me

and l think that Michael
always felt victimised by it.

I Ioved it when MichaeI said,

"Plastic surgery
was not invented for Michael Jackson.

"PeopIe have been having
pIastic surgery for years.

"I'm not the first one to do it.

"Why am I aIways the one being picked
on about it?"

And I thought that was a reaIIy good point.

TITO: We were doing a Pepsi commercial,
the year was 1984.

And we were just getting ready
to go out on the Victory Tour.

I went to the set the day they were shooting it

and they had a Iot of performances
that were great.

So it was the end of the day,
they caIIed for a wrap,

I said goodbye to him.
And I was waIking out the door

when I heard the producer say,
"We have to do one more take."

There was some pyro,
and MichaeI was coming down the steps

and I think somebody missed their cue.

One of the fIames came
and Ianded on MichaeI's head,

which he had hairspray, something Iike that,
and it just...

After the accident, MichaeI had
to go through a horrific experience

to repair his scaIp.

It was a form of tissue expansion
known as baIIooning.

This procedure is often used on the scaIp

Dr. MichaeI May FRCS - HAIR TRANSPLANT
SPECIALIST, THE WIMPOLE CLINIC

to treat burns, scarring.

This is done by the surgeon

inserting a plastic balloon
underneath the skin

and, over a period of time,
increasing the voIume of the baIIoon,

and therefore, stretching the skin above.

The surgeons,

aImost Iike drawing a curtain,

bring the normaI tissue
over that area of scaIp

and fill in the scarred area.

I actuaIIy spoke to Dr Steven HoeffIin,

who did the first baIIooning procedure
on MichaeI after the Pepsi incident.

And he expIained to me

MichaeI continued
to do the baIIooning procedure

with different doctors, throughout his career.

It was quite painfuI, you can imagine.

If a Iarge baIIoon of saIine
is pIaced beneath the skin,

is bIown up to perhaps 1 000 cc of fIuid,

it causes quite a Iarge amount of discomfort.

KATHERINE: l think afterhe got burnt,

that was the first time
he was exposed to strong pain medicine,

because he did have a Iot of pain in that spot
for a Iong time.

PeopIe don't reaIise
that his dependency on piIIs

was due to that one accident
that changed his Iife forever.

l used to give
a lot of private parties for Michael

because he'd wanna meet somebody.

My neighbour, when I was Iiving in New York,

was Liam Neeson,

and he loved Liam Neeson's work
in SchindIer's List.

And I invited Liam over

and some friends of mine.

DOZIER: You gave him a party,
and l remember

MichaeI McDonaId sang,
GIoria Gaynor sang.

Lamont Dozier
SONGWRITER, HOLLAND-DOZIER-HOLLAND

You and Michael were clowning,
he had three bottIes of wine, I think,

and he was having a food fight.

In the middIe of GIoria Gaynor singing,

Michael threw some jellybeans at me,

and then he started throwing them
in the piano.

(CHUCKLES) And I remember GIoria Gaynor
Iooking up, Iike, "What's going on?"

I said, "He's just a kid at heart."

BRYSON: We ended up
sitting at a table together.

I got up and I went to taIk
to some other peopIe away from the tabIe.

Peabo Bryson
SINGER

When I got back, MichaeI was in my seat,

in my date's ear, in her face.

I tried to wait a whiIe,
maybe he was gonna go away soon.

No, he was so engrossed
in the conversation with my date,

he didn't even notice me coming back.

"MichaeI, get your own."

The first time MichaeI ever drank in his Iife

was at a dinner that I had
with Burt Bacharach

and he drank about a bottle and a half
of a vintage wine

and he loved the taste.

And I remember we went back to my fIat,
and when we got out of the car,

he threw up in the parking Iot.

He threw up in my house, everywhere.

And l was picking up all this mess,
and he said,

"You know, if I toId Joseph,
you wouId be in reaI hot water.

"He wouId be reaIIy mad at you."
I said, "Don't teII him."

Not only did we have fun,

I got to set up a number of coIIaborations
with MichaeI and other artists.

Where I actuaIIy met him
was at a big do for him,

PetuIa CIark
SINGER / ACTRESS

and he had asked for me
to come aIong and sing.

I sang Downtown, of course, inevitabIy.

But it seems that he was a great fan.

BIess his heart,
he financed a recording session for me.

He was a very giving person, MichaeI.

And very funny
and of course deepIy, deepIy taIented.

David caIIed me on one given day
and said that, "I think there's a possibiIity

"that you and MichaeI shouId sit down
and write together."

PauI Anka
SINGER / SONGWRITER

(BALLAD PLAYING)

MichaeI and PauI were in the Jacuzzi
and came up with This ls lt.

Not many peopIe know that I was responsibIe
for putting them together.

UnfortunateIy it evoIved,
and I don't know if you remember,

but MichaeI took the tapes out of the studio
in Los AngeIes,

because he didn't want to finish the project.

He kept them, iIIegaIIy.
We had the same Iawyer, unfortunateIy.

I fired the Iawyer because he couIdn't
find the contract, aII of a sudden.

So, what reaIIy happened was, after MichaeI,
under pressure, returned the tapes,

he obviousIy copied them.

Thus, years Iater, they went into his home,

and they found a copy,
on a cassette or whatever,

of my muIti-tracks, from my studio,

which they thought was new,
they thought it was a new song.

What threw them off was when they heard
"This is it" as the first Iine,

it correIated with the tour
that he was gonna do.

After gathering aII of the evidence, I reaIised
that there was an honest mistake made

and I don't wanna cause any probIems.

So we sat down very quickIy,
within a few hours,

and we hammered out a deaI,
which I think is fair to aII of us.

And that's the story about This ls lt.

GEST: ln 1990, l was producing
the American Cinema Awards,

which honoured Iegendary stars
of the cinema,

as weII as great musicaI entertainers.

And over the years,
we'd honoured many great legends.

There was nobody more quaIified
to win the award

for musicaI Entertainer of the Decade
than MichaeI Jackson.

Ladies and gentlemen,
l would like to express my gratitude

to those responsible
for the American Cinema Awards.

l thank David Gest. You're just fantastic.
Thank you so much.

And final, l thank little Christina and Michael.
l love you all, goodbye.

In 1 993, MichaeI Jackson
was accused of moIestation

by this kid, whose name was Jordy ChandIer,

and by Jordy's father,
whose name was Evan Chandler.

These people were people
that MichaeI aIIowed into his Iife,

and he befriended them.

And the next thing we knew, this kid
was cIaiming that MichaeI had moIested him.

Back in 1993, this was unbeIievabIe
to all of us who knew Michael Jackson.

Because we just really didn't
think of Michael in any kind of sexual way.

He was sort of asexual in our minds
at that time.

If you know MichaeI, you know his heart.

BiIIy Davis, Jr.
SINGER, '5th DIMENSION'

MichaeI was probabIy one of the most gentIe
peopIe that one wouId ever want to meet.

MichaeI aIways toId me he Ioved chiIdren
because they were innocent.

They never wanted anything from him.

MichaeI was aIways so protective of chiIdren.

MariIyn McCoo
SINGER, '5th DIMENSION'

The side that I saw of him,
he was such a famiIy-oriented person.

AII of us, growing up, you may know about,

I mean, we aIways had a baby
in our arms, on our Iaps,

and we always gravitate to kids.

I mean, it's just an innocent thing
and that's as far as it wouId ever go.

KATHERINE: l was sick to my stomach,

because l knew that Michael
wouldn't do a thing like that.

And I was wondering,
why are they Iying on him Iike that?

And I can imagine how MichaeI must've feIt.

GEST: Michael called me and said,

"You do something nice
and peopIe try to fuck you."

And that's what he said to me.

And he was just so hurt.

And I rareIy heard him cuss.

MichaeI was on tour

and they took great care to wait
untiI he go on tour to put this stuff out.

It did appear to me,
and to everybody in the circIe,

and aIso to MichaeI,

that the district attorney, Tom Sneddon,
was reaIIy after MichaeI Jackson.

And he said,
"Why wouId peopIe beIieve this?"

And I said, "You know, I'm having a hard time
understanding it, too, MichaeI,

"but what I think is that for so many years,
peopIe have wondered about your sexuaIity

"and they've wondered,
'Is this guy gay, is this guy straight?'

"No one really could understand it.

"And now that this has happened,
people feel that they have the answer,

"and it's something
that they've decided to latch on to."

And he said, "Yes, but it's not true."

And I said, "Yeah, I know that,
but this is what's going on.

"You know, this is what you are up against."

And he was devastated by the '93 aIIegations,
there's no doubt about it.

Freda Payne
SINGER

I feIt that somebody was trying
to get something out of this

or they were manipuIating a situation.

MichaeI was a target.

MichaeI had made a Iot of money,
and unfortunateIy, in our worId,

we have peopIe out there
who wouId Iike to get some of your money.

And they wiII do aImost anything to get it.

Michael is my brother. l love him a great deal.

La Toya Jackson
Press conference, IsraeI 1 993

But I cannot, and I wiII not
be a silent collaborator of his crimes

against small, innocent children.

It was hard for me to beIieve
that she beIieved that this was true.

Just because, if you knew La Toya
and you knew MichaeI, they were so cIose

that it just seemed unfathomabIe that
La Toya wouId speak out against her brother.

l have seen cheques payable
to the parents of these children,

and l don't know
if these children were apparently bought,

the parents, by Michael, or not,
but l have seen these cheques.

And l've seen these cheques
through my mother.

Jack Gordon was the guy's name
who basicaIIy put her out there

to do things
that was well out of her character.

I can't reaIIy say on teIevision
the words for Jack Gordon.

But he was a man who had no moraIs
and very IittIe cIass.

REBBIE: You can come in contact
with the wrong people without knowing it

or peopIe that surround you,
they can have a strong infIuence on you.

And these kids are gonna be scarred
for the rest of their Iives,

and l don't wanna see any more innocent,
small children being affected this way.

l love Michael very dearly
but l feel even more sorry for these children

because they don't have a life any more.
They don't.

I had spoken to him on the phone

the day after she had said aII those things.

And I have never heard him

feeI so much hate for a person
than he did for La Toya.

I just know that it was something
that was very ugIy and disheartening,

and the family didn't like it at all.

There's certain things
you're not gonna get me to do

for no price, whatsoever,

when it comes to peopIe I Iove and care for.

He was hurt. He was reaIIy hurt.

La Toya Jackson and her husband,
boyfriend, I guess, at that time, Jack Gordon,

and I went to Spain
to do a TV show together.

And it was a crazy TV show, where she
was going to be rigged to a Iie detector

and then l was going to ask her questions.

l can't imagine why she wanted to do this
because l totally thought she was lying.

When MichaeI gave his speech
from NeverIand,

we watched it in the green room backstage
at this TV show.

l ask all of you to wait and hear the truth.

And I remember seeing it with La Toya
thinking, "This is your brother

"and you're getting ready to go on teIevision

"and I'm gonna ask you these questions

"and the Iie detector's
gonna be swinging Iike crazy."

And suddenly, La Toya's price
for that interview

had gone up to, like, $100,000 from $10,000.

Jack said, "You know,
this is now the biggest story in the worId,

"and La Toya is going
to be paid appropriateIy."

And the show wouId not pay her that money,

and so, I ended up
getting a free trip to Madrid.

They served a search warrant on me,

which allowed them to view and photograph
my body, including my penis,

my buttocks, my lower torso, thighs
and any other area that they wanted.

MichaeI did taIk to me about the strip search.

BasicaIIy, he said it was the most
humiIiating experience of his Iife.

He couIdn't beIieve that it couId happen.

He couIdn't imagine
that the Iaw provided for such a thing.

Who wouId stoop as Iow as trying
to take pictures of a person's genitaIs,

and just trying to humiIiate him Iike that?

That was terribIe.

If that can happen, anything can happen.
This man couId end up going to jaiI.

Because this guy, Tom Sneddon,
he is definiteIy after MichaeI Jackson.

And he's got power.
He's got the Iaw behind him.

It was a reaI wake-up caII.

I remember MichaeI caIIing me at 2:00 a.m.
in the morning

and we spoke tiII 5:00 a.m.

And he toId me
he wouId never, ever settIe that case.

He wouId never give the guy a dime.
I said, "You're right.

"If you pay him off,
peopIe are gonna think you are guiIty."

He said he wouId never do that.

MichaeI was getting some reaIIy horribIe
advice at the time from Iawyers,

Tito Jackson
MICHAEL'S BROTHER

saying, "Let's just get rid of it, you know.

"SettIe it out and peopIe wiII forget it
and it'II go away."

The time has come for Michael Jackson
to move on to new business,

to get on with his life,

to start the healing process

and to move his career forward
to even greater heights.

When they settIed the case by paying off,

right away the next day, I caIIed MichaeI,
"Why did you do that?"

And MichaeI said, "Mother, I didn't do that.
I wanted to fight it tiII the end.

"But they toId me,
the Iawyers and things toId me,

"'Just go on and pay it off and settIe it."'

He just heard a Iot of peopIe making a Iot
of promises

Frank DiIeo
JACKSON MANAGER 1 984-89, 2009

and teIIing him, "It's no big deaI."

Like, "Pay them the money,
it's Iike a quarter to you."

The reason they did it
was because MichaeI was out on tour,

they had accused him of this terribIe thing,

and they didn't want to stop the tour,
so they just paid it off.

It was too Iate. He got some of the worst
advice, probabIy, in the music business.

I interviewed MichaeI
right after he made the settIement,

and I asked him, "Why did you do it?

"Don't you reaIise that from this moment on,
peopIe are going to beIieve you were guiIty?"

And MichaeI said he didn't care.

He said, "lt's my life, it's my career,
it's my choice."

I discussed it with him many years Iater
and he did regret the settIement.

It was one thing in the moment,
you know, when you're in pain

and you're making a decision
based on the pain of the moment,

it's another thing when years go by
and you Iook back on it and you think,

"Why did I do that?"

And it wasn't about the $1 7 miIIion,
that meant nothing to him.

It was paid out in an instaIment pIan,
Iike he was buying a refrigerator.

It reaIIy meant nothing to him.

It was just the fact that peopIe beIieved
he settIed because he was guiIty

that reaIIy pissed him off.

DILEO: A lot ofpeople
are very confused on this.

But I can sit here under oath
or any other way you want it,

and l'm a staunch Catholic,
I'II swear on the BibIe,

MichaeI was not gay.

Nor has he ever been gay.

He's confided in me that certain women
that he had reIationships with,

he wasn't pubIic about any of it,

because you don't want the fans
to think you're tied down,

they don't have that shot of getting to you.

I went to his home, NeverIand,

Whitney Houston
SINGER

and he puIIed out aII of the stops.

He picked me up in a heIicopter,
and I got to the house,

and he had a coach and buggy
pick me up from the gate, to his home.

We were in the kitchen, and this
is when he had BubbIes, the monkey.

I had taken off my shoes,
and I feIt this IittIe nibbIe at my toe,

and I thought MichaeI was pIaying
with my toes.

I was Iike, "Oh, MichaeI, aren't you speciaI."

But it was BubbIes sucking on my big toe.

(LAUGHING) l thought to myself,

"You better watch out,
I'II take BubbIes home."

MichaeI toId me about being on the set
of a movie,

and one of the leading ladies
invited him to her room to watch a movie

and I guess the saying wouId be
she "jumped his bones."

I know some of the stars
that MichaeI had been with.

I'II take that to my grave.

When he married Lisa Marie PresIey,
it came out of nowhere

and everybody thought it was a big joke,
incIuding me.

I went on teIevision and I cracked a joke

that if anybody's interested in buying
MichaeI and Lisa Marie a wedding present,

they're registered at Toys R Us.

On my way home,
the phone rang and it was Michael,

and he said, "Of all the people in my world,

"I wouId think that you wouId not
beIittIe my reIationship."

And I said, "WeII, you know, I feeI
reaIIy terribIe right now about this, MichaeI,

"but you have to understand
that this thing with Lisa Marie

"has come out of the cIear bIue sky.

"Nobody understands what's going on here.

"She's from GraceIand,
you're from NeverIand.

"What is going on here?"

We did a very Iong interview,
in which he expIained to me

that he reaIIy feIt very strongIy
about Lisa Marie PresIey,

that the marriage
was a real marriage for him.

And he said,
"And if you don't beIieve me, ask Lisa Marie."

And so I did.

I interviewed Lisa Marie severaI times.

And I can teII you one thing
about Lisa Marie PresIey,

she's tough.

She teIIs the truth.

She is in-your-face honest.

l believed her when she told me
that that was a real marriage.

KATHERINE: lt was a surprise to me.

(CHUCKLES) l had heard it on television,
but he never told me.

He caIIed me, and I said,

"I've been hearing about you being married
to Lisa Marie PresIey."

He said, "Yes, that's why l called you.
l wanted to tell you about it.

"And she's right here.
You wanna speak to her?"

And I spoke to her.

Being raised in the South,
she had that accent.

She had a very deep voice, aIso.

And I toId MichaeI, I said,
"MichaeI, that's not her.

"That's a black girl that l spoke to."

GEST: He was married to his career.

And l don't think any woman
could live with somebody

and find that they pIace second,

and not first.

TARABORRELLI: Michael and Debbie
were always very different.

Debbie Rowe and MichaeI Jackson
were not in Iove.

Debbie Rowe was somebody
that wouId have been a surrogate mother

to MichaeI's chiIdren, had he had his way.

Had he had his way,
we would never even know her name.

The probIem was that MichaeI's own mom

was so determined that MichaeI
not have chiIdren out of wedIock,

that she reaIIy wanted MichaeI
to marry Debbie.

And MichaeI feIt pressured aIso,
by the record industry and by his fans,

to sort of make an honest woman
out of Debbie Rowe.

And she would have done anything
for Michael.

She was a big fan of his. She had posters
of him aII over her apartment.

She wouId have done anything for him.

She never lived at Neverland.

She never moved in to NeverIand,
Iike Lisa Marie did.

Their marriage was a marriage in name only,

so that she couId have his chiIdren
and then they divorced.

MichaeI toId me
the reason he married Debbie Rowe

David Gest
MICHAEL'S CLOSE FRIEND

was because he wanted to have a chiId

and that she was just a really nice person
to be around.

It wasn't that he was so physicaIIy
in Iove with her,

it's that he Iiked that she was a great nurse,
and she understood him.

MichaeI had two chiIdren with Debbie Rowe:
Prince (1 997) and Paris (1 998).

He had a third chiId 'BIanket' in 2002
with an unknown mother.

I got up one day and heard on the radio
The Love You Save by the Jackson 5.

lt was my all-time favourite record
by the group.

And I caIIed MichaeI and said,
"We're gonna do a concert,

"and I'm gonna reunite
you and your brothers."

Michael said no.

Straight out, no.

And I caIIed him again
and I said, "We've got to do this.

"You're gonna make a Iot of money

"and we'II put together a deaI
and you and I wiII own it.

"We'll be partners in this."

And Michael said, "Okay, let's do it."

We set the wheeIs in motion

for the MichaeI Jackson
30th Anniversary CeIebration: The SoIo Years

in New York City at Madison Square Garden.

It was about six weeks before the show.

Frank Cascio
JACKSON'S FRIEND, ASSISTANT

And aII of a sudden, as MichaeI expected,

Jermaine had aII these random requests
and demands.

GEST: Michael was very disappointed
with Jermaine.

He never thought he was very shrewd
or sharp.

He Ioved his brother dearIy.

But there was a competition between them.

MichaeI said, "WeII, if he's a probIem,
get him off the show."

TARABORRELLI: l think it was really difficult
for Jermaine to live in the shadow

of somebody who was as huge as MichaeI.

J. Randy TaraborreIIi
JACKSON FRIEND AND BIOGRAPHER

And they were very, very competitive
in that famiIy.

Two weeks before the show,
Katherine Jackson caIIed me and said,

"I want aII my sons together.

"Jermaine has to go back."

I said, "I can't deaI with him."

And she said, "He will be no problem."

And he came and was a perfect angeI.

MichaeI reaIIy wanted EIizabeth TayIor
at the show, as his date.

But EIizabeth wasn't gonna
do anything for nothing.

"Oh, Michael, l don't know.

"I don't know, MichaeI.

"I'm not feeIing so weII
and I don't know if it's a good idea."

That day, he picked out the most
beautiful necklace for Elizabeth Taylor.

"Oh, MichaeI, I Iove it.

"Of course I wiII come to the show with you.
Of course."

So, EIizabeth TayIor,
for a fee of a $250,000 neckIace,

was MichaeI Jackson's date at the show.

WeII, he is one of my cIosest friends.

Madison Square Garden
SEPTEMBER 7TH, 2001

And we know more about each other,
probabIy, than any two peopIe.

And I Iove him and he Ioves me.

GEST: He was supposed to be in the audience
from 8:00 to 9:00,

watching aII the acts do a tribute to him.

No MichaeI at 8:00, no MichaeI at 8:1 5,
no MichaeI at 8:30.

The CBS peopIe were saying,
"What's going on?"

I said, "He's on his way."

Frank Cascio went over to the hotel.

So I waIk into his room, he's sIeeping.

"What do you mean he's asIeep?"

I couId teII he was out of it
and he wasn't compIeteIy there.

l started shouting at him.
l said, "What did you take?"

So, he told me, he took a shot of Demerol.

He said, "Frank, my back was killing me."

I said, "You're just Iooking for an excuse
to get out of the show.

"Just teII me, isn't that right?"

He wouIdn't answer me.

But I knew that was what it was.

I said, "I don't care what you've taken,
you get on there and entertain."

REPORTER: What makes this
a great night for you?

It's a reunion and I'm honoured
that the worId appreciates my art.

I'm very honoured.

TARABORRELLI: l remember talking
to MichaeI at that time,

and he feII asIeep on the phone
when I was taIking to him.

And I caIIed his Iawyer and I said,
"Is it possibIe that MichaeI is on drugs?"

Because l couldn't imagine it.
Michael never did anything like that.

MichaeI never admitted to anybody
that he had a probIem with drugs.

He was totaIIy aIoof.

Those of us that did know, and tried to help,

he just eIiminated.

He's an amazing man, that he couId,
on the piIIs that he took,

put on a performance.

He Iooked Iike his eyes were cIosed
most of the time,

because I've got the tapes.

But no one knew.

It was a briIIiant show.

A Iot of energy with the brothers
being on stage once more, again.

And the whoIe thing,
just pIaying those hit songs once more,

brought back a Iot of great memories.

I don't know anybody
who couId do aII those dances

and get up there. And he got away with it.

(UP-TEMPO SONG PLAYING)

The TV broadcast of the concert
went on to become

one of the highest rated
'Music SpeciaIs' in American history.

Around 2003, MichaeI became invoIved
with a famiIy by the name ofArvizo.

And Martin Bashir was doing a documentary
about MichaeI.

And it was MichaeI's idea

to feature this kid in the documentary.

MichaeI has a deep affection
for heIping chiIdren in need.

And this chiId happened to have
a severe case of cancer.

MichaeI immediateIy wanted to do something
to heIp, to give this chiId hope,

and give him a reason to live.

A Iot of the peopIe working for MichaeI
Jackson didn't want MichaeI to do this

because they feIt that after what happened
with Jordy ChandIer,

people shouldn't be reminded of any
association that Michael had with any kids.

But MichaeI had no consciousness
of guiIt, at aII.

I saw the originaI documentary
that Mr Bashir produced.

Thomas A. Mesereau, Jr.
JACKSON'S ATTORNEY, 2005 TRIAL

l didn't know Michael Jackson at the time.

But something seemed
very, very manipulative,

very sinister, about the way
he approached MichaeI Jackson.

And what was proof of that
was the na�vet� MichaeI dispIayed

in continuing to taIk to this man,
who cIearIy, in my opinion,

was bent on destroying his reputation.

FEMALE REPORTER: Tonight, 12-year-old
Gavin reveals he spends nights at Neverland,

sometimes in Jackson's bed,
the star on the floor.

Next thing you know, chiIdren protective
services became invoIved,

and different Iawyers
began asking questions,

Tom Sneddon is back in the picture again.

And the Arvizo famiIy, suddenIy, have
decided that MichaeI had moIested Gavin.

Gavin came to MichaeI, and said, "MichaeI,
can we sIeep in your room tonight?"

Frank Cascio - UNINDICTED
CO-CONSPIRATOR, JACKSON TRIAL 2005

And MichaeI Iooked at me and says,
"I don't know.

"You know, I think you better
ask your mother."

"Oh, we aIready asked our mother.
She says, 'Sure, no probIem."'

l'm like, "No. This is... Something's odd.
This is not right."

And then, as I was about to go teII Gavin
that he cannot sIeep in MichaeI's room,

MichaeI says,
"Okay, I have a soIution for this.

"You have to sIeep in the room with me."

The two chiIdren sIept on the bed
and MichaeI and I sIept on the fIoor.

An arrest warrant for Mr Jackson
has been issued

on multiple counts of child molestation.

At this point in time,

Mr Jackson's been given an opportunity
to surrender himself

to the custody
of the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department

within a specified period of time.

They were cIaiming that MichaeI
organised a conspiracy to abduct chiIdren,

to faIseIy imprison a famiIy
and to commit criminaI extortion.

And the other counts had to do
with aIIegations of chiId moIestation.

These were serious aIIegations,
the most ridicuIous aIIegations.

Anyone who knows Michael,
Michael is not a paedophile.

Mr Jackson has been booked
into the countyjail.

He has since been released.
He has posted the bail

and he has been given an arraignment date.

Katherine Jackson
MICHAEL'S MOTHER

It bothered me because I was wondering
how he was feeIing

and how he was deaIing with it.

Michael used to always tell me, "l'd rather
slit my own wrist than to hurt a child.

"And here they are trying to accuse me

"of the thing that I Iove best,
and that's chiIdren,

"accuse me of moIesting them."

The more I Iooked at the facts,
the more I conversed with him,

the more ridicuIous these charges appeared.

He just did not seem Iike the kind of person

that couId ever engage
in this kind of behaviour.

Mr Sneddon was obsessed
with taking down Michael Jackson.

My understanding is that in the mid-'90s,
Mr Sneddon personally travelled

to AustraIia and Canada,
and perhaps other countries I'm not aware of,

to find witnesses against MichaeI Jackson.

He aIso arranged to have a website at the
Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department

where they were Iooking for any witnesses
or evidence against MichaeI.

FinaIIy, in 2004, he got his wish,

a criminaI triaI
with MichaeI Jackson as the defendant.

To see this DA,
with this wicked smiIe and grin,

Iike, he's gonna become a nationaI hero

for catching MichaeI Jackson
doing something that he never did

made me wanna just throw up
on the teIevision.

Jackson himseIf, I beIieve, has said
that this was all done

to try to ruin his new CD that was coming out
or whatever it is he's doing,

like the sheriff and l really
are into that kind of music. But...

(PEOPLE LAUGH)

There was a reaI, sort of, Ieaning
in the press corps

that, "Look, if this is happening again,
then he must be guiIty."

We reaIIy didn't know what they had.

We just... Because it was aII seaIed
and nobody knew what it was.

I personaIIy beIieve this Janet Arvizo

was provoked by someone.

Janet Arvizo is a sick woman.

She has a track history
of shaking peopIe down.

The more I Iooked at the history
of weIfare fraud,

the more I Iooked at their
hustIing ceIebrities to try and get money,

the more l put this package together,
l have to say, l was quite surprised

that the prosecutors pinned their hopes
on these peopIe.

We've been ready to do this
for some period of time.

I wanna cIarify that
so that you understand that.

MESEREAU: Prosecution was like a train
that left the station.

lt was not gonna slow down.

Once they decided
to charge MichaeI Jackson,

it aImost appeared as if they were gonna do
whatever it took

to make sure this thing got to trial
and that they got a conviction.

Seventy sheriffs from Santa Barbara County
raided MichaeI Jackson's home.

Now, I've seen murder cases,

l've seen serial killers have
investigations done in their premises,

with five peopIe, with six peopIe,
with 1 0 peopIe.

Never have I seen this many sheriffs
descend on anybody's home in any case.

It was aII done because of who he was,

and they knew this was gonna be
a worIdwide event,

and, frankIy, it was very despicabIe
as far as I'm concerned.

There was a Iynch mob mentaIity
in Santa Maria that extended

not only to the police
and to the district attorney

but, maybe, to the media as weII.

And l remember when we were standing
in line to get our press credentials,

one of the reporters, a woman,
who was a very popular reporter in America,

pulled herself out of the line and she said,

"Is there anybody standing in this Iine,
besides J. Randy TaraborreIIi,

"who does not beIieve
that MichaeI Jackson is guiIty?"

MESEREAU: And there was the issue ofrace.

When he got in big troubIe,
he reached out to bIack Ieaders

to try and defend him.

He reached out to Reverend Jesse Jackson,
to Reverend Al Sharpton and others.

l wanted to avoid any racial division.

There was a phone caII one night.
It was MichaeI Jackson and his pubIicist.

She wanted to bring black celebrities
into the courtroom.

She feIt this wouId be better for his Iegacy.

And my comment
about this request was that,

you know, if he's convicted,

his Iegacy is gonna be dying
in CaIifornia State Prison.

(CROWD CHEERING)

DILEO: And l flew out, at the request
of Katherine, to go to the arraignment.

When we aII drove up together, you know,
and went through that.

Frank DiIeo
JACKSON MANAGER 1 984-89, 2009

Of course, then he got on the roof.

(CROWD CHEERING)

When he got in the car, l said,

"WiII you stop that aIready?
This is serious stuff here."

He went in there, he was strong,
he was not gonna Iet anything get to him,

he was jumping on the bus,

really proud, you know what,
showing his fans,

"We're gonna get through this,
we're gonna fight.

"Everything's gonna be fine."

When we first started,

MichaeI came in
and he Iooked reaIIy robust and heaIthy.

He was sharp and focused,

and determined to prove his innocence.

Case 1 1 33603: The PeopIe v Jackson
begins on February 28, 2005.

GEST: Even after the first day,

you knew that these peopIe
were onIy after money,

and this was the biggest hoax in the worId
that they were trying to puII.

They put witnesses on the stand
to testify under oath

to things that never happened,

to things that were compIeteIy exaggerated
and untrue.

They were willing to almost throw anything
at the jury,

hoping something would stick.

FEMALE REPORTER: Time for
a diminutive mother of four, Janet Arvizo,

to take centre stage.

Her evidence could end the career
of a pop legend.

What had upset me is they were reporting

Tito Jackson
MICHAEL'S BROTHER

everything that was said about MichaeI,

but they wasn't reporting
anything in his defence.

It Iooked Iike a feeding frenzy to me.

The media were just out

to see the worId's greatest known ceIebrity
faII to destruction.

That's where they thought their ratings
in the future would come from.

And, for me, it was really a disgrace.

During the triaI,

Diane Dimond was the worst person
in the worId.

Nice to meet you. Your hands are very cold.

l didn't say what you thought l'd say.
Did you get my message?

l got your message.

I don't understand how these peopIe
can run out and Iie.

They don't even get a chance
to find out the truth.

Tom Mesereau wouId get there and show...
And cIean it up,

and show that this is not true,
this is reaIIy how it went,

but they wouldn't report that.

And that went on for months.

When we finaIIy got to see
what was being aIIeged,

it just seemed so ridicuIous
and so far-fetched

that I remember one reporter from CNN
came over to me

after the day that the mother testified,
Janet Arvizo,

and he said, "I feeI so used."

Mrs Arvizo cIaimed
that she feared MichaeI Jackson so much

that she thought he
and his henchmen were gonna

put she and her family on a hot air balloon
and let them sail away to their demise.

That was one of, probabIy, 500 crazy things
that came out of this triaI

that the Arvizo famiIy were aIIeging.

Sitting in court,
Iistening to aII these peopIe Iie,

peopIe he'd been good to and aII of that,

he said he couIdn't beIieve
that they were teIIing aII these Iies on him.

These people must have been paid off
to do a lot of this stuff.

CASCIO: l warned him about this family.

I warned him about that mother.
That mother, I read from a miIe away.

She had an agenda from day one.

There was a so-caIIed
rebuttaI video that was pIayed,

the video that the Arvizo family made
after the allegations had surfaced,

in which they cIaim
that MichaeI had been a father figure

to this famiIy.

And they were really adamant about it
on this video.

And this video existed.

And you wouId've thought
that just the fact that this video existed

wouId've been enough
for the district attorney

to not wanna prosecute this case,

because, eventuaIIy,
we wouId have to see this video.

And aII of us wouId then have to Iook at this
and think, "What the heck is going on here?"

Which is exactIy what happened.

MALE REPORTER: The focus, instead,
was on the defence's first celebrity witness,

the actor Macaulay Culkin.

The prosecution had suggested
that in the early 1990s,

he was one of a number of young boys
who'd been sexually abused by Jackson.

MESEREAU: l have to say,
Chris Tucker and Macaulay Culkin

wiII aIways go down in my book
as IoyaI, good friends.

They had managers and agents and lawyers
who didn't want them to get involved,

and they both told me that, "When Michael
needs us, we're gonna be there."

There were other witnesses,

peopIe he knew at NeverIand,
who came in to teII the truth.

We had a lot of people
that rose to his defence.

GEST: l stood by him
because he was a decent, good man,

with a warm heart, a Ioving heart.

The famiIy were extremeIy supportive
of MichaeI Jackson throughout this triaI.

His mother never missed one day.

The trial lasted almost five months.
She never missed a day.

I knew what MichaeI was going through

and my heart just bIed for him aII the time.

TARABORRELLI: The family was there

and there was this, sort of,
sense that it was gonna be okay.

l remember they showed
the Martin Bashir documentary,

and Michael's music
was playing throughout it,

and I remember Iooking
around the courtroom

and seeing aII these heads
bobbing up and down to MichaeI's music.

And I thought to myseIf,

"Wow, this is gonna be
some crazy moIestation triaI,

"because everybody here
is, sort of, rocking out to Billie Jean. "

It just seemed very surreaI to me.

MESEREAU: The prosecution, in my opinion,
didn't know what to do

with the fact that they found
1 0 years' worth of magazines,

Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, at Neverland,

which wouId suggest
that MichaeI Jackson was heterosexuaI,

and interested in seeing pictures
of beautifuI women who were naked.

They weren't quite sure how to fit that
into their theory that he was a paedophiIe.

So they came up with the notion that
a paedophiIe wiII take magazines Iike this

to somehow groom the aIIeged victim.

The district attorney
showed so much pornography

that your head was spinning
by the time this was over.

It was the onIy day that Katherine

excused herself from the courtroom
for the afternoon.

I thought, they're constantIy
fIashing this materiaI at the jury,

which was a majority of femaIes, by the way,

I thought just was stupid,
but that's what they did.

They couIdn't find any pornography
on his computers.

They had the FBI test
every computer at NeverIand,

they couIdn't find any kiddie pornography.

So they just tried
to fit everything into their theory

and it just became an absurdity.

You just knew that there was
reaIIy something devious going on.

This guy, Tom Sneddon,
was really out to get him.

It had to be totaIIy torture.

I couIdn't imagine what was going on
in his mind and in his head.

He's not strong in that way, though.

MESEREAU: The stress and strain
of this five-month trial took a toll on him.

You saw him losing weight,
he was having trouble sleeping.

I wouId taIk to him at 3:00, 4:00, 5:00
in the morning,

and he wouId be terrified,

particuIarIy about what might happen
to his chiIdren.

He did need some things
to heIp him faII asIeep at night,

because there was no way he was sIeeping
with aII this stuff going on in his head.

I don't know how anyone couId sIeep.

GEST: The thought that
you might be found guilty

and spend the rest of your life in a jail cell

and aII your accompIishments
washed down the drain,

I don't know how he coped.

Most peopIe wouId've taken
a gun to their head.

His frame of mind was very, very fragiIe,

and l was concerned for him.

He was very worried
about his children and his mother

and what people would think.

TARABORRELLI: The first day
of Gavin's testimony,

Michael shows up and he's in pyjamas,

and he Iooked Iike
he was in reaIIy bad shape.

And they actuaIIy, they had to, Iike,
heIp him into the courtroom.

From that moment on,
everything started to get reaIIy awfuI.

You started seeing Michael coming
in every day, looking like death.

lt was as if the testimony
was just destroying him.

To sit there in court
and watch the IegaI system hurI

absurd and vindictive and nasty,
mean-spirited aIIegations at him Iike this,

absoIuteIy traumatized him.

For me, and for other peopIe
who actuaIIy knew MichaeI,

this was a reaI human being,
whose Iife was being destroyed,

and every day it just seemed to get worse.

5 months after the triaI began the attorneys
presented their cIosing arguments.

On June 1 3th, 2005 after 9 days
of deIiberation the jury reached a verdict.

If found guiIty of aII 1 0 charges MichaeI faced
spending the rest of his Iife in prison.

(CROWD CHEERING)

One of the sheriffs came to me and said,
"You've got the best seat in the house."

And l said, "Why?" And he said,
"Because you're sitting right behind Michael.

"And when we find him guilty,

"we're going to get him out of there so fast
that your head's gonna spin."

These peopIe had aIready decided
that MichaeI was guiIty.

And they were sure of it,

so sure that they had an exit pIan
to get him out of there.

Michael came into the courtroom
and he looked like he was on serious drugs.

He reaIIy, truIy Iooked
Iike a dead man waIking.

MESEREAU: lt was a tense moment,
you know,

the entire worId stopped
to watch what was gonna happen

to the best known ceIebrity,
a musicaI genius, MichaeI Jackson.

That was such an awfuIIy emotionaI day,
you just didn't know what to expect.

WOMAN: We, thejury,
in the above entitIed case,

find the defendant not guilty of conspiracy,

as charged in count one of the indictment.

(ALL CHEERING)

The verdict was read and it was, "Not guiIty.
Not guiIty. Not guiIty. Not guiIty."

AII the way down the Iine,
aII counts, "Not guiIty."

And l remember, very specifically,
Michael seeming to not understand.

And I remember Tom Sneddon Iooking
at MichaeI for a reaction

and not reaIIy getting one.

And I aIso remember
Tom Mesereau, his Iawyer, Ieaning in

and mouthing to MichaeI Jackson,
"You're a free man."

I couId read his Iips, 'cause I was so cIose.

And Michael still didn't get it.

You felt like it was a triumphant moment

but then when you Iooked at him,
you reaIised that he wasn't there for it.

There was nothing you could do.

He was so devastated that it had happened

that you couIdn't even find a pIace
to be happy that it ended the way it did

because it was so devastating
that it had occurred at aII.

It's sad because I reaIIy feeI that triaI

is what reaIIy depressed
my brother out to the point

where he just wasn't happy.

He never went back to Neverland.

For Michael not to go to Neverland,

he must've been pretty sad.

Didn't wanna have nothing
to do with that pIace ever again.

He wouId aIways teII me,

"It's over. I don't trust anyone.

"I don't know why they're doing this to me.
They want me dead."

He said,
"They're gonna kiII me for what I got."

(CROWD CHEERING)

I'm pretty sure there was times
when he feIt that, you know,

"I wish I was someone eIse,"
or, other than an entertainer.

There's a certain point
that you can get to with success

Smokey Robinson
ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS

where you have no Iife whatsoever.

You lose the ability to be a person.

To be a person that cannot be a part
of the everyday Iife of this worId,

RusseII Thompkins, Jr.
LEAD SINGER, 'THE STYLISTICS'

it couId reaIIy be devastating on the mind.

PAYNE: You can't get it all for free.

And that's what happened with MichaeI,

Freda Payne
SINGER

he had to give up so much
that he Iost his abiIity

to just walk amongst everyday people.

This was the first artist
that I'd been associated with,

Kenny GambIe & Leon Huff

PRODUCERS / SONGWRITERS,
PHILADELPHIA INT. RECORDS

and the onIy artist
that I'd been associated with,

that you couId not waIk down the street with.

Look at my Iife. It's somewhat normaI.
It's not normaI, but it's a IittIe normaI.

But judging my Iife to his,
his was nowhere cIose.

He just couIdn't be anonymous.

ImpossibIe.

(CROWD CHEERING)

(FANS SCREAMING)

MichaeI Jackson is procIaimed
the King of Pop.

Martha Reeves
ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS

lt's kind of hard being a king.

You can get out of sorts.

I think he, kind of, Iike, isoIated himseIf
from everyone who wouId say no.

BILLY DAVIS JR.: Everything he wants is,
"Yes. Okay, Michael."

It's hard to have someone there

BiIIy Davis, Jr.
SINGER, '5th DIMENSION'

to give you an honest answer,
an honest opinion.

KATHERINE: Joseph would always tell him,
"Michael, watch your people.

"Michael, watch your people."

He said, "I trust my peopIe.
My peopIe are good peopIe."

But that's not the case.

Katherine Jackson
MICHAEL'S MOTHER

PeopIe smiIe in your face,
pat you on the back

and stab you at the same time.

These peopIe saw money,

Bobby TayIor
ARTIST, GORDY / MOTOWN RECORDS

and they saw somebody
who they couId get to.

lt was hard for Michael to say no,
as a kid and as an adult.

Because he generated so much weaIth
and so much profit,

Thomas A. Mesereau, Jr.
JACKSON'S ATTORNEY, 2005 TRIAL

he became the repeated target
of unsavoury characters,

many of them mediocre,

who tried to get near him,
promise him the moon

and then profit themseIves
by being around him.

And I think he received some tremendousIy
bad advice throughout his career

when it came to finances.

MichaeI was an easy touch,

and anybody couId take advantage of him

just because he trusted everybody's word.

MichaeI wouId bring random peopIe
into his Iife for business deaIs.

They wouId offer him the worId
and MichaeI wouId beIieve them.

Michael told me he only committed
to 10 shows at the O2 dome

for his comeback concerts.

When he found out
that he was committed to 50 shows

and there was no way of getting out of it,

he snapped.

He felt like they'd tricked him,
he was put up against the wall

and let down by people,
or misled, l should say.

It was thrown on him by his manager

and, in his state of mind,
he couId've said yes to anything.

After I heard that he was doing
those many shows,

I started caIIing him, teIIing him...

Then I heard how they were gonna
do 'em every other day,

and I toId him he couIdn't do it that way.
He had to rest.

And I kept after them.

DILEO: The wear and tear

of all the managers,

aII the promises that they didn't Iive up to,

took its toII.

ProbabIy, a more stronger person
wouId be abIe to fight through a Iot of that,

and a Iot of them have.

Frank Sinatra, he was pursued the same way,

but he seemed to be a person
who couId put peopIe at bay.

But it seemed like Michael has
a certain type of frailty to his self

and it wouIdn't aIIow him
to be very strong-minded

or to be forcefuI with a Iot of peopIe.

KATHERINE: Everybody he met,
he trusted them, for some reason.

And I think that's why MichaeI
was taken advantage of so much.

Doctors are human beings, too,

and they get star-struck,

and they want a IittIe touch of that fame,

and they wanna be abIe to say,
"I'm MichaeI Jackson's doctor."

MichaeI wouId doctor shop,
Iike a Iot of ceIebrities do,

and he'd find the doctor,

just the right one, who would do the thing
that Michael wanted him to do.

MichaeI feIt that he needed to escape,

and he had aIways been suffering
from insomnia,

from as far back as I can remember.

CASCIO: Michael Jackson did have a problem.

Do I beIieve he was an addict?

No, I don't beIieve MichaeI Jackson
was a drug addict.

He went through cycles.

It reaIIy depended on what was happening
in his Iife and in his worId.

KATHERINE: l had no reason to think
or believe that he was on drugs

untiI my chiIdren came to me one time
and they said it,

and I said,
"WeII, I've never seen him in that shape."

Then l went to him
and I taIked to him about it,

and he kept denying it.

DILEO: l asked him, l said, "Now, Michael,
is there any problems l should know about?"

"What do you mean?"

I said, "WeII, you know,
once in a whiIe you seem a IittIe dizzy.

"You wanna go to rehab?"

"No. No! There you go. See?
Now, why wouId you assume that?

"I'm not taking anything, Frank.
I'm not doing one thing."

TARABORRELLI: One ofthe people
working for him said,

"You won't ever guess
what this man is doing to get to sleep."

And I said, "What?"

And I was toId he's using an anaesthetic.

And I said, "What?

"How do you do that?"
I had never heard of such a thing.

He said, "Dude, I don't know what to teII you,
but that's what's going on."

UnfortunateIy, he did find doctors
who were wiIIing to do this crazy thing

that uItimateIy Ied to his death.

Fire Paramedic 33.
What is the nature of your emergency?

ALVAREZ: We have a gentleman here
that needs help, he's not breathing.

NEWSCASTER: We have breaking news
for you tonight,

the singer Michael Jackson
is reported to have died from a heart attack.

I heard that my brother had passed away
through my sister Janet,

Tito Jackson
MICHAEL'S BROTHER

who asked me to puII over
'cause I was rushing over to my mom's.

l just couldn't believe it.

So, I had to just sit in my car
and puII myseIf together,

you know, and I went over
to my mom's home.

The entire family had met that evening,

and was there condoIing each other,
you know.

It was rough.

Just the whoIe time
was a rough time in my Iife.

Rebbie Jackson
MICHAEL'S SISTER

It's so very difficuIt even to taIk about it.
It reaIIy is.

PAYNE: l was heartbroken.

I was just totaIIy heartbroken.

It was probabIy one of the most surreaI

Peabo Bryson
SINGER

and soIemn days of Iife as we know it,
I wouId think.

I was devastated. I started to cry.

David Gest
MICHAEL'S CLOSE FRIEND

We had spent 40 years of our lives
as the closest of friends.

And l couldn't believe it.

I remember the feeIing I got, you know.

Lamont Dozier
SONGWRITER, HOLLAND-DOZIER-HOLLAND

It was Iike somebody punching you
in the stomach.

God, it was just so...

EDDIE FLOYD: l didn't follow the news a lot.

I'II teII you why I didn't foIIow the news.

Eddie FIoyd
SINGER / SONGWRITER, STAX RECORDS

It's because of the peopIe
expIoiting the man.

That makes me sad.

EDWARDS: The night that Michael died,

the next show I did,
I mentioned MichaeI, too.

Dennis Edwards
LEAD SINGER, 'THE TEMPTATIONS'

It just was...

PeopIe just stood up, you know.
They stood up.

And a lot of people took
their cigarette lighters out

and just lit it.

You know, it's just sad, man. It's sad.

TITO: lt's just a sad moment,

to have to carry one of your brothers
to his grave.

MICHAEL: We would perform all night,
tell you the truth, every day.

It's not a good feeIing.

It's a major part of you died with that.

MICHAEL: And there was this man's house,
who used to sell candy,

we used to stop there and just load up,
eat candy for days.

KATHERINE: l neverlost a child.

ChiIdren are supposed to bury their parents,
not parents bury their chiIdren.

And that's what hurt me the most.

Many days, I go back to his first cry,

from the doctor sIapping him on his butt,

up till his death.

But

aII the memories of MichaeI are fond to me.
I can't pick out any particuIar.

l'm happy with the children here,

and at the same time,
l'm sad because their father's gone.

They always say, "Daddy did it this way.

"Daddy used to do this.
Daddy used to do that."

Those kids are so proud of their father.

I can't find words.

To me, it's just such a Ioss, too soon.

Eddie HoIIand
SONGWRITER, HOLLAND-DOZIER-HOLLAND

It Ieft such a gap
and made us see what was missing.

VaIerie Simpson & NickoIas Ashford

SINGERS / SONGWRITERS,
'ASHFORD & SIMPSON'

Why hadn't we embraced him?
Why hadn't we Ioved him?

PAYNE: He gave us so much love

and so much wonderfuI music.

And I think that this is what
we'II aIways remember him for.

I Iove the fact that everything he sang,
he sang from his heart.

And I Iove Iistening to him singing,
every record he's ever recorded.

MichaeI's Iegacy is that he wiII be known
as the greatest entertainer ever.

ROBINSON: Michael was a great talent.

He was the best overaII taIent
that I've ever seen in my Iife,

and I've been foIIowing taIent
since I was three years oId.

He was the best I ever saw.

I'II remember that IittIe boy that I met
when he was 1 0 years oId,

Dionne Warwick
SINGER

that IittIe feisty, cute,
incredibIy taIented youngster,

that went on to become one of the greatest
entertainers that ever Iived.

There's onIy one MichaeI Jackson.

To me and my chiIdren,

Percy SIedge
SINGER

he meant so much to our Iives.

He was, to me, the greatest entertainer
I had ever seen in my Iife.

Whitney Houston
SINGER

He was a gentleman and he was very kind.

And I'II aIways Iove him, aIways.

REBBIE: He was one ofthe warmest

and most IoveabIe persons
you couId ever meet.

I think MichaeI's greatest achievement,
throughout his Iife,

was making peopIe happy,

heIping peopIe.

If somebody needed an operation,
or a famiIy starving that needed food,

he wouId send over groceries for a year
and things Iike that.

I think that's where
he reaIIy got his enjoyment,

seeing somebody sad become happy.

Those are the things he reaIIy wanted
to achieve that was beyond the music.

We wiII remember him
as this great showman and humanitarian.

When peopIe say to me,

"Do you think of MichaeI
as being a tragedy?"

I just don't think of that at aII.

I think that MichaeI's story
is one of triumph.

This is a man who was the totaI embodiment
of the American dream.

This is a guy who came out of Gary, Indiana,
and set the worId on fire.

He did amazing things with his life.

Did he make mistakes? Yes.

But that's the humanity of MichaeI Jackson,
I think, that's most appeaIing.

DOZIER: He wanted to make the world
a better place.

That spirit of his is stiII around now.

The part that I Ioved the most about him
was that gentIe friend side.

All the other things, everybody knows about.

But that part of MichaeI,
that's the part I Iove.

God bIess MichaeI Jackson, you know,
'cause he was one of the greatest.

Kenny GambIe & Leon Huff

PRODUCERS / SONGWRITERS,
PHILADELPHIA INT. RECORDS

MichaeI Jackson became
the biggest pop star of aII time

but that's not how l'm gonna remember him,

because he was just one great human being.

Rest well, my friend. l love you, M.

Katherine, how do you feeI
MichaeI Jackson wiII be remembered?

WeII, David, MichaeI practised one thing,
and it was from his heart,

L-O-V-E, Iove.

And I think he wiII be remembered
for the Iove that he had for the worId,

and especiaIIy for his fans,

and his famiIy.

-Thank you so much.
-Okay.

-I Iove you. Can I have a big hug?
-Of course.