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CNN PEOPLE IN THE NEWSProfiles of Angelina Jolie, Michael Jackson
Aired June 11, 2005 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ANNOUNCER: When PEOPLE IN THE NEWS returns, he's the legendary pop star, now more famous for his off-the-wall behavior and image makeovers than his music.
BOTEACH: He puts on that black thing, that mask. And I said to him, take that stupid thing off! You look like a monkey!
ANNOUNCER: Michael Jackson, from superstar to just plain bizarre, coming up next.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Welcome back to PEOPLE IN THE NEWS. Michael Jackson's fate is now in the hands of eight women and four men. After a four- month long trial, the pop star's child molestation case went to the jury last Friday, and it's been a waiting game ever since.
A look now at the one-time King of Pop's transformation from international superstar to celebrity defendant.
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ZAHN (voice-over): This is how we first saw Michael Jackson. A charismatic, precocious pop star singing songs like "I Want You Back" with his brothers, the Jackson 5.
Yet, this is the same person, the child who became the biggest star in the world, now on trial facing charges of child molestation.
For more than 30 years, we've been fascinated by Michael Jackson. We've watched as he's transformed himself from an African-American boy to something completely different. He's arguably one of the most famous men on Earth, yet seems to live in a child-like world of his own.
GELLER: There's something blocking his mind, which makes him one of the children. He's just never grown up.
BOTEACH: He would always give me these rational and intelligent explanations as to why his success was directly tied to him choosing to remain a child.
ZAHN: But what is reality and what is image making? Where does the truth start and the myth end? To paraphrase his hit song, who does Michael Jackson see when he looks at the man in the mirror?
J. RANDY TARABORRELLI, BIOGRAPHER: There is no star like Michael, no celebrity like Michael, and no person like Michael. He is completely unique.
ZAHN: Michael Jackson grew up in Gary, Indiana, the seventh of nine children. Their steel worker father, Joe, turned five of his boys into a band with a then 5-year-old Michael out front.
PETER CASTRO, ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR, "PEOPLE" MAGAZINE: He was a symbol for the consummate entertainer. You know, not since Sammy Davis, Jr. had someone come along with such a diverse range of talents.
ZAHN: As seen in the video from a documentary produced by Michael Jackson, the group auditioned for Barry Gordy, founder of Motown Records.
TARABORRELLI: From the time most kids were building tree houses, Michael Jackson was building an image. At the age of 10, he was told to say that he was 8. And Michael was happy to play along with that, because he understood at a very early age that image-making and public relations was very important.
ZAHN: It worked. The Jackson 5 exploded onto the pop charts. Their first three singles, "I Want You Back," "ABC" and "The Love You Save," all hit number one.
But behind the image of the happy family and their rags-to-riches story, there was something else -- incredibly hard work and a father who pushed his children.
TARABORRELLI: When Michael discusses these beatings today, he gets very emotional. It's clear that he hasn't come to terms with any of that yet.
BOTEACH: On the one hand, he would always complain. My father didn't love me enough. My father made me into a performance machine. My father was too strict. He was too much of a disciplinarian. He would make me rehearse too much. I would see kids on the monkey bars and I would cry because I couldn't have a childhood.
ZAHN: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach was a friend and spiritual adviser to Michael Jackson for two years.
BOTEACH: I said to him, "Look at the flipside of that. Because of that, you became a big performer. And maybe even because you weren't given enough love as a child, you wanted the world's love. So you worked really hard, perfecting your dance moves, and you became a superstar. Would you trade it in for a normal childhood and give up the celebrity?" And interestingly, he'd say to me every time, "No, I wouldn't do that."
ZAHN: Jackson and his brothers would become pre-teen idols, appearing in commercials and on magazine covers.
However, Jackson's teenage years were awkward. He suffered from bad acne and was self-conscious about his appearance.
BOTEACH: He did say to me that he was once on an airplane and his father said to him, "You know, your nose isn't nice," or something like that. And generally, he expressed to me that he was made to feel that he was ugly, that he was not pretty.
ZAHN: By 1979, the Jackson 5 had made a highly publicized split from Motown, and Michael Jackson was ready to spread his wings.
Michael soared with his first solo album, "Off the Wall." Songs like "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough," and "Rock With You" reaching number one.
JOHN NORRIS, SR. CORRESPONDENT, MTV NEWS: They are songs that still hold up today. They don't sound dated. I guess what none of us could have anticipated was the album that they would then produce after "Off the Wall."
ZAHN: That album was 1982's "Thriller," and it would catch fire when Jackson unveiled an out-of-this-world dance move on a TV special for Motown's 25th anniversary.
NORRIS: What a moment that was in pop culture history when he moon-walked across the stage there.
TOURE, CNN POP CULTURE ANALYST: So he's doing the moonwalk, which when he first did it, nationally, it was like, wait, is gravity being, like, messed with here, special effects, like what are we doing? And I mean, you know, within six months, every 10-year-old in Dallas could do it.
ZAHN: The transformation was complete. Michael Jackson was about to go from child pop star to the biggest star on the planet.
When PEOPLE IN THE NEWS continues, chimps, oxygen chambers, the Elephant Man's bones -- Michael Jackson's bizarre behavior.
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ANNOUNCER: Now back to PEOPLE IN THE NEWS.
ZAHN: In December, 1982, 24-year-old Michael Jackson released "Thriller," and with that historic piece of vinyl, a phenomenon was born.
TOURE: Michael was not a phenomenon with "Thriller." He was beyond phenomenon. I mean, the record flew out of stores. You know, it could not be stopped.
NORRIS: From the iconic look to the moonwalk to the glove.
CASTRO: The red jacket and -- with the zippers and glasses and the white socks.
TOURE: King of Pop is too small a moniker for him. He was beyond that.
ZAHN: Saying "Beat It" to the competition, for 37 weeks, the album sat at number one.
Fan clubs, trading cards, Michael dolls. The Michael Jackson craze reached fever pitch.
In 1984, Jackson took home seven Grammys. He also raised eyebrows with his red carpet companions, Brooke Shields and Emanuel Lewis.
TOURE: I don't think anybody, even, like, the Iowa housewives, were saying, well, you know, they're not sleeping together. And Emanuel Lewis was right there as the underline, like this is not sexual at all.
ZAHN: In July, 1984, the Jackson 5 reunited in a flurry of publicity. But their victory tour reviews were mixed. Seemingly, soft-spoken Michael was retreating into a world of his own.
NORRIS: Michael had begun to exhibit a certain, I think, aloofness and a tendency to kind of withdraw from the world.
CROWD: Michael! Michael! Michael!
ZAHN: By 1985, the pop star's plastic surgery began to take shape.
TOURE: Every few months, you would see him and you'd go whoa, hey, you're looking weird, dude. But I think it was about '85, '86, and I was like, wow, he's not going to be able to get any weirder than this. And then two years later, I was like, I was wrong.
ZAHN: In 1986, a photograph of Michael asleep in an anti-aging chamber rocked the tabloids. In 1987, his interest in the Elephant Man's bones, Bubbles the chimp, Liz Taylor, and an array of strange disguises set tongues a-wagging.
BOTEACH: And he puts on that black thing, that mask, and I said to him, Take that stupid thing off! You look like a monkey! You look like you're insane. And he said -- and even then, he said to me, well -- it was more like, he says, a razzle-dazzle king of thing. It's mysterious.
ZAHN: Jackson's follow-up to "Thriller," the album simply called "Bad" hit the stores in 1987.
The pop star's eccentric behavior hardly deterred the album's record-breaking five number one's.
"Bad" went on to sell eight million copies, and Jackson went on to change his image once again. Taking cue from "Bad's" title, he became a crotch-grabbing tough guy, a far cry from his gentle off- stage persona.
And yet, the money kept rolling in. In March 1988, Jackson finalized the purchase of a 2,700-acre ranch. The cost, $28 million. He filled the property with an amusement park, a private zoo, and named the oasis, Neverland.
NORRIS: There's a reason it's called Neverland Valley, you know. His fixation on the I won't grow up, I'm a lost boy, I'm Peter Pan.
BOTEACH: He repudiated the adult world. For him, it was a world of betrayal. He'd say to me, Shmuley, you know why I'm the biggest star? Because I'm so much more creative than others, I'm so much more playful. I experiment more. They don't. They're rigid. They've calcified, they've hardened. They've become adults. They've grown up.
ZAHN: And with Neverland, came the children.
TARABORRELLI: Michael began to sort of surround himself with young boys. And much to, I remember, the chagrin of people who were working for him.
ZAHN: Three years later, in the fall of 1991, "Dangerous" was released. Long awaited, the buzz was big. As a result, its lead single, "Black or White" shot to number one.
Coincidentally, fans were wondering about Michael's much lighter skin tone. Was he black or white?
CASTRO: If you believe the fact that he -- you know, that he has this congenital skin condition, that's why he's so white, then fine. But a lot people think that he has bleached his skin. With Michael Jackson, you never know what the truth is.
ZAHN: Coming up, not once but twice, scandal rocks the gates of Neverland.
NORRIS: There are people who to this day are convinced that he never abused a child in his life. I also know people equally convinced that 10 years ago he got away with something terrible, and that he is a predator, and that he may get away with something terrible again.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: Welcome back to PEOPLE IN THE NEWS.
ZAHN: By the early '90s, Michael Jackson's new music, even fresh R&B hits like "Remember the Time," couldn't come close to the phenomenon he had created with "Thriller."
Jackson's strange appearance soon began to overshadow his music. He became more reclusive, retreating further into Neverland, where he continued to surround himself with children.
Then in 1993, disturbing allegations surfaced, concerning his association with children. A 13-year-old boy filed a lawsuit, accusing the singer of sexual molestation. Jackson denied the accusation on TV.
JACKSON: I ask all of you to wait and hear the truth before you label or condemn me. Don't treat me like a criminal, because I am innocent.
ZAHN: The case was eventually settled for nearly $20 million. And the suit was dropped in 1994. But Jackson's reputation was seriously damaged.
Less than a year later, Jackson made headlines once again when he married Lisa Marie Presley, the 26-year-old daughter of Elvis.
TOURE: It was quite obvious to all of us from the beginning that it was a sham, that it was a publicity stunt, and it was just kind of disgusting and silly.
ZAHN: The marriage collapsed less than two years after the wedding. Presley filed for divorce in 1996. But later that year, Jackson sent shock waves around the world when he remarried. The singer tied the knot with Debbie Rowe, the nurse of his dermatologist.
TARABORRELLI: The thing about Michael is that he does want what he wants and he will find a way to get it. She offered to have a child for him. She thought he should be a father. And as unconventional as it is, if you really look at it, it's sort of surrogate motherhood.
ZAHN: Rowe gave birth to their son, Prince Michael Jackson, in 1997. The couple divorced in 1999, just a year after they had a baby daughter, Paris Michael Catherine. Jackson was granted full custody of the children.
In 2002, Jackson was front page news again when he dangled his newborn son, Prince Michael II, from the balcony of a Berlin hotel.
TOURE: He thinks he's being loving. I mean, you know, it's sort of like the anti-King Midas, like everything he wants to do just gets screwed up.
ZAHN: Just a year later, Jackson was catapulted back into the limelight when he was featured in the Martin Bashir documentary, "Living With Michael Jackson." In the show, 44-year-old Jackson admitted to letting children sleep with him in his bed at Neverland.
JACKSON: It's not sexual. We're going to sleep. I tuck them in. We put -- I put little, like, music on and it's a little story time. I read a book. ZAHN: Uri Geller, author and self-proclaimed psychic, became friends with Jackson five years ago. He said he urged the singer to keep children out of his bedroom.
GELLER: Michael Jackson doesn't listen to anyone. And he's his own man. I was the only person that had the chutzpah to scream at him and tell him that his business of inviting children to his bedroom is wrong. And Michael just stared at me. He cannot comprehend the severity of such an invitation.
ZAHN: That documentary triggered the bombshell news that pushed the faded pop star back into the spotlight. Just nine months after the show aired, the 13-year-old cancer patient featured in the documentary accused Jackson of sexual abuse.
Although Jackson denies the abuse allegations, he was arrested and charged with multiple counts of child molestation.
And now as we await the verdict of the sensational trial, will the world ever comprehend the true nature of this man?
GELLER: No one knows Michael Jackson really but Michael Jackson himself. I once asked Michael, here in this house, I looked into his eyes and I said to him, "Michael, are you lonely?" And he looked up at me. It was like a 10-second stare, and then he said, "I am a very lonely man." And I think that said it all.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: If Michael Jackson is convicted on all 10 counts in his child molestation case, he could face up to 20 years in prison.
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