In all the TV coverage that I watched on Thursday night of the death of 50-year-old Michael Jackson from cardiac arrest, one quote from the so-called “King Of Pop” stood out the most.
It was during one of the last in-depth chats he did on Christmas Day, 2003 in a Los Angeles hotel room with the late 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley.
A pale, heavily-made up and heavily-sculpted-looking Jackson — unrecognizable when compared to shots of him as a child and young man — had been accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy in Santa Barbara, charges of which he was later acquitted. (A decade earlier, similar accusations were made but the accuser was paid off.)
Wide-eyed and almost incredulous, he is explaining to Bradley how it’s okay to share your bed with boys, reiterating the sentiment he expressed in a British documentary the previous year.
But it’s really later in the interview where Jackson makes the most telling comment about his extraordinary life.
Bradley asked Jackson what he’d say to his fans who might have some questions at this point.
“If you really want to know about me, there’s a song I wrote, which is the most honest song I’ve ever written. It’s the most autobiographical song I’ve ever written. It’s called, Childhood. They should listen to it.”
And so, in my completely numb state yesterday — honestly I wasn’t shocked or sad given the downward, bizarre, strange and off-putting trajectory Jackson’s life had taken in the last decade and a half (I had way more empathy for the passing of 62-year-old Farrah Fawcett earlier in the day after a brave battle with cancer) — I decided to look up the lyrics.
“Before you judge me/try hard to love me/look within your heart then ask/have you seen my Childhood?” goes the song. “People say I’m strange that way/’cause I love such elementary things/it’s been my fate to compensate/for the Childhood I’ve never known ... Before you judge me/try hard to love me/the painful youth I’ve had.”
In other interviews, Jackson — who had his first No. 1 album at age 10 with The Jackson 5 — talked about being teased, made fun of, and even beaten by his strict father Joseph.
“I was his golden child,” he said, by way of explanation.
Another family friend said in a TV interview on Thursday that the reason Jackson changed his looks so drastically is because he looked in the mirror and saw Joseph’s face staring back at him.
So, this is the conclusion I’ve come to.
Was Thursday’s untimely death the price Jackson ultimately paid for all that early success and was it really worth it then, given his fans and family — including three children — no longer have him?
Jackson was on the eve of a comeback series of sold-out concerts — 50 in all at London’s O2 Arena that were slated to begin in the middle of next month — but now we’ll never know if he still had the goods in a live setting.
Even the family’s own official spokesperson said Thursday night on CNN from UCLA Medical Center, where they unsuccessfully tried to revive him, that he had predicted Jackson’s early demise due to a dependency on prescription drugs, and that they had gotten in the way of his show rehearsals.
TMZ was reporting yesterday that Jackson was given a daily dose of Demerol and he had been admistered one just before his death.
Ultimately, I realized my non-reaction could only be attributed to one obvious thing — the Michael Jackson who died a middle-aged man wasn’t the Michael Jackson from my youth.
Not as a musician nor as a human being.
Growing up in Vancouver, Jackson’s 1982 blockbuster Thriller was the soundtrack to our parties, but by the time he stopped touring North America — his last Canadian stops were 25 years ago — I had moved on.
Later during the last 13-and-a-half years as a music critic for The Toronto Sun/Sun Media he was barely on my radar, musically speaking, although the artists who were influenced by him — most obviously Usher, Justin Timberlake, and other pop-R&B stars — certainly were.
The only Jackson albums I ever reviewed were 1995’s HIStory — one disc greatest hits album, one disc new studio album — and 2001’s Invincible, both of which were disappointing overall despite some decent singles, notably Scream, with his sister Janet.
So what was that empty feeling I was left with on Thursday?
His incredible musical achievements as a boy and young man had been overshadowed by the personal demons, because clearly there was damage there, whatever was going on, that dominated his adult life.
And it was that transformation that made me truly sad in the end.
jane.stevenson@sunmedia.ca
