I don’t know what it is. >> Well, they used to have those products growing up. I used to hear always use bleach and glow, but you’d have to have about 300,000 gallons to >> Okay, number one, this is the situation. I have a skin disorder that destroys the pigmentation of the skin is something that I cannot help.
Okay, but when people make up stories that I don’t want to be who I am, it hurts me. So, it is it’s a problem for me. Okay, I can’t control it. Okay, but what about all the millions of people? So let’s reverse it. >> Okay. >> What about all the millions of people who sit out in the sun >> to become darker? To become other than what they are.
>> Mhm. >> Nobody says nothing about that. >> So when did this start? When did your the color of your skin start to change? >> Oh boy. I don’t Sometime after Thriller. >> Mhm. >> Around Off-the-Wall Thriller sometime. >> What did you think? I mean, you >> It’s in my family. My father said is on his side. I can’t control it.
I don’t understand. I mean, it makes me very sad. >> Wacko Jacko. Where’d that come from? Some English tabloid. >> I have a heart and I have feelings. I feel that when you do that to me, it’s not nice. >> For a large portion of his life, Michael Jackson was interviewed as if he were a riddle that others had the right to unravel.
The most amusing thing, though, is that he didn’t seem to be as shaken by the questions as they became more hostile. He didn’t always respond with fury. Sometimes he spoke calmly, sometimes he smiled, and other times he just murmured enough. Leaving the interviewer to sit in the quiet they had just made for themselves. >> How what how nervous are you right now? >> M I’m not nervous at all, actually.
> You really aren’t? >> No, I never get nervous. >> You don’t? >> No. >> No, not even for your first interview and it’s live around the world. I thought you’d be a little nervous, but that’s great cuz if you’re not nervous, I won’t be nervous. I just wanted to let the world know that uh when we agreed to do this interview um you said that you would be willing to talk to me about everything and we haven’t discussed one single question that’s going to be uh asked here tonight.
Just wanted to make that right. >> Very true. >> Very true. >> And that is what makes the Oprah interview such a fantastic place to begin. In 1993, Oprah Winfrey landed Michael Jackson’s first live broadcast interview in 14 years. And from the opening minutes, it was evident that this was not going to be a light, harmless celebrity conversation.
>> Please. It’s crazy. >> Do you go out? Do you date? >> Yes. >> Who do you date? >> Well, right now it’s Brooks Hills. >> Mhm. >> That’s I don’t Well, we try not to just be everywhere and go. It’s mostly at home. She’ll come over. I’ll go to her house cuz I don’t like going out in the public. >> Have you ever been in love? >> Yeah.
>> Mhm. with Brook Shields. Yes. And another girl. And another girl. >> At one point, she asked the question that still gets replayed decades later. Are you a virgin? Michael’s answer was pure composure. I’m a gentleman, he said, turning a deeply personal, almost invasive question into something he could deflect without losing his cool.
>> I’m going to ask you this, and it’s embarrassing for me to ask you this, but I’m going to ask you anyway. Are you a virgin? How could you question? I’m just I just want to know. I want to know. >> I’m a gentleman. >> You’re a gentleman. >> I’m a gentleman. So >> I’m a gentleman. >> So okay, I would interpret that to mean that means that you believe that a lady is a lady and therefore >> it’s something that’s private.
I mean, you know, shouldn’t be spoken about openly. You can call me oldfashioned if you want, but you know, to me that’s very personal. >> So you’re not going to answer it? >> I’m embarrassed. [laughter] Oprah. >> Oprah later reflected that asking it was embarrassing even to her. The whole exchange tells you everything you need to know about Michael’s relationship with the media.
He was constantly expected to explain his private life on demand. And when the questions crossed the line, he refused to give them the satisfaction of a dramatic meltdown. >> Well, we would like to know whether or not there is a possibility that you are going to marry one day and have children. I would feel that my life is incomplete if I do not because I adore the family life.
I adore children and I adore that whole thing and um I would love to. That’s one of my dreams but I couldn’t right now because I’m married. I am married but to my work. >> I’m married to my music. >> That same 1993 interview also crucial because it recorded the exact manner tabloids had started to dominate his public image.
By that music point, people were obsessing with his face, his skin, and his body frequently with practically no interest in what he really said. >> Then let’s go to the thing that is most discussed about you, I think, is the fact that the color of your skin is obviously different than it was when you were younger.
And so I think uh it has caused a great deal of speculation and controversy as to what you have done or are doing. Are you bleaching your skin? And have are is your skin lighter because you don’t like being black? >> Okay. Number one, there as I know of there is no such thing as skin bleaching. >> I have never seen it.
I don’t know what it is. >> In his 1988 autobiography, Moonwalk and again in his 1993 interview with Oprah, Jackson said he had had only two nose jobs and chin cleft implant while denying the rest of the surgery rumors. >> You have those products growing up. I used to hear always use bleach and glow, but you’d have to have about 300,000 gallons to >> Okay, number one, this is the situation.
I have a skin disorder that destroys the pigmentation of the skin is something that I cannot help. Okay, but when people make up stories that I don’t want to be who I am, it hurts me. So, it is it’s a problem for me. Okay, I can’t control it. >> Okay, but what about all the millions of people? Let’s reverse it. Okay.
>> What about all the millions of people who sit out in the sun >> to become darker, to become other than what they are. >> Mhm. >> Nobody says nothing about that. >> So, when did this start? When did your the color of your skin start to change? >> Oh, boy. I don’t Sometime after Thriller. >> Mhm. >> Or Off-the-Wall Thriller sometime.
>> What did you think? I mean, you >> It’s in my family. My father said is on his side. I can’t control it. I don’t understand. I mean, it makes me very sad. >> How much plastic surgery have you had? >> Very, very little. Mhm. >> Very. >> You can count them on two fingers. I mean, let’s say this.
If you want to know about those things, all the nosy people in the world, >> once we say it, once we say it, we don’t have to say it anymore. >> Read my book, Moon Walker. It’s in my book. >> You know, let’s just put it this way. If all the people in Hollywood >> who have had plastic surgery, if they went on vacation, there wouldn’t be a person left in town.
> I think you might be right. I think I am right. [laughter] He also said that his fluctuating skin tone was caused to vitiligo, a disease later validated by his autopsy. So when viewers watched Michael sit across from Oprah, they were not just witnessing a celebrity answer questions.
They were seeing a man try to fix a public story that had already been written around him by gossip, rumor, and spectacle. >> I don’t want to go into my medical history because that’s something that’s private, but that’s the situation here. So please, when people see something like that, >> I just want to get this straight. You are not taking anything to change the color of your skin.
You did not purposely >> we’re trying to control it and using makeup >> evens it out cuz it makes blotches on the skin and I have to even out my skin. But you know, it’s funny. Why is that so important, you know? That’s that’s not important to me. I’m a great fan of art. I love Michelangelo. If I had a chance to talk to him or read about him, I would want to know about what inspired him to become who he is, the anatomy of his craftsmanship, not about who he went out with last night or why he decided to sit out in the sun so long. What’s wrong
with I mean, that’s what’s important to me. >> That is the primary reason Michael Jackson clips go viral even now. He did not sound defensive in the way interviewers expected. He sounded measured. He sounded like someone who had recognized that the audience had already made up its mind, but still wanted to give the truth a chance to be heard.
And in the Barbara Walters interview from 1997, that same dynamic crops up again. >> Are you psychic? Is that what you’re saying? >> I don’t want to say that, but I’ve done it before. >> And you thought it might be you? >> Yes. I’ve been living in that kind of life all my life. The tabloid press, that kind of pre, not the press, the tabloid, the paparazzi, that type.
[music] I’ve been running for my life like that, hiding, getting away. You can’t go that way cuz they’re over there. Well, let’s go this way. Pretend we’re going that way and we’ll go that. Well, somebody said, “Hold on. Stop. [music] This person deserved their privacy. You are not allowed to go there.” The interview >> the interview was conducted in Paris and eventually aired onto ABC.
And by then, Michael had already spent years being dissected by the press for his appearance, his solitude, and his habits. Contemporary references to the interview make clear that Walters asked about the paparazzi and his personal life, but the broader media debate around that moment reveals how much people were still fixated on his appearance.
>> This you should not do. You should not say he’s an animal. He’s a Should not say he’s Jacko. I’m not a jacko. I’m Jackson. >> How do you feel when they call you wacko jacko? >> Wacko jacko. Where’d that come from? Some English tabloid. I have a heart and I have feelings. I feel that when you do that to me.
It’s not nice. Don’t do it. I’m not a wacko. >> There are those who would say that you add to the attention. >> No, I don’t. >> Well, the masks, the the mysterious behavior. There’s no there’s no mysterious behavior. There’s a time when I give a concert. I like to have as many people want to come can come and enjoy the show.
And there’s a time where you want to you like to be in private when you put on your pajamas, go to sleep, cut off the light, ding, and lay down. That’s your private space. You go in the park. I can’t go in the park though. So, I create my own park in Neverland. My own water space, my movie theater, my theme park. That’s all for me to enjoy.
>> I don’t want this to sound insulting. I’m just going to be straight with you. But you are somewhat eccentric to say the least. The way you dress, the way you look, it invites attention. More extreme. You don’t think that calls the paparazzi to you? >> No. No. >> No. >> No. Maybe I like to live that way. I like to dress that way.
I don’t want paparazzi really. But if they come, be kind. Write the right kind thing to write. Michael, is it the journalist’s role or the press’s role to be kind? >> To be kind because the press also sometimes has to look into things, be tough. You can’t always be kind. >> What you saw what happened to Lady Diana? You tell me.
There should be some boundaries some kind of way. The star needs some space. Give him a chance to relax. He has a heart. He’s here. Who? Who proposed? I mean, how did marriage actually get discussed? >> Well, well, at first, this is what happened. When she was 18, I used to tell my lawyer, John Brana, “Do you know Lisa Marie Presley?” He go, “Well, I represent her mother.
” I go, “Well, can you get in touch with her?” Cuz I think she’s really cute. And he’d laugh every time. He goes, “I’ll do my best.” That’s what he’d say. Then he’d come back. I said, “Well, did you find out?” He said, “No, there’s nothing.” So, I would worry him about this all the time. The next thing I noticed, there’s a picture on a a magazine cover where she’s married, which really tore me to pieces.
>> Vanity Fair later noted that roughly 60 million people watched it, and that it was Jackson’s first major interview after the 1993 allegations, making the whole thing feel less like a conversation and more like a public trial in front of millions. The interview was widely promoted as No Holds Barred, which tells you everything about the mood of the moment.
Jackson and Lisa Marie were not just talking about a marriage. They were talking inside an atmosphere of skepticism, tabloid obsession, and media hunger. >> Did you ask Michael about the charges? Did the two of you talk about the impact of the marriage on the allegations? >> Absolutely not.
He called I was in touch with him through the whole process of this charges going on. I was talking to him when he disappeared. I was actually supposed to go to San Juan, Puerto Rico when he left and disappeared and I got a call that he wasn’t going to be there and I was actually part of the whole thing with him but talking to him on the phone.
So I >> did you say to him are they true? >> No, I didn’t. No, I actually did not. >> I want to take a minute here and I’m going to come back to the marriage. >> Sorry. He he went on and on and on about it. So I didn’t really have to say are the allegations true. It was, >> you know, on the phone, you know, >> and just constant. Yeah.
>> When Sawyer pressed them, the strange thing was that Michael never seemed rattled in the way the coverage around him often suggested he should be. He looked controlled. Lisa Marie looked protective. And the whole exchange turned into a lesson in how to sit through a hostile spotlight without letting it consume you.
I want to begin by making sure that the terms are clear. You have said that you would never harm a child. I want to be specific as I can. [gasps] Did you ever, as this young boy said you did, did you ever sexually engage, fondle, have sexual contact with this child or any other child? Never. Ever. I could never harm a child or anyone. It’s not in my heart.
It’s not who I am and it’s not what I’m I’m not even interested in that. >> And what do you think should be done to someone who does that to someone who does that? What I think it should be done? Gee, I think they need help in some kind of way, you know. >> How about the police photographs though? How was there enough information from this boy about those kinds of things? >> The police photographs that they took of me.
There was nothing that matched me to those charges. Nothing. There was nothing that concurred. >> That’s why I’m sitting here talking to you today. Every there was not one iod of information that was found that could connect me. >> So when we’ve heard that there was a marking of some kind. >> No markings. >> That interview is also one of the clearest examples of how people were trying to turn Michael’s private life into entertainment.
The press wanted to know if the relationship was real, if it was strategic, if it was weird, if it was performative, if it was all a publicity move. But the more the interviewers pushed that angle, the more Michael and Lisa Marie seemed determined to insist on their own version of events. >> Why did you settle the case then? >> Why did you settle the case? And and it looks to everyone as if you paid a huge amount of money.
>> That’s most of that. >> I talked to my lawyers and I said, “Can you guarantee me that justice will prevail?” >> And they said, “Michael, we cannot guarantee you that a judge or a jury will do anything.” And with that, I was like catatonic. I was outraged. How much money? >> Totally outraged.
So what I said, [gasps] I have got to do something to get out from under this nightmare. All these lies and all these people coming forward to get paid and and these tabloid shows is lies, lies, lies, lies. So what I did, we got together again with my adviserss and they advised me. It was hands down a unanimous decision.
Resolve the case. This could be something that could go on for seven years. How much? >> Let’s get it behind us. >> The power of this moment is not that Michael gets angry. it is that he refuses to let the interview live on the terms the interviewer wants and that mattered because this was not a normal celebrity chat.
This was one of the biggest TV events of the year and Jackson’s every expression was being treated like evidence. >> We have called everyone we can call. We have checked everything we can check. We have gone and tried to see if what we heard before is in fact the case. I want to ask you about two things. these reports that we read over and over again that in your rooms they found photographs of young boys not of adults of children all kind of girls and everything then that they found photographs books of young boys who were undressed.
>> No, didn’t happen. >> No, not that I know of unless people sent me things that I haven’t opened. People sent people know my love for children. So they send me books from all over the world from South America, from Germany, from Italy, from Sweden. So if people say that that they found those things, if there’s an indication, let them come forward.
Let them produce them. Right. >> Yeah. Because I get all I I get all kind you you wouldn’t believe the amounts of mail that I get. And if you say to somebody, you know, if I let the fans know I love Charlie Chaplan, I’ll be swarmed in Charlie Chaplan paraphernalia. One, but if I say I love children, which I do, they swarm me with everything pertaining to kids.
>> Then there is the 60 Minutes interview, which may be the most uncomfortable of them all. Michael Jackson addressed the controversial issue of sharing his bed with young ones during his interview with Ed Bradley. The subject had become one of the most loaded parts of his public image, and Bradley did not come to the conversation as though it were a casual clarification.
>> Here is part of that conversation. >> What is your response to the the allegations that were were brought by the district attorney in Santa Barbara that you you molested this boy? >> Totally false. Before I would hurt a child, I would slip my wrist. I would never hurt a child. He is totally false. I was outraged.
I could never do something like that. >> This is a kid you knew. >> Yes. >> How would you characterize your relationship with this boy? >> I’ve helped many, many, many children. Thousands of children. Cancer kids, leukemia kids. This is one of many. that British documentary last February, which you didn’t like.
>> Yeah, I didn’t like it. >> You said in that documentary that that many children have slept in your bedroom. You said, and I’m going to quote here, why can’t you share your bed? The most loving thing to do is to share your bed with with someone. >> Yes. A >> as we sit here today, do you still think that it’s acceptable to share your bed with children? >> Of course.
The tone was serious because the stakes were serious. And that is exactly why Michael’s composure became part of the spectacle. The more aggressively the subject was framed, the more he seemed to retreat into precision. He did not act like someone who wanted to win an argument. He acted like someone who knew the argument itself had already become the story.
>> Of course, why not? If you’re going to be a pedophile, if you’re going to be Jack the Ripper, if you’re going to be a murderer, it’s not a good idea that I’m not. That’s how we were raised. And I I didn’t sleep in the bed with the child. Even if I did, it’s okay. I slept on the floor. >> I gave the bed to the child.
>> If you want one of the clearest examples of Michael turning the pressure back on the media, it is probably the 2003 Martin Basher interview. Living with Michael Jackson was a documentary built around Basher following him through his life. But Jackson later said he felt betrayed by the way the program framed him and presented his behavior as a father.
>> You know, you you physically changed, haven’t you? the photographs of you if I look at them. >> No, it’s called adolescence. It’s called growing and changing. >> Yeah, but even the shape of your face has changed. >> It has not. I’ve had no plastic surgery on my face. Just my nose. It helped me breathe better so I can hit higher notes and have clear the press.
It’s like to add on all this stuff. Nothing’s been done to my eyes, cheekbones, chins, lips, nothing. They made it all up. >> Do you think that people do go too far with plastic surgery generally? Do you think it’s become >> So why are you so defensive when people say Mick Jaggers had one, Paul McCartney may have had one, Michael Jackson’s had one.
>> They don’t do it that way. >> What do they do? They just pick on me like I’m the only one that does it. That’s why. >> By 1987, in the Ebony Jed interview, he was already carrying himself like someone who knew exactly how the world was trying to define him. These early interviews matter because they show that Michael’s public poise did not start with the scandals.
It was there from the beginning. He learned early that if you gave the media too much emotion, they would turn it into a story about you instead of what you were trying to say. So he became careful. He became deliberate. He became someone who could sit under a camera light and still feel untouchable. >> A lot has been required of you.
Do you sometimes regret being so utterly famous? [sighs and gasps] >> No, sometimes. Only sometime. Sometimes I want to sneak into places and not have any hoopla or you know and uh and it doesn’t work all the time because people start and they crowd around and which is sweet. I mean I shouldn’t complain but >> No, but you have a you have a right to complain because everybody has a right to go out there and to just be alone.
But it seems like that right isn’t really given to you. >> Well, it’s part of the work I would say. And that is the real power of these moments. They are not about Michael Jackson shouting the loudest or destroying people in the most obvious way. They are about him refusing to surrender his dignity when the questions got ugly.
They show a version of him that was often much sharper than the interviewers expected because he understood something they didn’t. The more outrageous the question, the more important it was not to give it the reaction it wanted. If you enjoyed this look back at Michael’s most powerful moments, hit like, subscribe, and let me know in the comments which interview you think he handled
