Michael Jackson

My fifth birthday party was M.J. themed, I insisted. My mother found a lookalike to come sing happy birthday and I KNEW he wasn't MY Michael. Thank you Michael Jackson for being my FIRST of many! My mother took me to my FIRST concert, I was only two years old. I fell in love.

As a kid Michael was always beyond his years, he was an innovator, he was a genius at what he did. He had a knowingness about him. At 9 years old, when I first started working with him, he seemed to me like he had been here before. He was just so knowledgeable about life.

The media first turned the trial into a freak-show by emphasizing Jackson's peculiarities rather than his humanity, and stoked the ratings with constant, trivializing coverage while other, far more important stories went under-reported or completely ignored in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, and Washington, D.C. The press might respond by saying, We gave the people what they wanted. My response would be, My job is to give them what they want. When he steps into a recording studio, it's Michael Jackson's job to give them what they want. Your job is to give the people what they need.

From the beginning of my career, he was my idol in show business. He was a genius and an incredible artist!

He was the best cook ever.

Know what I also love? Mannequins. I guess I want to bring them to life. I like to imagine talking to them. You know what I think it is? Yeah, I think I'll say it. I think I'm accompanying myself with friends I never had. I probably have two friends. And I just got them. Being an entertainer, you just can't tell who is your friend. And they see you so differently. A star instead of a next-door neighbor. That's what it is. I surround myself with people I want to be my friends. And I can do that with mannequins. I'll talk to them.

"It's all for love... With the love, L.O.V.E."

I always looked up to him--and my dad--since I was a little boy.

I had just come back from Nigeria and he asked what I went to do in Nigeria because he had never visited Nigeria and I told him about the historical Badagry project that we are doing in Nigeria and he felt the same way I felt; he felt that the project must be done because it is imperative that we understand what our forefathers and fore mothers went through. He looked forward to the finishing of the project because he wanted to come and see it and I assured him that we would get the project done. The only thing is that when we do finish this project he will not be there physically, but he will be there in spirit."

I personally can’t believe it. But it’s more unfortunate for the world of music. My love goes out to his family. … A sad day in history, not [just] music.

Well, they say the sky's the limit,
And to me that's really true,
But, my friend you have seen nothing,
Just wait 'til I get through.

This came down to a prosecutor either so sure Jackson was bad or so offended by Jackson's combination of celebrity and wackiness that he rushed into a case that looked shaky from hello. It looked worse as Tom Sneddon went along, and had become nearly ludicrous by the time Jackson's ex-wife left the stand. No matter how pure Sneddon's motives may have been (and I'm not saying they were, believe me), he began to look like a man pursuing a vendetta, one whose chief hope of securing a conviction lay in the obvious fact that the trial was a sideshow and the accused was ... well, a freak.

Walters: How do you feel when people call you..

I am so sadened by MJs death. I clung to those records throughout my childhood. A complete musical hero of mine. May he rest in peace.

He tried to raise us without knowing who he has was, but that didn't really go so well.

What I'm asking is whether this is still a country where a peculiar person such as Michael Jackson can get a fair shake and be considered innocent until proven guilty ... or is this just a 21st-century American barnyard where we all feel free to turn on the moonwalking rooster ... and peck it to death?

It ain't too much stuff,
Jam, it ain't too much,
It ain't too much for me to jam!

I wish I got to tell him how much his music existence changed my life. He was my biggest inspiration and will forever live on in my heart.

In our darkest hour, in my deepest despair,
Will you still care? Will you be there?
In my trials and my tribulations,
Through our doubts and frustrations,
In my violence and my turbulence,
Through my fear and my confessions,
And my anguish and my pain,
Through my joy and my sorrow,
In the promise of another tomorrow,
I'll never let you part,
For you're always in my heart.

Michael had read some of the details regarding Laura and Euna’s predicament. As was often the case with him and global events he read about – from famine in Africa to victims of natural disasters in far off countries, to orphans created by wars – he felt a deep sense of empathy for Laura and Euna. When I shared with him that Euna had a four-year-old daughter, he was even more anguished.
He asked me whether I had had any contact with Laura. I told him I had written her a few letters and had been assured they were getting through. Outside of that, her own family had only heard from her twice – brief monitored phonecalls – in the over three months they had been imprisoned. When I told him that, Michael paused.
“Do you think,” he said hesitantly, “that the leader of North Korea could be a fan of mine?”
I didn’t really know how to respond. Not much is known about the reclusive Kim Jong Il or “Dear leader” as he is called in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Over the years it’s been alleged he has a thing for Hollywood, certain NBA stars, Elvis, and specific liqueurs. Still, I’d never heard about any connection between Michael Jackson and Kim Jong Il. ... "I don’t really know,” I answered Michael. “But I can try and find out.”
“Please,” Michael responded without hesitantly, “because maybe if he was a fan, I could help get those girls home.”
I explained to Michael that there were larger geo-politics involved, nuclear programs, a new administration trying to assert its foreign policy strategy (Obama), and another one in NK possibly going through some sort of transference of power.
“Yeah,” Michael said wistfully, “but if someone wants to do something good, they just can. They don’t really need to worry about all that other stuff.”