Michael Jackson: FOR ME LOVE IS SOMETHING VERY PURE

After all the tales told about Michael Jackson’s “odd” sexuality it is a great relief to find out that he was a completely normal man.

You can see it with a naked eye that Lisa-Marie Presley was so infatuated with him that she fought for him for years after their divorce. If some other woman were in her place we would probably doubt her word and intentions, but Lisa-Marie’s word? Knowing the way she is, any doubt is simply ruled out.

Marriage for Michael was definitely much more than sex. If you read about the way he spoke of an ideal woman you’ll see how pure his expectations were and how terribly difficult it was for him to find that special kind of a girl who could make him really happy:

• ‘There are very few I like who fit the mold… The ones who were classy and quiet and not into all the sex and all the craziness because I am not into that… For me love is something very pure’.

The fact that he was saying these words in a completely private conversation with Shmuley Boteach (probably never meant for print and anyone’s eyes) makes his words all the more precious to us – there is absolutely no way we can suspect him of being insincere or playing it up to the public. And though I’m awfully resentful of Rabbi Shmuley taking advantage of his intimate conversations with Michael Jackson, the tapes themselves turn out to be a complete blessing for anyone who wants to know what kind of a man Michael really was.

To me he stands out as a man who didn’t regard a woman as a sex object only. He was looking for a girl who could be fun to live with, a playmate and a friend besides being a lover – a human being who would fully share his ideals in life and support him in times of trouble, and a great mother to his children of course.

The only thing I don’t understand is how on earth he could retain so pure an ideal of a woman in his heart after seeing so much dirt in night bars they performed in, and after staying in hotel rooms where his older brothers had sex with their fans? How could he remain that innocent and pure despite all that? This is totally unfathomable to me…

Below is an excerpt from Rabbi Shmuley’s tapes free from all the rubbish he said about Michael. The more I read of and about Michael Jackson the better I understand that there is absolutely nothing better than his own words. So read and enjoy Michael himself speaking about his ideal of a woman, family life and children, his preference of tomboyish girls to those keen on manicure only, as well as his love for innocence and his shrill at just touching a girl’s hand (what an old-fashioned feeling now forgotten alas).

The tapes were made by Rabbi Shmuley in 2000/2001 for a book he said they were to write together with Michael. Please remember that if this is the case, Michael was still to select and edit the material before having it published. So what we see here is a rough, unpolished and therefore fully sincere view of Michael Jackson on love, women and family life:

Shmuley Boteach:  In trying to preserve childlike qualities in your life you Michael, you have shied away from talking about overt sexuality. Like when Oprah asked you about your sex life, you responded something to the effect that, “I’m a gentleman and I don’t talk about that” [ ] So you were brought up to be shy and modest about things pertaining to love and romance?

Michael Jackson: Yes, we don’t talk about it.

SB: You have been married twice, Michael. Do you still believe in romance or have you had some negative experiences and it is therefore more difficult to believe?

MJ: No, I believe in it, but I am shy about it. None of us have invited our parents to our weddings. We don’t believe in it. We are too shy. I wouldn’t dare in a million years to have my mother at a wedding of mine. I can’t have myself walking down the aisle and my mother sitting there. That’s why we all ran off and got married secretly and my mother reads it in the paper and she doesn’t mind. Because we are just like her. She would have done the same thing.

SB: So love has to be something hidden and concealed?

MJ: It’s like private, like mushy stuff.

SB: And mushy stuff is always private?

MJ: Yeah.

SB: Well, I also believe that romantic love thrives through mystery and concealment. But we can’t overdo it. Your parents should definitely be at your wedding. So romance is something you believe in but you have been taught to be shy about it?

MJ: I am shy. I don’t know how good I am at it because I am shy. I am very different in that way. I have heard guys be really poetic with girls and, “Oh baby, this and that.” I am not like that. I am like straight to the point and say it simply.

SB: So what do you do in things like music videos when you’re expected to portray romance and do love scenes and things like that?

MJ: That’s why it is my job to cast the girl, because it is my job to think they are cute. So I can do it if I really like them, like some of the girls you see in my videos. I have cast them because I really like them and it caused a problem afterwards because they start to really like me, and I don’t want to get that serious, and it becomes a problem sometimes.

SB: You probably face this all the time because not only are you famous, but you are the kind of guy who women want to be around—soft, gentle, not afraid to express his emotions. Women die for guys who aren’t afraid to show vulnerability and softness, whereas a lot of the guys in Hollywood are stereotypically self-absorbed, self-obsessed, and can’t commit. So do you often find that this happens, that women get clingy?

MJ: What do you mean?

SB: Like you said, it is supposed to be a professional thing. You just film something with a female costar, but afterwards they become attached.

MJ: Yes, it happens.

SB: How do you break the news to them that you don’t reciprocate?

MJ: When they see me running the other way. Yeah. Some of them follow me around the world and it is so hard.

SB: That probably makes them chase you even more because they probably are drawn to that boyish shyness. To be sure, many women like “bad” boys. But for the same reason, a lot like shy guys. In the same way they believe that they can redeem the bad boy and polish up this coarse diamond, they believe the same thing about the shy guy. They think, “Only I can bring him out of his shell.” But I guess after a while, with you running halfway around the world from them, they get the message. But you never tell them directly?

MJ: No, because it would hurt them too much.

SB: What did Cindy Crawford want from you last night?

MJ: I have seen Cindy from afar several times, and she was with other guys, and we have met up at other functions . . . from afar. I think she felt this was her chance to really meet me. She probably admires me. A lot of the people come over. What you saw was nothing.

SB: You have seen celebrities behave like that, like a pack of dogs, chasing after someone who is more famous than them? It was so degrading.

MJ: Yes! It’s worse.

SB: What did she talk to you about?

MJ: [Imitating Crawford] “How are you?” I go. “I’m all right’ “Oh, you sure you are okay? Oh. I just love your work, and I love what you do. How long are you in town?” I said, “I am working here. I’m recording’

SB: Do you think there was a romantic interest?

MJ: Yeaaah. I kinda think so.

SB: Was she asking you out?

MJ: Those girls flirt. . . they flirt. She is pretty.

SB: It was blatant. A banker who was with us at the table said to me, “Cindy Crawford, when she is up close, she is just another gal.” I said. But what is she doing here?”

MJ: Did you see Donald Trump come over?

SB: Now he is an interesting man.

MJ: A woman I really liked and respected was Princess Diana.

SB: Why?

MJ: Because she was classy and sincerely cared about people and children and the plight of what was going on in the world. She didn’t do it for show. I like the way she made her kids wait in line to get on a ride for something.

SB: Was she a feminine kind of woman?

MJ: Very feminine and classy. She was my type for sure, and I don’t like most girls. There are very few I like who fit the mold. It takes a very special mold to make me happy and she was one of them. For sure.

SB: Because of her love of kids?

MJ: It takes a lot to find a mirror image, a mirror image. People always say that opposites attract and I think that is true, as well. But I want somebody who is a lot like me, who has the same interests and who wants to help and they gotta go to hospitals with me and care. .. That’s why you saw Lisa Marie and me at those kinds of things. She cared about that stuff, too.

SB: Did you ever think of asking Princess Diana out?

MJ: Absolutely.

SB: So why didn’t you have the nerve to ask her?

MJ: I have never asked a girl out in my life. They have to ask me.

SB: Really?

MJ: I can’t ask a girl out.

SB: If she would have asked you out?

MJ: Absolutely. I would have gone. Brooke Shields asked me out every time you saw us out together. It was her idea to go out and do it every time. I sincerely liked Brooke Shields too. I liked her a lot.

SB: Does she like kids?

MJ: Yes. My first girlfriend. Tatum O’Neal, she’d won the Academy Award for Paper Moon … I was sixteen, she was thirteen. And was I naive. She wanted to do everything and I didn’t want to have sex at all, because there were a lot of values associated with being a Jehovah’s Witness. I said, “Are you crazy?” One of those was to be kind to everyone.

When I held Tatum’s hand it was just magic, better than anything, kissing her, anything. Her, Ryan Q’Neal and myself went to this club and were watching a band and underneath the table she was holding my hand and I was melting. It was magical. There was fireworks going on. It was all I needed. But that means nothing to kids today. She grew up too fast. She wasn’t into innocence, and I love that.

Now Brooke Shields, she was one of the loves of my life, we dated a lot. Her pictures were all over my walls and mirrors. I was at the Academy Awards with Diana Ross and she just came up to me and said, Hi, I’m Brooke Shields. Are you going to the after party?” I said “Yeah, and I just melted.” I was about twenty-three. . . during Off the Wall. I thought, Does she know [that photographs of her are] all over my room?” So we get to the party and she says, “Would you dance with me?” And we went on the dance floor. And man, we exchanged numbers and I was up all night, spinning around in my room, just so happy. She was classy. We had one encounter when she got real intimate and I chickened out. And I shouldn’t have.

Lisa. . . we’re still friendly, but she’s running around. She just changed her number and we don’t have the new one yet.

SB: Can you immediately tell innocence?

MJ: Right away, although I find it harder to tell with women because they’re so smooth. But with men, I can usually tell, because they’re more open and like puppies, while girls are more like cats. You know how if you’ve been on vacation and get home and a puppy is all over you, while with a cat, it’s, “Hey, I don’t need you. You walk over to me and pick me up.” They give you attitude. They’ll walk right by you even though they haven’t seen you in three months. Women are very smart. Walt Disney always said they’re smarter than men. and (he] always hired more women.

[…]

SB: The same principle of not being overexposed. Would you advise women in relationships to do the same thing? Would you say to people today who get bored of one another, You know, fifty percent of marriages end in divorce and so much of it is that husbands and wives just get tired of one another. They get weary and bored. Would you say that if there was more – mystery, if they learned to hold back and leave room to discover one another, then there would be more adventure in their relationship?

MJ: Yeah, yeah. I think going away is good. Like they say, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” I totally believe in it. Going away is really important. I don’t understand how people can be together all day with each other and be totally fine. I think it is sweet and beautiful. . .

SB: Have you seen marriages like that?

MJ: I have seen couples, yes. I don’t know how they do it. Because creatively they have to do so many things.

SB: So the women you have dated, the ones who were smart enough not to throw themselves at you, were they the ones that you were more interested in, the ones who weren’t always available and you had to chase them a bit?

MJ: The ones who were classy and quiet and not into all the sex and all the craziness because I am not into that.

SB:  They are the ones that you are more interested in?

MJ: Aha. I don’t understand a lot of things that go on in relationships and I don’t know if I ever will. I think that is what has hurt me in my relationships because I don’t understand how people do some of the things they do.

SB: Mean things?

MJ: Mean things and vulgar things with their bodies. I don’t understand it and it has hurt my relationships.

SB: So for you love is something very pure?

MJ: Very pure. It shocked me some of the things.

SB: What was it about Diana, that kind of a woman, her dignity, that kind of innocence? Do you see that often in people where they have a regal bearing to them?

MJ: No, we don’t see it and that’s what I love. I think she truly cared about people’s feelings and really tried to make the world a better place. I really believe that her heart was out for other people. You could see it in some of the photos where she is touching those little baby’s faces and they are sitting on her lap and she would be holding them. That is not faked. You could see it. When you see the queen come out she has got these gloves on and she is waving from a distance, you can see the heart. You can see.

You put your money where your mouth is and you go in those huts and go in those ditches and sit with them and sleep there. That’s doing it, that’s what I do. Remember when you said you saw my picture in China in some hut, some lady’s hut. I go in there and I touch the people and I see them.

SB: When you are in a meeting, are you able to see who is the hard-nosed businessman, bottom line is everything, he’ll manipulate, lie, whatever it takes, and the ones who are pure, more innocent, who you want to do business with? Can you see immediately? Or, on the contrary, do you see with a child’s eyes and see goodness in everybody, which is why you have sometimes ended up with people who aren’t the nicest people?

MJ: That’s true, too. It works both ways, but you can detect it and feel it in another person. There is this man in LA and he works in a vinyl record shop and he has got to be in his fifties and he has the spirit of an eleven-year-old boy. I always stare at him and he stares at me and there is like this telepathy going on. He talks like a kid and the way he moves his eyes. I say to myself, “This is so interesting.” I’d like to get to know him better and find out what is this. I mean it. It’s amazing. I feel it. I feel it in children right away, of course. I pick up on it like that and children can tell it in you.

SB: It’s almost like a relief. Here is someone who understands me?

MJ: Ye all. Their eyes light up when you come over and they want to play and they feel it.

SB: Michael, have you never met a woman like that who loves those same things: who’d play hide and seek with you, who’d love the water fights with you?

MJ: Not yet. The ones I have had are jealous of the children. All of them. They get jealous of their own kids and start competing with them. That rubs me in a bad way.

SB: Theoretically, if you were Adam in the Garden of Eden and you found an Eve like that, would that be your ideal woman?

MJ: Absolutely. I haven’t found it [women who want to play]. . . I think more guys are more apt to goof off. Even when they are much older, their thirties, and a woman will come in and say, “What are you doing? Don’t do that. Are you crazy?” The guy will go. “What, we are just having fun?”

SB: Women almost feel that it is immature if they behave that way, no?

MJ: Yes, but if you look in history you never see real serial killer women.

SB: Yes, but they don’t play the way boys do.

MJ: I know they don’t.

SB: Even at a younger age they are playing with dolls and they are marrying Barbie and Ken. In other words, the quintessential thing is – that if boys are shooting spit balls at each other, the girls will say, “Stop doing that.” Even then they want to be older. It is almost against their gender. Have you ever found girls who like the practical jokes that you like? Have you ever found a woman who collects comics?

MJ: It is a rarity. If I find one I will go nuts. Especially, if she has those qualities and is beautiful inside. It would be a home run for me. That’s why guys hang out. Because they can do that.

SB: Thinking about mothers and fathers, mothers are really good at doing homework with their kids and being more nurturing. But the rough playing is what the fathers do. They get on the floor and get dirty, wrestle, build castle with them in a sandpit. Isn’t that interesting? It creates an imbalance in the book to an extent. On the contrary, it is the girls in school that are always ridiculing the boys for being immature. “Loоk at those boys. Look at the way they are behaving.” Maybe the women need to be taught the art of playfulness as much as the men.

MJ: Do you not think it’s embedded in them biologically? Biologically, as a breed, don’t you think women are just a different species?

SB: They are definitely different, but the question is, “Why don’t they want to play?” The funny thing is this: when they play, it’s when they flirt. In other words, if you chase them round the room and there is something romantic going on, then they will run around with you and laugh and giggle. But it’s specifically when it is romantic. They don’t do it with each other. You don’t see two girls running round the room, playing hide and seek or wrestling each other, the way they’re prepared to suddenly when it’s a boyfriend. A lot of fans — the women who are interested in you — would do all these things just to make you happy. But you don’t know if they were doing it because they are really enjoying it. It seems that it’s only romance that makes women playful. But then, sometimes it bothers men, because the women become like a tease and, you know, they have this power over you with these little games they play. I have got to find four or five women who fit into this opening chapter who are very successful but who have retained child-like qualities and, so far, we have come up with one. When you think of Bill Clinton don’t you think of a guy as being pretty playful? He goes to McDonald’s and he jogs and. . .

MJ: Riding his bike at the White House. Did you see it? He was riding his bike in the White House to get him to the next meeting. A great shot of him In Vanity Fair. Can you think of Hillary doing that? Nope, not in a million years. I can think of little girls who would join in with play. Girls who are tomboys.

SB: Okay, when they are tomboys. But when they get older, do they still play to the same extent?

MJ: Do you think it is in their heart that they can just be themselves and be dignified?

SB: What women seem to look forward to more than anything else is falling in love. They don’t look forward to the playfulness in the same way. But once they’re in love a carefree playful side is released.

MJ: I have to play.

SB: Is there a difference in how your male fans and female fans relate to you?

MJ: Sometimes. But I am finding today, and it is so true, that guys today are really changing and I have watched it happen through my career. Guys scream with the same kind of adulation that girls do in a lot of countries. They are not ashamed. They are shaking, “I love you.” We have guys chasing us around.

SB: But die fanatics are the women.

MJ: Yeah, they are loyal, women. They have been loyal. They are activists. They will fight you about me.

SB: Do you find it easier to be closer to motherly figures in your life like Elizabeth Taylor, your own mother, who you always praise, and your sister Janet? Do you find that women are more child-like than men? Are they gentler, are they less competitive, less mean? You have been around some mean women, as well, who behave in a masculine – aggressive way, like Madonna. You told me -that she can be mean. Is that a feminine trait or do you feel that she has a real masculine streak in her? Do you find it easier to be closer to women?

MJ: In some ways, yes, and some ways, not. It depends on the age. I have seen some women who are very bitter and mean and they become ladies later. They come into their own and they become good people. I have seen it in my brothers’ ex-wives who were horrible. They were like nightmares when they were young. With time and age they become good people. But they were horrible, just horrible. Then with time they just level out, that’s what I like when they become truly good.

SB: But, intuitively, do you find women easier to get along with? Are they softer than men? I mean. I personally find women more naturally nurturing, more refined, possessed of a greater nobility of spirit. I have to tell you.

MJ: I am trying to be real honest with you.

SB: But many of your closest friends seem to be women.

MJ: Women are softer than men. Yeah, that’s true.

SB: Do you think that a child star as cute as Shirley Temple, do you think a boy star could be that cute?

MJ: Yeah, but he wouldn’t have the same. . . Shirley Temple just had something that was meant to give us bliss and make us smile.

SB: Are you more protective of Paris because she is a little girl?

MJ: Paris can stand [on] her own sometimes – much more. Prince won’t stand up for himself. People can push him about and he won’t stand up. She won’t take anything from anybody. She fights. She’s tough, very tough. It’s true, man. Prince will let people take complete advantage of him and won’t say anything.

SB: He is more like his father, like you.

MJ: I was like that. My mother always told me. “Don’t let people hurt you. You are too much like me.” She would cry. “You are too much like me. I don’t want you to be like me. I hurt so much.” Because people take advantage.

SB: But you never toughened up. It seems that you would rather be taken advantage of than do the taking advantage of. It hurts to be taken advantage of. But it doesn’t hurt as much as being a mean and aggressive person. Mean- spiritedness is a form of internal corruption and it makes it impossible to be happy. Notice that evil people never seem happy. They are miserable and they seek to make other people just as miserable as they are.

MJ: Yeah. I’d rather suffer…. I hate to say it because I suffered a lot. God, have I suffered. But I would rather suffer.

SB: You have seen the ugly side of people.

MJ: I have seen the worst… the nightmare of the human condition. I would never even think that common man would be capable of behaving in such a way.

[…]

MJ: Lisa was great. She was a sweet person. But it is hard to tie me down. I can’t stay in one place one time so that’s why I don’t know if I [can] really be completely married all the time.

SB: Did you want to be a father to her kids?

MJ: Yes.

SB: Do you still stay in touch with the children?

MJ: Yes, and with her.

SB: But marriage is too confining?

MJ: Yes. I don’t know whether I am disciplined enough because I am such a rolling stone. I have such a life when I am always on the move and women don’t like that. They want you to be settled in one place all the time but I have to move. I have been in the same city as where my house is and still check into a hotel just to feel like I am going somewhere. My house is right there. I guess I am just moving all the time, moving.

SB: You have gotten used to it.  That’s your lifestyle.

MJ: I love being on the move, love it.

SB: It impresses me that everywhere you go you take your children with you. So you are on the move but it is almost like your household moves with you. Prince and Paris aren’t unsettled because of it because their source of security is always with them. But what about the families who don’t have the resources for that, and most don’t? They don’t have enough to be able to fly the kids around here and there. Businessmen who have to travel, they fly economy just to afford their own fare, and they can’t possibly bring their kids along every time. Should they not travel?

MJ: I feel bad for their children. I feel bad for their children. I always ask pilots and stewards “How do they do it? The children suffer. Absolutely. They suffer.

SB: You wouldn’t be doing this if Prince and Paris were going to suffer as a result. You are doing it because you have the resources to bring them where you are.

MJ: I couldn’t hurt them like that.

SB: Do you want to find them a Rose Fine kind of figure  [Michael’s childhood tutor], a bit of a motherfhood figure?

MJ: That would be nice. That would be sweet. If the person is completely sincere, like Miss Fine was, who would read to them and teach them and give them the right values and teach them that there’s no difference and that we are all the same people. She used to always rub my face and I never used to understand why. She used to say I had beautiful hands. And I used to say, (“Why, don’t all hands look alike?” But now I see what she means because now I do it to my kids. I rub their face like that because they are so sweet. [Laughs] I never understood why she did it to me. Then you grow up and you realize that it is an endearing thing to do, to say, “I love you.”

[I asked Michael about his celebrity friends. Why could he connect with them more than with noncelebrities?]

MJ: Yeah, but I don’t really have Hollywood friends. I have a few.

SB: Why don’t you? Why don’t you hang out with more celebrities?

MJ: Because I don’t think they are all real people. They love the limelight and I don’t have anything in common with them. They want to go clubbing and afterwards they want to sit around and drink hard liquor and do marijuana and do all kinds of crazy things that I wouldn’t do. We have nothing in common. Remember the line I told you? Madonna laid the law down to me before we went out. “I am not going to Disneyland, okay? That’s out.” I said, “But I didn’t ask you to go to Disneyland.” She said. “We are going to the restaurant and afterwards we are going to a strip bar.” I said, “I am not going to a strip bar.” Guys who cross-dress! Afterwards she wrote some mean things about me in the press and I wrote that she is a nasty witch, after I was so kind to her. I have told you that we were at the table eating and some little kids came up. “Oh my God. Michael Jackson and Madonna. Can we have your autograph?” She said. “Get out of here. Leave us alone.” I said, “Don’t ever talk to children like that.” She said, “Shut up.” I said, “You shut up.” That’s how we were. Then we went out again and went to the Academy Awards and she is not a nice person. I have to say it. She is not a nice person.

SB: Did the people around you feel that it was important to be seen with her?

MJ: They knew nothing about it. This was totally between her and me.

SB: So you save it a chance and it didn’t work?

MJ: Yeah. I gave it a chance like I try and give everything a chance.

SB: You basically saw that your values do not match those of most Hollywood people.

MJ: No, they do lots of crazy things that I am not into and at the time I was with Madonna she was into these books, a whole library of books of women who were tied to walls. She said. “I love spanky books.” Why do I want to see that?

SB: I think a lot of it is the image. She once said something to the effect that she would much rather read a good book than have sex. I think the other vulgar stuff is part of the outrageous image she tries to cultivate.

MJ: She’s lying [about preferring to read a book]. I can’t judge. I don’t know if she has changed or if she [is] trying to claim she has changed.

SB: Why does she say mean things?

MJ: I think she likes shock value and she knows how to push buttons on people. I think she was sincerely in love with me and I was not in love with her. She did a lot of crazy things and that’s how that went. I knew we had nothing in common. But I am pretty sure that having a baby has to change you. I don’t know how much she has changed, I’m sure she is a better person than before.

SB: She has two children now.

MJ: Yeah. I know. How would you like getting a phone call and she is telling you that she is putting her fingers between her legs. I would say, “Oh Madonna, please.” She said, “What I want you to do when you hang up the phone is to rub yourself and think of me”. That’s the kind of stuff she says. When I see her she says: “ This is the finger I used last night”. Wild, out of control.

SB: But you were raised that all things romantic should have a certain modesty. […] Have you ever found women who are a bit more modest to be more attractive for that reason?

MJ: Yeah. I don’t like the women who are always saying, “My nails need to be done. I have to do my toes. I need a manicure”. I hate all that. I like it when girls are a little bit more tomboyish. If they wrestle, climb a tree. I love that… It is sexier to me. I like class though. Class is everything.

SB: If a woman walks around with all her cleavage showing…

MJ: Frank loves it.

(Michael gestured to Frank Cascio, who was sitting right next to us. We all laughed.)

SB: A man might want sex with a woman like that. But it doesn’t mean that he would want to fall in love with a woman like that.

MJ: Of course you want to look. I am in love with innocence and I tell Frank that.

[…]

MJ: I don’t like clubs now, I did all that when I was eleven, eight and- going back—nine, eight, seven, six, Fights break out, people throwing up, yelling, screaming, the police sirens. Our father never let us become a part of it other than to perform and leave. But sometimes in having to do that you would get caught up in some of the craziness. I saw it all. The lady who came on right before, when The Jackson’s were little. “And now next, The Little Jackson 5,” was the lady who took off all her clothes. Threw her panties into the audience and the men would grab them and sniff them. I saw all this. Her name was Rose Marie and she put these things on her breasts and moved them around and she showed everything. So when I became sixteen, seventeen and guys would say. “Let’s go clubbing.” I would go. “Are you crazy?” And the guys would be like, “No, are you crazy? We can get girls, we can get liquor.” But I had done that. I did that when I was a baby. Now I want to be a part of the world and the life I didn’t have. Take me to Disneyland, take me to where the magic is.

SB: Let me ask you about loneliness. So wherever you travel, you, thank God, have an entourage. People you’ve been with for a long time, Frank and Skip [Michael’s bodyguard at the time, a very pleasant and decent man from New Orleans]. But it’s still not like having a wife in your life or something. Do you get lonely? Or is there so much going on in your life that it doesn’t really happen?

MJ: Like lonely for like a wife? For like a mate? like that?

SB: Yeah.

MJ: I’ve been through two bad divorces and I just got out of the second one. Even when married to those women that I was married to, I’d go to bed hurting. I was hurting. I was crying last night as I went to sleep and I didn’t sleep good last night. And I cry. Shmuley, because I feel this. . . and I’m not trying. I’m telling you the honest truth and if you don’t believe me you can ask Frank. Frank knew how I was hurting. I just was feeling all the pain of the children who suffer and I was hurting so much. That’s why I was trying to reach any child I knew who had pain, from [Michael mentions a little girl who was battling cancer and whose family he met at our home] to Gavin [Michael’s later accuser].

I was trying to like, calling/dialing and I woke up the first thing, the first person I called was [the little girl’s] house and she had gone already. It hurts me. But I think that’s where my real love comes from, Shmuley. If I can help in that way. I’m fine and I don’t need the other [romantic love].You know if I meet some girl somewhere and I think she’s beautiful, which I see a lot of them, that’s great. I mean, I’ll go on a date or something. Nothing wrong with that. Jennifer Lopez looked awfully good the other day, she did. I was shocked ’cause I never thought. . . She looked good [Michael laughs as he says this].

SB: But have you given up on women understanding  you?  You  tend to think  that children will understand you a lot better?

MJ: I’m not easy to live with in that way for a wife. I’m not easy and I know I’m not easy. Because I give all my time to someone else. I give it to children, I give it to somebody sick somewhere, to the music And women want to be the center. And I remember Lisa Marie would always say to me. “I’m not a piece of furniture. I’m not a piece of furniture. You just can’t…”  I say, “I don’t want you to be a piece of furniture,” and you know, there’d be some sick little girls calling on the phone and she’d get mad and hang up on them. And, you know, I feel that’s my, that’s my mission. Shmuley, I have to do it.

SB: What if you found a woman who was that soft, who was incredibly soft?

MJ: like a Mother Teresa or a Lady Diana or. .. That would be great. It would be perfect.

SB: Would that be better than having to do it on your own?

MJ: Absolutely, and Lisa was great with going to the hospitals with me, and she was so sweet about that. They would tie the babies to the bed or chain the children down. We’d go unchain. . . we’d go free all these babies. I hated that and she, she discovered a lot of that injustice with me. Countries like Romania and Prague, Czechoslovakia and all that, Russia. You should see what they do to the children in those. . . you’d be shocked. They chain them to the wall like they’re animals and they’re naked and they slept in their tinkle and their feces too. It’s just so sad. It made me sick. So we brought clothes and toys and just love and love. I love them and I went back every day visiting them, hugging them, wanting to take each and every one of them to Neverland.

SB: When you started becoming this childhood star, did you realize that your childhood was slowly slipping away? You won a contest at age eight. In 1964  you were chosen as lead singer for the family band. Did that make you feel excited or were you worried? Did you think to yourself, “Where is all this headed? What’s it going to lead to?”

MJ: I didn’t think about it. I didn’t think about the future. I just took each day as it came. I knew I wanted to be a star. I wanted to do things and make people happy.

SB: Did you know what the cost was going to be in terms of childhood?

MJ: No way. No way.

(MJ on phone: Tell the guys to let the music talk to them and not to, like, jump on it right away. Listen to it a couple of times and let the melody create itself. That’s the tiling, let the music speak to them. Alright? Goodbye).

SB: Is that your dream that one day, like part of the messianic future, as far as you’re concerned, that all these kids will come and live in Neverland and live happily ever after?

MJ: Yes.

SB:  And If you had the resources truly you would just. . .

MJ: I would do it, Shmuley. I would do it. I would love it.

SB: Lisa Marie was good about at least visiting. So she had no problem going and doing some of the compassionate things of giving these children love and making them feel special?

MJ: She had no problem doing that, but her and I had several big arguments cause she’s very territorial with her children. Her children were [her major concern]. . . and I said, “No, all children are our children,” and she never liked that coming from me. She was very angry about that. Plus, she had a fight with me one time when two little boys in London killed this other kid and I was going to visit them ’cause, the queen gave them adult sentencing of life. These were like eleven- and ten-year-old boys and I was going to go to the prison and visit them. She said, “You idiot. You’re just rewarding then for what they did.” I said, “How dare you say that.” I said. “I bet if you trace their life you can find they didn’t have parents around, they didn’t have any love, nobody there to hold them look in their eyes and say “I love you.” They deserve that, even though they’re going to get life, I just want to say I love you and hold them.” She said. “We’ll, you’re wrong.” I said, “No, you’re wrong.” Then the information came out that they came from broken families, were never watched as little kids, attended to. Their pacifier was those Chucky movies with the stabbings and the killings. And that’s how they became conditioned to that.

SB: Did she admit then that you had a point?

MJ: Nope, she thinks I’m rewarding bad kids.

SB: Did she want you to be a father to her children?

MJ: Well that was once asked of her. She was asked that question on TV and she said. “No, they have a father. Their father is Keogh,” that other guy. But I was really good to her children. Every day I’d bring them home something and they’d be waiting by the window for me and hug me. I love them. I miss them so much.

SB: Did she get used to living in Neverland or was it too isolated?

MJ: Lisa didn’t live at Neverland. We visited Neverland the way. . . I lived at her house in the city and every once in a while we visited Neverland. It’d be like our big fun weekend.

SB: And her children liked it?

MJ: Are you kidding me? They were like in heaven.

SB: And you were happy to show it to them?

MJ: Mm hmm.

SB: Did it have more meaning to you suddenly when you had a family you could show it to?

MJ: Yes, yes. It’s just a place to make families, to bring them together, to bring people together through love and playful spirit and nature. It makes families closer, Neverland. It’s healing.

SB: Since you idolize the family was it very hard for you when you had to go through that divorce then?

MJ: Which one?

SB: With Lisa.

MJ: Was it hard for me?

MJ: Yeah, and she – promised me that before we married, that would be the first thing we’d do was have children. So I was broken-hearted and I walked around all the time holding these little baby dolls and I’d be crying, that’s how badly I wanted them. So I was determined to have children. It disappointed me that she wouldn’t keep her promise to me, you know? After we got divorced she would hang out with my mother all the time. I have all these letters saying, “I’ll give you nine children. I’ll do whatever you want.” and of course the press don’t know all these stories and she just tried for months and months and I just became too hard-hearted at that point. I closed my mind on the whole situation.

SB: So she thought maybe you could get back together?

MJ: Uh huh.

SB: But children were a major, major issue?

MJ: Of course.

SB: She had the kids and that was it.

MJ: She had hers and I wanted us to feel like we all were one big family and have more. Just. . . my dream is to have nine or ten children, that’s what I want.

SB: You’re still very young. Do you think that will happen?

MJ: Yeah.

SB: But then it means getting married again.

MJ: Yeah.

SB: Are you happy to do that?

MJ: Uh huh. . . or adopt.

SB: Is it possible Michael, that you’re attracting the wrong kind of girl because of your celebrity?

MJ: It’s hard. That’s why it’s hard, it’s hard for me. It is hard. It’s not easy for celebrities to be married.

SB: Do you thinк that you could only really marry celebrities so that they don’t need you as much?

MJ: That helps, in my opinion. And they understand what you go through. They’ve been there.

SB: They help you for the right reasons, then?

MJ: Yeah, they’re not after, you know? What you’ve made [the money] or, you know? [singing] ‘That’s what you are. . . ” [He won a Grammy for that.]

Retyped from http://jetzi-mjvideo.com/books3/tape/tape93.html