Michael Jackson (26 page)

‘Just for the record, are you or are you not gay?’ I asked him during an interview in 1979.

‘No, I am not gay,’ Michael snapped. ‘I am not a homo. People make up stories about me being gay because they have nothing
else to do. I'm not going to let it get to me,’ he continued. ‘I'm not going to have a nervous breakdown because people think
I like having sex with men. I don't and that's that,’ he said, his sentences pouring out. ‘If I let this get to me, it will
only show how cheap I am. I'm sure I must have a lot of fans who are gay, and I don't mind that,’ he continued, speaking faster.
‘That's their life and this is mine. You can print that,’ he said, thrusting his index finger at me. ‘What is it about me
that makes people think I'm gay? Why do people think I'm gay?’

I didn't think I should answer his question. He was already upset.

‘Is it my voice?’ he continued. ‘Is it because I have this soft voice? All of us in the family have soft voices. Or is it
because I don't have a lot of girlfriends? I just don't understand it.’

The truth is that Michael would never have allowed himself to have homosexual relationships, even if he did have feelings
for other men. He was too puritanical as a result of his religious background. The Jehovah's Witnesses firmly believe that
world destruction is imminent and that only a few of God's servants will survive the horrible holocaust. One question had
hung over Michael's head for his entire youth; would he win salvation or burn in hellfire? If he wanted to be saved – if he
wanted to be with his mother through all eternity – he would have to live up to all of the church's rigid teachings, which sure
meant he couldn't be gay. Indulgence is not part of the Jehovah's Witnesses' creed. Any congregant who does not adhere to
the rules and dogma is shunned or ‘disfellowshipped’. By the time Michael was a teenager, he had been trained to live his
life a certain way. He would not be able to break that conformity.

Also, if Michael had any homosexual leanings he would have been too fearful to act on them. He knew that with any relationship
he ever had – be it with a man or a woman – he ran the risk of the other person reporting the details to a newspaper or magazine,
one that would pay astronomical sums for the story, especially if it were a sensational one. Although some public figures
who are homosexual have come out of the closet in recent years – not many, though – back in the 1970s it just didn't happen at
all.

Still today, many entertainers hide their true sexual identities from their fans and peers because they fear rejection, and
the loss of income. Ever practical where his work is concerned, Michael is aware that being gay would damage not only his
career, but his relationships with his family, as well. How would Katherine and Joseph handle it if he were to announce that
he is, as he put it so many years ago, ‘a homo’? ‘When I first heard the rumours that he was gay, I thought I'd go crazy,’
Katherine once said. ‘He's my son and I know the truth. He knows the truth too. We both talked about it and cried about it.
Michael was very hurt by the rumours. He is not gay. It's against our religion.’ They cried about it; tears shed over the
fact that people they didn't even know had whispered such things.

How would his brothers react if Michael said he was gay? Back in the seventies, they would have been upset because it might
have projected a controversial image for the group. Today? Publicly, they might offer their support. However, privately, they
would probably be thrown. Like their mother, they are not progressive-minded. Indeed, if Michael were a gay man today – and
no one is saying he is – and suddenly made the decision to bolt from the closet after all of these years, the only Jackson who
would probably be able to come to terms with it would be Janet, a woman who has been around enough and seen enough to know
that there are gay people in all walks of life.

Besides dealing with upsetting questions about his sexuality, Michael had other problems in the late seventies. Of course,
most people have a difficult time with certain stages of adolescence, but Michael was much more sensitive than most people
his age about the common challenges of puberty, perhaps because he was the subject of such intense public scrutiny. For instance,
his face had broken out severely with acne in the mid-seventies; he was so ashamed of the way he looked that it was extremely
difficult for him to go out into public. ‘I seemed to have a pimple for every oil gland,’ he recalled. Onstage, his condition
was difficult to notice because of carefully applied makeup and the benefit of lighting. However, offstage it was obvious
that Michael had complexion problems. Reporters would comment to each other about his skin. Fans would be shocked by his appearance.
Michael could barely stand the humiliation.

‘I became subconsciously scarred by this,’ he has confessed. ‘I got very shy and became embarrassed to meet people. The effect
on me was so bad that it messed up my whole personality.’

Michael couldn't look at people when he talked to them. Rather, he would look down or away. He wouldn't even look at his mother
when he spoke to her. ‘He didn't want to leave the house,’ Katherine would recall. ‘When he did, he kept his head down.’ He
would never really recover from the psychological effects of the acne. ‘The changes that it wrought in him became permanent,’
Katherine said. ‘He was no longer a carefree, outgoing, devilish boy. He was quieter, more serious and more of a loner.’

Complicating matters was Michael's belief that, acne aside, he was not good-looking. His skin was too dark, he decided, and
his nose too wide. Even though his family was aware of Michael's sensitivities, Joseph and the brothers did not afford him
any special treatment. They were a rowdy, boisterous bunch offstage and teased each other, playfully. Either a brother took
it well, or he didn't.

At nineteen, Michael was nothing if not a study in contrasts. He was a young man who could muster enough courage to meet with
the president of Motown, yet was afraid of the kinds of propositions most teenagers found exciting, such as the opportunity
to drive an automobile. Whereas many youngsters are eager to get behind the wheel of a car by the age of sixteen, Michael
was still petrified of the notion three years later. ‘I just don't want to,’ he said, when pushed. ‘I just don't have the
desire. Whenever you do something, you have to want to do it. And even though there are some things you just have to do, I
don't have to drive. And I simply don't want to. There's nothing special about it for me.’ Michael would usually have a limousine
take him wherever he wanted to go, though often one of his brothers would drive him.

Besides the fact that he was frightened of driving, Michael also didn't want to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to
take the driver's test. He was afraid he'd be recognized and then be humiliated because he still didn't have a licence at
his age. The thought of this kind of embarrassment was stressful for him. At one point, when he thought he might at least
try to drive, he tried to obtain special consideration so that he wouldn't have to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles
for the testing. However, the Encino division of the D.M.V. is accustomed to dealing with celebrities; officials there don't
consider any of them special. It was all just too much to bear for Michael. He couldn't do it. ‘But suppose you're someplace
and your chauffeur gets sick,’ Katherine argued with him. ‘You need to be able to drive.’ Michael would be twenty-three before
he'd finally obtain his driver's licence, and only at Katherine's insistence.

Michael Jackson's teenage melancholy intensified when The Jacksons' second album for CBS,
Goin' Places,
released in the winter of 1977, was a major disappointment. Despite the fact that the first album for the new label had received
mixed reviews and had only gone gold when everyone was hoping for platinum sales, CBS sent the group back to Philadelphia
to work once again with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. The title track of
Goin' Places
only went to number 52 on
Billboard's
top 100; the album peaked at 63 on the Top 200. In the UK, it peaked at number forty-five and only stayed on the charts for
a week! However, despite such sporadic sales, The Jacksons at Epic were still faring better than Jermaine Jackson was at Motown.
His
Feel the Fire
album, released at the same time, peaked at number 174 in America and did even worse in the UK and the rest of Europe. Most
industry observers now believed that Motown was mysteriously intent on wasting Jermaine's career even if he was married to
the boss's daughter.

On
Goin' Places,
Michael wrote a rhythm number called ‘Different Kind of Lady’, which became a successful club hit but was seldom played on
the radio. It was not issued as a single. Another song penned by the group, ‘Do What You Wanna’, also went unreleased as a
single. By this time, The Jacksons hadn't had a number-one record since ‘Mama's Pearl’ in 1971. Joseph was concerned. It was
painfully clear that the new relationship with CBS wasn't working out as he had hoped it would for his sons.

Joseph decided to meet with Ron Alexenberg, the man who had originally signed The Jacksons to Epic, to try to convince him
once and for all that the group should be able to write and produce its own material. Perhaps Joseph remembered the way Michael
used his own initiative to meet with Berry Gordy when the chips were down, because he asked his son to accompany him.

Michael was astonished that his father would ask for his assistance and couldn't help but be suspicious of his motives. Still,
he agreed to go along. Michael considered the group's future so important, he was willing to overcome – at least temporarily – his
aversion to his father and cooperate with him on this matter. Just as Joseph put on his public facade as father, Michael would
put on his public facade as son.

‘He was still the soft, tender Michael Jackson everyone thought he was, but something was definitely different about him by
this time,’ said James Situp, the Jacksons' pianist and band director. ‘Everyone who dealt with him closely, family included,
began to tread softly when dealing with Michael. The quiet power he was gaining was amazing to me. I'd never seen anyone have
that much influence over people without having a stern attitude. I noticed that when he spoke, people were starting to listen.
He was still outvoted on things, but now it was a bit more reluctantly. Joseph and the brothers were beginning to give him
space. I began to notice that if they saw one iota of displeasure in his face, they began to get worried. For sure, things
were changing as Michael was growing up.’

Still, it is not difficult to imagine that his brothers resented Michael's power. Even if it did benefit them, it didn't feel
good to them that Michael was the one who always ended up meeting with their record company bosses.

During the meeting with Ron Alexenberg, Michael and Joseph explained that they were unhappy with the way the Jacksons' careers
had thus far evolved at CBS, and that the time had come for the company to finally allow them control over an album. ‘If you
can't do it,’ Michael said, ‘then we need to move on. Why waste more of your money on records that aren't going to sell? Let
us work on our own record. Then, you'll have a hit. Otherwise, you won't.’

Ironically, and unbeknownst to Michael and Joseph, the new CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff had already decided to drop
The Jacksons from the label. In his view, The Jacksons were no longer commercially viable. With that thinking, he was on the
same page as Ewart Abner at Motown!

The two CBS albums were not successful enough to warrant a third, said Walter Yetnikoff. Bobby Colomby, then head of Epic's
West Coast artist relations, recalled, ‘The people I was working with at CBS really wanted me to get them out of the deal
with The Jacksons. They wanted me to try to buy them [The Jacksons] out. But I felt so bad for these guys. I liked them. I
said to myself, “My God, if I give these people a hundred thousand dollars to go away, they're going to take it, pay their
bills and then be out of the music business for ever.”’

Imagine the humiliation Joseph and his sons would have suffered if, after all they had gone through to sever their ties with
Berry Gordy, the new label's president were to them drop them from his roster. Bobby Colomby was right; the setback probably
would have finished The Jacksons for good, and Joseph would have been blamed for the act's demise.

Luckily for all concerned, Bobby Colomby managed to convince his bosses to give The Jacksons one more chance at Epic. This
time, the brothers would have more involvement in their work. If they failed, they would have no one to blame but themselves.
So, when Michael put forth just that proposition at the meeting, Ron Alexenberg agreed to it. It was a done deal, anyway,
before Joseph and Michael even got to the meeting. However, father and son apparently needed to show the label executives
that they had the incentive and drive to take on a project of their own before they would be guaranteed the company's full
support.