You Are Not Alone_Michael, Through a Brother’s Eyes (37 page)

When we were kids growing up in Gary, we had believed in the American Dream – that each citizen, black or white, has the freedom to chase opportunity and deserve success; that self-motivation would be rewarded. We had believed in the ‘Land of the free, Home of the brave’ – that if you earned your prosperity, you would be acclaimed as an example of what makes America great. It was a lifelong belief unravelling by the minute.

THE QUESTION NEVER CHANGED, AND HOSTS
put it to Michael in every television interview he did: ‘What is a grown man doing
sleeping
in a bed with children?’

I can still see ABC’s Diane Sawyer and the BBC’s Martin Bashir straining to comprehend the logic of the sleepovers; this habit that Michael willingly offered up and never once tried to hide. It was interesting to me that the question was never why Michael
shared
his bed with children: it was always posed with the sexual
connotation of ‘sleeping with’. Especially when it was about getting into bed with hot milk and cookies and putting on a movie.

Unless you knew Michael, it is hard to convey to you the trust and understanding innate to the sleepovers, because the simple answer to the question – that it was about giving love and providing hugs – immediately runs into a wall of suspicion that has nothing to do with Michael and everything to do with the modern concern about child abuse. Nowadays, a panic-stricken parent sees danger at every turn.

I would simply ask: who is the one man in your family, or in your circle, who you would trust implicitly with your child? That man who you would say ‘I’d trust him with my life’. Because that man was Michael to us, and to every parent who entrusted their child to his care; parents who didn’t appreciate strangers on television or in newspapers telling them what was appropriate for their kid. It worries me that our minds have taken over our hearts, and fears and stigmas and blanket judgements now stand in the way of basic love being expressed to children. If we know that a man shares a bed with a child, and we ignore the merits of that individual and immediately leap to suspicious thought, what is this world coming to? But beyond that, it was also misleading to focus on Michael sharing a bed with only boys. Young girls played in his bedroom and jumped into those same beds – like Chantal Robson or Marie-Nicole Cascio or the sisters of Macaulay Culkin and Brett Barnes. I also know that some of the parents would join their sons and daughters and Michael in bed and snuggle up to watch a movie with popcorn. It was, at times, like that lullaby ‘There were ten in the bed, and the little one said, roll over, roll over …’

It was about being with children who had the innocence to accept him for who he was; with kids whose presence brought him comfort and probably took him back to the days of sharing with Marlon, and cramming brothers into one bunk bed. I wondered how many people have considered that Michael had an anxiety about being alone in his bedroom and that was why he filled it with
mannequins, and with children that asked nothing of him. The real clues about the real reasons he opened his bedroom to children were always there, but others would choose to see what they wanted to see.

I also wish people could have seen how children were naturally magnetised to him. Tito’s three children, together with my kids, would trail Michael around both Neverland and Hayvenhurst, following him like ducks, upstairs, downstairs, to the kitchen, and even to the toilet, and it would have Michael in fits of laughter. Ironically, the person who best summed up this human ‘magnet’ was June Chandler when, in 2005, she told the courts that she had once told Michael: ‘You’re like Peter Pan. Everybody wants to be around you and spend 24 hours’.

AS A FAMILY, WE WENT BEFORE
the cameras at a press conference in North Hollywood. It was a deliberate show of strength at a pre-booked event to announce a television special on NBC,
The Jackson Family Honours
– a celebration to honour the humanitarian work of Mr Gordy and Elizabeth Taylor, who was, by now, a constant presence and source of comfort in our brother’s life. Mother had spoken with Michael on the phone and everyone had agreed that ‘the show must go on’, with our television special and his Far East tour, even though we knew he was struggling. Bill had told us he was ‘sick to the stomach but keeping strong.’ We suspected that his reassurance was to stop us worrying.

Our show’s humanitarian theme provided an apt platform for us to demonstrate solidarity. Every one of my unanswered letters seemed irrelevant now; it was about shouting for the truth as the media invited ex-employees to run with their wildest allegations, induced by large six-figure payments and the racier the allegation, the bigger the cheque. I’ve since learned that Wade’s mother Joy Robson was approached by the
National Enquirer
and offered a six-figure sum if she changed her story ‘to say that Michael had molested your son’. Thankfully, people like Joy had scruples and she, like every other parent and child who’d spent time at
Neverland, would not corroborate Dr Chandler’s claims or anyone else’s, even when the police turned the screw.

One investigating sheriff was caught on tape – as we would hear in 2005 – saying to a child witness about Michael: ‘He’s a molester … great guy, makes great music, bullshit …’

As the US and UK media wrote out life-changing cheques, there was a ‘while stocks last’ stampede to this open season on my brother’s reputation. With everything that we have learned over the years, it is hard for us not to view this police-media pursuit of Michael as the starting line for a hostile campaign designed to bring about his downfall.

Back then, my eyes were less wide-open as Mother, Joseph, Rebbie, Tito and I took our seats in leather armchairs on that stage in North Hollywood. I thought the transparency of the case would become obvious when television pundits had caught their breath. I took that optimism into the press conference as we faced a jostling stack of lenses and television cameras. Not too dissimilar to Jackson-mania, only without the love. As the room echoed to the sound of a hundred shutter speeds, I could only think, If it’s this intense for us, what the hell is poor Michael going through in Singapore?

When everything quietened, I spoke for us all: ‘Michael has been made a victim in a cruel, obvious attempt to take advantage of his fame and success. We know, as does the whole world, that he has dedicated his life to providing happiness to young people everywhere. His compassion is legendary and we are confident that his dignity and humanity will prevail in this difficult time.’

After that, there was only one place to be: Joseph, Rebbie and the brothers started making plans to join Michael in Taiwan.

OUTSIDE THE RAFFLES HOTEL WHERE HE
was staying in Taipei, the first people to greet us were a bunch of kids, excitedly telling us how they had followed Michael around Asia every step of the way. Michael’s ‘soldiers of love’ were all over the world; an army standing shoulder to shoulder, never once doubting him. As isolated as
he may have felt at times, Michael was never alone when it came to love, support and millions believing in him.

Elizabeth Taylor had joined him before he left Singapore. Out of all his friends, she and Marlon Brando had remained constant. Elizabeth had a unique bond with my brother and he found her ‘playful and witty’. Their common ground was child stardom. Their connection was built on respect, loyalty and love, and she was always there for him.

At the hotel, we didn’t immediately see Elizabeth because the first person we met was Michael’s publicist Bob Jones, whom we’d known since our Motown days and that first trip to Australia. He had joined Michael when he went solo. My problem with Bob was that, rightly or wrongly, I felt he formed part of the barrier to our direct communication with Michael. Hollywood entourages spend their days standing in front of the artist – often without the artist knowing – but I was damned if that shield would be used against us after we’d travelled halfway round the world to support our brother, who knew we were arriving that day. When Bob explained that ‘Now is not a good time … Michael is sleeping’, I lost patience and the conversation turned into a dispute.

Eventually I’d had enough. ‘Bob, get out of my way … you don’t tell us when we do or do not see our own brother,’ I said.

‘I’m just doing my job, Jermaine.’ He stepped to one side.

Sure enough, Bob’s blocking tactic was false. We knocked at Michael’s door and walked in. He was happy to see us, even if we were a little surprised by what confronted us: he was sitting with an intravenous drip leading from a bag above his head into his wrist.

‘What’s going on?’ said Jackie, forever protective. He wandered over to the bag, no doubt to confirm that it was saline.

Michael explained that he’d collapsed before his concert had begun in Singapore; the show had been cancelled. The doctor, who was also in the hotel room, told us he was suffering from ‘dehydration’; Michael was still struggling and they were worried about his blood circulation and …

He kept talking and I stopped listening, because I was watching Michael, who looked the saddest I had ever seen him before going on stage. Normally, he’d be focused and energised. Now, he seemed drained, sitting down like one of those exhausted marathon runners at the finish line, desperate for fluids – and yet he had a 90-minute set ahead of him. ‘I’m stressed, that’s all,’ he said, ‘I just need liquids.’ His eyes, which were usually smiling, were clouded; he had lost a lot of weight. Michael wasn’t into his food at the best of times, but when stressed, he just stopped eating. My guess was that he hadn’t eaten or slept for about a week, based on how emotionally shattered he looked.

Attorneys and media commentators would wonder if Michael was ‘playing the victim’ on the public stage yet the man I saw in private looked like he was using every sinew to keep standing and performing. I didn’t see a man folding or pleading for understanding, not until that degrading body search which would come two months later. Physically, it was clear that the ordeal was taking its toll, but his spirit was indomitable.

Before we left, we reminded him that we were there to support him, and said we’d return tomorrow. Which we did. We told him he was going to get through this. We said the tough-talking things that brothers say, but the outcome of the investigation didn’t seem to worry him too much. Instead, the next day when we met, he seemed preoccupied with another puzzle. ‘What are they trying to do to me? Why do you think this is happening?’ he wondered aloud.

AS A FAMILY, WE FELT OUR
solidarity was unbreakable. As long as we stood as one, we felt sure that justice would prevail. So when La Toya popped up on television from Tel Aviv to denounce Michael, it felt like being T-boned at a crossroads. ‘Michael is my brother,’ she said, ‘and I love him a great deal, but I cannot and will not be a silent collaborator of his crimes against small children.’

I watched that press conference and her follow-up interview with NBC the next morning, and couldn’t believe how freely she
was talking on camera, seemingly ad-libbing. To the watching public, La Toya’s interviews looked like a damning and convincing condemnation but we knew our sister and the kind of language she’d normally use. The moment she said Mother had referred to Michael as ‘a damn faggot’, we knew the truth: they were the planted words of her manager-boyfriend Jack Gordon who, according to La Toya, would have knocked her black and blue, had she not said what he wanted. This is not my story to tell. It is La Toya’s, and she’s shared her version of events in her own book,
Starting Over
. The main thing to know is that Michael, and the rest of the family, forgave her.

ABOUT TWO MONTHS LATER, IN NOVEMBER,
just when we thought that life couldn’t get much worse, we heard Michael had suffered some kind of meltdown and been taken into rehab in England. It seemed to take us an age to get a handle on what was happening, but we knew Elizabeth Taylor, Bill Bray and Karen Faye were with him and he was cancelling the rest of his
Dangerous
World Tour. He had left Mexico City and flown to London. It was obvious that, in the time since we had left him, his physical and mental state had deteriorated.

Michael had developed a dependency on his prescribed painkiller, Demerol. With all the suffering he was going through over the false allegations, it had hit him hard. A doctor had recognised what was going on and now Michael had to face up to a six-week rehabilitation programme under the professional care of Dr Beechy Colelough. Inevitably the timing led to accusations that this was a cynical ploy to delay the legal process. It has always struck me that when Michael was alive, everyone was keen to say that he was feigning this condition, yet when he was dead, they were happy to call him ‘an addict’. We had known Michael was taking Demerol ever since he was burned in 1984. I know little about his time in rehab so I can’t talk about it here but it’s not right for certain impressions to persist, especially when people label him ‘an addict’ or ‘a junkie’.

There is a world of difference between someone becoming an addict due to bad choices and someone accidentally becoming dependent on a prescribed medicine. Michael was vehemently anti-drugs and was devastated to find himself trapped in a dependency primarily caused by the medication’s side-effects. I’ve read accounts that hype up how, on occasion, his speech was slurred and he appeared glassy-eyed and ‘high’. But what few have perhaps considered is that Demerol, to the best of my limited knowledge, affects the nervous system, blocks pain and creates a sensation not dissimilar to a high.

In 1997, Michael wrote a song called ‘Morphine’, which ridiculed the hysteria that surrounded this issue. The lyrics – ‘Demerol/ Demerol/Oh God he’s taking Demerol’ – say it all. That song was his response to the critics 12 years before he died. Sadly, it was never going to be the final word, but he was a man in pain from 1984, as caused by a terrible accident. Then, he was diagnosed with lupus, which itself can cause untold pain. I can’t talk about that because I don’t know how chronic it can be, but there are, apparently, another two million Americans who can. And all Michael ever wanted was for the pain – internal and external – to leave him alone.