Michael Jackson: The eternal Peter Pan

In August 1968, when 'Jackson 5' made the debut, its PR agents did something spectacularly unethical. They cut two years off the age of each member of the group so as to portray them as child prodigies in a true sense of word. In the process, Michael Jackson, then three weeks shy of turning 11, was presented as an eight-year-old singing sensation. So, the first thing the world knew about MJ was a lie.

And, as the story goes, it wasn't going to be the last, more so with MJ encouraging his handlers, after the success of Thriller in 1982, to 'choreograph' his career to be "the greatest show on earth". Incidentally, it did turn out to be one but not the way he had expected - more so after he was charged with 'molesting' a 13-year-old boy in 1993. Thereafter, everything he did turned him into a weirdo and a freak on a good day, and a criminal and a pedophile on the bad.

Amid such polarising views, which sadly sustain to this day, five years after the death of the 'Moonwalker', comes Tanner Colby's book, Remember the Time: Protecting Michael Jackson in His Last Days, bringing out the real man behind the 'King of Pop'. Seen through the eyes of Bill Whitfield and Javon Beard, MJ's bodyguards, who "were with him at a time when no one else was around", the book attempts to "humanise" the icon.

"MJ's 'Wacko Jacko' image was a fiction created by the tabloids. Yes, he was eccentric. But his eccentricities make sense when you live in his world and see it through his eyes. But because MJ's personal life was so private and so misunderstood, the public could project whatever image they wanted onto him," says Colby, adding: "The real MJ was shy, deferential, sweet. He could be incredibly sensitive, and it hurt him deeply knowing that people in the world thought negative things about him. He could be difficult to work for, just because he wasn't used to being told no. But he always tried to treat everyone with respect and kindness. He gave millions to charity, quietly and often anonymously."

ALWAYS A CHILD
MJ created a web of problems around him, just by refusing to grow 'old'. Like his favourite fictional character Peter Pan, he too named his home 'Neverland', but what he chose to ignore was that Peter's wasn't entirely a happy story. Bill recalls, "I wondered if he really got what that story's about. I think he just took from it what he wanted to take. Because what happens in that book is that children leave Neverland and go back to their parents and grow up."

MJ preferred to remain a child all his life, primarily because he had no childhood. "He missed out on all the stages of growing up, and so he spent his life trying to recapture them," says Colby. Then, of course, all of his relationships with adults were transactional; they all wanted something from him - money, fame, help with their careers."

This explains why MJ won't ever take up adult responsibilities. At the height of his career, he was worth an estimated $700 million, and yet he never knew how to use a credit card. He was a billion-dollar enterprise, running 24x7, yet there was nobody in charge. There was no organisation in place, no actual company; there were just different people forwarding their own agendas. He never had an office or email. His office was where he stood then.

TRUST DEFICIT
It was this parasitic dependence on others that led to so many painful betrayals. And the more he meted those fates, the more he retreated into his shell. Soon he would stop trusting people and get paranoid. So much so that MJ would hardly sleep at night; would always go around the house at three, four in the morning, checking the locks on all the doors; would not open gift boxes for the fear of bombs...

"If you were MJ, you wouldn't trust anyone either. During his trial in 2005, members of his own family tried to make book deals, and his household staff sold secrets to the tabloids for money. Even a private conversation between Jackson and his lawyers was taped and shopped to the media. The paparazzi chased after his kids, a photo of whom was worth tens of thousands of dollars. And as famous as he was, there was nowhere to hide," says Colby.

"He really wanted to escape the media circus that had engulfed his life," says the author, explaining how in the last few years of his life, being a father had become the most normal thing for him. Jovan agrees, "We were on post this one time, and he called down to say he'd run out of laundry detergent and could somebody pick him up some more. Before that moment, I'd never stopped to imagine MJ in the laundry room, washing his kids' clothes, but that's how he
was a lot of time."

Ask Colby on what killed MJ, and he tells we all know how he died of a fatal overdose. "The real question is why. What drove him to be in such a terrible position that he needed these drugs just to sleep? And that is the question we were able to answer in this book," says he.

ON FANS
Every time we left the house, the fans would run up to try and get a glimpse of him. If the kids were in the car, we'd drive on; he didn't want anybody getting too close to his kids. But if it was just us, he insisted on stopping and saying hello and signing as many autographs as possible. "Bill, be nice to my fans," he'd say. "They're not going to let anything happen to me. They're harmless."

ON ELVIS
One time I (Bill) was driving with him, and I had on this morning radio talk show and they started doing one of those call-ins. They were asking listeners, "Who do you think was better, Michael Jackson or Elvis Presley (in pic)? After listening to the show, he burst out, "Elvis couldn't touch me! I sold more records than him and the Beatles! They can't touch what I'm capable of doing." He still had that performer's ego.