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Michael Jackson Biography

Despite achieving his goal to be a music performer, Michael’s childhood was far from happy. He was regularly beaten and threatened by his authoritarian father. This legacy of abuse left Michael scarred throughout his adult life.

Solo Career Michael Jackson

His second solo album, Thriller , launched Michael Jackson into a position as the most famous pop singer in the world. With little commercial advertising and promotion, Thriller rose to number one on album sales and remained at the number one spot for a total of 37 weeks. It gained one of many Guinness World Records for Michael Jackson, attaining 110 million global sales and 29 million sales in the US. Thriller included number one hits such as Beat It, Billie Jean .

Michael Jackson with the Reagans

In March 1983, Michael Jackson performed live on Motown 25, ‘Yesterday, today, forever’, – a TV special. He performed his distinctive and memorable dance move – the Moonwalk. In the dance routine, he effortlessly moves backwards with seemingly keeping one leg perfectly straight. His performance made him a global icon of not just music, but dance. Michael Jackson pioneered the importance of music video in promoting a pop artist. This iconic performance has been compared to the famous Beatles’ appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.

By the late 80s, there was an increasing number of stories speculating on Jackson’s personal life, health and physical appearance. Michael Jackson underwent numerous operations of plastic surgery to fix his nose and add a dimple in his chin. During the 1980s, his skin started to lighten; this was due to a rare skin pigment disease, but it didn’t stop a wave of speculative press stories that he was bleaching his skin colour. The press covered a range of speculative stories about Michael Jackson, including imaginary stories Michael had invented himself (such as sleeping in an oxygen tent to avoid the ageing process)

“I’ve been in the entertainment industry since I was six-years-old, and as Charles Dickens would say, “It’s been the best of times, the worst of times.” But I would not change my career… While some have made deliberate attempts to hurt me, I take it in stride because I have a loving family, a strong faith and wonderful friends and fans who have, and continue, to support me.”

—Michael Jackson

The press attention made Michael increasingly reclusive, spending much of his time in his ‘Never Land’ ranch.

Speaking on the Oprah Winfrey show, Jackson addressed the issue of skin colour change:

“OK, number one. There, as I know of, there is no such thing as skin bleaching…I have a skin disorder that destroys the pigmentation of the skin, it’s something that I cannot help, OK? But, when people make up stories that I don’t want to be who I am, it hurts me…it’s a problem for me, I can’t control it.”

He married Lisa Marie Presley in 1994; it lasted two years though they remained friendly after the divorce. In 1996, he married Deborah Rowe in Sydney. Together they had two children. They divorced in 1999 and Rowe gave full custody of children to Jackson.

Allegations of child abuse were first raised in the 1980s and re-appeared in the 1990s. This led to the trial of The People v Jackson on 31 Jan 2005, in Sante Maria, California. After five months of high publicity, Jackson was acquitted. Though the experience left him physically weak and emotionally stressed. He departed America for the Persian Gulf Island of Bahrain.

“The minute I started breaking the all-time record in record sales—I broke Elvis’s records, I broke Beatles records—the minute it became the all-time best-selling album in the history of the Guinness Book of World Records, overnight they called me a freak. They called me a homosexual. They called me a child molester. They said I bleached my skin. They made everything to turn the public against me.”

– Remarks at National Action Network headquarters (9 July 2002)

Towards the end of his life, he was increasingly plagued by money troubles and ill health. He increasingly became dependent on a variety of drugs, which was said to have contributed to his ill health and premature death. Despite concerns over finance, he is said to have made career earnings of $500m and had assets in Sony/ATV Music Publishing catalogue worth over $300m alone.

“In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe”

– M. Jackson Quoted by CNN June 2009.

Michael Jackson died on 25 June 2009, at a rented mansion in the district of Los Angeles.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of Michael Jackson”, Oxford, UK.  www.biographyonline.net , 28th Jul 2010. Updated 11th February 2018.

Charity Work of Michael Jackson

• Michael Jackson supported many charities. This included a burns charity in Culver City, California. This followed an incident where Michael Jackson was burnt in filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984.
• He also supported HIV / AIDS charities at a time when it was still unfashionable.
• In 1984, he received an award from President Ronald Reagan for his support of charities which help overcome alcohol and drug abuse.
• From his 1984, Victory Tour he donated all funds (around $8million to charity)
• In 1985, he also co-wrote the charity single “We are the World” with Lionel Richie. It sold over 30 million copies, and the proceeds were sent to the poor in the US and Africa.
• He continued his charity work to the end of his life supporting charity concerts such as Aid for victims of Kosovo war.

The Essential Michael Jackson

The Essential Michael Jackson at Amazon

The Creative Life and Work of Michael Jackson

The Creative Life and Work of Michael Jackson at Amazon

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Michael Jackson

• Born August 29 , 1958 · Gary, Indiana, USA
• Died June 25 , 2009 · Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA (acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication and involuntary manslaughter)
• Birth name Michael Joseph Jackson
• The Gloved One
• Wacko Jacko
• King Of Pop
• Smelly - called this by Quincy Jones because " Michael wouldn't say ‘funky.’ He’d say ‘smelly jelly.’"
• Height 5′ 9″ (1.75 m)
• Michael Joseph Jackson was born on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana, and entertained audiences nearly his entire life. His father, Joe Jackson (no relation to Joe Jackson , also a musician), had been a guitarist, but was forced to give up his musical ambitions following his marriage to Michael's mother Katherine Jackson (née Katherine Esther Scruse). Together, they prodded their growing family's musical interests at home. By the early 1960s, the older boys Jackie, Tito and Jermaine had begun performing around the city; by 1964, Michael and Marlon had joined in. A musical prodigy, Michael's singing and dancing talents were amazingly mature, and he soon became the dominant voice and focus of the Jackson 5 . An opening act for such soul groups as the O-Jays and James Brown , it was Gladys Knight (not Diana Ross ) who officially brought the group to Berry Gordy 's attention, and by 1969, the boys were producing back-to-back chart-busting hits as Motown artists ("I Want You Back," "ABC," "Never Can Say Goodbye," "Got to Be There," etc.). As a product of the 1970s, the boys emerged as one of the most accomplished black pop / soul vocal groups in music history, successfully evolving from a group like The Temptations to a disco phenomenon. Solo success for Michael was inevitable, and by the 1980s, he had become infinitely more popular than his brotherly group. Record sales consistently orbited, culminating in the biggest-selling album of all time, "Thriller" in 1982. A TV natural, he ventured rather uneasily into films, such as playing the Scarecrow in The Wiz (1978) , but had much better luck with elaborate music videos. In the 1990s, the downside as an 1980s pop phenomenon began to rear itself. Michael grew terribly child-like and introverted by his peerless celebrity. A rather timorous, androgynous figure to begin with, his physical appearance began to change drastically, and his behavior grew alarmingly bizarre, making him a consistent target for scandal-making, despite his numerous charitable acts. Two brief marriages -- one to Elvis Presley 's daughter Lisa Marie Presley -- were forged and two children produced by his second wife during that time, but the purposes behind them appeared image-oriented. Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. His passion and artistry as a singer, dancer, writer and businessman were unparalleled, and it is these prodigious talents that will ultimately prevail over the extremely negative aspects of his troubled adult life. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / [email protected]
• Spouses Debbie Rowe (November 15, 1996 - April 2000) (divorced, 2 children) Lisa Marie Presley (May 26, 1994 - August 20, 1996) (divorced)
• Children Prince Michael Jackson Bigi Jackson Paris Jackson
• Parents Joe Jackson Katherine Jackson
• Relatives Jackie Jackson (Sibling) Tito Jackson (Sibling) Jermaine Jackson (Sibling) Marlon Jackson (Sibling) Randy Jackson (Sibling) Brandon Jackson (Sibling) La Toya Jackson (Sibling) Janet Jackson (Sibling) Rebbie Jackson (Sibling) Yashi Brown (Niece or Nephew) Austin Brown (Niece or Nephew) Siggy Jackson (Niece or Nephew) Jermaine Jackson II (Niece or Nephew) Jaafar Jackson (Niece or Nephew) Marlon Jackson Jr. (Niece or Nephew) Billie Bodega (Niece or Nephew) Brittany Jackson (Niece or Nephew) Taj Jackson (Niece or Nephew) TJ Jackson (Niece or Nephew) Jermajesty Jackson (Niece or Nephew) Donte Jackson (Niece or Nephew) Genevieve Jackson (Niece or Nephew) Taryll Jackson (Niece or Nephew) Eissa Al Mana (Niece or Nephew) Autumn Joy Jackson (Niece or Nephew) Stacee Brown (Niece or Nephew) Brandi Jackson (Niece or Nephew)
• The Moonwalk
• Single sequined white glove
• He always wore white socks with black shoes
• Often wore a black hat and a jacket with a ribbon around one sleeve
• Lyrics reflecting his social concerns and hopes for a better world
• At his peak, Jackson was reportedly worth around $1 Billion.
• He claimed to have given $300 million to charity, more than any other celebrity apart from Oprah Winfrey .
• His 1982 album "Thriller" is the biggest selling album of all time, with confirmed sales of over 51 million, and claimed sales of over 100 million copies worldwide. His 1987 album "BAD" is one of the biggest selling albums of all time, with over 20 million copies sold worldwide. His 1991 album "Dangerous" is one of the biggest selling albums of all time, with over 20 million copies sold worldwide.
• He was the first artist to generate seven top ten hits (USA) on one album with "Thriller".
• Following the week of his death, his album sales collectively spiked over 2000%.
• I can't think of a better way to spread the message of world peace than by working with the NFL and being part of Super Bowl XXVII.
• I don't like pop music.
• I'll always be Peter Pan in my heart.
• People think they know me, but they don't. Not really. Actually, I am one of the loneliest people on this earth. I cry sometimes, because it hurts. It does. To be honest, I guess you could say that it hurts to be me.
• "Just because you read it in a magazine or see it on a TV screen doesn't make it factual. To buy it is to feed it." - about tabloid magazines.

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• World Biography

Michael Jackson Biography

Born: August 29, 1958 Gary, Indiana African American entertainer, singer, and songwriter

Aperformer since the age of five, Michael Jackson is one of the most popular singers in history. His 1983 album, Thriller, sold forty million copies, making it the biggest seller of all time. Through his record albums and music videos he created an image imitated by his millions of fans.

Career planned in advance

Michael Joe Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana, on August 29, 1958, the fifth of Joe and Katherine Jackson's nine children. The house was always filled with music. Jackson's mother taught the children folk and religious songs, to which they sang along. Jackson's father, who worked at a steel plant, had always dreamed of becoming a successful musician. When this failed to happen, he decided to do whatever it took to make successes of his children. He tried to control his children's careers even after they were adults. The struggle for the control of the musical fortunes of the Jackson family was a constant source of conflict.

The Jackson boys soon formed a family band that became a success at amateur shows and talent contests throughout the Midwest. From the age of five Michael's amazing talent showed itself. His dancing and stage presence caused him to become the focus of the group. His older brother, Jackie, told Gerri Hershey in Rolling Stone, "It was sort of frightening. He was so young. I don't know where he got it. He just knew. "

Discovered by Motown

The Jacksons' fame and popularity soon began to spread. While performing at the Apollo Theater in New York City's Harlem neighborhood in 1968, Motown recording artist Gladys Knight (1944–) and pianist Billy Taylor discovered them. Later that year singer Diana Ross (1944–) became associated with the boys during a "Soul Weekend" in Gary. With Ross's support, the Jacksons signed a contract with Motown Records. Berry Gordy (1929–), the famous head of Motown, took control of the Jacksons' careers.

By 1970 the group, known as the Jackson Five, was topping the charts and riding a wave of popularity with such hits as "ABC," "The Love You Save," and "I'll Be There," each of which sold over one million copies. The group also appeared on several televised specials, and a Jackson Five cartoon series was created. Gordy quickly recognized Michael's appeal and released albums featuring him alone. These solo albums sold as well as those of the Jackson Five. The group managed to survive Michael's voice change and a bitter break with Motown Records in 1976, but as the Jackson family they continued to fight with each other and with their own father.

Unbelievable success

While working on The Wiz, Jackson met producer Quincy Jones (1933–). They worked together on Jackson's 1979 album Off the Wall, which sold ten million copies and earned critical praise. In 1982 Jackson and Jones again joined forces on the Thriller album. Thriller fully established Jackson as a solo performer, and his hit songs from the album—"Beat It," "Billie Jean," and "Thriller"—made him the major pop star of the early 1980s. The success of Thriller (with forty million copies sold, it remains one of the best-selling albums of all time) and the videos of its songs also helped Jackson break the color barrier imposed by radio stations and the powerful music video channel MTV. By 1983 Jackson was the single most popular entertainer in America.

In 1985 Jackson reunited with Quincy Jones for USA for Africa's "We Are the World," which raised funds for the poor in Africa. Jackson's next two albums, Bad (1987) and Dangerous (1991), were not as hugely successful as Thriller, but Jackson remained in the spotlight throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. In 1992 he founded "Heal the World" to aid children and the environment. In 1993 he was presented with the "Living Legend Award" at the Grammy Awards ceremony and with the Humanitarian (one who promotes human welfare) of the Year trophy at the Soul Train awards.

Rocked by scandal

Despite Jackson's popularity and good works, he became the subject of a major scandal (action that damages one's reputation). In 1993 a thirteen-year-old boy accused Jackson of sexually abusing him at the star's home. Jackson settled the case out of court while insisting he was innocent. The scandal cost Jackson his endorsement (paid public support of a company's products) contract with Pepsi and a film deal. His sexual preference was called into question, and his public image was severely damaged.

In 1995 Jackson was criticized following the release of his new album HIStory: Past, Present, and Future, Book I. One of the songs on the album, "They Don't Care About Us," seemed to contain anti-Semitic (showing hatred toward Jewish people) lyrics (words). To avoid further criticism, Jackson changed the lyrics. He also wrote a letter of apology to Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, who had protested the lyrics.

Marriage and fatherhood

In 1994 Jackson shocked the world when he married Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of the late (deceased) rock legend Elvis Presley (1935–1977). Many felt that the marriage was an attempt to improve his public image. In August 1996 Jackson and Presley divorced. In November 1996 Jackson announced that he was to be a father. The child's mother was Debbie Rowe, a long-time friend of Jackson. They married later that month in Sydney, Australia. On February 13, 1997, their son, Prince Michael Jackson, Jr., was born in Los Angeles, California. The couple's second child, daughter Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, was born in 1998. Rowe filed for divorce from Jackson in October 1999.

Jackson and his brothers were elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1997. Later that year another album, Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix, containing new versions of songs from HIStory along with five new songs, was released. The album received good reviews, and the world continued to be fascinated by the talent and career of Michael Jackson.

In 2000 Jackson's promoter sued him for $21.2 million for backing out of two planned concerts the previous New Year's Eve. In 2001 Jackson, while delivering a lecture at Oxford University in England to promote his Heal the Kids charity, described his unhappy childhood and proposed a "bill of rights" for children that would provide for the right to an education "without having to dodge bullets." Later that year Jackson was again elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this time as a solo performer. Jackson also released a new album, Invincible, in October 2001.

For More Information

Grant, Adrian. Michael Jackson: The Visual Documentary. New York: Omnibus Press, 1994.

Graves, Karen Marie. Michael Jackson. San Diego, CA: Lucent Books, 2001.

Jackson, Michael. Moonwalk. New York: Doubleday, 1988.

Marsh, Dave. Trapped: Michael Jackson and the Crossover Dream. New York: Bantam, 1985.

Nicholson, Lois. Michael Jackson. New York: Chelsea House, 1994.

Wallner, Rosemary. Michael Jackson: Music's Living Legend. Edina, MN: Abdo & Daughters, 1991.

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Michael Jackson Biography and Profile

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The Jackson 5 and Early Career

Michael Jackson is one of the most successful and influential pop recording artists of all time. Born in 1958, he began his career as a member of the Jackson 5 recording for Motown with four of his brothers. They hit #1 on the pop singles chart with "I Want You Back" in 1969. It was followed by three more consecutive #1 hits. They were the first recording artists to hit #1 on the pop singles chart with their first four chart hits. The group's popularity faded in the mid 1970's, but, after moving to the CBS record label and calling themselves simply the Jacksons, they consistently hit the charts in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Among their hits in that era were "Shake Your Body (Down To the Ground)" and "Can You Feel It."

Michael Jackson Becomes an Adult Artist With Off the Wall

Michael Jackson hit #1 on the pop singles chart as a solo artist in 1972 serenading a rat with the title song from the movie Ben . He hit the top five with two other early singles. 1971's "Got To Be There" went to #4 and 1972's "Rockin' Robin" hit #2. Michael Jackson didn't near the top of the charts again until seven years later with the release of the album Off the Wall in 1979 produced by Quincy Jones. It was simultaneously a last gasp of disco and an R&B classic that ushered in the 80's. The album peaked at #3 on the album chart, sold over seven million copies and included four top 10 pop singles. The singles "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and "Rock With You" went all the way to #1 on the pop singles chart. "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" won a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal.

In 1982, three years after Off the Wall , Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson collaborated once again and created Thriller , the bestselling album of all time. It was preceded by the single "The Girl Is Mine," a collaboration with Paul McCartney , which reached #2 on the pop singles chart. A month after the album hit stores, the second single "Billie Jean" was unleashed, and the masterpiece that is Thriller began to unfold. Ultimately, 28 million copies sold in the US and Thriller became the first album to launch seven singles into the pop top 10. "Bille Jean" and "Beat It" both hit #1 and the music video for "Beat It" tore down barriers for African-American artists at MTV. 

The music from Thriller generated a phenomenal eleven Grammy Award nominations. The album took home the award for Album of the Year and "Beat It" won Record of the Year. "Billie Jean" was named Best R&B Song.

It was almost five years after the release of Thriller before Michael Jackson's next album appeared in 1987. Bad was Michael Jackson's third album co-produced by Quincy Jones. The single "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" preceded the album and hit the top of the pop singles chart. Ultimately, Bad became the first album to include five #1 pop singles. That record stood until Katy Perry matched it with her Teenage Dream album in 2010-2011. Bad sold over eight million copies in the US. The #1 charting singles were "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," "Bad," "The Way You Make Me Feel," "Man In the Mirror," and "Dirty Diana." Music from Bad earned five Grammy Award nominations. The album was nominated for Album of the Year, and "Man In the Mirror" earned a Record of the Year nomination, but Bad won no awards.

By 1991, four years after the release of Bad , some critics wondered whether Michael Jackson was still relevant in the pop world. He signed a 15-year six album deal with Sony Music, and recorded Dangerous with new jack swing pioneer Teddy Riley and Bill Botrell as producers. The album was another major success selling seven million copies, topping the album chart, generating four top 10 singles and spending over two years on the album chart.

The release of the debut single "Black or White" was a worldwide television event. An estimated 500 million viewers watched the John Landis directed clip. The song was released to radio stations two days in advance and was added to playlists on 96% of Billboard's reporting pop radio stations on the first day of release. The music video for "Remember the Time" was a massive production as well directed by celebrated film director John Singleton. It included guest appearances from Eddie Murphy, Magic Johnson, and Iman among others. "Black Or White" earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal.

Michael Jackson's Controversies

Michael Jackson's career and life had their fair share of controversies. In the mid 1980s he was the subject of widespread tabloid stories including tales of sleeping in an oxygen chamber to slow aging, bleaching his skin, and undergoing multiple rounds of plastic surgery. In the early 1990s Michael Jackson was accused of sexually abusing a child in a case ultimately closed for lack of evidence. In 2005 Jackson was put on trial for allegations of sexual molestation. He was acquitted on all counts.

Commercial Decline

In 1995 Michael Jackson released his first compilation album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book 1 . It was a two-disc set and sold over three million copies in the US as well as earning a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. However, an all-new studio album did not appear until 2001. Invincible became the first significant commercial disappointment for Michael Jackson since the 1970s. It sold only two million copies and did not include any #1 hit singles. Only "You Rock My World" hit the top 10.

Top Michael Jackson Hits

• 1979 - "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" (One week at #1)
• 1979 - "Rock With You" (Four weeks at #1)
• 1983 - "Billie Jean" (Seven weeks at #1)
• 1983 - "Beat It!" (Three weeks at #1)
• 1983 - "Say Say Say" with Paul McCartney (Six weeks at #1)
• 1987 - "Bad" (Two weeks at #1)
• 1987 - "The Way You Make Me Feel" (One week at #1)
• 1988 - "Man In the Mirror" (Two weeks at #1)
• 1991 - "Black Or White" (Seven weeks at #1)
• 1995 - "You Are Not Alone" (One week at #1)

More details about each song in Top 20 Michael Jackson Songs .

Top Michael Jackson Videos

• 1979 - "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough"
• 1983 - "Beat It!"
• 1983 - "Billie Jean"
• 1984 - "Thriller"
• 1987 - "Bad"
• 1991 - "Black Or White"
• 1992 - "Remember the Time"
• 1995 - "Scream" with Janet Jackson
• 1995 - "You Are Not Alone"
• 1996 - "They Don't Care About Us"

More details about the videos, and a complete listing, in the Guide to Michael Jackson Videos .

Michael Jackson's Comeback Efforts

In 2008 Michael Jackson released Thriller 25, a 25th anniversary re-issue of his bestselling album Thriller that included re-recordings of some of the tracks by top contemporary pop stars including Fergie and Kanye West . It also included one new song "For All Time." Remixes of "The Girl Is Mine" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" were released as singles. The latter climbed to #2 on the dance chart.

In March 2009 Michael Jackson announced that he would perform a series of concerts in London at the O2 arena over the summer. What was originally announced as 10 shows was later extended to 50 that were planned into the year 2010. Rehearsals commenced under the direction of choreographer Kenny Ortega.

Michael Jackson died unexpectedly June 25, 2009 at the age of 50 less than three weeks before the first London concert was scheduled to take place. A public memorial service included performances of his songs by a wide range of top recording artists. A feature film built around rehearsal footage from the planned concert tour titled Michael Jackson's This Is It was released in October 2009. A posthumous studio album titled was released in December 2010. Michael Jackson earned a posthumous Grammy Award nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal for the song "This Is It." In 2014 a second posthumous album with previous unreleased material titled Xscape appeared under the direction of L.A. Reid. It included the top 10 pop hit "Love Never Felt So Good." 

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Triumph & Tragedy: The Life of Michael Jackson

By Mikal Gilmore

Mikal Gilmore

This story was originally published in the 2009 special edition dedicated to Michael Jackson .

He was, in the end, precisely what he claimed and struggled to be: the biggest star in the world. If there had been any doubt, it ended on the afternoon of June 25th, 2009, when the news broke that Michael Jackson had died of apparent cardiac arrest in Los Angeles at age 50. The outpouring of first shock, then grief, was the largest, most instantaneous of its kind the world had ever known, short of the events of September 11th, 2001. Though the deaths of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. affected history more, and the deaths of Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Kurt Cobain signified the end of epochs, no single death has ever moved so fast around the globe, or to the forefront of all news, as swiftly as Michael Jackson’s.

In the days that followed, news channels, TV specials, feature magazines and front pages tried to understand what happened. Not so much the events of Jackson’s death – though there was confusion surrounding that – but rather the nature of his life and legacy. He was a man with a complicated personality, a man with a history that was both glorious and notorious. He was not a man that anybody felt nothing about. The most affecting statement I heard came from a young black man, Egberto Willies, whose self-chronicled video statement aired on CNN: “I grew up,” Willies said, and paused a beat, “on Michael Jackson. I loved … Michael Jackson. I hated … Michael Jackson. I admired … Michael Jackson. I was ashamed … of Michael Jackson. I was sorry … for Michael Jackson. I was proud … of Michael Jackson.”

What immediately became obvious in all the coverage is that despite the dishonor that had come upon him, despite the worst kinds of allegations against him, despite his extravagances, his idiosyncratic fears, his perceived megalomania (or narcissism) and his prolonged abandonment of his art, the world still respected Michael Jackson for the music he made for more than four decades. No single artist – indeed, no movement or force – has eclipsed what Jackson accomplished in the first years of his adult solo career. Clearly, many other artists have given us great art, great outrage, great invention and great rejuvenation – but Michael Jackson changed the balance in the pop world in a way that nobody has since. He forced rock & roll and the mainstream press to acknowledge that the biggest pop star in the world could be young and black, and in doing so he broke down more barriers than anybody. But he is also among the best proofs in living memory of poet William Carlos Williams’ famous verse: “The pure products of America/go crazy.” American music has had fewer pure products than Michael Jackson.

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There is no story in popular music as providential yet as tragic as the story of Michael Jackson. Both destinies ran throughout his life, more or less from the beginning: While still a child, he became the central source of support for a large family and an incalculable asset to one of the most important record labels in history. Jackson benefited from all of that – he won fame and money, and developed a self-image that set him apart from almost everybody. He lived vast lives within himself – it’s where he brooded and transformed his resentments and desires into both blissful and fierce art. It’s also where he found his strengths, and where he kept his frailties until they became lethal foibles. Given his upbringing, you can see why he had to make that life within.

Michael’s father, Joe Jackson, was a crane operator during the 1950s, in Gary, Indiana – a place in which, according to Dave Marsh’s Trapped: Michael Jackson and the Crossover Dream , quotas were imposed on how many black workers were allowed to advance into skilled trades in the city’s mills. Black workers were paid less than the white workers, and also suffered much higher rates of fatal industry-related illnesses – but Joe Jackson held hopes that music would lift his life. Michael’s mother, Katherine Scruse, was from Alabama but was living in East Chicago, Indiana, when she met Joe. She had grown up hearing country & western music, and although she entertained her own dreams of singing and playing music, a bout of polio had left her with a permanent limp. Joe and Katherine were a young couple, married in 1949, and began a large family immediately. Their first child, Maureen (Rebbie), was born in 1950, followed by Sigmund (Jackie) in 1951, Toriano (Tito) in 1953, Jermaine in 1954, La Toya in 1956 and Marlon in 1957. Michael was born on August 29th, 1958, and Randy was born in 1961. Janet, the last born, wouldn’t arrive until 1966.

50 Best Michael Jackson Songs

500 greatest songs of all time (2004), paris jackson: life after neverland.

Michael and his siblings heard music all the time. Joe had a strong inclination toward the rowdy electric urban blues that had developed in nearby Chicago, and also for early rock & roll. Along with his brothers, Joe formed a band, the Falcons, and made some modest extra income from playing bars and college dances around Gary. “They would do some of the great early rock & roll and blues songs by Chuck Berry, Little Richard … you name it,” Michael wrote in his 1988 autobiography, Moonwalk . “All those styles were amazing and each had an influence on … us, though we were too young to know it at the time.” 

When the Falcons folded, Joe retired his guitar to a bedroom closet, and he guarded it jealously, just as he did everything in his domain. Katherine, though, sometimes led her children in country-music singalongs, during which she taught them to harmonize. Tito, like his father, had a quick affinity for playing instruments, and one day after retrieving Joe’s guitar to practice with his brothers, he broke a string. As Michael later recalled, Joe whipped Tito for the infraction – “he let him have it” – then challenged his son to show him what he could play. As it turned out, Tito impressed his father. Maybe in those moments Joe Jackson saw a future hope blossom again. He bought Tito his own guitar and taught him some Ray Charles music, then he got Jermaine a bass. Soon he was working all his sons into an ensemble. Though Joe was at heart a blues man, he appreciated that contemporary R&B – Motown and soul – was the music that attracted his sons. Joe groomed Jermaine to be lead singer, but one day, Katherine saw Michael, just four at the time, singing along to a James Brown song, and Michael – in both his voice and moves – was already eclipsing his older brother. She told Joe, “I think we have another lead singer.” Katherine would later say that sometimes Michael’s precocious abilities frightened her – she probably saw that his childhood might give way to stardom – but she also recognized that there was something undeniable about his young voice, that it could communicate longings and experiences that no child could yet know. Michael was also a natural center of attention. He loved singing and dancing, and because he was so young – such an unexpected vehicle for a rousing, dead-on soulful expression – he became an obvious point of attention when he and his brothers performed. Little Michael Jackson was cute, but little Michael Jackson was also dynamite.

There is no story in popular music as providential yet as tragic as the story of Michael Jackson. 

It’s clear that Joe Jackson was good at what he did. “He knew exactly what I had to do to become a professional,” Michael later said. “He taught me exactly how to hold a mike and make gestures to the crowd and how to handle an audience.” But by Joe’s own admission he was also unrelenting. “When I found out that my kids were interested in becoming entertainers, I really went to work with them,” he told Time in 1984. “I rehearsed them about three years before I turned them loose. That’s practically every day, for at least two or three hours. … They got a little upset about the whole thing in the beginning because the other kids were out having a good time. … Then I saw that after they became better, they enjoyed it more.” That isn’t always how Michael remembered it. “We’d perform for him, and he’d critique us,” he wrote in Moonwalk . “If you messed up, you got hit, sometimes with a belt, sometimes with a switch. … I’d get beaten for things that happened mostly outside rehearsal. Dad would make me so mad and hurt that I’d try to get back at him and get beaten all the more. I’d take a shoe and throw it at him, or I’d just fight back, swinging my fists. That’s why I got it more than all my brothers combined. I’d fight back, and my father would kill me, just tear me up.” Those moments – and probably many more – created a loss that Jackson never got over. He was essential to the family’s music making, but there was no other bond between father and son. Again, from Moonwalk : “One of the few things I regret most is never being able to have a real closeness with him. He built a shell around himself over the years, and once he stopped talking about our family business, he found it hard to relate to us. We’d all be together, and he’d just leave the room.”

Around 1964, Joe began entering the Jackson brothers in talent contests, many of which they handily won. A single they cut for the local Steeltown recording label, “Big Boy,” achieved local success. “At first I told myself they were just kids,” Joe said in 1971. “I soon realized they were very professional. There was nothing to wait for. The boys were ready for stage training, and I ran out of reasons to keep them from the school of hard knocks.” In 1966, he booked his sons into Gary’s black nightclubs, as well as some in Chicago. Many of the clubs served alcohol, and several featured strippers. “This is quite a life for a nine-year-old,” Katherine would remind her husband, but Joe was undaunted. “I used to stand in the wings of this one place in Chicago and watch a lady whose name was Mary Rose,” Michael recalled. “This girl would take off her clothes and her panties and throw them to the audience. The men would pick them up and sniff them and yell. My brothers and I would be watching all this, taking it in, and my father wouldn’t mind.” Sam Moore, of Sam and Dave, recalled Joe locking Michael – who was maybe 10 years old – in a dressing room while Joe went off on his own adventures. Michael sat alone for hours. He also later recalled having to go onstage even if he’d been sick in bed that day.

Michael and his brothers began to tour on what was still referred to as the “chitlin circuit” – a network of black venues throughout the U.S. (Joe made sure his sons kept their school studies up to date and maintained their grades at an acceptable level.) In these theaters and clubs, the Jacksons opened for numerous R&B artists, including the Temptations, Sam and Dave, Jackie Wilson, Jerry Butler, the O’Jays and Etta James, though no one was as important to Michael as James Brown. 

“I knew every step, every grunt, every spin and turn,” he recalled. “He would give a performance that would exhaust you, just wear you out emotionally. His whole physical presence, the fire coming out of his pores, would be phenomenal. You’d feel every bead of sweat on his face, and you’d know what he was going through….You couldn’t teach a person what I’ve learned just standing and watching.” 

The most famous site on these tours was the Apollo in New York, where the Jackson 5 won an Amateur Night show in 1967. Joe had invested everything he had in his sons’ success, though of course any real recognition or profit would be his success as well. While on the circuit, Joe had come to know Gladys Knight, who was enjoying a string of small successes with Motown, America’s pre-eminent black pop label. With the encouragement of both Knight and Motown R&B star Bobby Taylor, Joe took his sons to Detroit to audition for the label. In 1969, Motown moved the Jackson family to Los Angeles, set them up at the homes of Diana Ross and the label’s owner, Berry Gordy, and began grooming them. Michael remembered Gordy telling them, “I’m gonna make you the biggest thing in the world. … Your first record will be a number one, your second record will be a number one, and so will your third record. Three number-one records in a row.” 

In 1959, Gordy founded Tamla Records – which soon became known as Motown – in Detroit. By the time he signed the Jackson 5 , Motown had long enjoyed its status as the most important black-owned and -operated record label in America, spawning the successes of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Temptations, Mary Wells, the Four Tops, and Diana Ross and the Supremes, among others. In contrast to Stax and Atlantic, Motown’s soul wasn’t especially bluesy or gritty, nor was it a music that spoke explicitly to social matters or to the black struggle in the U.S. By its nature the label exemplified black achievement, but its music was calibrated for assimilation by the pop mainstream – which of course meant a white audience as much as a black one (the label’s early records bore the legend “The Sound of Young America”). At the time, rock music was increasingly becoming a medium for album-length works. By contrast, Motown maintained its identity as a factory that manufactured hit singles, despite groundbreaking albums by Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. Gordy was looking for a singles-oriented group that would not only deliver hits for young people, but would also give them somebody to seize as their own, to identify with and to adore. The Jackson 5, Gordy said, would exemplify “bubblegum soul.”

The Jackson 5’s first three singles – “I Want You Back,” “ABC” and “The Love You Save” – became Number One hits as Gordy had promised, and so did a fourth, “I’ll Be There.” The group was established as the breakout sensation of 1970. Fred Rice, who would create Jackson 5 merchandise for Motown, said, “I call ’em the black Beatles. … It’s unbelievable.” And he was right. The Jackson 5 defined the transition from 1960s soul to 1970s pop as much as Sly and the Family Stone did, and at a time when many Americans were uneasy about minority aspirations to power, the Jackson 5 conveyed an agreeable ideal of black pride, one that reflected kinship and aspiration rather than opposition. They represented a realization that the civil rights movement made possible, and that couldn’t have happened even five or six years earlier. Moreover, the Jackson 5 earned critical respectability. Reviewing “I Want You Back” in Rolling Stone , Jon Landau wrote , “The arrangement, energy and simple spacing of the rhythm all contribute to the record’s spellbinding impact.” And though they functioned as a group, there was no question who the Jackson 5’s true star was, and who they depended on. Michael’s voice also worked beyond conventional notions of male-soul vocals – even worked beyond gender. Cultural critic and musician Jason King, in an outstanding essay, recently wrote, “It is not an exaggeration to say that he was the most advanced popular singer of his age in the history of recorded music. His untrained tenor was uncanny. By all rights, he shouldn’t have had as much vocal authority as he did at such a young age.”

Fred Rice, who would create Jackson 5 merchandise for Motown, said, “I call ’em the black Beatles. … It’s unbelievable.”

For at least the first few years, Michael and his brothers seemed omnipresent and enjoyed universal praise. But soon they experienced some hard limitations. The music they were making wasn’t really of invention – they didn’t write or produce it – and after Michael was relegated to recording throwback fare like “Rockin’ Robin,” in 1972, he worried that the Jackson 5 would become an “oldies act” before he left adolescence. The Jackson 5 began pushing to produce themselves and to create their own sound. Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye had demonstrated an ability to grow and change – and sell records – when given creative leeway, and with 1974’s “Dancing Machine,” the Jacksons proved they could thrive when they seized a funk groove. Motown, however, wouldn’t consider it. “They not only refused to grant our requests,” Michael said in Moonwalk , “they told us it was taboo to even mention that we wanted to do our own music.” Michael understood what this meant: Not only would Motown not let the Jackson 5 grow, they also wouldn’t let him grow. Michael bided his time, studying the producers he and his brothers worked with. “I was like a hawk preying in the night,” he said. “I’d watch everything. They didn’t get away with nothing without me seeing. I really wanted to get into it.”

In 1975, Joe Jackson negotiated a new deal for his sons – this time with Epic Records, for a 500 percent royalty-rate increase. The contract also stipulated solo albums from the Jacksons (though the arrangement did not include Jermaine, who married Gordy’s daughter Hazel and stayed with Motown, creating a rift with the family that lasted for several years). Motown tried to block the deal, and in the end stopped the brothers from using the Jackson 5 name; the group would now be known as the Jacksons. Epic initially placed them with Philadelphia producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, but it wouldn’t be until 1978’s Destiny that the Jacksons finally seized control over their own music and recast their sound – sexy and smooth in the dance-floor hits “Blame It on the Boogie” and the momentous “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground),” and reflecting a new depth and emotional complexity in songs like “Push Me Away” and “Bless His Soul.”

Destiny , though, was merely a prelude: By the time the album was finished, Michael was ready to make crucial changes that would establish his ascendancy as a solo artist. He fired his father as his manager and in effect found himself a new father, producer Quincy Jones, whom Michael connected with while filming The Wiz (a reworking of The Wizard of Oz ). Jones was a respected jazz musician, bandleader, composer and arranger who had worked with Clifford Brown, Frank Sinatra, Lesley Gore, Count Basie, Aretha Franklin and Paul Simon, and he had written the film scores for The Pawnbroker , In Cold Blood and In the Heat of the Night . Jackson liked the arranger’s ear for mixing complex hard beats with soft overlayers. “It was the first time that I fully wrote and produced my songs,” Jackson said later, “and I was looking for somebody who would give me that freedom, plus somebody who’s unlimited musically.” Specifically, Jackson said his solo album had to sound different than the Jacksons; he wanted a cleaner and funkier sound. The pairing proved as fortuitous as any collaboration in history. Jones brought an ethereal buoyancy to Jackson’s soft erotic fever on songs like “Rock With You” and “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” and in a stunning moment like “She’s Out of My Life,” Jones had the good sense to let nothing obscure the magnificent heartbreak in the singer’s voice. The resulting album, Off the Wall – which established Jackson as a mature artistic force in his own right – has the most unified feel of any of his works. It was also a massive hit, selling more than 5 million copies in the U.S. alone by 1985. 

Michael Jackson had in effect become one of the biggest black artists America had ever produced, and he expected Off the Wall to win top honors during the 1980 Grammy Awards ceremony. Instead, it received only one honor, for Best Male R&B vocal. The Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool Believes” won for Record of the Year, and Billy Joel’s 52nd Street won Album of the Year. Jackson was stunned and bitter. “My family thought I was going crazy because I was weeping so much about it,” he recalled. “I felt ignored and it hurt. I said to myself, ‘Wait until next time’ – they won’t be able to ignore the next album. … That experience lit a fire in my soul.” 

Jackson told Jones – and apparently others as well – that his next album wouldn’t simply be bigger than Off the Wall , it would be the biggest album ever. When Thriller was released in November 1982, it didn’t seem to have any overarching theme or even a cohesive style. Instead, it sounded like an assembly of singles – like a greatest-hits album, before the fact. But it became evident fast that this was exactly what Jackson intended Thriller to be: a brilliant collection of songs intended as hits, each one designed with mass crossover audiences in mind. Jackson put out “Billie Jean” for the dance crowd, “Beat It” for the white rockers, and then followed each crossover with crafty videos designed to enhance both his allure and his inaccessibility. Yet after hearing these songs find their natural life on radio, it was obvious that they were something more than exceptional highlights. They were a well-conceived body of passion, rhythm and structure that defined the sensibility – if not the inner life – of the artist behind them. These were instantly compelling songs about emotional and sexual claustrophobia, about hard-earned adulthood and about a newfound brand of resolution that worked as an arbiter between the artist’s fears and the inescapable fact of his fame. “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ ” had the sense of a vitalizing nightmare in its best lines (“You’re stuck in the middle/And the pain is thunder. … Still they hate you, you’re a vegetable. … They eat off you, you’re a vegetable”). “Billie Jean,” in the meantime, exposed the ways in which the interaction between the artist’s fame and the outside world might invoke soul-killing dishonor (“People always told me, be careful of what you do. … ‘Cause the lie becomes the truth,” Jackson sings, possibly thinking of a paternity charge from a while back). And “Beat It” was pure anger – a rousing depiction of violence as a male stance, as a social inheritance that might be overcome. In sum, Thriller’s parts added up to the most improbable kind of art – a work of personal revelation that was also a mass-market masterpiece. It’s an achievement that will likely never be topped.

Except, in a sense, Jackson did top it, and he did it within months after Thriller ’s release. It came during a May 16th, 1983, TV special celebrating Motown’s 25th anniversary. Jackson had just performed a medley of greatest hits with his brothers. It was exciting stuff, but for Michael it wasn’t enough. As his brothers said their goodbyes and left the stage, Michael remained. He seemed shy for a moment, trying to find words to say. “Yeah,” he almost whispered, “those were good old days. … I like those songs a lot. But especially—” and then he placed the microphone into the stand with a commanding look and said, “I like the new songs.” He swooped down, picked up a fedora, put it on his head with confidence, and vaulted into “Billie Jean.” This was one of Michael Jackson’s first public acts as a star outside and beyond the Jacksons, and it was startlingly clear that he was not only one of the most thrilling live performers in pop music, but that he was perhaps more capable of inspiring an audience’s imagination than any single pop artist since Elvis Presley. There are times when you know you are hearing or seeing something extraordinary, something that captures the hopes and dreams popular music might aspire to, and that might unite and inflame a new audience. That time came that night, on TV screens across the nation – the sight of a young man staking out his territory, and just starting to lay claim to his rightful pop legend. “Almost 50 million people saw that show,” Jackson wrote in Moonwalk . “After that, many things changed.”

He was right. That was the last truly blessed moment in Michael Jackson’s life. After that, everything became argument and recrimination. And in time, decay.

Before going into that area – where the story breaks in two – it’s probably worth asking, What kind of person was Michael Jackson at that time? What were his hopes and his problems? What did he want his music to say or accomplish? How did he relate to the audience who loved him, and how did he relate to himself? Up to this point, these questions haven’t really figured; Michael Jackson was an immensely talented young man – he seemed shy but ambitious, and he certainly seemed enigmatic. Nobody knew much about his beliefs or his sex life; he rarely gave interviews, but he also didn’t land himself in scandals. He did, however, describe himself as a lonely person – particularly around the time he made Off the Wall . Former Los Angeles Times music critic Robert Hilburn recently wrote of meeting Jackson in 1981 , when the singer was 23, that Jackson struck him as “one of the most fragile and lonely people I’ve ever met … almost abandoned. When I asked why he didn’t live on his own like his brothers, instead remaining at his parents’ house, he said, ‘Oh, no, I think I’d die on my own. I’d be so lonely. Even at home, I’m lonely. I sit in my room and sometimes cry. It is so hard to make friends, and there are some things you can’t talk to your parents or family about. I sometimes walk around the neighborhood at night, just hoping to find someone to talk to. But I just end up coming home.’ ” 

Jackson’s social uneasiness was probably formed by the wounds in his history; the children were insulated from others their age, and Jackson’s status as a lifelong star may have left him feeling not just cut off from most people, but also alien from them – as if his experience or his vocation made him extraordinary. “I hate to admit it,” he once said, “but I feel strange around everyday people.” Not exactly an unusual sentiment for some cloistered celebrities, especially former child stars. At the same time, it’s a statement full of signals: Jackson didn’t enjoy the sort of company that might guide him in positive ways. He probably never did, throughout his life. Maybe the most troubling passage in Moonwalk is when he talks about children in the entertainment world who eventually fell prey to drugs: “I can understand … considering the enormous stresses put upon them at a young age. It’s a difficult life.”

In any event, Michael Jackson seemed clearly reputable – eminent though not heroic, not yet messianic, and certainly not contemptible. Thriller placed seven singles in Billboard’s Top 10 and also became the biggest-selling album in history (presently around 50 million copies or more), and at the 1984 Grammy Awards, Jackson finally claimed his due, capturing eight awards, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year. Then, months later, it was announced that Michael would be setting out on a nationwide tour with the Jacksons. He hadn’t wanted to undertake the venture but felt obliged (“Those were slim shoulders on which to place such burdens,” he wrote of his lifelong family pressures). Clearly, his talents and aspirations went beyond the limitations that his family act imposed on him. By all rights, he should have been taking the stage alone at that point in his career.

Jackson’s aversion to the Victory Tour was apparent when he sat looking miserable at press conferences or when he had to denounce statements by his father that he interpreted as casting aspersions on the Jacksons’ management team of Ron Weisner and Freddy DeMann. “There was a time,” Joe said, “when I felt I needed white help in dealing with the corporate power structure at CBS. … And I thought [Weisner-DeMann] would be able to help.” Michael fired back furiously in a written comment to Billboard : “To hear him talk like that turns my stomach. I don’t know where he gets that from. I happen to be colorblind. I don’t hire color; I hire competence. … I am president of my organization and I have the final word on every decision. Racism is not my motto.” It was the end of any lingering business relationship between Michael and his father.

It was during this period that a backlash first set in against Jackson, though from the press more than from the public. Actually, it began before the tour, as it became apparent that Thriller was headed for unprecedented sales at a blinding rate. The mid-1980s was a time when many in the music press had misgivings about mass popularity – especially if it seemed to represent a homogenized or acquiescent culture. Michael Jackson, after all, wasn’t an artist with a message of sociopolitical revolution, nor did his lyrics reflect literary aspirations. To some then – and to some now – he represented little more than an ambition for personal fame. He wasn’t, it seemed, an artist who would accomplish for his audience what Elvis Presley and the Beatles accomplished for theirs: the sort of event or disruption that changed both youth culture and the world. In my mind, Michael Jackson, Presley and the Beatles all shared one virtue: They bound together millions of otherwise dissimilar people in not just a quirk of shared taste, but also a forceful, heartfelt consensus that spoke to common dreams and values.

But there was a trickier concern at play. The racial dimensions of Jackson’s image proved complex beyond any easy answers at that time, or even since. Some of that was attributable to charges that Jackson seemed willing to trade his former black constituency for an overwhelmingly white audience – otherwise how could he have achieved such staggering sales figures in the U.S.? But what probably inspired these race-related arguments most – the terrain where they all seemed to play out – was the topography of Jackson’s face. With the exception of later accusations about his sexual behavior, nothing inspired more argument or ridicule about Michael Jackson than that face.

In his childhood, Jackson had a sweet, dark-skinned countenance; many early Jackson 5 fans regarded him as the cutest of the brothers. J. Randy Taraborrelli, author of Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness , has written, “[Michael] believed his skin…‘messed up my whole personality.’ He no longer looked at people as he talked to them. His playful personality changed and he became quieter and more serious. He thought he was ugly – his skin was too dark, he decided, and his nose too wide. It was no help that his insensitive father and brothers called him ‘Big Nose.’” Also, as Jackson became an adolescent, he was horribly self-conscious about acne. Hilburn recalled going through a stack of photos with Jackson one night and coming across a picture of him as a teenager: “‘Ohh, that’s horrible,’ [Jackson] said, recoiling from the picture.”

The face Jackson displayed on the cover of Thriller had changed; the skin tone seemed lighter and his nose thinner and straighter. In Moonwalk , Jackson claimed that much of the apparent renovation was due to a change in his diet; he admitted to altering his nose and his chin, but he denied he’d done anything to his skin. Still, the changes didn’t end there. Over the years, Jackson’s skin grew lighter and lighter, his nose tapered more and more and his cheekbones seemed to gain prominence. To some, this all became fair game for derision; to others, it seemed a grotesque mutilation – not just because it might have been an act of conceit, aimed to keep his face forever child-like, but more troublingly because some believed Jackson wanted to transform himself into a white person. Or an androgyne – somebody with both male and female traits. The film Three Kings has a famous scene where an Iraqi interrogator asks a captured American soldier, “What is the problem with Michael Jackson? Your country make him chop up his face. … Michael Jackson is pop king of sick fucking country.” The soldier replies, “It’s bullshit – he did it to himself,” and the Iraqi smacks him on the head with a clipboard. “It is so obvious. A black man make the skin white and the hair straight, and you know why? … Your sick fucking country make the black man hate hisself.” 

In 1985, James Baldwin wrote in an essay for Playboy , “The Michael Jackson cacophony is fascinating in that it is not about Jackson at all. I hope he has the good sense to know it and the good fortune to snatch his life out of the jaws of a carnivorous success. He will not swiftly be forgiven for having turned so many tables, for he damn sure grabbed the brass ring, and the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo has nothing on Michael. All that noise is about America, as the dishonest custodian of black life and wealth; and blacks, especially males, in America, and the burning, buried American guilt; and sex and sexual roles and sexual panic; money, success and despair… ”

Baldwin’s paragraph was sympathetic and unflinching, but it was also prescient. Michael Jackson certainly wanted to seize the ring twice: He wanted his next album to be bigger than Thriller , which was of course too much to ask. An associate of his told me in 1988, “Michael still wants the world to acknowledge him.” Maybe just as important, Jackson was also seeking vindication. He felt misjudged and maligned by much of the criticism heaped on him after the 1984 Victory Tour. He had long been taught, by both his father and Motown, that the press was a vindictive force when it came to entertainers, that it reveled in the rhythm of building a celebrity’s image, only to turn around and undermine that same person. In his case, Jackson wasn’t half wrong. Some of the scrutiny he received about his “freakishness” – his devotion to his animals as if they were his friends, his ongoing facial reconstruction, scornful charges that he slept in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber to maintain his youthfulness – was judgmental, even moralistic. Worse, too much of it came from reporters and gossip columnists, even political commentators, who displayed little if any real appreciation for Jackson’s music and little respect for the sheer genius of his work.

At that time, Jackson’s art was still his best way of making a case for himself. In 1987, he released Bad , his much-anticipated successor to Thriller . If not as eventful and ingenious as Off the Wall and Thriller , Bad was as good as any album he ever made. It was taut and funky, it had snap and fever, it radiated rage and self-pity but also yearning for grace and transcendence – particularly in “Man in the Mirror,” a song about accepting social and political responsibility, and about the artist negotiating his way back into the world. Bad sold millions and launched five Number One singles, three more than Thriller , but because it couldn’t match the accomplishments of Thriller , it was viewed as a flop.

Jackson then staged his first solo tour later that year. On several nights, I saw him turn in inspiring performances that also served as timely reminders of a sometimes overlooked truth about him: Namely that whatever his eccentricities, Michael Jackson acquired his fame primarily because of his remarkably intuitive talents as a singer and dancer – talents that were genuine and matchless and not the constructions of mere ambition or hype. Though he had the lithe frame of Fred Astaire, the mad inventiveness of Gene Kelly, the sexy agony of Jackie Wilson, the rhythmic mastery of James Brown – or of Sammy Davis Jr., for that matter – nobody else moved like Michael Jackson. Certainly nobody else broke open their moment in one daring physical display like Jackson. He didn’t invent the moonwalk – that famous and impossible backward gliding movement from his Motown 25 performance of “Billie Jean” – but it didn’t matter. He had defined himself in that moment and dared anybody else to match it, and nobody ever did. During the Bad tour his moves were breathtaking, sometimes unexpected. In the opening parts of songs like “Bad” and “The Way You Make Me Feel,” he seemed self-conscious and strained pulling off the songs’ cartoonish notion of streetwise sexuality, and his overstated hip pops and crotch snatching came off as more forced than felt. And yet when the music revved up, all the artifice was instantly dispelled. Jackson became suddenly confident and pulled off startling, robotic hip-and-torso thrusts alongside slow-motion, sliding-mime moves that left the audience gasping. Watching those quirky moves, you realized that all that came from somewhere within. You realized Jackson’s exceptional talent could not be completely separable from his eccentricity.

In 1988, he was again nominated for key Grammy Awards including Album of the Year, but he was up against hard competition. Artists like U2 and Prince had fashioned the most ambitious and visionary music of their careers – music that reflected the state of pop and the world in enlivening ways. More to the point, in 1988 there was suspicion among many observers that Jackson’s season as pop’s favorite son had passed. He would win no Grammys that year. In the Rolling Stone Readers’ poll, Jackson placed first in six of the readers’ “worst of the year” categories (including “worst male singer”); in addition, The Village Voice Critics’ Poll failed to mention Jackson’s Bad in its selection of 1987’s 40 best albums. This was a startling turnaround from four years before, when Jackson and his work topped the same polls in both publications. 

Michael jackson never really regained momentum or ambition after the negative reaction to Bad . He had finally left the family home in Encino and built his own fortress estate known as Neverland, about 100 miles north of L.A., with an amusement park and train rides redolent of Disneyland. It became a place where he brought the world to him, or at least that part of the world he seemed to care about, which mainly included children – the people, he said, he felt most at home with, since part of him wanted to experience and share the childhood he felt his father and entertainment career had deprived him of. But it was also Michael’s appetite for the company of children that would create the most lamentable troubles in his life. In 1993, a story broke that Jackson was accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy with whom he had kept frequent company. It was a terribly serious accusation, and given his fondness for the company of children, the charges seemed all too credible to some observers. The story played big in not just tabloid newspapers but in some mainstream media as well. No criminal charges were filed, but in 1994 Jackson settled the matter out of court (reportedly for something in the vicinity of $20 million), which struck many as a tacit admission to the allegations. Jackson, though, categorically denied the claim. He later told British journalist Martin Bashir that he simply wanted to put the issue behind him.

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The episode did enormous damage to Jackson’s image, and perhaps to his psychology as well. It was during that time that, according to some, he developed a dependency on medications that stayed with him through the rest of his life. (Jackson’s need for drugs may also have stemmed from pains attributable to various surgeries.) That same year he unexpectedly married Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of rock & roll’s most eminent pioneer, Elvis Presley. Some saw it as an effort to both rehabilitate and bolster his image by asserting a heterosexual authenticity, and by linking his name to even greater fame. The marriage lasted 18 months. Presley has never spoken negatively of Jackson, only affectionately, saying in the days after her ex-husband’s death that she left him only because she felt she couldn’t save him from himself. Jackson married again in 1996, this time to a nurse from his dermatologist’s office, Debbie Rowe. The couple had two children, son Prince Michael Jackson and daughter Paris Michael Katherine Jackson. Apparently, the children were the true objective of the marriage for Jackson; the couple divorced in 1999 and Rowe gave up custody of the children. (Rowe has admitted in the past that Jackson wasn’t the children’s biological father, but rather that they were conceived by artificial insemination.)

Through the course of all this, sadly, Jackson’s musical drive fell off, and the music that did emerge was only sporadically successful. His new music was often a testament of self-justification. In “Childhood,” a song from 1995’s HIStory: Past, Present and Future , he put forth his case for his otherness: “No one understands me/They view it as such strange eccentricities. … It’s been my fate to compensate/For the childhood I’ve never known/ Before you judge me, try hard to love me/ Look within your heart, then ask/Have you seen my childhood?” Two years later, still dismayed at how the media continued to judge him, Jackson lashed out in “Is It Scary,” a song from his 1997 remix album, Blood on the Dance Floor : “Am I the beast you visualized/And if you wanna see/Eccentric oddities/I’ll be grotesque before your eyes….So tell me….Am I scary for you?” His hurt and anger also began to come out more in his body over the years. Sometimes his expression looked terrified, his eyes peering over surgical masks or from behind the cover of a burqa. Other times he moved with an explosive fury, as in those moments at the end of his infamous but incredibly successful 1991 video for the song “Black or White.” Those movements seemed so different from the joyful ones of years before.

But despite good moments – and too many treacly and self-aggrandizing ones –  Michael Jackson’s 1990s music had no real presence in the ongoing current of popular culture. His final album, Invincible , from 2001, yielded a few adventurous tracks – Jackson was finally accommodating the stylistic and cultural innovations made by hip-hop and other urban music forms – but overall it wasn’t enough to live up to its title. This isn’t to say that Michael Jackson was no longer a huge star but rather that his legend had transmuted: He was now known for his excesses and bad choices. He lived in a castle; he contracted another baby, Prince Michael II (whose mother has never been identified); and he then recklessly dangled the baby over a balcony in Berlin. Sometimes you had to wonder whether Jackson had any real idea how his actions struck the world – which is perhaps OK, unless you expect the world to love you unconditionally.

Jackson’s most egregious lapse of judgment became evident in a notorious 2003 interview with Martin Bashir, in which the singer professed that he still shared his bed at Neverland with children who were not his own. During one point in the broadcast, Jackson sat holding the hand of a 13-year-old boy, a cancer survivor, and explained what he saw as the innocent and loving nature of that behavior. The public response was swift and hypercritical; many thought that despite the accusations he had faced in 1993, Jackson could still act as he wanted with impunity. The reaction was so devastating to Jackson that, according to some rumors, later that year he attempted a morphine overdose; at the very least, some observers declared Jackson had committed career suicide. The controversy became as serious as possible when the boy in the video accused Jackson of fondling him. This time, the matter went to trial. The horrible drama that Jackson had landed in was in keeping with the dominant themes of his life and art: his obsessions with stardom, mystery, hubris, fear and despoiled childhood. If the charges were true, one had to wonder what Jackson truly saw when he looked at the childhoods of others. Was he capable of disrespecting their innocence, just as his own was once ruined? But if the charges weren’t true, then one had to ask what measure of satisfaction could be won in his ruin?

The 2005 trial was the spectacle everybody expected it to be – a drama about justice and celebrity, sex and outrage, morality and race. Even though it dragged on, it was clear the prosecution didn’t have a case so much as it had umbrage. The trial was a farce – it’s dismaying the case ever made it to trial – and Jackson was acquitted on all charges. But the damage done seemed, in many ways, final. Jackson walked out of the courtroom that day a shaken, listless man. His finances were also coming undone; he had been spending ludicrous sums and he’d mismanaged his money – which took some doing, since he had made such a vast fortune. The biggest star in the world had fallen from the tallest height. He left the country and moved to Bahrain; he was only occasionally seen or heard from. Nobody knew whether he could recover his name, or even preserve his considerable music legacy, until earlier this year, when he announced an incredibly ambitious series of 50 concerts – which he described as the “final curtain call” – to take place at London’s O2 arena, beginning July 13th.

It’s hard to believe that Jackson, who was so proud of his public performances and so peerless at delivering them, would have committed himself to a project in which he might fail so tremendously. At the same time, it is not inconceivable that Michael Jackson could have been a man half-hungry and broken in the past few years. All that is certain is that on June 25th, in Los Angeles, Michael Jackson met the only sure redemption he might know, in the most famous unexpected and mysterious death in current history. That redemption didn’t come because he died, but because his death forced us to reconsider what his life added up to.

What killed Michael Jackson? His life-long pursuit of fame and vindication? No doubt, in part. He pushed too hard, wanted too much; he didn’t recognize limitations. In addition, the pain of achieving so much yet being derided and dismissed time and again had to be considerable. It’s also clear that all the hatred and judgment directed his way for his peculiarities and for his rumored sexual behavior had to debilitate his spirit, if not his body. That subject of child molestation will always, of course, be a crux concern about his life, one that, for many people, clearly – and understandably – trumps his art. We will likely never know what the truth was, which is one more awful aspect of the whole nightmare. The accusation will always stay attached to his name.

What, then, saved Michael Jackson – that is, after his death? At the least, his art and his accomplishments. When somebody makes as much great music as Jackson did, our collective pleasures are enriched and our history is made more intense and complex. In his ambitions, in his setbacks and most important, in his sounds, he embodied black music history in America. But he did more: The barriers he broke helped make the modern pop world a more inclusive scene than it once was before. That is, he staked out new territory. It is always a good thing to see somebody transforming the world of known possibilities. I remember, as a kid, watching Elvis Presley do it on the Dorsey brothers’ Stage Show and The Ed Sullivan Show. I remember, as an adolescent, watching the Beatles open up whole new artistic and historic possibilities in their first U.S. appearances, live on Ed Sullivan. I remember, in my first year as a writer on the staff of Rolling Stone, watching the Sex Pistols crack old surfaces and yield a new future – even as they sang of “no future” onstage at San Francisco’s Winterland, during their last 1970s performance.

Still, I’ll never forget that night back in early 1983, when onstage in Pasadena, California, at the Motown 25th anniversary show, Michael Jackson gave his first public performance as a mature artist staking his own claim, vaulting into that astonishingly graceful, electrifying version of “Billie Jean.” Dancing, spinning, sending out impassioned, fierce glares at the overcome audience, Jackson did a powerful job of animating and mythologizing his own blend of mystery and sexuality. I’d never seen anything quite like it before. Maybe I never will again. Michael Jackson didn’t just grab the gold ring: He hooked it to a new bar and set it even higher, and nobody has yet snatched it with quite the same flair or results. 

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A michael jackson timeline, michael jackson: full npr music archive, read and hear the archive of npr stories on michael jackson, photo timeline.

Follow a chronology of the singer's life, highlighted by breathtaking commercial success, intense public scrutiny and odd lifestyle choices:

Aug. 29, 1958: Michael Joseph Jackson is born to Katherine and Joe Jackson in Gary, Ind. His older siblings are Rebbie, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, LaToya and Marlon. Later, brother Randy and sister Janet join the family. Katherine Jackson raises her children as Jehovah's Witnesses.

1962: Michael, Marlon, Jackie, Tito and Jermaine combine to form a band. At first, their father does not approve, but later changes his mind and manages the band. Jackson sings lead vocal on most of the songs.

1968: Motown signs The Jackson 5.

1969: The song "I Want You Back" jumps to the number-one singles spot. "ABC (1970)," "The Love You Save" and "I'll Be There" follow suit.

1971-1972: Jackson goes solo, and his singles "Got to Be There," "Rockin' Robin" and "I Wanna Be Where You Are" storm the charts — as does "Ben," a ballad about a pet rat featured in the horror movie Ben .

1978: Jackson makes his film debut as the Scarecrow in The Wiz , an urban retelling of the classic film The Wizard Of Oz . Diana Ross co-stars as Dorothy. Jackson is said to wear his makeup long after production hours.

1979: Jackson records Off The Wall , his first album as a solo artist. The singles "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and "Rock With You" both shoot to number-one hits.

1980: Jackson nabs his first Grammy Award for Best R&B Male Vocal Performance.

1982-1983: Jackson releases the album Thriller , and it tops the charts for 37 weeks. Seven singles dash into the top 10, including "Billie Jean," "Beat It," "Thriller" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'." The extended video sequence on "Thriller" has Jackson morph into a werewolf. Jackson unveils his signature dance move, the moonwalk.

1984: Questions arise about Jackson's changing appearance, and some wonder if the singer has had plastic surgery. He builds a home on 2,700 acres in Central California, complete with its own amusement park rides, and calls it Neverland.

1985: Jackson and Lionel Richie pen "We Are The World," with the proceeds from sales of the single slated for hunger relief in Africa. Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Cyndi Lauper and other prominent artists lend their voices to the song. It sells a record seven million copies.

1987: Bad , Jackson's third album, hits the shelves. He embarks on a world tour.

1988: Doubleday publishes Jackson's autobiography, Moonwalk .

1990: Thriller goes platinum for the 21st time and the Guinness Book of World Records certifies it as the best-selling album ever. To date, it has sold 65 million copies.

1992: Jackson tells Oprah Winfrey he has vitiligo, a skin disorder that destroys melanin and, in severe cases, can leave a victim devoid of skin color. He also reveals that his father emotionally abused him as a child.

1993: Jackson is accused in civil court of molesting an 11-year-old boy. Police descend on Neverland and subject Jackson to a full body search. "It was the most humiliating ordeal of my life," he says in a televised statement in December.

1994: Jackson settles the molestation case out of court. The boy is paid more than $15 million, to be held in trust until he is an adult. The parents of the boy receive $1.5 million each.

May 26, 1994: Jackson and Lisa-Marie Presley tie the knot. The marriage will last less than two years.

1995: Sony releases HIStory: Past, Present and Future Book I . Janet Jackson performs a duet with her older brother on "Scream."

1996: Jarvis Cocker of the British band Pulp accosts Jackson in mid-act at the BRIT Awards. Jackson was surrounded by children and a rabbi performing "Earth Song." Cocker claims Jackson had attempted to imitate Christ.

1997: Jackson marries Debbie Rowe, a nurse. Rowe gives birth to a son, Prince Michael. Jackson is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1998: Rowe bears a girl, Paris Michael Katherine.

1999: Jackson and Rowe split.

2000: "Billie Jean," "Rock With You," "I Want You Back" and "Beat It" make Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest songs of all time.

2001: Sony releases Invincible, which is panned by critics and does not sell well. Jackson battles a $21-million civil suit by a German concert promoter who says the singer backed out of two concerts and pocketed an advance.

2002: Jackson lifts his newborn son, Prince Michael, over a hotel room terrace so fans can glimpse — and is roundly criticized for endangering his child. The identity of the child's mother is never revealed. Jackson says the child is the result of artificial insemination from a surrogate mother and his own sperm cells.

2003: Jackson is charged with seven counts of child sexual abuse and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent. All charges were made by the same boy, Gavin Arvizo, who was under 14 at the time of the alleged crime.

2005: Jackson is acquitted on all counts in the Arvizo case in the the People v. Jackson trial in Santa Maria, Calif.

2006: Financial troubles force closure on the main house on the Neverland Ranch. Jackson agrees to a Sony-backed refinancing deal. Jackson makes his first public appearance since the Arvizo trial to accept eight records from the Guinness World Records in London, including "Most Successful Entertainer of All Time." In late 2006, Jackson agrees to share joint custody of his first two children with ex-wife Debbie Rowe.

2007: Jackson and Sony buy Famous Music LLC from Viacom, which gives him rights to songs by Eminem, Shakira, Beck and others.

2008: Jackson issues Thriller 25 , celebrating 25 years of the iconic album. The reissue hits number one in eight countries and reached number two in the U.S. Sony releases King of Pop , a fan-curated compilation.

June 25, 2009: Jackson dies in Los Angeles at 50 after going into cardiac arrest.

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Music Raiser

Michael Jackson: The Greatest Short Biography Ever

by Kan Nigua February 26, 2021, 1:18 pm updated April 1, 2024, 11:45 am

Michael Jackson’s life seemed an exciting journey with numerous ups and downs and we’ve tried to sum up his biography in just 20 significance.

Birth on 29 th  August 1958

Michael Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana on 29 th  August 1958 to Joseph Jackson and Katherine Jackson with 4 sons and two daughters.

Started Singing at the age of 5

At the age of 5, Michael joined his brothers and started singing. The band was initially known as the Jackson 5 comprising of all brothers except the youngest Randy.

A solo career at 13

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The first solo album of Michael Got to be there was released in 1972. The world became more aware of the talent of the teenage Michael.

The Jackson 5 top the charts

Songs by the Jackson 5 soon began to win the hearts and top the charts including “I want you back,” “I’ll be there” and other music tracks.

Jamaica tour by the Jacksons

The Jacksons (excluding Jermaine Jackson including Randy Jackson) had a tour for Jamaica in 1975 where they met Bob Marley.

Off the Wall album

On 10 th August 1979, Michael released his fifth studio album the songs of which were becoming the greatest hits including “Don’t stop til’ you get enough”, “Rock with you” and others.

Thriller Album

The huge positive turn in the career of Michael was the release of Thriller , the bestselling album of all times because of the coolest songs you could’ve ever listened to.

Eight Grammy Awards in a night

Michael Jackson set a record by winning eight Grammy awards in a single night out of which most were the results of his successful album Thriller .

The Victory tour

In the early 1980s, after the release of the Thriller  album, MJ went for a tour with his 5 brothers. They performed on various songs in different regions of the world.

The BAD World tour

From 1987 to 1989, Michael was busy with his grand musical tour consisting of 123 shows in North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia.

The Dangerous world tour

From 1992 to 1993, Michael had his next musical tour comprising of 70 concerts in Europe, Latin America, California, Asia, and Pasadena.

The Super Bowl performance

Jackson also performed in the Half time show of Super Bowl (American football) on 31 st  January 1993.

Married Lisa Marie Presley

On 26 th  May 1994, Michael married the daughter of Elvis Presley, Lisa Marie Presley. Their marital relationship ended on 20th August 1996.

1995 MTV Music Video Awards

Michael’s performance in the MTV Music Video Awards in 1995 was an unforgettable one in which we saw him performing on his greatest hits.

Married Debbie Rowe

Michael had his second marriage with Debbie Rowe on 14 th  November 1996 from which he had a son Prince Michael and a daughter Paris Jackson.

The HIStory World Tour

Consisting of 82 shows in Europe, Oceania, North America, Asia, and Africa, Michael was busy with his HIStory World tour from 1996 to 1997.

MJ visited Nelson Mandela

In 1996, Michael met the president and more importantly his inspiration, Mr. Nelson Mandela.

30 th  Anniversary Special

On 13 th November 2001, MJ celebrated the 30 th Anniversary as a solo artist. Various artists performed including Whitney Houston, Chris Tucker, and others.

United we Stand

This charity concert was held on 21 st  October 2001 headed by Michael as a tribute to the sufferers of 9/11.

The concert movie was released on 26th October 2009. The documentary shows Michael doing rehearsals for his upcoming performances.

Biography Michael Jackson music singer story

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© 2024 Musicraiser.com

Michael Jackson

Michael Joseph Jackson was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and one of the most influential and iconic pop music entertainers of all time. He was nicknamed the “King of Pop” by his close and long-time friend Elizabeth Taylor, a title that stuck after striking a chord with fans.      

Born on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana, Michael Jackson was the eighth of ten children (one died shortly after birth) to Joseph (Joe) and Katherine Jackson. His father worked as a crane operator in a steel mill and his mother at a Sears department store. Music was a source of escape from their daily life and both parents were musical themselves. Joe played guitar in a local R&B group, which rehearsed in the family’s tiny house at 2300 Jackson Street (coincidentally named after the U.S. president). His mother sang and played clarinet and piano. Joe’s band rehearsals, combined with their lively stream of music in the home, had a big impact on the Jackson children from an early age.   

All eight of Michael Jackson’s siblings — Rebbie, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, La Toya, Marlon, Randy and Janet — made marks in the music industry. However, Michael’s talent was evident from a very young age and with his father’s encouragement, Michael started his career at the age of five. He joined his brothers’ musical group in the 1960s, which became The Jackson 5. 

Once Michael joined as lead singer and performer of The Jackson 5, they were on the fast track to fame and fortune. Michael’s voice, combined with his signature dance moves, entertained and thrilled audiences. His earliest musical influence was James Brown, known for his mesmerizing dance moves on stage. Brown personally taught Jackson how to drop the microphone and then catch it before it hit the stage. Michael also adopted the dance moves and dramatic postures of Sammy Davis Jr. and Jackie Wilson. Jackson admired the choreographic innovations of Gene Kelly and how Smokey Robinson wrote and produced his own material. 

The success of The Jackson 5, later renamed The Jacksons, drove Michael to be an illustrious artist. He started his solo artist career in 1971, but it wasn’t until 1979 when he teamed up with Quincy Jones to record his solo album “Off the Wall” that he earned entry into the level of influential R&B singer/songwriters. Now, “Off the Wall” is one of the greatest albums of all time and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008. Its release was the first time an album by a solo artist had ever struck four hits in the top 10 Billboard Hot 100 charts. The single “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” landed Michael his first Grammy Award for best male R&B vocal performance. The black-and-white style featured on the cover of “Off the Wall” helped brand his image that would lead to global fame. Michael used this same style for his breakthrough music videos, including “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” and “Billie Jean,” and would later tap the iconic style for the entirety of his solo career.       

Reunited with Quincy Jones for his follow-up 1982 album, “Thriller,” Michael wanted to create the biggest selling pop album ever. Ever since he was young, he studied composition and was inspired to create “Thriller” like Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker suite, where every song was a massive hit. He fulfilled his dream as “Thriller” launched him into superstardom. He won eight Grammy Awards for “Thriller,” including Album of the Year and Record of the Year. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” is the all-time best-selling album worldwide and was also inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. 

Michael Jackson is equally known for his innovative dance moves. One of Jackson's most iconic dance moves was performed on March 25, 1983 for Motown 25 where he first unveiled the "moonwalk" during the performance of “Billie Jean.” He learned it from Jeffrey Daniel who pioneered the dance move known previously as the backslide. It would be five years later, during the making of the music video “Smooth Criminal,” where a dance routine that paid homage to Fred Astaire in the 1953 film, The Band Wagon, highlighted his inventive spirit.  

For his live performances, Jackson wanted to create an anti-gravity illusion of leaning from the ankle at a 45-degree angle while keeping his body straight. Audiences were wowed by the “anti-gravity lean” dance move that is physically impossible, but made possible through his shoes. The shoes were designed with ankle supports and cutouts in the heels, that were temporarily attached to pegs rising from the stage at the appropriate moment. The effect was a seemingly impossible forward lean. The shoes were  patented  by Michael Jackson and his co-inventors on October 26, 1993. 

Michael married Lisa Marie Presley in 1994, but they divorced in 1996. He then married Debbie Rowe with whom he had two children, Michael Joseph Jackson II (known as Prince Jackson) and Paris Jackson. They divorced in 1999 and Michael fathered a third child in 2002 known as Blanket Jackson. Michael’s groundbreaking creativity and stardom was shadowed by a controversial personal life. Jackson died of cardiac arrest at his home on June 25, 2009 at the age of 50. 

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‘It was very difficult for Michael’: the Jacksons on fame, family and survival

Back with a political reworking of Can You Feel It, brothers Tito, Marlon and Jackie talk about their legendarily tough father, their memories of Michael and why they always hope for another massive hit

C an You Feel It is one of the great disco songs. Now the Jacksons are determined to remind us that it is also one of the great political songs, with its call for “all the colours of the world” to unite and tell the “marching men who are killing their brothers” that we all share the same blood.

Forty years after first charting, Can You Feel It has been reworked to include clips from speeches by Martin Luther King and Barack Obama, part of a project to expand the band’s six albums for Epic with remixes and bonus tracks. It makes perfect sense to have MLK and Obama guesting on the song, Tito Jackson says today: “They are the two best rappers in the world.” Tito and Jackie, the oldest brother, laugh. They are Zooming from Las Vegas, where they both live. Both are youthful and run off high-energy batteries. Tito, whose three sons make up the group 3T, is wearing his customary bowler hat – he says it’s the first thing he puts on when he gets up, and the last thing he takes off at night. Jackie, who has been married three times and has four children, is smartly dressed and smiley. It’s hard to believe they are approaching 70.

The Jackson 5 (later the Jacksons) were the ultimate R&B boyband. Their first four Motown singles (I Want You Back, ABC, The Love You Save and I’ll Be There) topped the US charts in 1969 and 1970 , which was then unprecedented. Their music was an infectious mix of R&B, soul, funk, and pop; their dance routines a synchronised joy. They appealed equally to black and white audiences, and their songs have proved timeless. Without the Jackson 5, of course, there would have been no Michael Jackson. They were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of fame in 1997. As well as being arguably the world’s most famous and successful music family, they are often cited as one of the strangest. There’s father Joe’s alleged tyranny over his children, La Toya’s makeover to look like Michael, love rivalries between Jermaine and Randy, pretty much everything about Michael and so much more.

These days, the Jacksons are a foursome (Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon) and sometimes a threesome when Jermaine, who lives in Bahrain, can’t make it. “A lot of people think the group was broken up when Michael was alive, but the Jacksons were never broken up. We pace ourselves for longevity,” Jackie says.

Listen to them and you could be forgiven for thinking they were just starting out, despite the 37 years that have elapsed since their last hit single.

“We’re gonna have ...” Jackie says.

“... more hit singles,” Tito says. They often finish sentences for each other.

Do they miss having hits? Tito looks at me as if I’m mad. “Do we miss having hit records? Of course. Everyone does.”

Before signing to Motown, the Jackson brothers spent years rehearsing at home in Gary, Indiana. It was a crazy life, scheduled by their father, Joe. After school, it is said, they typically rehearsed for four hours, played a gig, did their homework and then got to bed between 2am and 4am.

“That’s about right,” Jackie says, when I mention it.

“That’s right,” Tito echoes.

When did they sleep?

“We slept in the cars,” Jackie says.

“Between shows, Jackie, remember?” Tito says. “A quick 15-minute nap.”

There were nine Jackson children in all – six boys (all of whom performed in the band) and three girls (Janet became a huge star in her own right, while La Toya also had a lengthy recording career). Joe, who died in 2018, had a reputation as the toughest father in the music business. Was that fair? “Naaah,” says Jackie. “Noooooah. I like the fact that he was tough, but he wasn’t like that with us. That’s just rumours jumping on this to sell magazines.” A moment later, he tells me: “He was real disciplined. And the reason he was tough with us was because we had gangs in the neighbourhood and he didn’t want us to fall into them, so he kept us busy. We worked all the time, whether it was on our music or just moving bricks in the backyard from one spot to another spot.”

Moving bricks? They nod and grin. For no purpose, whatsoever? Again, they nod and grin. That’s bonkers, I say. Well, there was a purpose of sorts, says Jackie. “He did it to keep us occupied because he knew it was going to take us all day to move those bricks from over here to over there.”

In 1993, Michael told Oprah Winfrey that his father would watch them rehearse and if they did anything wrong he would beat them with a belt leaving them covered in welts. But the brothers are staunch defenders of Joe. Without Joe’s iron will, they say, they wouldn’t have made it. Their father saw the boys’ talent as a way out of Gary.

We always hear about Joe’s role in the boys’ success, but what about their mother, Katherine? Actually, Jackie says, there wouldn’t have been a Jackson 5 without her. “She’s the one who from the very beginning realised we had talent. My momma was an avid country and western fan so we would harmonise with her all the time. And she told my poppa: ‘Hey Joe, the boys can really sing, you need to check them out.’ After he heard us sing, he started buying instruments.”

Jermaine Jackson, who will be touring with the band this summer, is not available to talk, though no reason is given. Jermaine has long had a reputation for being the prima donna of the Jacksons. He is no stranger to controversy, not least for starting a relationship with (and later marrying) Alejandra Oaziaza, the partner of the youngest Jackson brother Randy, with whom she had two children. Randy himself has hardly led a scandal-free life. In 1991, he was convicted of battery for beating his wife, Eliza Shaffy, and their 14-month-old, daughter Steveanna.

Marlon Jackson is at home in Georgia when we speak. Marlon is a sweet man who has led an uneventful adult life compared with most of his siblings. At 18, he married his childhood sweetheart, Carol Ann – they have three adult children and are still together today. Marlon was one of twins born prematurely, and his brother only lived a couple of hours. He was closest to Michael in age, just 17 months older, and today is wearing a Study Peace cap. He runs an organisation of the same name, which he calls a brand and a movement. Even though he didn’t know it as a child, he says, peace was always the message behind the Jacksons’ music. “We would go to countries all over the world and everybody would come in harmony and peace, and the music would unify people.”

Marlon and Michael were a team. “We were road warriors,” he says. “We’d do things we were not supposed to. One time we were in New York City, and we started throwing toilet tissue out of a 40th floor window. We were nine and 10 years old. Another time, we filled a trash can full of water and threw it off the balcony. And Michael licked his finger and held it up and said the wind is blowing this way, so you gotta throw it out that way so you can hit the people. We both were pranksters.”

The young Marlon often incurred his father’s wrath because he was out of step or missed a note. “It took me time to catch on to things. I got in a good deal of trouble. Michael got in some trouble, too.”

When success came, in 1969, Jackie says it was a wonderful chaos. What does he remember most clearly? “The camaraderie, the pageantry, the excitement, the pandemonium. We couldn’t finish a concert – we’d sing maybe five songs and that was it.”

Did that frustrate them? “It excites you,” Tito says, “but you build the show, so it starts here and goes up and we wanted people to see the middle and the end, but they wouldn’t let us.” What they loved most was the travel; experiencing new cultures. “We were kids from Gary, Indiana and got to go to Japan, go to the UK and perform for the queen of England, go to Germany and perform for the president. Most kids, especially African American kids, didn’t get that chance.”

Did they experience racism on the road? “In the south our rooms would be facing the trash, and at 4am you’d hear the big trucks come in to pick up the trash,” Marlon says. “You didn’t get much sleep.” They also discovered that their music was tearing down racial barriers. “Somebody wrote a letter to us saying they had been shipped off to an all-white school and it was really troublesome for them,” Marlon says. “And they said what made it change for them with the white kids is that the teacher gave them a project to write about your favourite group, and he said everybody wrote about the Jackson 5.”

It’s impossible to know what level of success the Jacksons would have achieved if Michael had not had such an incredible solo career. But the bigger he became, the less interest the world took in the brothers’ collective work. By 1971, aged 13, he had already had a top five hit in the US and UK with Got To Be There. At 20, he released Off The Wall, which sold more than 20m copies; and at 24 came Thriller, still the biggest-selling album of all time.

When did they realise that however talented they were, he was on a different level? From the off, Jackie says. “When we started it was Jermaine, Tito and I singing. Then Marlon and Michael came in. Michael used to take a Quaker oatmeal box and they were his bongos. He used to play it so well. Then he got up and did James Brown. We all decided to put him up front.”

“You get a lot of people who can sing well, but not everybody is an entertainer,” Marlon says. “We were entertainers as well, and Michael was the greatest entertainer of them all.”

Michael became one of the most recognisable faces on the planet. To deal with that level of fame must be near impossible, I suggest. Not at all, Jackie says. “He loved it. He loved it. He would work at it every single day – dancing, honing his craft. That’s what he did.” Did they remain close to him throughout? “When you have that kind of career, it’s kinda hard to keep pace with all your brothers, because you’re busy. People used to ask us: ‘Are you jealous of your brother’s career?’ And I’d say: ‘Why would I be? His name is Jackson.’”

I say I was going to ask the opposite – despite Michael’s achievements, wouldn’t the brothers choose the relative stability and anonymity of their lives over his?

“If you’re going for it, you go for all of it. You go with gusto,” Jackie says. So he’d rather have had Michael’s life? “Yeah, that’s right. That’s what everyone wants who’s in this business.”

Tito: “You want to be on top.”

Marlon sees it differently. He says it was impossible for any of the Jackson 5 to have a regular life. They could just about cope, but the level of fame was intolerable for Michael, he says. “Michael had painted himself into a box. And it was difficult for him. Very difficult for him. It’s mind-boggling. If Michael just stepped outside, in a couple of seconds people would stop doing what they are doing. That’s why he started wearing disguises.”

Marlon smiles, and says Michael never fooled him. He tells me of the time he spotted Michael in a record store incognito. “I walked up behind him and whispered in his ear: ‘Michael, what you doing here?’ He was dressed as a bum. His clothes were dirty, he had bucked teeth, he had an afro, his shoes were dirty, his shirt was torn, but he’s buying all these excellent records. I said to him: ‘Another thing gave you away, Michael, you wear the same shoes all the time!’ They were the same loafers he wore on stage.”

Does he think Michael loved himself enough? “Yes, I think so. Of course nobody loves it when the media starts talking about you negatively.” The reason I ask, I say, is because he was such a beautiful boy and he went to such extreme lengths to alter his appearance, and ended up disfiguring himself. Did that upset Marlon? “No, it didn’t upset me because I look at it this way: the Lord put us on this earth to love one another, not to judge each other, and he wasn’t harming anybody. It was his body, and he did what he wanted to do to be what he wanted to look like. When you get to the gates and the Lord is there, he’s going to judge you not by what you obtained for yourself, or not what you did to yourself, he’s going to judge you by what you did for others. Judge someone by their heart.”

It’s understandable why the Jackson brothers repeatedly tell us to judge Michael by his heart, and talk about negative media. In June 2005, Michael was acquitted on all charges related to the alleged sexual abuse of a 13-year-old boy. In a 2019 documentary, Leaving Neverland, two men alleged they had been sexually abused as children by Michael, including Wade Robson, who had testified in his defence at his trial.

I ask Jackie and Tito how damaging the court case and the allegations made in Leaving Neverland have been to Michael’s reputation. The publicist steps in. “We’re going to have to move on from that subject, I’m afraid,” he says.

I ask Jackie and Tito whether they want to answer the question or not.

Jackie: “No, we’re not supposed to.”

Tito: “We want to keep it positive.”

Jackie: “Because of court reasons.”

While the Jackson estate is suing the television network HBO for $100m over the documentary, the family are certainly allowed to talk about the court case, but prefer not to. As far as they are concerned, the best way to protect his legacy is to talk about his achievements.

It is 12 years now since Michael died, aged 50, from cardiac arrest after a drug overdose. His doctor, Conrad Murray, who had prescribed the drugs, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2011. I ask how Michael’s death affected them. “I never stop mourning him,” Tito says. “Even going to the local grocery store you see people who recognise you and they say: ‘I’m sorry about your brother.’ The hardest part for me is healing from that sadness.” As for his legacy, Tito says the music takes care of that. “Michael is a legend – people aren’t going to forget Michael Jackson .”

Jackie says Michael is still ever-present. “Every time I go into Vegas on the bus I see Michael next to me. His whole face is parked next to me on a billboard. I stop at a light and I say: ‘What’s going on, brother?’”

Marlon feels the loss of his old road warrior acutely. “I just miss hanging out with him,” he says. There will probably be no time that he is more keenly aware of his absence than when they tour later this year, performing all the classics that Michael sang on in their heyday. Now, at least, they can perform without having to run off stage after five songs because they are being mobbed. Do they get the same excitement when they perform? “You can walk on stage and you don’t feel like doing the show,” Marlon says. “But the moment you hit that stage everything just lights up, and it’s like you’re shot out of a cannon. It’s showtime.”

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Michael Jackson

• Occupation: Singer
• Born: August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana
• Died: June 25, 2009 in Los Angeles, California
• Best known for: Thriller , the best-selling album in history
• Nickname: King of Pop

• He was the best selling artist in the United States for 2009, the year of his death. Around 35 million of his albums were sold worldwide in the 12 months after he died.
• He had two pet llamas on his ranch called Lola and Louis.
• The album Thriller was number one on the Billboard Chart for 37 weeks.
• He purchased the rights to the Beetles catalogue in 1985 for $47 million.
• His skin doctor said that his skin tone changed because he had a disease called vitiligo.
• He was burned when his hair caught fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial.
• Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

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Entertainism

A Short Biography of the King of Pop Michael Jackson

Polarizing, controversial, but legendary, the King of Pop Michael Jackson was one of the greatest entertainers ever, and completely redefined pop culture. This biography showcases the moments and events that truly changed his life. Read on to know more in this Entertainism post.

Did You Know?

Michael Jackson has won 15 Grammy awards, including the Legend and the Lifetime Achievement Awards, and 26 American Music Awards. He also had 13 #1 singles in the US. The first two are still-intact records, while the latter is a record for male artists. Jackson is the most awarded musician in history, with more than 200 awards. He also holds the record of having supported 39 charities, with the Guinness Book of Records recognizing his extensive humanitarian work in 2000.

A child prodigy, Jackson, or MJ, as he is more commonly known, continued his progress into adulthood, going on to become a pop culture phenomenon and one of the most iconic dancers in living history. His songs are the stuff of legends, and his various dance moves are ingrained into pop culture. He is also known for his humanitarian efforts, but is, conversely, equally infamous for the various scandals in his life.

Let’s take a deeper look into this legend’s life.

Michael Joseph Jackson was born on August 29, 1958 , in Gary, Indiana. The 8th of 10 children, Michael had his first tryst with music as a singer in the Jackson family band, Jackson 5, in 1964, at the tender age of five. Jackson 5 played at local nightclubs and also participated in competitions. Despite his young age, he soon carved a niche for himself as a singer and dancer of exceptional ability. Jackson 5 ruled the charts in the late ’60s and the early ’70s. After signing a contract with Motown, Jackson 5 had to shift their base to California. This was followed by chart busters like ‘I Want You Back,’, ‘Dancing Machine’, ‘The Love You Save’ and ‘I’ll Be There’ in 1970. Jackson 5 remained with Motown till 1975, while Jackson’s solo career started in 1972. In 1976, Jackson 5, now re-branded as the Jacksons, switched to Epic Records.

Jackson’s childhood was difficult, and had a heavy influence on his life. His father was a very strict disciplinarian, and though Michael later attributed his success to the strict singing practice conducted by his father, it also had a demoralizing effect on the budding entertainer’s mindset. He suffered from various psychological issues, including chronic and persistent sleep problems, due to his childhood.

Solo Career

Collaboration with quincy jones.

Michael first met his future producer, Quincy Jones, on the sets of The Wiz , a musical version of The WIzard of Oz starring an all-African American cast. Despite his later success as a musician, Jackson was an actor in this film; he played Scarecrow.

Jones was influential in Jackson’s most famous release, Thriller , in 1982. This record-busting album is reputed to have sold more than 60 million copies, though certified sales only indicate about 42.4 million. It is the highest-selling album in music history, and established Michael as the King of Pop, a moniker that has now very much become his own. 7 singles from the album reached the top 10 in the Billboard Top 100 chart, which is a joint record. The music video of ‘Billie Jean’ is among the most watched music videos of all time, and received regular airtime, consolidating the reputation of the nascent MTV in the process. It was also one of the very first music videos by a black artist to receive such consistent airtime, and one of the first to become equally popular across the racial divide. His success, aided by the furious efforts of CBS Music directors to get MTV to broadcast a black artist’s song, paved the way for future African American artists to receive as much airtime as white artists.

Quincy Jones first collaborated with Michael in 1979 on the album Off the Wall , a legendary production in its own right. Selling more than 20 million copies, it is also one of the best-selling albums of all time. With the success of Off the Wall , Jackson was able to secure the highest royalty rate in the music world: a whopping 37% of the album’s profits, which later equated to almost USD 2 for each copy!

Five years after Thriller , Jackson released his final album with Jones, Bad , in 1987. It was hugely popular, reputedly selling more than 30 million copies. Though it didn’t outsell Thriller , it bested it in one important aspect: five singles from Bad reached the top spot in the Billboard Top 100, which was the first time this feat had been achieved by a single album. It also became the first album to reach the top spot in 25 countries. The Bad world tour, held from September 1988-January 1989, broke multiple records of attendance in various countries; the 570,000-strong people that watched him in Japan were almost three times the previous record in the country, and his seven sellout shows in Wembley Stadium London, totaling a crowd of 504,000 people, broke a Guinness World Record. In total, he performed 123 shows on this world tour, reaching out to 4.4 million people in the process.

One of the most famous images in the world, and the one most associated with Michael Jackson, is the fantastic ‘moonwalk’. It was first performed by him in public on Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever , a 1983 TV special commemorating the 25 th year of the popular music production company, Motown Records.

Michael at first declined the invitation, due to his reluctance to rejoin his brothers for a mini-reunion of the Jacksons, but was persuaded by Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown, on the condition that Michael be allotted a solo slot in addition to the group gig.

According to some, Jackson only practiced the moonwalk once at his home before brandishing it on air. The iconic movement, where the performer appears to slide backwards while apparently walking forward, was not created by Jackson, but spread like wildfire after it was popularized by one of the premier artists of the time. It was performed during the song ‘Billie Jean’, and became a staple in Jackson’s subsequent live performances. This performance rocketed Jackson onto new heights of fame. In the words of Berry Gordy himself,

From the first beat of Billie Jean, I was mesmerized, and when he did his iconic moonwalk, I was shocked, it was magic, Michael Jackson went into orbit, and never came down.

In 1985, Jackson co-wrote We Are The World with Lionel Richie, for humanitarian purposes primarily in Africa. The song became one of the bestselling singles of all time.

Jackson didn’t relent his pursuit of musical innovation and success, with his album Dangerous selling more than 20 million certified copies. The album contained one of Jackson’s most famous songs, Black or White . This album was notable as the first Jackson album to feature a rapper, as well as one of the pioneering works in the new jack swing genre.

The Dangerous world tour, starting in June 1992 and ending 17 months later in November 1993, drew 3.5 million listeners in 70 concerts. HBO bagged the broadcast rights of the world tour for USD 20 million―a still-intact record.

In January 1993, Jackson also performed at the halftime show at Super Bowl XXVII. His performance, where he sang four songs, was the first halftime show to have more viewers than the match in progress!

HIStory: Past, Present and Future , released in 1995, went straight to the number one slot in several countries. It contained a compilation of MJ’s hit singles, and also featured the lavishly made science-fiction video ‘Scream’. The second single, ‘You Are Not Alone’, surpassed the success of ‘Scream’ by becoming the first ever song to debut at the top spot in the Billboard Top 100. ‘Earth Song’, the third single released from this album, reached the top position and became MJ’s most successful single in the UK. ‘Earth Song’ gave a strong message to the viewers, as it addressed issues related to the environment and poverty. This album was reissued in 2001 as Greatest Hits: HIStory Volume I along with a second installment, HIStory Continues , and became the best-selling double album in history, with more than 20 million copies sold. The HIStory world tour, conducted between September 1996 and October 1997, included 82 concerts for a total audience of 4.5 million.

By Jackson’s astronomical standards, his only original album in the 2000s, Invincible , was not extremely popular. Having said that, it still managed to sell 13 million copies, in spite of being released at a time of a general slump in the music industry, without an accompanying world tour, and with very little promotion.

Solo Discography

Got to Be There (1972) Ben (1972) Music & Me (1973) Forever, Michael (1975) Off the Wall (1979) Thriller (1982) Bad (1987) Dangerous (1991) HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I (1995) Invincible (2001)

Controversies

Due to his fame, Michael Jackson’s life was always under the microscope. His complicated personality and various long-standing psychological issues meant that he was never far from a controversy. He faced multiple child sexual abuse allegations, as well as general rumors about his mental health. His close association with his pet chimpanzee, Bubbles, in particular, spawned worldwide mocking and parody.

Despite his success and influential role as a black musician, Jackson faced widespread rumors that he had repeatedly bleached his skin in order to achieve a lighter complexion―an action that was criticized roundly. He stated that he had vitiligo, an idiopathic condition that brings about a lighter skin, but can also be caused due to chemical bleaching of the skin.

He also underwent two rhinoplasty operations in order to make his nose successively thinner. One of the procedures did not pan out as hoped, and he suffered from breathing issues as a result.

Around the time of the release of Thriller , Jackson suffered from anorexia nervosa, and lost a considerable amount of weight in order to gain a “dancer’s body”.

Child Sexual Abuse Allegations

Michael faced allegations of child sexual abuse twice in his life. The first time was in 1993, when 13-year-old Jordan Chandler accused him of sexual abuse at Michael’s estate, Neverland. Despite conflicting evidence and doubts over Jordan’s father’s intentions in pursuing the case (there was some evidence which hinted that the boy’s father was primarily interested in blackmailing Jackson, rather than fighting for justice for his son), the case was settled out of court by Michael’s insurance company, without having notified him.

Following the depiction of certain encounters in Martin Bashir’s controversial documentary Living with Michael Jackson , Jackson was arrested on charges of child molestation. He was acquitted on all counts on June 13, 2005, and subsequently relocated to Bahrain as a guest of Sheikh Abdulla, son of the King of Bahrain. Jackson, asserting his innocence, later claimed that Bashir had deliberately portrayed him in a negative light.

Despite the absence of a conviction in either of the cases, Jackson’s reputation has been considerably tarnished by these allegations.

Marriages and Children

Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of ‘The King’ Elvis Presley, in 1994. Their acquaintance went back to 1975, but they got close after the renewal of their friendship due to Michael’s ongoing struggles with the child abuse allegations. Presley, who believed steadfastly in Michael’s innocence, married him secretly in 1994.

The marriage, claimed by tabloids to have been a publicity stunt (in spite of the initial secrecy about it) to help Michael’s image as a good-natured family man, lasted less than two years, though Presley later stated that they had reconnected and broken up several times in the next few years.

Jackson married Deborah Rowe, his dermatologist’s nurse, in 1996, during the early stages of the HIStory world tour. She was about six months pregnant at the time, and gave birth to Jackson’s first child, Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., on February 13, 1997. Their second child, Paris-Michael Katherine Jackson, was born on April 3, 1998. Jackson and Rowe divorced in 1999, with Jackson getting full custody of their children.

Jackson had a third child from a surrogate mother on February 21, 2002. He was named Prince Michael Jackson II. He became the center of a controversy in his early days, when Jackson held him aloft in his room’s balcony in the Adlon Hotel in Berlin, in order to allow the gathered public to see him better. The baby dangled beyond the railing, an action which invited widespread criticism for Michael, who later apologized profusely.

This great entertainer died a controversial and mysterious death on his bed in a rented mansion in Los Angeles, on June 25, 2009. The news of his death caused a huge upsurge in internet usage, causing several prominent websites, including Google, Wikipedia, and Twitter, to crash due to user overload.

His death was mysterious, with suspicions of homicide, a drug-induced accidental death or suicide, or some malice on the part of his personal physician, who prescribed his daily medication. The physician was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and completed a two-year sentence in 2013.

Michael Jackson’s contribution to the world of pop and dance are irreplaceable and irrevocable. This legend’s music has a strong hold on all the music lovers over the globe. It is, therefore, not a surprise that we have his records playing in clubs even today, and wannabes still trying to perfect the moonwalk.

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April 17, 2024

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Short Bio » Pop Singer » Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson was an American pop singer. He is considered the greatest break dancer. Michael Jackson came into prominence with The Jackson Five . He later became the best-selling single artist. His album Thriller is the best-selling album of all time . His is known to the world as the King of Pop . Michael Jackson was one of the greatest entertainers to hit the stage.

Michael Jackson was born on August 29, 1958. He was the eight of ten children born to Joseph Walter “Joe” Jackson and Katherine Esther Scruse. Michael grew up with his siblings Rebbie, La Toya, Janet, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, and Randy Jackson. In 1965 Michael Jackson joined The Jackson Five. The band was formed by his father. The group consisted of his brothers. Of The Wall album in 1979 established Michael Jackson as a solo performer. After this he worked on his solo career. Michael released Thriller in 1982. Thriller is the highest selling album in history. Michael has also produced some more high selling albums. Michael Jackson’s album Bad consisted of 5 number 1 hits in the Billboard Hot 100 charts. He has produced numerous hit single during his illustrious career. His most notable songs are Bad, Thriller, Beat It, Billie Jean, Black or White, The Way You Make Me Feel, Smooth Criminal, Heal the World and Give in to Me ft. Slash. Michael is known for his stage performances. He is notable for his dancing skills. He was a great break dancer. He revolutionized poping and locking dance genre. He has lots of famous steps. His moves include the crotch grab, moon walk and The Circle Slide. There is a dance genre name after Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson was married to Lisa Marie Presley from 1994 to 1996. Lisa Presley is the daughter of Elvis Presley . The later married a nurse Debbie Rowe. The couple had two children Michael Joseph Jackson Jr and Paris-Michael Katherine Jackson. They divorce in 1999. And another son named Prince Michael Jackson I was born through surrogate mother.

On June 25, 2009, Michael Jackson died of cardiac arrest. His death was a shock to all the fans all over the world. Jackson’s physician was sentenced to 2 years in prison. The reason for this was Involuntary Murder of Jackson.

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History of Michael Jackson for Kids

You’ve probably heard of the King of England and maybe even the King of Hearts. But did you know that there was also a King of Pop Music? His name was Michael Jackson, and he was nicknamed the King of Pop by his adoring fans and the entire music industry because of his effortless ability to sing, perform, and entertain crowds from all over the world. 

To be called the king of something, you have to be really good at it. You have to spend a lot of time and effort trying to be the best at it. Michael Jackson did exactly that.

He did have a little bit of a head start on other musicians. Before he was the King of Pop, he grew up performing with his talented family. Michael was born in Indiana in 1958 to a large musical family. Altogether, he had eight brothers and sisters! This helped give him a lot of practice learning how to compete for the spotlight. 

Michael was only six years old when he and four of his older brothers started singing in a band. They called themselves the Jackson 5. The Jackson 5 signed with a popular record label in 1968. For almost twenty years, Michael took the stage with his brothers. Even though he was the youngest, he was the lead singer. If you’ve never heard the Jackson 5 before, check out two of their most famous songs:  ‘I Want You Back’ and ‘ABC.’ 

A B C, It’s easy as

1 2 3, as simple as

Do re mi, A B C, 1 2 3

Ok, you don’t want to hear me sing, but maybe it will ring a bell now!

While all of the brothers in the Jackson 5 were talented and successful, it was their young lead singer who quickly stole the spotlight. His future as the King of Pop was just beginning. 

Michael was still young when the Jackson 5 was topping the charts and releasing hit albums. His parents had to pull him out of school because he would get mobbed by fans during classes. Can you imagine having to sneak into math class to avoid giving autographs? With this type of fame, it was only a matter of time before young Michael was ready to break out and become a star on his own. 

In 1971, Michael was finally ready to step into his own spotlight. He released his first-ever solo album called Got to Be There . He was only 13 years old! Like many teenagers, he wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to be when he grew up. For the next few years, he tried a little bit of everything in the entertainment industry. He still sang with his brothers in the Jackson 5. He released five of his own albums. He even did some acting in movies! Michael was good, maybe even great at some of these things. But he still had a long way to go before anybody honored him enough to call him king. 

Working with different people in music and movies helped Michael make connections in the industry. Eventually, he found the type of performer he wanted to be. In the 1980s, he went on his last tour with his brothers. Quitting the band would let him focus more on his solo career. 

It’s a good thing for us that he did. In 1982, Michael Jackson wrote, recorded, and released the best-selling album of all time. Seriously the best album ever! This album, his sixth, was titled Thriller. Thriller is still in the Guinness Book of World Records, even today! This album topped charts, earned many Grammy awards, and even led to a 13-minute long mini-movie for the music video of the song ‘Thriller.’ And, of course, Michael starred in it. It’s one of our family favorites to watch this every Halloween. 

It’s fair to say that by this point, Michael Jackson was on his way to earning the title of King of Pop Music. His beautiful voice and his upbeat songs were wowing fans. But how was Michael going to reign over all other pop singers? He was not just a singer, he was an entire personality. He had moves, music videos, and outfits that were fun to watch! 

Fans all over the world loved his dance moves and his bold clothing choices. He often showed off both in his popular music videos. Maybe you’ve heard of the moonwalk? If not, you should look it up. It’s this famous move where Michael looks like he’s walking forward while he’s really gliding backwards. Cool, right? He was known for doing the moonwalk onstage, often wearing a single sequined glove and cropped pants to show off his white socks. Michael stood out with his sparkling gloves, bright-colored shirts, and jackets and pants made entirely of leather. 

One of Michael’s most iconic looks was his red leather pants and matching jacket that he wore in the music video for Thriller. Before Thriller, music videos usually featured musicians singing their songs. But Michael wanted to tell a story. He popularized the entertaining, movie-like videos that music artists are still making today.  

With this kind of success though comes pressure. Could the King of Pop make another album just as good and just as flashy as Thriller? Michael Jackson answered that question five years later with the album Bad. This album added another five number-one hits to his growing list of achievements. This time, he made a music video with an award-winning movie director named Martin Scorsese. 

At the time, Michael was considered the biggest musician in the world. He had money and fame that most people could only dream of. He had famous friends and a huge mansion. But this rockstar lifestyle came with challenges. 

People wanted to know everything about Michael’s life. From the way he designed his home to the shape of his nose – every part of Michael Jackson was questioned by the public. That can be a lot of stress for one guy, even for a king.

Michael was in the spotlight for more than 40 years. His fame meant that his name frequently appeared in newspapers, magazines, and television stories. Some of his actions caused the public to question him as a role model. Some people stopped supporting him, but others continued to appreciate and love his music.

Still, Michael continued to make music. While none of his new albums were as big as Thriller, they were still popular. Michael stayed busy making music that people loved and entertaining crowds, and he took the time to help others. He was often considered a philanthropist. A philanthropist is someone who donates a lot of their money to help other people. 

In the 1980s, Michael worked with another musician named Lionel Richie. Together, the two wrote the song ‘We Are the World.’ The song was recorded by many famous musicians like Stevie Wonder and Tina Turner. It raised over $60 million to help fight poverty and hunger in Africa. Michael became well-known for his generosity and gave away lots of the money he earned to different charities. 

He also used his music to discuss things that he thought were important. The lyrics from his 1991 hit ‘Heal the World’ ask listeners to be kind to each other and take care of the planet. In his song ‘Black or White’ from the same year, Michael speaks against the hate that he faced because of his appearance and the color of his skin. These songs promoted racial tolerance and acceptance, something that was personal to him. 

In June 2009, Michael Jackson unexpectedly died in Los Angeles. He was only 50 years old. Much of the world mourned. He left behind a legacy of accomplishments and accolades. But mostly, he left the world his incredible music.

In his lifetime, Michael was nominated for 38 Grammy Awards and ended up winning 13 of them. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice – once with the Jackson 5 and once as a solo artist. He also has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He still holds the title for having the best-selling album of all time with Thriller. 

It’s pretty easy to see why Michael Jackson became the King of Pop. He did so much for the world of music. Like all kings, he wasn’t perfect. He made mistakes. He was criticized. Still, his music is sure to be enjoyed and rediscovered by new fans for years to come. Long live the extraordinary music from the King of Pop.

https://www.biography.com/musicians/michael-jackson

https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/Michael-Jackson/487595

https://www.ducksters.com/biography/entertainers/michael_jackson.php

https://kids.kiddle.co/Michael_Jackson#1986-1990

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michael-Jackson

https://www.grammy.com/news/michael-jackson-10-achievements-that-made-him-the-king-of-pop

https://www.michaeljacksonslegacy.org/michael/about-michael/

https://www.grammy.com/artists/michael-jackson/13202

https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/michael-jackson-60th-birthday

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Michael Jackson’s nephew looks just like the King of Pop in first photo from biopic

Michael Jackson's nephew Jaafar Jackson is the spitting image of his late uncle.

On Feb. 13, Lionsgate and Universal Pictures International shared a first-look photo of Jaafar Jackson dressed as the iconic singer in the upcoming biopic “Michael."

In the picture, Jaafar Jackson channeled his late uncle by rocking a white V-neck shirt, a pair of black pants and a ponytail, which was a signature style of the "Man in the Mirror" singer.

According to Lionsgate and Universal Pictures International, Jaafar Jackson was recreating one of Michael Jackson's performance looks from his legendary 1992-'93 "Dangerous" tour.

Once the snap circulated online, fans were quick to react to how they felt about Jaafar Jackson being cast in the role.

"He look like MJ :)," one person commented on X.

Another said , "Woa I had to do a double take."

A third added , "Crazy how much they look alike."

A fourth joked , "Was he resurrected?"

The first-look photo was captured by photographer Kevin Mazur, who is one of the many photographers who documented Michael Jackson over the years.

"Seeing Jaafar perform, I thought, ‘Wow, it is Michael.’ The way he looks and acts, his mannerisms, everything — he’s Michael Jackson. For anyone who didn’t have the chance to see Michael perform live during his lifetime — this is how it was," Mazur said in a press release.

Producer Graham King echoed the same sentiment. He said, “With Jaafar, every look, every note, every dance move is Michael. He embodies Michael in a way that no other actor could.” 

Read on to learn more about Michael Jackson's new biopic "Michael."

What is Michael Jackson's new biopic 'Michael' about?

"Michael" will tell the story of the late King of Pop.

"The film presents his triumphs and tragedies on an epic, cinematic scale — from his human side and personal struggles to his undeniable creative genius, captured by his most iconic performances," according to a statement from Lionsgate and Universal Pictures International. "As never before, audiences will experience an inside look into one of the most influential, trailblazing artists the world has ever known."

When is Michael Jackson's new biopic 'Michael' coming out?

"Michael" is set to be released in theaters worldwide on April 18, 2025. The film is currently in production.

Who is cast in the film?

A few actors have already been announced for "Michael."

Alongside Jaafar Jackson, Colman Domingo is set to play Michael Jackson's father, Joe Jackson, and Nia Long will take on the role of Michael Jackson's mother, Katherine Jackson.

Miles Teller is also set to star in the film and play the singer's manager John Branca.

“We have assembled an incredible team of artists for this project — hair & makeup, costumes, cinematography, choreography, lighting, everything — and some who knew and worked with Michael are reuniting for this film," said "Michael" director Antoine Fuqua in a statement.

"Most importantly, it’s Jaafar who embodies Michael," he continued. "It goes beyond the physical resemblance. It’s Michael’s spirit that comes through in a magical way. You have to experience it to believe it.” 

Michael: release date, cast, first look and everything we know about the Michael Jackson biopic

Michael Jackson is the latest music icon to get the biopic treatment.

The King of Pop is coming to the big screen, as Michael Jackson is the subject of the upcoming biopic simply titled Michael . This is the latest entry of the music biopic genre that in recent years has included Bob Marley: One Love and Elvis .

Michael features a number of Hollywood veterans helping to bring Jackson's legacy — reportedly including some of its more complicated facets — to life on screen, including Antoine Fuqua as the director, Oscar-nominee John Logan as the writer and Oscar-winner Graham King producing. But to play Michael Jackson, the filmmakers have turned to a new face, but one with a connection to the famous singer.

Find out more about that and other key details for the movie below as we go over everything that you need to know about Michael .

Michael release date

A worldwide premiere date of April 18, 2025, has already been set for Michael .

The movie is currently in production, but even though it is more than a year away, it immediately becomes one of the more anticipated upcoming movies on the calendar.

Michael cast

Playing Michael Jackson in the biopic is Jafaar Jackson, the singer's nephew. Jackson is a singer, songwriter and entertainer, but he is making his acting debut playing his uncle. "With Jaafar, every look, every note, every dance move is Michael," said producer Graham King. "He embodies Michael in a way that no other actor could."

Young actor Juliano Krue Valdi is going to play the younger version of Michael.

The rest of the Jackson 5, the iconic family group where Michael Jackson first broke out, will see Jayden Harville and Jamal R. Henderson play the younger and older versions of Jermaine Jackson; Jaylen Lyndon Hunter and Tre Horton as Marlon Jackson; Judah Edwards and Rhyan Hill as Tito Jackson; and Nathaniel Logan McIntyre and Joseph David-Jones as Jackie Jackson. 

The rest of the cast for Michael brings plenty of experience. Oscar-nominee Colman Domingo ( Rustin ) plays Joe Jackson, Michael's father, Nia Long ( Missing ) plays his mother Katherine Jackson, while Miles Teller ( Top Gun: Maverick ) is playing Michael Jackson's lawyer John Branca.

Michael plot

Here is the official synopsis for Michael from Lionsgate:

" Michael will bring audiences a riveting and honest portrayal of the brilliant yet complicated man who became the King of Pop. The film presents his triumphs and tragedies on an epic, cinematic scale — from his human side and personal struggles to his undeniable creative genius, exemplified by his most iconic performances. As never before, audiences will experience an inside look into one of the most influential, trailblazing artists the world has ever known."

Michael trailer

There is no trailer for Michael at this time. When one becomes available, we'll add it here. 

Michael first look

While there’s no trailer, a first-look image of Jafaar Jackson as Michael Jackson has been shared, depicting him as his late-uncle on the 1992-1993 Dangerous Tour.

The photo was taken by Kevin Mazur, who documented Michael Jackson throughout his career, including rehearsals of Jackson's This Is It concerts.

"When I walked onto the set, I felt like I'd gone back in time and I was walking into the stadium to shoot the tour," said Mazur in a Lionsgate press release. "Seeing Jaafar perform, I thought, 'Wow, it is Michael.' The way he looks and acts, his mannerisms, everything — he's Michael Jackson. For anyone who didn't have the chance to see Michael perform live during his lifetime — this is how it was."

Antoine Fuqua movies

Antoine Fuqua directs Michael , and while this is his first biopic, he is familiar with telling the story of an iconic real-life figure, having directed the documentary What's My Name: Muhammad Ali . Check out Fuqua's full list of credits right here:

• Bait (2000)
• Training Day (2001)
• Tears of the Sun (2003)
• Lightning in a Bottle (2004)
• King Arthur (2004)
• Shooter (2007)
• Brooklyn's Finest (2009)
• Olympus Has Fallen (2013)
• The Equalizer (2014)
• Southpaw (2015)
• The Magnificent Seven (2016)
• The Equalizer 2 (2018)
• What's My Name: Muhammad Ali (2019)
• Infinite (2021)
• The Guilty (2021)
• Emancipation (2022)
• The Equalizer 3 (2023)

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Michael Balderston is a DC-based entertainment and assistant managing editor for What to Watch, who has previously written about the TV and movies with TV Technology, Awards Circuit and regional publications. Spending most of his time watching new movies at the theater or classics on TCM, some of Michael's favorite movies include Casablanca , Moulin Rouge! , Silence of the Lambs , Children of Men , One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Star Wars . On the TV side he enjoys Only Murders in the Building, Yellowstone, The Boys, Game of Thrones and is always up for a Seinfeld rerun. Follow on Letterboxd .

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The Final Days of Michael Jackson

Jackson’s Thriller has sold 66 million copies, making it the most popular selling album worldwide. But in 2009, as he prepared for his 50-show comeback tour, This Is It , at London’s newly opened O2 Arena, Jackson was battling an addiction to prescription drugs, riddled with self-doubt and deeply in debt. With his heralded return rapidly approaching, Jackson’s final days were spent rehearsing and preparing for the spotlight as he battled his inner demons.

On June 25, 2009, less than three weeks before the debut performance of This Is It , Jackson died at age 50, having suffered cardiac arrest in his rented Los Angeles home. In early 2010, an official coroner’s report revealed the cause of death as acute propofol intoxication. Propofol, often marketed as Diprivan, can be used for general anesthesia and sedation for medical procedures. Jackson had been administered the drug by his personal physician to reportedly help him sleep at night.

As Jackson prepared for the tour, his behavior became erratic

This Is It was designed to show the public, who had been consuming a diet of media-driven stories about Jackson’s often bizarre private life for decades, that he still had what it takes as an entertainer. And the proceeds would help him get on top of his mounting debt – reportedly about $400 million at the time ­– due to lavish spending habits and dwindling income.

Jackson had written new songs and was rehearsing multiple hours a day in preparation for This Is It , an arena spectacle that had reportedly incurred $25 million in pre-production costs. But as teams of workers across the globe prepped for the tour, Jackson’s erratic behavior worsened as opening night approached.

Emotionally frail and physically thin, Jackson was described by This Is It makeup and hair artist Karen Faye as paranoid, shivering from chills and repeating himself during his last days. Faye testified as a witness for Jackson’s mother, Katherine , and his children in their wrongful death suit against This Is It concert promoter AEG Live in 2013. He was “very upbeat, but he was on the thin side,” Faye said of an earlier, April 2009 meeting with Jackson. Come June, everything had changed. “He was not the man I knew,” Faye testified. “He was acting like a person I didn’t recognize.”

During a mid-June rehearsal, Jackson appeared “very stoic” but “frightened,” according to Faye. “He kept repeating, ‘why can’t I choose,’ it was one of the things he repeated over and over again,” Faye said, adding that she “had never seen him so emaciated.” At almost six feet tall, Jackson reportedly weighed close to 130 pounds prior to his death.

Faye was part of a working team gathered from Jackson’s past, trusted people from his former glory days including manager Frank DiLeo, show director Kenny Ortega, choreographer Travis Payne, and entertainment lawyer John Branca.

Conrad Murray was entrusted to get Jackson in shape for the tour

New to Jackson’s inner circle was personal physician Dr. Conrad Murray , whom the singer had met in 2006 when Murray treated one of Jackson’s children in Las Vegas. In May 2009, AEG Live hired Murray, via Jackson, to be the singer’s exclusive personal physician for the tour, though AEG would later claim there was never a contract with Murray. It was Murray’s job to ensure the performer was in tour-ready shape.

By the time Jackson was in rehearsals in 2009, he had been treated for ongoing pain for decades, according to Faye’s testimony. The singer had suffered head burns while filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984 and later suffered a back injury when a bridge suspended above a stage that he was standing on collapsed during a concert in Munich, Germany. Jackson also had trouble sleeping, especially following tour performances.

Jackson reportedly took large amounts of Xanax or propofol to help sleep at night

Jackson’s continued use of prescription drugs made headlines in 2007 when a Beverly Hills pharmacy filed a complaint against the singer for not paying a $101,926 prescription drug bill dating back to 2005. As part of an investigation into child molestation charges against the singer, of which he was acquitted in 2005, a former staffer at Jackson’s home reported the singer took 30 to 40 Xanax pills a night, according to court documents.

As the weeks wound down toward the opening of This Is It , Murray admitted to police following Jackson’s death that he had given the singer infusions of propofol in order to help the performer sleep. After a poor rehearsal on June 13, 2009, Jackson missed the following day’s rehearsal on the advice of Murray. According to Ortega’s testimony in the 2013 wrongful death suit against AEG Live, AEG put Murray in charge of getting Jackson to rehearsals. Jackson was a no-show for another week.

Ortega testified that when Jackson returned to rehearsals on June 19, he appeared “lost, cold, afraid,” and the show director believed the best thing to do would be to stop the production; but was torn because he “did not want to break Michael’s heart.” In a series of e-mails to AEG Live executives, Ortega wrote Jackson was showing “signs of paranoia, anxiety and obsessive-disorder-like behavior,” and recommended a psychiatrist be brought in to evaluate the star.

At a meeting at Jackson’s home on June 20, Ortega testified that Murray believed Jackson was “physically and emotionally capable of handling all his responsibility as a performer,” and that Murray should be the only one to make such decisions.

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Just two days before his death, Jackson was in good spirits at the final dress rehearsal

Jackson returned to rehearsals on June 23 a very different man. “I was overjoyed at his energy, his state of mind, his enthusiasm,” Ortega testified. Murray later admitted to investigators he had stopped using propofol to induce sleep for Jackson for the two previous nights. A sleep expert testified during the trial that a person can recover quickly from heavy use of the drug.

On June 24 Jackson left his home around 7 p.m. and traveled to the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles for what would be his final rehearsal. Many in attendance recalled the singer as continuing to be in good shape as he rehearsed the show, which included classics such as “Smooth Criminal,” “Billie Jean” and “Thriller.” The rehearsal ended around midnight and Jackson hugged his dancers and thanked the crew. Jackson returned home where he greeted a small group of fans gathered outside.

After rehearsal, Jackson began to unravel, allegedly begging for propofol

Later that evening Jackson began complaining of fatigue. In attendance was Murray, who was concerned the singer was addicted to propofol and instead administered Valium to Jackson in order to help him sleep, according to a police affidavit. Throughout the night Murray said he gave Jackson further doses of sedatives but no propofol, even though the singer repeatedly requested it.

Murray gave in to Jackson’s demand for the drug mid-morning on June 25, when the doctor added propofol to the singer’s intravenous drip. According to Murray’s June 27 interview with the police, he remained with Jackson for 10 minutes before leaving for the bathroom. Murray returned less than two minutes later and found Jackson not breathing.

Murray attempted to resuscitate Jackson, as did paramedics who arrived shortly on the scene. A team of doctors at UCLA Medical Center, where the performer was rushed to, also attempted resuscitation to no avail and Jackson was pronounced dead. The King of Pop was gone.

Murray was convicted of voluntary manslaughter

Along with an unmatched musical legacy, Jackson left behind three children: Michael Joseph “Prince” Jackson Jr. , Paris-Michael Katharine Jackson and Prince Michael “Blanket Jackson II .

Dr. Conrad Murray was charged and convicted for voluntary manslaughter over Jackson’s death and served two years of a four-year jail term.

A jury found AEG Live not guilty in the wrongful death suit brought by Jackson’s mother and his children.

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