The Most Popular Icon Ever – Michael Jackson

The date was 25th of March, 1983. Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, California, was the venue for Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever.
There were many renowned musicians who performed that evening in front of a live audience. A day of reunion, some call it.

One such reunion was that of The Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson. After a lot of talks, Michael Jackson and one of His older brothers, Jermaine who had left the band to make a mark for himself as a solo artist (only to fail), decided to reunite with the group – The Jackson 5 – for one big performance.

Initially, Michael Jackson had turned down the offer due to His busy schedule. However, on further requests from the producers, He agreed to be a part of it.

However, He had a condition – a solo performance. And that turned out to be one of the greatest and most popular stage performances, ever. It was, as Barney Stinson would say:
“Legen… wait for it…dary… LEGENDARY.”

Don’t believe it? Youtube ‘Michael Jackson Motown 25 Billie Jean’.
Ah! No need to thank me, just praise the Almighty.
(Here, Watch it!) 

Michael Jackson, as many know, was a misunderstood person. Probably, He still is. I reckon most introverts are misunderstood, but He was the epitome.

“Before you judge me, try hard to love me, look within your heart; then ask, – ‘have you seen my childhood?’ “

He started His career at an age when most of us were learning the table of eight in school. He had a very troubled childhood and His relationship with His Father, Joe (a former boxer), wasn’t good at all. His Father would often abuse Him … not just verbally, but physically and emotionally as well.

His Father used to sit on a chair with a belt in his hand as He and His siblings rehearsed, and if They didn’t do it the right way, Their Father would hit Them. Worst of all, His Father hated Him for his physical appearance – mainly His nose. However, in spite of all that, He publicly proclaims that he owes His success to His Father.

“I just wish I could understand my Father.”

He, once, on a famous talk show, confessed that his youth had been lonely and isolating. His deep dissatisfaction with His appearance, His nightmares, chronic sleep problems, His tendency to remain ever compliant, especially with His Father, and to remain childlike throughout his adult life – Peter Pan syndrome – are consistent with the effects of the maltreatment that He endured as a young child.

“Even at home, I’m lonely. I sit in my room and I cry. It’s so hard to make friends… I sometimes walk around the neighborhood at night, just hoping to find someone to talk to. But I just end up coming home.”

So, today, marking the seventh death anniversary of His Awesomeness, The Michael Jackson, I am going to share with you things about Michael Jackson that are not that popular… maybe because nice things hardly sell.

 

• Michael Jackson loved kids – His and others’, irrespective of their colour, caste, or religion.

 

Many ignorants believe that Michael Jackson was a child abuser. They don’t want proof, why would they? They’re content seeing one of the most popular figures in the history who had a major ‘flaw’… a flaw that no one could prove. Not even the prosecutor of Mr. Chandler.

For the uninitiated, in the summer of 1993, Jackson was accused of child sexual abuse by a 13-year-old boy named Jordan Chandler and his father, Evan Chandler, who was a dentist. The Chandler family demanded payment from Jackson, and the singer initially refused. Jordan Chandler eventually told the police that Jackson had sexually abused him. Evan Chandler was recorded discussing his intention to pursue charges, saying, “If I go through with this, I win big time. There’s no way I lose. I will get everything I want and they will be destroyed forever… Michael’s career will be over.” Jordan’s mother was, however, adamant at the time that there had been no wrongdoing on Jackson’s part.

 

“I haven’t been deceived or let down by children. Adults have let me down … adults have let the world down.”

 

“I was with Michael in Eastern Europe and we got off of the plane and he said, “You want to go to the hotel or you want to come at an orphanage with me?” and I was like, rather than going to the hotel he went to the orphanage. And he walked into this orphanage and I remember him looking and he was walking around and he was very calm. The promoters were there and they were looking around. And the conditions were pretty grim and I saw him whisper to someone and whisper to someone else and he was, you know, moving through and interacting with the children … And later I found out what he’d whispered was: “This orphanage will be turned around – there will be new beds in here, there will be clean sheets in here, there will be more people here taking care of these children by tomorrow or I am not going to go on stage.”

– Kenny Ortega, director for ‘This Is It’.

 

• Michael Jackson enjoyed cooking, and He was good at it.

He knew how to make a few Mexican dishes. Paris, His daughter, also said in an interview with Oprah that He made the best french toast in the world and that He was a really good cook.

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  Credits: Google images

 

• We know He wore white tapes on three of His right hand’s fingers and a pair of white socks whilst performing on stage. But do you know why?

 

He actually started wearing the tape on His fingers before filming Moonwalker or any of the Bad Era videos. The white tape catches the light so that when He performed on stage, people who were higher up and farther back could see His hands. The same goes for his trademark white socks. Wearing white socks is an old dancer’s trick that He had picked up from Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Again, it drew the audience’s eye to His feet so they could follow His dancing easily.

 

• Speaking of white socks and white tape, Michael Jackson also wore a white glitzy glove.

 

Michael Jackson’s designer Bill Whitten made the single glove by taking a golf glove and covering it with silver sequin mesh. Only one glove was made – it was a singleton. Later of course, He had many more made.

The white socks were so successful in drawing attention to Michael and his dance moves, there was a conversation about doing gloves, too. “I felt that would start looking literally Mickey Mouse (and of course Michael was a big Mickey Mouse fan). Between the agent and Michael and me, we got it down to one white glitzy glove. Another great move for attention,” Salisbury mentioned.

Now, we know how profound Michael Jackson’s vitiligo skin condition would become, taking over much of his face and body and changing his skin color to white, ultimately to the extent that it could no longer be covered with makeup. In His 1983 performance, the hat and the glove worked together as style. However, it was also to hide the vitiligo.

If each one of us could only do a percent of what Michael Jackson did for the world, it would have been a much better place to live in.

However, we won’t. It is really so easy to judge someone… to belittle Them at every given opportunity. It’s like the Joker said, “Some people just want to watch the world burn.”

 

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