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Oprah : And were you scared of him?
Michael : Very. Like there's been times when he'd come to see me, I'd get sick, I'd start to regurgitate.
Oprah : As a child or as an adult?
Michael : Both. He's never heard me say this. I'm sorry, please don't be mad at me.
Oprah : Well, I mean, I suppose everybody has to take responsibility for what they've done in life. And your father is one of those people who also have to take responsibility.
Michael : But I do love him.
Oprah : Yes, I understand this.
Michael : And I am forgiving.
Oprah : But can you really forgive?
Michael : I do forgive. There's so much garbage and so much trash that's written about me it is so untrue, they're complete lies, and those are some of the things I wanted to talk about. The press has made up so much ... God ... awful, horrifying stories it has made me realize the more often you hear a lie, I mean, you begin to believe it.
Oprah : Um, we talked about all of the rumors just before we went to the break and there are so many. First of all, I have been in this house getting prepared for this and I've been all over the house upstairs when you weren't looking, looking for that oxygen chamber and I cannot find an oxygen chamber anywhere in the house.
Michael : That, that story is so crazy, I mean it's one of those tabloid things, it's completely made up.
Oprah : Okay, but you are in something there, there's a picture of you, where did that come from? How did it get started?
Michael : That's ... I did a commercial for Pepsi and I was burned very badly and we settled for one million dollars and I gave all the money ... like we built this place called the Michael Jackson Burn Center and that's a piece of technology used for burn victims, right, so I'm looking at the piece of technology and decide to just go inside it and just to hammer around, somebody takes the picture, when they process the picture the person who processes the picture says, "Oh, Michael Jackson," he made a copy and these pictures went all over the world with this lie attached to it. It's a complete lie, why do people buy these papers. It's not the truth and I'm here to say. You know, do not judge a person, do not pass judgment, unless you have talked to them one on one, I don't care what the story is, do not judge them because it's a lie.
Oprah : You're right, that story, it was just like it had legs.
Michael : It's crazy! Why would I want to sleep in a chamber? (Laughing)
Oprah : Well, the rumor was that you were sleeping in the chamber because you didn't want to grow old.
Michael : That's stupid. That's stupid. It's completely made up and I'm embarrassed. I'm willing to forgive the press, or forgive anybody, I was taught to love and forgive, which I do have in my heart, but please don't believe these crazy, horrifying things.
Oprah : Did you buy the Elephant man's bones, were you trying to get them for ...
Michael : No that's another stupid story. I love the story of the Elephant Man, he reminds me of me a lot and I could relate to it, it made me cry because I saw myself in in the story, but no I never asked for the ... where am I going to put some bones?
Oprah : I don't know.
Michael : And why would I want some bones?
Oprah : I don't know. So where did that come from?
Michael : Someone makes it up and everybody believes it. If you hear a lie often enough, you believe it.
Oprah : Yes and people make money selling tabloids.
Michael : Yes
Oprah : All right. Just recently, there was a story and I know one of your attorneys held a news conference, there was a story about you wanting a little white child to play you in a Pepsi commercial.
Michael : That is so stupid. That is the most ridiculous, horrifying story I've ever heard. It's crazy. Why, number one, it's my face as a child in the commercial, me when I was little, why would I want a white child to play me? I'm a black American, I am proud to be a black American, I am proud of my race. I am proud of who I am. I have a lot of pride and dignity. That's like you wanting an oriental person to play you as a child. Does that make sense?
Oprah : No.
Michael : So, please people, stop believing these horrifying stories.
Oprah : Okay, then let's go to the thing that is most discussed about you, that is the color of your skin is most obviously different than when you were younger, and so I think it has caused a great deal of speculation and controversy as to what you have done or are doing, are you bleaching your skin and is your skin lighter because you don't like being black?
Michael : Number one, as I know of, there is no such thing as skin bleaching, I have never seen it, I don't know what it is.
Oprah : Well they used to have those products, I remember growing up always hearing always use bleach and glow, but you have to have about 300,000 gallons.
Michael : Okay, but number one, this is the situation. I have a skin disorder that destroys the pigmentation of the skin, it's something that I cannot help. Okay. But when people make up stories that I don't want to be who I am it hurts me.
Oprah : So it is...
Michael : It's a problem for me that I can't control, but what about all the millions of people who sits out in the sun, to become darker, to become other than what they are, no one says nothing about that.
Oprah : So when did this start, when did your ... when did the color of your skin start to change?
Michael : Oh boy, I don't ... sometime after Thriller, around Off the Wall, Thriller, around sometime then.
Oprah : But what did you think?
Michael : It's in my family, my father said it's on his side. I can't control it, I don't understand, I mean, it makes me very sad. I don't want to go into my medical history because that is private, but that's the situation here.
Oprah : So okay, I just want to get this straight, you are not taking anything to change the color of your skin ...
Michael : Oh, God no, we tried to control it and using make-up evens it out because it makes blotches on my skin, I have to even out my skin. But you know what's funny, why is that so important? That's not important to me. I'm a great fan of art, I love Michelangelo, if I had the chance to talk to him or read about him I would want to know what inspired him to become who he is, the anatomy of his craftsmanship, not about who he went out with last night ... what' wrong with ... I mean that's what is important to me.
Oprah : How much plastic surgery have you had?
Michael : Very, very little. I mean you can count on my two fingers, I mean let's say this, if you want to know about those things, all the nosey people in the world, read my book Moonwalk, it's in my book. You know, let's put it this way, if all the people in Hollywood who have had plastic surgery, if they went on vacation, there wouldn't be a person left in town.
Oprah : Mmm, I think you might be right.
Michael : I think I am right. It would be empty.
Oprah : Did you start having plastic surgery because of those teen years because of not liking the way you looked?
Michael : No, not really. It was only two things. Really, get my book, it's no big deal.
Oprah : You don't want to tell me what it is? You had your nose done, obviously.
Michael : Yeah, but so did a lot of people that I know.
Oprah : And so, when you hear all these things about you, and there have been more...
Michael : I've never had my cheekbones done, never had my eyes done, never had my lips done and all this stuff. They go too far, but this is stuff that happens every day with other people.
Oprah : Are you pleased now with the way you look?
Michael : I'm never pleased with anything, I'm a perfectionist, it's part of who I am.
Oprah : And so when you look in the mirror now and so the image that looks back at you are there days when you say I kinda like this or I like the way my hair ...
Michael : No. I'm never pleased with myself. No, I try not to look in the mirror.
Oprah : I have to ask you this, so many mothers in my audience have said to please ask you this question. Why do you always grab your crotch?
Michael : (Giggle) Why do I grab my crotch?
Oprah : You've got a thing with your crotch going on there.
Michael : I think it happens subliminally. When you're dancing, you know you are just interpreting the music and the sounds and the accompaniment if there's a driving base, if there's a cello, if there's a string, you become the emotion of what that sound is, so if I'm doing a movement and I go bam and I grab myself it's... it's the music that compels me to do it, it's not saying that I'm dying to grab down there and it's not in a great place you don't think about it, it just happens, sometimes I'll look back at the footage and I go ... and I go did I do that, so I'm a slave to the rhythm, yeah, okay.
After a commercial break, some of Michael's major achievements are shown:
# 1 Album of All Time
# 2 Album of All Time
Biggest Concert in History
More Music Awards Than Any Other Artist
The 80's Most # 1 Hits
Biggest Endorsements Deal Ever - 15,000,000 dollars
Billion Dollar Entertainment Contract
Entertainner of the Decade
Oprah : When you have broken all those records, when you have the number one album ever sold, when you've broken every record there is to break, when you become an icon of an industry, is there always the pressure to do something bigger and something better.
Michael : Oh gee, that is something, um, it makes it harder each time to follow up. You try to be as original as you can be without thinking about statistics, just you go from the soul and from the heart.
Oprah : And so when you think of that what do you do, you go, you meditate, you think, well I will now do the Superbowl.
Michael : Nooo, I just create out of my heart, really.
Oprah : Liz Taylor said you were king of pop, rock and soul. Where did this whole notion that you proclaimed yourself king of pop come from?
Michael : Well, I didn't proclaim myself to be anything. I'm happy to be alive, I'm happy to be who I am, king of pop was first said by Elizabeth Taylor on one of the award shows.
Oprah : And that's where this all started?
Michael : Yes, and the fans ... all the stadiums that we played at they'd bring banners saying king of pop and jackets that say king of pop and T-shirts that say king of pop and they chanted outside my hotel, so it just became something that just happened all over the world.
Oprah : Do you go out, do you date?
Michael : Yes.
Oprah : Who do you date?
Michael : Well, right now it's Brooke Shields. Well, we try not to be everywhere, go everywhere, it's mostly at home, she'll come over, I'll go to her house, because I don't like going out in public.
Oprah : Have you ever been in love?
Michael : Yeah.
Oprah : With Brooke Shields?
Michael : Yes, and another girl.
Oprah : And another girl? Let me ask you this, and it's embarrassing for me to ask you this, but I'm gonna ask you anyway, are you a ***?
Michael : Uhhhhh, how could you ask you that question?
Oprah : I just want to know.
Michael : I'm a gentleman.
Oprah : You're a gentleman?
Michael : I'm a gentleman.
Oprah : I would interpret that to mean that you believe that a lady is a lady and therefore..
Michael : That's something that's private, I mean, it shouldn't be spoken about openly. ......... You can call me old fashioned if you want, but, you know I mean that's very personal.
Oprah : So, you're not going to answer it?
Michael : I'm embarrassed.
Oprah : Well, we would like to know whether or not there is a possibility that you are going to marry one day and have children?
Michael : I would feel my life is incomplete if I do not 'cause I adore the family life, I adore children and I adore that whole thing. And I would love to, that's one of my dreams, but I couldn't right now because I'm married, I'm married to my music and there has to be that closeness in order to do the kind of work that I want to do and ...
Oprah : What kind of woman makes you - in the video we're going to see later, we premier the world video, there's a line where you talk about being quenched, so what kind of person does that for you?
Michael : (Sings) Quench my desire ... Well Brooke, I've always liked her and when I was little I used to stay with Diana Ross, me and my brother stayed with her for years and I never said, but I always had a crush on her.
Oprah : You did?
Michael : Yes.
Oprah : I heard too, this was another one of those rumors, that you had proposed to Elizabeth Taylor at some point.
Michael : Elizabeth Taylor is gorgeous, beautiful, and she still is today, I'm crazy about her.
Oprah : Yeah, but did you propose to her?
Michael : I would like to have.
Oprah : Well, Elizabeth Taylor is here. Liz? Can we bring Liz out now? Liz had said she wanted to be here to hold your hand through this. You don't look like you need your hand held. Elizabeth Taylor!
Michael : Hi, Elizabeth.
Oprah : Hi.
Elizabeth : Hi.
Oprah : Have a seat.
Elizabeth : Thank you.
Oprah : Did Michael ever propose to you?
Elizabeth : No! And I never proposed to him.
Oprah : Never did! What do you think is most misunderstood about Michael Jackson?
Elizabeth : All the things you mentioned. He is the least weird man I have ever known. He is highly intelligent, true, intuitive, understanding, sympathetic, generous almost to a fault, of himself.
Oprah : Uh-huh.
Elizabeth : Uh, and he just, if, if he has any eccentricities, it's that he is like larger than life and some people just cannot accept that or face it or understand it. His talent on stage, why I call him the King of pop, rock, soul, music, entertainment, whatever,
Oprah : Yes.
Elizabeth : there's nobody that can come near him. Nobody can dance like that, write the lyrics like that, the music, uh, cause the kind of excitement that he does.
Oprah : And why do you think you all are such good friends? What has brought about this kind of bond? Because people try to make this weird.
Elizabeth : Well, it's not. I mean, our childhoods are very similar, and we have that from the very beginning in common. Um, I was a child star at nine, had an abusive father, um, and that kind of brought us close together in the very beginning.
Oprah : And what is it, I am going to ask Michael this question later on, but, what is it you most want the world to know about him?
Elizabeth : What a wonderful, giving, caring, generous man he is and how good he is.
Oprah : And he's funny, too.
Elizabeth : Oh, he's wildly funny.
Oprah : He can crack some jokes, I tell you.
Elizabeth : Yes, but he is a good man.
Oprah : When we come back - Thank you for joining us too -
Elizabeth : That's fine.
Oprah : ...cause I know you did not want to be on camera at first, but thank you. Coming up next, Michael is going to give us not only a tour of his incredible amusement park and movie theater, but also a very special dance performance. For all of you who say he is faking the Moonwalk with mirrors, we've got some proof coming up in a minute. Cut to dance clips for intermission Announcer : Live from Santa Inez, California. Michael Jackson talks to Oprah.
Oprah : Now this is what's shocking to me, that you even drive. What we're doing, everybody, is that we are coming from Michael's house down to this amazing amusement park, which is, oh, about several hundred yards from the house. And this is, it's incredible.
Michael : Thank you.
Oprah : And I want to know whether or not you did this for yourself or did you do it for all the children that you entertain here?
Michael : For myself and the children. Every three weeks we - terminally ill children that come to - uh-
Oprah : To the house?
Michael : Yes, yes.
Oprah : Make a wish foundation, Dream Street, Starlight, yes?
Michael : Every three weeks - and these are sick children, children with cancer. And I entertain them.
Oprah : Uh-huh.
Michael : And they come here to enjoy themselves.
Oprah : This is unbelievable. What I have to say is, these are, as I was talking to some kids that were here, these are not just grandma rides here. These are some major rides.
Michael : (laughs)
Oprah : I mean the Sea Dragon, the Ferris Wheel, and there's that Zipper over there.
Michael : The Wipeout.
Oprah : Yeah, the Wipeout, and there are Bumper cars here, it's really-
Michael : Thank you. Well, it brings out the child that lives in every- body. I love rides and things like that and I share it with the children.
Oprah : Were you able to do that when you were a kid?
Michael : Not really. Sometimes, sometimes, but not often enough.
Oprah : But now you can anytime.
Michael : Every day. It's right in my back yard.
Oprah : How often do you actually come out here and do this?
Michael : Whenever I'm here I come out and I go on the rides.
Oprah : Well, is this a part of you, what we were talking about earlier, the pain of growing up and not being able to experience all the things that kids normally experience and so now you are fulfilling all those fantasies.
Michael : To compensate, yes.
Oprah : Really.
Michael : Yes, it is very true.
Oprah : Do you think you can ever really recapture it though? Does it feel the same? I mean, I don't know.
Michael : (laughs) It's more fun.
Oprah : Really?
Michael : I wouldn't change the past if I could. I'm enjoying myself.
Oprah : And here we are inside the theater. I had one too many sugar babies at the candy counter.
Michael : (laughs)
Oprah : But the candy is here for all the kids. Pinocchio is here, ET is here. Did you - what's fascinating to me about you is that obviously you have this childlike aura about you and I see children with you and they play with you like you are one of them. But, a child did not do this.
Michael : (laughs)
Oprah : A child did not put this together. This is really magnificent.
Michael : Well, thank you. I - I love to do things for children and I try to imitate Jesus - and I am not saying I am Jesus, I'm not saying that.
Oprah : Yes, we're clear on that.
Michael : Right, I'm trying to imitate Jesus in the fact that he said to be like children, to love children, to be as pure as children, and to make yourself as innocent and to see the world through eyes of wonderment and the whole magical quality of it all and I love that. And we'll have like a hundred bald headed children, they all have cancer, and they're all running around.
Oprah : Um-huh.
Michael : And they are enjoying themselves and it makes me cry happy tears that I was able to do this for them, you know.
Oprah : Um-huh.
Michael : Makes me so pleased inside.
Oprah : Well, when I came here to, um, about a month ago to shoot a commercial with you for promoting tonight's event, one of the things that really impressed me the most, I hope you guys are getting shots of this. I don't know how you are, if all the cameras are on us, but, oh, we got other cameras - is that there are, built inside the walls here-beds-beds for some of those sick children who come. And what I realized when I saw this is that you have to be a person who really cares about children to build it into your architecture.
Michael : Yes, yes. We have children that come who are - who intravenously - they are very sick, bedridden-
Oprah : They can't sit up.
Michael : Right. They can't sit up and these beds, they are hospital beds, you push a button, you go up or you go down and they are able to watch. We have a magic show, we show the current films, there's cartoons, anything you know, anything so they can escape to that world of magic that they don't have a chance to experience, the world I was deprived of when I was little.
Oprah : Now let me ask you this. You know I believe everything happens in people's lives for a reason. Do you think that had you not missed a lot of, uh, the life and fun and fantasy of childhood that you would be so in touch with children today. Would you relate to them as you do?
Michael : I probably would, but not as much. That's why I wouldn't change a thing-
Oprah : Really?
Michael : Because I am happy with the way things are and my caring for young people and everything.
Oprah : Are you really happy now, because you seemed so sad for a long time.
Michael : (laughs) I was sad for years and years and years. But I'm happy, I'm getting there. Yes, I'm very happy.
Oprah : And what has made you happier.
Michael : Being able to give back, you know, and to help other people.
Oprah : Uh-huh.
Michael : Heal the World Foundation which I've formed which helps children in healing in the world. We're doing Heal L. A., which is uh, we have three primary goals in mind: immunization of children, mentoring-a big sister, big brother program, and education in drug abuse. And Jimmy Carter has teamed up with us to do Heal Atlanta and we're going to go from state to state healing-- you know we've gone to Sarajevo, we've done lots of places.
Oprah : I know, I know, we have photographs of you from all over the world where you are with all these children. One of the things I was saying before we went to the last break, before the alarm went off in the house and all that-
Michael : Yeah-
Oprah : is that, uh, we were talking about the rumors. One of the strangest ones I heard was that when you're Moonwalking, you're faking it, that you have some mirrors in your socks someplace.
Michael : Oh, boy!
Oprah : And it's not really real.
Michael : No, that's not true.
Oprah : How did you, first of all, you know we've spent so much time trying to dispel the rumors, trying to get the truth out that I haven't had a really opportunity to talk to you about how you conceive your music, how you conceive the dance. Where did the Moonwalk come from?
Michael : Well, the Moonwalk came from these beautiful children, the black kids who live in the ghettos, you know, the inner cities, who are brilliant, that just have that natural talent for dancing any of these new - the running man - any of these dances. They come up with these dances, all I did was enhance the dance.
Oprah : O.K. I want to see you dance.
Michael : Oh, God, no, no.
Oprah : I want to see you dance. I want to see you dance, live.
Michael : No, no. I can show you a step or two, but, I'm a little rusty right now.
Oprah : A little rusty?!
[Michael goes on stage and dances to Dangerous.]
Michael : That's the Moonwalk - wait, you need to catch it from the - sideways.
Oprah : You gotta turn sideways?
Michael : Are you from the front?
Oprah : Yeah, we got ya!
Michael : Catch it from the sideways.
Oprah : O.k. Just show me slow motion. Could you show me slow motion?
Michael : O.K., wait, it's like, it's pushing and then there's like a popping type of thing.
[Michael stops dancing and comes down from stage.]
Michael : I'm sorry.
Oprah : (applauding) Well, I saw it live, I saw it live, I saw it live. And so you took it from the kids who were doing it.
Michael : Yeah, because, um, I think they are the real dancers.
Oprah : Yeah! And when you are, for instance, when we were here before, when we were here before to shoot that commercial, you were--
Michael : You were supposed to do this with me! (laughing)
Oprah : I don't know how to do this!
Michael : (laughing)
Oprah : You know I don't know how to do this!
Michael : (laughs)
Oprah : You know what? I mean all the things that were printed in the tabloids, the only thing that's ever been true was when they said I couldn't dance. Now that's the truth!
Michael : (laughs)
Oprah : When we were here the last time shooting the commercial, you were like in between shots running off and conceiving the dance, choreographing the dance, you were up all night dancing.
Michael : For the Super Bowl.
Oprah : Yes, yes.
Michael : Yes, well, I'm never satisfied. Even when I see something that I've done and people say oh it was so phenomenal - when I did Motown 25 and I did the Moonwalk for the first time, I was backstage crying afterwards.
Oprah : Why?
Michael : Because I was unhappy.
Oprah : You cried after Motown 25??
Michael : After Motown 25, yes. But, then as I was walking to the car there was this little boy, he was like 12, was a little Jewish kid, and he said, " OOOOO, you were amazing. Who taught you to ever dance like that?". And for the first time, I felt I did a good job, because I know children don't lie and I just felt so good about it then.
Oprah : You wanted to, you felt so good, you probably wanted to say- (imitating Michael) HEH-HEH!
Michael : (laughs) Heh-heh!
Oprah : I want you to sing something acapella for me, if you can.
Michael : Oh, no! What could I sing?
Oprah : Who is it, you know do that whole little beat thing, since we're here in the theater.
Michael : Um, oh, boy, what could I sing? Who Is It?
Oprah : Where did that Heh-heh thing come from? Heh-heh.
Michael : Heh-heh! (starts the beat and makes instrument sounds to Who Is It?) (sings) I gave my money, I gave my time, I gave her everything in life one heart could find. It doesn't seem to matter and it doesn't seem right, but the will has brought no fortune, still I cry alone at night. Don't you judge of my composure cause I'm bothered every day, and she didn't leave a letter, she just up and ran away.