What Jacko needed was someone to say ‘No’

My defining memory of Michael Jackson — vulnerable, brilliant, otherworldly — is of watching him dance to the soundtrack of a movie.

My defining memory of Michael Jackson — vulnerable, brilliant, otherworldly — is of watching him dance to the soundtrack of a movie.

This was early in our friendship, around ten years ago in New York. I visited Michael in his hotel room and was amazed to find it decorated with Hollywood posters and eight-foot cutouts: Anakin Skywalker peeping out from the folds of Darth Maul’s cape, ET bicycling over the full moon.

I told him he should see The Matrix, because of the spoonbending sequence, and he immediately instructed his aides to book a whole cinema. The response was instant: ‘Yes Michael!’ Nobody around him ever said ‘No’ to him… and during the tragedy that unfolded over the next decade, I often reflected that what he needed above everything was someone to tell him ‘No’ once in a while.

We took Michael’s little boy to the Sony cinema, and sat side by side in the empty auditorium with boxes of popcorn and candy. After about half an hour, Michael slipped out of his seat. I assumed this was his way of avoiding goodbyes, but after a few minutes I looked round and saw him silhouetted in the projectionist’s beam. He was dancing, lost in the moves that only he could make — the twists, the spins, the moonwalk. No one else on earth ever danced like that. Michael was absorbed in the soundtrack, unaware I was watching him. He was mesmeric.

He was in New York to record his album Invincible, a $30-million project that was intended to relaunch his career — but his confidence was so battered that he could no longer believe in his own musical genius.