Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (26 page)

Capote said that he, at Halston's request, left the designer alone to talk to
Michael. "I learned some of the details later," Capote said. "After a long,
apparently harmonious chit-chat, Michael suddenly arose from a banquette
and abruptly left the club."

"What happened?" Capote asked when he rejoined Halston.

"I don't know why he got so huffy," Halston said. "All I said was, I want
to fuck your beautiful cafe au lait ass all night. What's wrong with that? I ask
many boys the same thing. No one turns down Halston but this uppity boy."

One night at Studio 54, Nureyev introduced Michael to his friend, Sterling
Saint Jacques, an Afro-Italian singer with whom the dancer was having a tor rid affair. Son of the famous black actor, Raymond St. Jacques, Sterling was
tall, handsome, and "lean and mean," as he put it. Michael seemed intimidated when the singer leaned in close to him as if he were going to kiss him. "And
they call Frank Sinatra of blue eyes. I should be called young blue eyes. Have
you ever seen eyes as blue as mine-and in a nigger's head too?" Michael
quickly drifted away. Years later, Michael read of the singer's death of AIDS
in 1984.

Michael had long since fled Studio 54 when "this mad, mad, mad world"
ended abruptly. By the end of 1979, Rubell and Schrager were arrested by the
IRS for income tax evasion and were sentenced to three years in prison. They
served 13 months before parole. But Studio 54 would never be the same again.

A closeted homosexual, Rubell was diagnosed HIV positive in 1985, but
denied his condition and continued his lifestyle of heavy drinking and drug
taking. This led to his death in 1989. Calvin Klein wept openly at the funeral.
Michael was invited but chose not to attend.

On January 22, 1979, months after Michael's flirtation with Studio 54, the
Jackson brothers, with Michael as the lead singer, embarked on another world
tour, beginning in Bremen, West Germany. It was on to Nairobi, Kenya, with
stops in Madrid, Paris, and London to follow.

In London, Michael learned that the latest Jackson album, Destiny, had
gone double platinum. Michael's prediction of a comeback for the Jackson
brothers was now a reality-in fact, long before the 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton, Michael was calling his brothers "the comeback kids."

In England Michael turned a dangerous curve in his personal life.

Somehow evading security, star-struck Terry George, a 13-year-old
Yorkshire lad, came knocking on Michael's hotel door in mid-February of
1979. With his tape recorder, Terry had come to interview Michael, his
favorite singer, although the boy may also have told Paul McCartney that he
was the favorite.

At the Dragonara Hotel in Leeds in the north of England, Michael himself
came to the door but didn't open it until Terry told him that he was "only a
boy of thirteen."

Michael invited him in and chatted pleasantly with the boy for nearly an
hour. When Terry got up to leave, Michael invited him to return to his hotel
suite the following day. Terry came by and was there to say good-bye to
Michael when he returned to London. Before he left, Terry gave Michael his
home address and phone number.

Three days went by before Michael called from London. A series of phone
calls followed after Michael returned to California, mostly trivial talk but with
many specific references to religion. Michael told Terry that he was a
Jehovah's Witness and promised to send him a Bible.

By April the long phone conversations between Michael and the boy,
some of which stretched out to more than three hours, had turned to sex. "Do
you ever play with yourself?" Michael asked. Terry later said that, although
red-faced at first, he finally admitted to Michael that he did masturbate on
occasion.

Terry later revealed that he and Michael engaged in what is the equivalent
of phone sex. According to Terry, Michael admitted to him that he often masturbated during their marathon transatlantic phone conversations.

Today, a grown-up Terry George has a website in England. Among other
pursuits, he is a photographer, and his website features some of the best-looking hunks in the UK, most often in tight-fitting, basket-revealing swimwear.
He's only a photographer of males in his spare time; otherwise he owns several companies and is said to be a multi-millionaire. One of his most successful projects has been the "Mr. Gay UK" competition, a pageant which he sponsors with his partner, Michael Rothwell.

After molestation charges against Michael surfaced in the 1990s, Terry
was contacted by the press. The Mail on Sunday ran revelations about Terry's
friendship with Michael. Terry called his interview with The Mail on Sunday
"more like an interrogation." Soon UK readers by the millions were treated to
a headlined interview: I HAD PHONE SEX WITH JACKO.

"I do not feel like a victim and I never did feel like a victim," Terry told
the press. "We only stopped talking on the phone when my mum got a £350
phone bill. That was what put an end to the relationship, not anything Michael
did."

On his website, Terry admitted that he had been contacted by detective
Paul Zelis of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's department and told that
Michael had pleaded not guilty to child molestation charges.

A defense of sorts is posted on the web. "It isn't illegal to love boys," the
site claims. "It isn't illegal to hug and kiss them, unless they don't want you
to. Even then it isn't illegal if you happen to be an older female relative. Ask
any ten-year-old boy right after a family gathering. There is no age of consent
law for hugging and kissing. It isn't illegal to sleep in the same bed with them,
or for unrelated men and boys to see each other naked. Each person who is
attracted to boys is different from every other, and some of these dissimilarities are important. There are some whose exclusive interest (or nearly so) is in
their own gratification. They use a boy with little or no regard for the youth's
well-being, satisfaction, or happiness. The kidnappers, torturers, murderers,
and real as opposed to statutory rapists come from this group. For boy lovers,
the boy's gratification is important. The pleasures the boy lover derives, in no
small part, from his role in the well-being, satisfaction, or happiness of the
boy. Those who have long-term, loving relationships with boys come from this group. If you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? The
correct answer is four. Calling a dog's tail a leg doesn't make it one. It is the
same with statutory rape. The law may call it rape, but it isn't. The failure of
society to make reasonable distinctions between these two groups creates
gross injustices."

When reached by the press during Michael's child molestation scandals,
Terry said, "I have not been in contact with Michael since 1983, but the way
he has been treated by the media has been wrong. I do not know whether he
is guilty of abusing the other boys. I hope he is not. It has been so sad to see
a man with so much talent fall from grace like he has."

As the 70s neared its end, personal pleasures for Michael gave way to
career concerns. "I want to show that I can make it on my own," he told producer Quincy Jones. "My talent is my own-not my brothers. It doesn't
belong to anybody else but me, and it doesn't depend on anybody else. I owe
it to myself to show the world who I really am without any backup singers."

Michael and Quincy had become friends during the making of The Wiz,
and Michael was delighted when Quincy signed on to produce an album with
him. Michael later revealed that he was so thrilled to snare Quincy that "I didn't sleep for three whole days and nights."

During their long, drawn-out sessions of working together, which often
extended into the early hours of the morning, Michael told Quincy: "Give me
the ballads like `Mona Lisa' and `Moon River'-they'll live forever. A funky
rock 'n' roll song will be number one for three weeks and then it's gone forever. I want to record the songs that last forever."

Quincy described Michael as "writing music like a machine-he could
really crank it up." For the album, three of the songs were written by Michael,
and many more lay in his bright future which would virtually explode into
phenomenal success in the 80s.

Quincy nicknamed Michael "Smelly," because of his habit of calling a
piece of music he liked "Smelly Jelly."

Michael deserved the nickname Smelly for other reasons. While recording the album, he refused to change his dirty jeans and T-shirts, even his jockey shorts. The odor got so bad that his fellow musicians in the studio complained of having to work with Michael in close quarters.

During the long recording sessions, Michael experienced two separate
panic attacks, crying out that "I'm dying-help me!" On two different occasions, ambulances with dome lights flashing rushed him to Inglewood's
Centinela Hospital. Each time he was placed in an oxygen tent and given sedatives to calm him down. The first time he came to, he gripped Katherine's
wrist. "If the album doesn't succeed, I'll die-I'll just die!"

The album was originally meant to be called Girlfriend, named after the Paul McCartney song written just for Michael.

Michael and Quincy later agreed to change it to Off the Wall, named for
what they speculated would be a hit single from the album.

It was Michael who solicited the former Beatle to write a song for his new
album. McCartney's own version was released earlier, followed by Michael's
later interpretation. In a surprise to fans, McCartney sings in a higher register
than Jackson, and the English singer turned in a better recording in the opinion of Steve and Abes Record Reviews. "Jackson's rendition is light disco,
with an awkward saxophone solo and a routine vocal. McCartney gives the
song a much broader emotional palette. McCartney's version of `Girlfriend'
triumphs all over Jackson's."

This brought world outrage from Michael's fans, including one, Nu On,
who posted his opinion on the web. It was typical of the blasts against reviews
comparing Michael unfavorably to McCartney. "So your conclusion is that
McCartney is a better singer, performer and artist than Jackson? Get fuckin'
real. Maybe McCartney was a greater `artist' (his songwriting is amazing), but
you can forget calling The Beatles better performers or singers. When it comes
to their performances and singing, The Beatles (and McCartney) are untalented and lame, while Jackson is pure electricity. Have you ever seen The Beatles
dance? They look like stiff, rhythm-less, epileptic puppets. And their `live'
singing is mostly screeching. The Beatles are mostly a studio band that relied
on `electronic chemicals' and a thousand different tricks to sweeten their
sound. Next you'll claim that Paul McCartney is a better guitar player than
Jimi Hendrix."

Ever the perfectionist, Michael worked for days to get the title track, "Off
the Wall," just right. Within months, Michael introduced that song to the world
with a piercing falsetto that his fans hadn't quite heard before.

Carefully directed by Quincy, Michael performed most of his vocals live.

"He wasn't at all sure that he could make a name for himself on his own,"
said Quincy before "Off the Wall" was released. "And me, too. I had my
doubts."

Upon its release, "Off the Wall" sold eight or thirteen million copies,
depending on which source you want to believe. Regardless of its actual sales,
it is believed to be the largest selling album ever recorded by a black artist at
that time.

The hit single from the album, suggestively titled "Don't Stop 'Til You
Get Enough," was released as a single in September of 1979, shooting up
immediately to number one on Billboards charts. Unlike the other records on
the album, this single featured Michael's own overdubbed vocals. In essence,
he was doing his own backup singing. "You might call it Michael Jackson and
the Michael Jacksons," one critic jokingly suggested.

Privately the musicians in the studio speculated that Michael was still a
virgin-at least with women-when he recorded "Don't Stop 'Til You Get
Enough." But as one musician said, "Michael had seen that sexy Jermaine
pound enough pussy in those hotel rooms to understand the meaning of the
song."

Quincy had a hard time getting Michael to complete "She's Out of My
Life," because he'd weep before the song's finish. "This went on for a month,"
Quincy said. "He could never get through the record without crying. Finally,
in desperation, I left in the crying bit."

"She's Out of My Life" went top ten on the pop Hot 100, as did "Rock
With You." After the release of these hit singles from the album, Michael
Jackson became the hottest male recording star in the world.

In spite of its sales, "Off the Wall" is hardly a Michael Jackson tour de
force. As critic Nelson George put it: "`Off the Wall's' aura is sweet, sunny
and bright and characteristic of so much middle-of-the-road black 70s
Pop-and offers philosophical bromides about rockin' the night away in place
of any real personal vision."

Michael Jackson Album Reviews found their star giving off an aura of
"undeniably adult sexiness." But then the critics later added a cautionary
note-"that was before the words `Michael Jackson' and `sexy' became mutually exclusive."

The cover of the Off the Wall album pictured Michael nattily dressed in a
tuxedo. As a unique touch, he wore white fluorescent socks, which were destined to become his trademark.

For the first time, fans were treated to a discernibly thinner nose. No
longer could his brothers nickname him "Big Nose." "It wasn't quite Diana
Ross's button nose," said an executive at Epic, "but Michael had obviously
had some cosmetic surgery." In the years ahead Michael would become a regular customer of beauty butchers.

Later, it was revealed how this change in Michael's face came about. On
the Destiny tour with his brothers, he'd had an accident, falling down on stage
and smashing his nose. With his broken nose, Michael went to a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills in the spring of 1979.