I don't think people understand
the other side that comes with it.
00:00
They're so quick to call you strange
and weird,
00:02
but it's almost as if you're forced
to be different because it's not normal.
00:06
Wherever the Jackson Five would go,
there would be mob scenes.
00:16
We couldn't go in a shopping
center or anywhere
00:20
because kids screaming.
00:23
We had hit records back to back to back.
00:24
We were playing these sellout
big arenas across America,
00:27
and so it was difficult.
00:31
We did have a chance to have
some fun, but in the hotel.
00:32
There would be a pillow
fight in the hotel,
00:36
or if we wanted to swim after hours,
00:39
we would swim in the pool downstairs,
that type of thing.
00:42
I mean, to all of us, we thought this was
the most wonderful thing in the world.
00:46
Who wouldn't have wanted that life?
00:50
There is a lot of wonderment
in being famous.
00:53
You travel the world and you see things,
you meet people, you go places.
00:56
But then there's the other side.
01:02
There's lots of rehearsal, and you have to
put a lot of your time, give up yourself.
01:03
When I was real little
01:10
I went to public school once, and I went
to another public school for one week.
01:11
It got so bad, the fans, they come
in the class and chase us around and stuff.
01:15
The only total strangers he trusts are
the ones out there beyond the footlights.
01:21
there are hundreds of people in the
audience yelling, Michael, Michael.
01:27
What do you feel like?
01:31
When they're all holding hands,
everybody's rocking and all colors
01:34
of people are there, all races,
and so its a wonderful thing.
01:38
There are some people who believe
01:41
that having always been on stage, you've
never had to deal with the real world.
01:43
That's true in one way.
01:48
That's true in one way,
but it's hard to in my position.
01:51
I try to sometimes,
01:57
but people won't deal with me in that way
because they see me differently.
02:04
They won't talk to me like they will
next door neighbor.
02:08
I get afraid of, well,
if I don't know people.
02:12
I get afraid of people sometimes.
02:15
There's a whole other life that I
haven't really experienced that.
02:19
Like friendship is a thing I'm just
beginning to learn about.
02:23
I was raised on the stage.
02:27
That's where I'm comfortable.
02:31
Everything else is like foreign to me.
02:32
I'm just beginning to know
and learn about people, friendship.
02:35
Yeah, because wherever I go,
I disguise myself.
02:43
People, they just go,
they really go crazy.
02:48
They're very happy to see you.
02:51
It feels as if they know you and
02:53
you have to respond back
to them like you know them.
02:55
Right.
They feel they personally know you.
02:57
That my pictures are on their walls,
my music is playing in their house.
03:00
I don't think you find me
in a disco or at a nightclub.
03:04
All of those places are fun if
that's what you like to do.
03:08
Just when I go to places like that,
it becomes work instead of pleasure.
03:12
They announce that I'm there
03:17
over the loudspeakers and they play all
my records and I'm signing autographs.
03:18
And again, you're on stage.
Yeah.
03:22
I've done disguises and all kinds
of things and it just doesn't work.
03:25
Or you go to the club,
03:29
as soon as you go in there,
every song is my song as if I want to hear
03:30
my music and everybody starts
chanting for me to dance.
03:34
So it becomes a show all over again.
03:39
So you can't go anywhere.
03:41
Wherever you go, you know.
03:43
That's not much of a life.
03:47
I know it's difficult.
03:48
And I don't want to complain like I'm
03:50
complaining because it
comes with the territory.
03:52
But I don't think people understand
the other side that comes with it.
03:54
So they're so quick to call
you strange and weird.
03:58
But it's almost as if you're forced
to be different because it's not normal life.
04:01
Sometimes I want to sneak into places
and not have any hoopla or, you know.
04:07
And doesn't work all the time because
people start and they crowd around.
04:14
I like to sneak into theaters
without being noticed sometimes.
04:20
Sometimes there's really
nothing you can do about it.
04:26
It's the price you have to pay.
04:28
Well, I've heard sometimes you turn up
in the most unexpected places to your
04:30
friends dressed in that they
don't even recognize you.
04:34
I have incredible disguises.
04:37
I can fool my own mother.
04:39
I enjoy doing it because I get to see
life the way it really is sometimes.
04:42
Well, the best privacy is
04:47
within yourself and to
be independent at home or something.
04:49
Because everything I want to do is here.
04:54
I can do whatever I want here.
04:58
It's loose and free.
05:01
If I go out somewhere, it's different.
05:02
You get sworn by lots of
photographs of people.
05:05
You just don't seem to enjoy it.
05:10
Enjoy your success.
05:14
It's hard to… I can enjoy it behind my
05:18
gates, but I can't go out and enjoy it
because it becomes work all over again.
05:21
I have a good… I mean,
I can't go into a park.
05:25
I can't go to Disneyland as myself.
05:28
I can't go out and walk down the street.
05:30
There's crowds and bumper to bumper cars.
05:32
So, I create my world behind my gates.
05:35
Everything that I love
is behind those gates.
05:38
I would like to be able to go
05:41
out in public and just be normal sometime
without people recognizing who I am,
05:44
just to get a little bit of a feeling
of what it's like
05:51
to be of the regular norm,
to see how things are done, to
05:56
learn what people speak about when
they're just casually talking.
06:00
Because as soon as they see it's Michael Jackson,
the conversation changing.
06:04
It all becomes about me and not about
06:08
the situation, the moment
that's happening at the moment.
06:11
Right.
I would learn a lot from that.
06:15
I don't get to see that unless I disguise
myself and put on a lot of things and then
06:17
they stare at me and then
it's even different.
06:22
It's not the same even then.
06:23
Every book you buy, they wonder,
Why are you buying this?
06:25
Why is Michael Jackson buying this?
06:28
Why is he reading this?
06:30
Do you not sometimes wish that you could
go to the local store and- Of course.
06:32
-buy yourself some food
and come back or go to a bar?
06:36
I want to go to the market,
one of those markets,
06:39
and pick one of those carts and throw
some food in there and go down the aisle.
06:41
I would love to do that.
Can you do that?
06:47
I tried and the whole place stops.
06:53
Everybody's chanting
and getting an autograph.
06:58
It's hard.
It doesn't work.
07:03
I said on one of my interviews, It's
my dream to go in a supermarket and just
07:05
shop and be like everybody else and put
things in a basket because I can't do it.
07:12
Because when I try to do it,
people crowd around you.
07:17
They want photographs and they want
you to sign things and take pictures.
07:21
A good friend of mine who owns this mall,
07:24
he had them close,
the whole shopping mall.
07:28
He had people in there that I knew,
pretending as if they were shopping.
07:33
So, it felt like it was a real environment.
07:40
I met my cousins dressed like they
07:43
were bag boys and I went shopping.
07:50
They planned everything
right down to the music.
07:55
Now people will know who you are
08:04
when you put the glove on.
08:11
I just trying to think.
08:15
It was a lot of fun.
08:27
It gave me a chance to see in my way what
08:29
the real world is like,
even though it wasn't the real thing.
08:33
I somewhere see myself
like you or like the people in this room.
08:38
I'm human, just like you are.
08:46
I'm no better than you are.
08:48
I mean, I have a certain talent
08:51
with my art and songwriting and dancing
and the drama and the whole thing.
08:54
So it's no right for me to think I'm
08:58
better than you or
have an ego to walk on air.
09:00
There are lots of people
in my field who are like that.
09:04
And most of those people, they fall.
They really do.
09:09
They begin to treat people who help them
badly and to forget where they came from
09:14
and to forget about those
who helped them get where they are.
09:20
Weren't you surrounded by your family,
by musicians, by people wanting to be your
09:31
friend, you were
an international superstar.
09:36
How can you say you had no friends?
09:39
Because those people
spoke to me on a language on another
09:40
level, that was musical,
that was entertainment.
09:45
But to get away from that,
09:48
to separate oneself from that and to try
to discover the fun things about life.
09:49
-you often seem very lonely.
09:55
I used to be very lonely.
09:59
I used to walk the streets
looking for people to talk to.
10:07
When do you feel lonely?
10:16
When do I feel lonely?
10:18
I mean, I can be- usually in hotels.
10:25
When there's thousands of fans
chanting, you're out in the street,
10:29
losing sleeping bags and thier chanting
because they love you and everything
10:34
and you can't get out, you feel
trapped inside and you just cry.
10:39
You feel lonely and there's
all that love out there.
10:43
But still, you really do feel trapped
and all, but you can't get out.
10:47
Do you think that your success has
actually made people turn against you?
10:58
The bigger the star,
the bigger the target.
11:04
And the more popular I became,
11:07
the more rumors that were created,
which none of which were true.
11:08
I'd say a lot of people misunderstand
me because they don't know me.
11:13
I guess that's true.
11:18
People believe a lot
of crazy stories they read.
11:22
Some is true, some is not.
11:24
Does it hurt when you
see those crazy stories?
11:29
Do you ever want to lash out in any type
of way and say, Hey, that's not true?
11:32
Yeah, a lot of times.
11:38
But why bring more attention to anything?
11:39
I've been living in that life all my life.
11:43
The tabloid press, that kind of press,
11:47
not the press, the tabloid,
the paparazzi, that type.
11:49
I've been running for my life like
that, hiding, getting away.
11:55
You can't go that way
because they're over there.
11:59
Well, let's go this way.
12:00
Pretend we're going that way
and we'll go that way.
12:02
Somebody should say, Hold on, stop.
12:03
This person deserves their privacy.
12:06
You are not allowed to go there.
12:08
I go around the world dealing
with running and hiding.
12:11
I can't take a walk in the park.
12:14
I can't go to the store.
12:16
I have to hide in a room.
12:17
You feel like you're in prison.
12:19
Can you ever do anything that's right?
12:20
No matter what you do,
there's always somebody that will say
12:28
something about you,
they have their opinion on you.
12:32
No matter what you do,
no matter how well,
12:35
how good your intentions are,
there's always some jerk,
12:39
some mean-spirited person
to try to bring you down.
12:44
And all you want to do is
bring some love and some joy.
12:49
With great success,
12:54
people become jealous.
12:56
It hurts to be misunderstood.
12:58
No matter how much you try to put people
13:02
on track, there will
still be some judgment.
13:04
And what is said that it's
so far from the truth.
13:07
Just because it's in print
does not make it the gospel.
13:10
And because they're sensationalizing this
13:14
to an immense degree,
it's a feeding frenzy.
13:18
Just because of my celebrity.
13:22
The bigger the celebrity,
the bigger the target.
13:24
And they have to remember that.
13:27
So they turn this into money.
13:28
It's like, who get the biggest rating?
13:30
It's terrible what's happened with it.
13:33
But it's part of what I have
to suffer as a celebrity.
13:35
It's part of what I have to go through.
13:38