But now it seems like it couldn’t go on that great. It is not possible for an artist to stay only famous and loved. And now the rumours in the press get more and more and what later becomes ‘Wacko Jacko’, is slowly formed in the minds of the people…

In public:

As soon as they are back from the tour the brothers start to record their new album ‘Triumph’. 

At the same time Michael’s first solo-album 'Off the Wall'. The album beats all expectations and breaks records. It is sold over 12 million times worldwide. Michael is buried with prices of all kinds. Slowly the question appears how much fame one single person — and even a black artist! - can get…

The Jacksons again go on a world-tour, this time with the album ‘Triumph’. 

In 1982 - maybe the most important year in Michael’s life - his album 'Thriller', with the worldhits 'Billie Jean', 'Beat it' and 'Thriller' is released and writes history.

The TV-show 'Motown25', where Michael performs his legendary 'Moonwalk' for the first time, makes it clear: he is not longer a superstar, Michael Jackson is a megastar - one of the most important in the history of modern music.
Maybe even the most important. Michael did it. Now he’s on top! And there’s enough reason for joy: the singles stay longer on the top places of the charts than any other songs before. 'Thriller' gets more than 40 awards and Michael himself is chosen several times as the best artist - again he breaks records. 
Then he’s listed in the 'Guinness-Book of World Records': After only two years 'Thriller' is the most selling album of all times! And it still is today - in the year 2007. With over 100 million sold (November 2006) copies it still is on the top of music-history - since 20 years. 20 long years in which Michael desperately tries to outsell himself. But till now he just made the places  2 and 3 with his following albums…

Now the whole world wants him: he signs a commercial-contract with Pepsi - endowed with the highest salary ever. During one of this video-shootings Michael gets burned very badly at the back of his head when a pyro-effect explodes too close to him. But he’s lucky and is able to leave the hospital quite soon. Later he has to do some plastic-surgery to rebuild his skin.

Rumours:

Behind the scenes:

Michael’s nose becomes thinner, his voice a bit deeper, the contracts that made Joseph Jackson manager of a) the Jacksons and b) of Michael himself, run out. Whether the one nor the other gets renewed. The brothers don’t want their father as manager anymore! From now on Michael is his own boss.
 
In the morning after the TV-show ‘Motown25’ Michael receives a phone call from his great idol Fred Astaire. He praises him to be a ‘devilish good dancer’. After this call Michael is rumoured to have run to the toilet to vomit - he is not used to hear such praise…
It seems like everything is okay and the world couldn’t be better. But that’s wrong. Michael’s family is already split, the intact facade just resists in the public. Michael has to see how his brothers have affaires with fans and cheat on their wives. His father also has an affaire as well as a non legitimate daughter. Michael knows: never in his life he wants to be like him!

More and more he spends time in the studio with his music which has become a home for him. In Encino, his actual home, he only shows up as rarely as possible. To Berry Gordy he’s supposed to say: “I just wished you were my father.” His siblings complain that meanwhile they need dates with their little brother just to see him. Although nobody wants to confess it there’s lots of jealousy and envy.

Michael more and more disappears from public. He doesn’t give interviews and doesn’t appear on TV.

Years later he says:

"It’s not easy to fire your own father."

Oprah-Interview, 1993:
&
Prime Time Life-Interview, 1995:

"I am never really satisfied. When I did 'Motown25' and I did the 'Moonwalk' for the first time, I cried afterwards…"
“I wanted to do the five spins and just stay there and freeze. I didn’t but they didn’t know…"
"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 'Ooooh, 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."

To the question why it’s been so quite around him for such a long time he says:
"I felt there wasn’t anything important for me to say and those were very sad, sad years for me. (…) Oh, there’s a lot of sadness about my past and adolescence, about my father and all of those things. (…)"

In public:

Again the brothers tour: the ‘Victory-Tour’.

Michael for the first time fights against the rumours in the press with an official statement. He refuses everything. Just shortly later he for the first time appears with a mask in the public.

As the first public figure Michael gets a second star on Hollywood’s ‘Walk of Fame’. 

The song 'USA for Africa - We are the world', written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie is released and in short time it’s the most selling single of the world. But today it has now longer this status.

It almost seems like Michael has grown up over night…

Rumours:

Until now there weren't too many rumours about Michael’s private life but now the press seems to take a fancy to it:
Talks about plastic-surgery get louder. Michael’s supposed to have done his nose several times, a notch into his chin, as well as he has altered his eyes and cheekbones. His sex-life (many think him to be homosexual) is discussed and if he’s treated with hormones to keep his high voice.

Behind the scenes:

Michael didn't want to do the tour with his brothers, but those - in opposite to him - needed the money. The brothers don’t come along with each other, they hardly speak to each other. Michael is unhappy, he wants to go his own way. He looses weight and finally is supposed to weight only about 50 kg - at a height of 1.75 m. Several times he almost collapses. There’s trouble with the tickets, because the prizes are too high.
There are death-threats against Michael published in the press. Fans are rattled and angry, and so several shows are not sold out. Michael decides to spend all his income to charity. At the end of the tour he proclaims the final split from the Jacksons - surprisingly to the other brothers.

When Quincy Jones asks him to write a song for him, Michael doesn’t want to. Because of the recordings of 'Thriller' he spend so much time in the studio that he has enough. But there’re enough people who know how to get Michael to do something, and so when Quincy tells him how important it is for the children of the world, he agrees. Only a few weeks later the hit-song 'We are the world' is completed.

Behind the stage Michael tries to support suffering children for some time by now. He pays surgeries, spends money and visits hospitals. Except for his family hardly anybody knows that Michael suffers from 'Vitiligo', a skin-disorder, that makes his skin loose it’s pigmentation slowly.

Years later he says:

November 1993; concerning his song 'We are the world':
"Quincy came up to me and said ‘Michael, we need a song for the children of the world.’ I said: 'Oh, Quincy, I just finished ‘Thriller’. I spend all the time in the studio, I just don’t feel like it!'. But then as he explained to me that it would be very important for the children of the world, I said I’d do it. Because he knows how I feel about children…"

In public:

Michael does 'Captain EO', a 3D-movie for the Disneyworlds. At the same time he works on his new album 'Bad'.

'Bad' breaks records as well, and Michael does his first solo-worldtour. He visits the whole world, and every important person you can imagine sees at least one of his shows. So for example Prince Charles and Princess Diana who later becomes a close friend to Michael.
At the end of the tour it’s the biggest in music-history. 

Michael’s autobiography 'Moonwalk' comes into the book-stores. There he for the fist time in public complains about his father’s strictness and beatings. Joseph counters that this hadn't been 'beatings but smacks!'. However Marlon supports his brother and confirms the hard methods of his father’s eduational methods…
Michael’s sisters La Toya and Janet agree with him as well.

Rumours:

The number of rumours around Michael Jackson increase: He’s supposed to live and eat together with an ape. Additionally he sleeps in an oxygen-chamber, because of his fear of growing old. He’s supposed to buy the 'Elephant Man's' bones and to have a shrine for Elizabeth Taylor - whom he wanted to marry — in his house.

Because his skin gets lighter, there are more and more rumours about Michael bleaching it. They say Michael doesn’t want to be black.
Michael himself doesn’t comment on those things.

Behind the scenes:

Michael leaves the ‘Jehowa’s Whitnesses’. Till this time he went 'pioneering' which is the term used for the missionary work that Jehovah's Witnesses do.

Michael is hurt because of all those allegations. He suffers from a disease but get’s mocked for it. Yet he cannot or doesn’t want to talk about those things openly but he writes:
"Like the old indian proverb says, do not judge a man until you’ve walked two moons in his moccasins. Most people don’t know me, that’s why they write such things in which most is not true. I cry very very often because it hurts and I worry about the children, all my children all over the world. I live for them. (…) Animals strike, not for malice, but because they want to live, it is the same with these who criticize, they desire our blood, not our pain. But still I must achieve I must seek truth in all things. I must endure for the power I was sent forth, for the world for the children. But have mercy, for I’ve been bleeding a long time now. M.J."

Years later he says:

Oprah-Interview, 1993:

About the Elephant Man's bones:
"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?" he laughs.

About the oxygen-chanber:
"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. And it’s not the truth and I’m here to say. You know, do not judge a person, do not pass judgment on anyone, 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 (…)"

About Liz Taylor:
"Elizabeth Taylor is gorgeous, beautiful, and she still is today, I’m crazy about her…"
To the question whether he proposed to her he says: 
"I would like to have…"

Neverland

In public:

During the time of the 'Bad-Tour', Michael moves out from Encino. He buys ‘Neverland’, a beautiful ranch in Santy Ynez Valley, about 100 miles north from Los Angeles.

Rumours:

Behind the scenes:

The removal appears to be the final split from his family, as well as from the public. To this place the haunted superstar can flee. Meanwhile Michael is 30 years old. Since 25 years he’s on stage and in the spotlight of the world. And somehow he seems to get tired of the showbusiness now…

Years later he says:

Private Home Movies, 2003:

"Neverland is me, Neverland is the totality of who I am!"

In public:

It seems like getting all kinds of awards becomes Michael’s favorite hobby. Nearly every day he’s on the cover of a magazine, he get’s one prize after the other and is votet to be the ‘artist of the decade’ and the most important man in music-history. He meets heads of states and all other prominent people.
His close friend Liz Taylor marries for the 8th time - at Neverland. Despite all possible security measures a reporter makes it to jump out of a helicopter with a parachute to take pictures…

Rumours:

At this point you can only mention the ‘usual talks’ about his nose, his behavior, his surgery, the mask, all the children and animals around him…

Does 'Jacko' actually use the toilette? Is he an alien or a weirdo? Peter Pan or ready for a mental home? Paparrazzi don’t let any story from ‘strange Neverland’ go which could mean just a little headline.

Behind the scenes:

From the public Michael retires even more. He suffers from all the haunting media, hides behind hat, sunglasses and masks.

Like always he hepls suffering children all over the world. He invites them to his home and stays for a day with them. He visits schools and hospitals. He pays countless bills for doctors, supports and founds charity-projects. If nowhere else on earth, here Michael seems to have his place and home. Being together with children, he is obviously happy.
Nevertheless he is under great pressure. His album 'Dangerous' is overdued. There are times when Michael suffers from acute pain in his chest which first hit to heartattacks, but later got led back to the persisting stress.

Years later he says:

TV-guide-Interview, Dez, 1999:

"People always say, 'Why don't we just go to a party?' Soon as I step in, the party’s over - for me. It’s a party for them but they’re all putting their cards in my face, saying, 'Remember me? I met you four years ago at…' And I say, 'I don't remember.' So I can't enjoy the experience. They play all my songs. I didn't come to hear my music. And everybody starts chanting, 'Dance!' 'Well, I want to see you dance for a change.'
 
Grammy Legend Awards, 1993

"My childhood was completely taken away from me. There was no Christmas, there were no birthdays… It was not a normal childhood, no normal pleasures of childhood. Those were exchanged for hard work, struggle and pain, and  eventual material and professional success. But as an awful price, I cannot recreate that part of my life, nor would I change any part of my life. 
And that’s why I love children and learn so much from being around them. I realize that many of the world’s problems today, from the inner city crime to large scale wars and terrorism, and our overcrowded prisons are a result of the fact that children have had their childhoods stolen from them. The magic, the wonder, the mystery and the innocence of a child’s heart are the seeds of creativity that will heal the world. I really believe that. What we need to learn from children isn’t childish. Being with them connects us to the deeper wisdom of life which is ever-present and only asks to be lived. They know the way to solutions that lie waiting to be recognized within our own hearts."