Michael Jackson is a singer, actor, dancer, arranger, producer, songwriter. He became famous not only as a musician but also for his work in the cinema.
He was measured by fate for only 50 earthly years, but he left behind a legacy that can be comprehended and assimilated for several thousand years. Michael Jackson is a legendary man who became the most successful pop musician in the entire history of the world. The total number of singles, albums, and compilations sold by the singer total one billion. His name has appeared twenty-five times in the Guinness Book of Records, he is the winner of fifteen Grammy Awards, and the number of other music awards is simply impossible to count. In 2009, he was officially named an American Legend and Music Icon. None of the famous musicians can boast of such achievements.
Childhood
Michael Joseph Jackson was born on August 29, 1958, in the town of Gary, the American state of Indiana. The parents’ names were Joseph and Catherine Jackson, Michael was their seventh child, and there were nine children growing up in the family. The boy did not have much happiness as a child, and it was all the fault of his tyrant father, who put pressure on the whole family, and not only morally, sometimes it came to physical abuse. Some of the atrocities of the father of the family came out in 1993 when Michael told about them on the Oprah Winfrey program.
In 2003, Joseph frankly admitted that he really beat his children at one time.
Despite the shortcomings of his character, Joseph took care of the children, and it was with his light hand that Michael found himself on stage. The father created The Jackson 5 band from his five sons, and Michael became its youngest musician. Despite his age, he stood out the most in the team, he had a peculiar manner of performance and unusual choreography.
In 1966-1968, the family ensemble toured the Midwest, in 1969, the group signed a contract with the recording studio Motown Records. In this studio, the band recorded their songs, which soon became very popular.
In 1970, the family band of musicians gained popularity. The first compositions of the musicians took the highest line in the American Billboard Hot 100 chart. Since 1973, the popularity of the musicians has crept down, and they signed a contract with another company, but under the name The Jacksons. They worked until 1984, and during that time they managed to release six CDs. The musicians toured with them all over the States.
Music
In addition to working in a family ensemble, Michael tried to develop a solo career. He has recorded 4 solo records and several compositions that have become quite popular. In 1972, one of his songs, “Ben”, took first place in the charts.
In 1979, the album Off the Wall. After the release of this album, Michael was talked about as an original and unsurpassed singer and dancer. His compositions “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” and “Rock With You” instantly soared to the top of the charts. And the entire 20-millionth edition of this album was sold out.
November 1982 was marked by the release of a new album called “Thriller”, which became the best-selling in the world. It includes popular singles that still remain immortal. For 37 weeks, this album held primacy in all American charts. It was for him that Jackson received as many as 8 Grammy statuettes.
In 1983, Michael presented the Billie Jean composition to the fans. Following this, the musician is engaged in shooting a music video for this track, which combines dance elements, an intricate plot, special effects, and several stars who played cameos.
At that time, the singer set a goal for himself – cooperation with the MTV channel. And soon a clip of Jackson’s “Billie Jean” appeared on the channel, and this was the beginning of a long-term collaboration between Jackson and MTV.
The title of the most successful music video was awarded to the clip for the song Thriller, and this clip ended up in the Guinness Book of Records. Critics called it a full-fledged short film because, for 13 minutes of the broadcast, a real transformation of the singer into a werewolf takes place in it, then a voice-over is heard, which accompanies all horror films, and at the end, Jackson dances his legendary dance, while he is surrounded by zombies.
Clips in the style of short films are a unique feature of Michael Jackson, which other musicians had to look up to.
The audience was stunned for the first time by the famous “Moonwalk” on March 25, 1983. It was then that Michael demonstrated it together with the composition Billie Jean. It was a completely new choreography, no one had danced like that before Jackson. In addition, Michael began to perform synchronized dances, exactly repeating those that could be seen in the music video. Thus, a music video was practically recreated on stage, only live. Nowadays, the audience is already used to it, and then it was new and unusual, and it became a real revolution in the world of music.
In 1984, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney sang a track called “Say, Say, Say”, which instantly became a hit.
However, not everything that Michael Jackson created was perceived by the public with delight. In 1987, he presented an 18-minute video for the composition Bad, which was directed by Martin Scorsese. The shooting turned out to be quite expensive, their budget was $ 2.2 million. A little-known actor Wesley Snipes was invited to shoot the video. A 4-minute version was shown on the screens. According to Time, the video turned out to be “shameful” because Jackson demonstrated too provocative and sexual movements, consisting in touching the crotch. By the way, this movement later became considered a feature of Michael Jackson.
When Jackson gave an interview to Oprah Winfrey, he said that he moved involuntarily because of the music that sounded caused a kind of emancipation.
In 1988, Michael recorded a new song called “Smooth Criminal”. During her performance, the singer again surprised fans with a new movement, which was called “anti-gravity tilt”. The element was very complex, it assumed a slope to the floor itself, and then a sharp straightening with even legs. It was quite difficult to do this without special shoes, so Michael developed shoes, which he later patented under the number 5255452.
In the same year, 1988, the film “Moonwalker” was released on the screens of the country, which advertised the singer’s choreographic movement of the same name. The rental of the tape brought its creators 67 million dollars, in 1989 it was recorded on videotapes and sold over 800 thousand copies.
In 1990, Jackson was awarded the “MTV Artist of the Decade” Video Vanguard Award, for phenomenal achievements in the 80s. A year later it was renamed, and since then the award has been named after Michael Jackson. By the end of 1990, the musician presented an ambiguous video for the song “Black or White”, which gained five hundred million views – a record number at that time. The song called for renouncing violence and showing racial tolerance to people of different skin colors.
People of several nationalities took part in the filming of the video. On the set, you could see Peggy Lipton, Macaulay Culkin, George Wendt. However, the full version of the video had several scandalous moments, which, on the contrary, seemed to the public a direct call to violence. Michael apologized to everyone and edited the clip.
In 1991, with the light hand of Elizabeth Taylor, Jackson was named the King of Pop music, and this title was fixed for him forever.
In 1992, the singer released a book called “Dancing the Dream”. And before that, he presented his new albums to the world – “Bad” and “Dangerous”, which consisted of the singer’s most famous singles.
In 1993, Jackson recorded the song “Give ln To Me”, which, according to critics, turned out to be ominous and gloomy, unlike all previous compositions in his biography. To create it, Jackson used the genres of heavy metal and hard rock.
In 1996, Jackson again returned to the problem of racism. He is releasing a new song “They Don’t Care About Us”, in which he protests against racial inequality. Long before the track appeared on the record, it had already become the subject of rumors and scandals.
In 1993-2003, Jackson recorded three more new albums.
In 1995, the singer presented a double LP, which included fifteen new compositions and a CD with the most famous hits. The double album opens with the song “Scream”, which was recorded in a duet with his sister Janet.
In 2001, the King of Pop music presented another album – “Invincible”, and two years later presented a new music collection – “Number Ones”.
In 2004, a new collection of Jackson’s compositions was released, which included five discs. There you could hear both the famous tracks of the musician and previously unreleased hits, which have accumulated quite a lot over 30 years of his creative career.
A new album was scheduled for release in 2009, but the singer did not have time to finish what he started. The musician had a tour planned for the summer, which was supposed to consist of 10 concerts. When it turned out that all the tickets were sold out, the organizers decided to increase the number of concerts to 50.
Michael Jackson was a versatile personality. He not only sang and danced beautifully but also acted in films. His filmography includes more than twenty projects. Jackson’s debut in cinema took place in the fantastic film “The Wiz”.
Before and after plastic surgeries
As Michael’s popularity grew, so did his material well-being. He became incredibly rich and invested a fairly decent part of his income in operations to change his appearance.
In the mid-80s, the singer impressed fans with radical changes. His skin became lighter from year to year, the shape of his nose, lips, cheekbones, and chin changed. Now no one saw him as a black Jackson boy with an African-American nose and thick lips. He’s changed a lot.
According to rumors, he really wanted to get rid of the appearance that nature had endowed him with and become like a European. The journalists came to the conclusion that this was the result of a biased attitude towards him from the channels and studios, which he encountered at the dawn of his creative biography.
The singer himself denied the fact that he is specifically engaged in skin lightening, he said that this happened because his pigmentation was disturbed. Jackson claimed that under the influence of stress, he began to progress a genetic disease – vitiligo. As evidence, the musician showed a photo where it is clear that the pigmentation is uneven.
During the performances, Jackson tried to hide the places where there was no pigmentation, so he put dark makeup on them. But soon he abandoned the dark tone and used a light one because the dark areas on his body were getting smaller. It was because of the progressive disease that he could not be in the sun, walked in closed clothes, used an umbrella, hat, and sunglasses.
Plastic surgery, according to Jackson himself, was a forced measure. He suffered severe burns to his head while filming a commercial for the Pepsi company.
There is the official confirmation of only three plastic surgeries, after which he changed so dramatically. He had a nose job twice and once a dimple on the chin.
Jackson considered age and the use of a vegetarian diet to be the reasons for the remaining changes in his appearance.
However, doctors said that there were several more operations because the singer’s lips became thinner, his forehead was high, and the shape of his eyelids and cheeks had changed dramatically in general.
The singer began to wear a medical mask everywhere. Fans began to say that Jackson’s nose was in the process of destruction and he underwent surgery to restore it to its former form. Another proof was that he went out in public with a Band-Aid on his nose. However, Michael said that the patch serves to protect against allergies.
Journalists nevertheless found a plastic surgeon, Arnold Klein, who admitted that a second operation on the nose was still carried out, and it was necessary so that Michael could breathe normally.
Personal life
Jackson loved to surprise fans not only on stage but also in his personal life. In 1994, the world gasped when it learned about the marriage of the singer and Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of the famous singer Elvis Presley.
It was a sensation that some regarded as an attempt to save his reputation after being accused of child molestation, while others were sure that representatives of the most famous musical families in the world had found their happiness.
Michael and Lisa met as children. And the meeting in adulthood changed the lives of both. He dreamed of a family, and she had a divorce, two children, a drug addiction, a suicide attempt, and deep depression. Meeting with Michael gave her the strength for a new turn in life.
They met often, talked even more often on the phone. And, as Lisa recalled, during one of the phone conversations, Michael asked her: “What would you say if I asked you to marry me?”
“I would agree,” Lisa replied.
At the end of May 1994, they got married. Michael was at the peak of his popularity, and in order for the wedding to take place without paparazzi and journalists, it was decided to hold the wedding modestly in the Dominican Republic.
They seemed to have found each other. Lisa constantly accompanied Michael at concerts and on trips, they attended an Elvis Presley memorial concert in Memphis together and did charity work together.
Once at a concert, Michael became ill and fainted. The doctors who arrived diagnosed dehydration and fatigue. Lisa visited him at the clinic, supported him, but alas, this became the starting line in their discord. Suspecting her husband of using powerful drugs and an obvious dependence on them, Lisa was increasingly inclined to divorce.
From Lisa’s memories, her husband often could not sleep at night, he was tormented by insomnia and constant dermatological problems. “He behaves like a child offended by the whole world. His childhood was taken away from him, and now he feels that he lives in ruins,” Lisa said, telling about what the pop king was panicking about. The couple began to move away from each other.
Michael at the same time sought her consent to the birth of a child, and, having received another refusal, said: “If you don’t want to do it, Debbie Rowe will.” Thus, the marriage that had begun so happily was put to an end.
On January 18, 1996, Lisa filed for divorce, stating irreconcilable differences in the reason. A short time later, Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley divorced.
In November 1996, Michael married Debbie Rowe, a former nurse. She gave birth to the singer’s two children.
In 1997, a son, Prince, was born.
In 1998, daughter Paris was born.
The couple divorced in 1999.
In 2002, the surrogate mother gave birth to Michael another son, Prince Michael II.
The Death of Michael Jackson
Biographers of the singer came to the conclusion that Michael experienced physical weakness and ailments long before his passing into the other world. He was constantly on painkillers, and could not gain weight in any way.
On June 25, 2009, everything was as usual. Michael was in a house he rented in Los Angeles. He was visited by his personal doctor Conrad Murray, who gave his ward an injection. When the doctor returned two hours later, Michael was lying on the bed, his eyes and mouth wide open. The doctor rushed to resuscitate him, but it was too late. At 12:21, the doctor started calling an ambulance, which rushed home in less than four minutes. Doctors tried for several hours to breathe life into the lifeless body, but they failed to revive the singer. They pronounced death at 14:26 and wrote that it was caused by an overdose of medications.
A personal doctor was blamed for Jackson’s death, his license was revoked and he was sent to jail for 4 years.
The farewell to the legendary singer took place on July 7, 2009, and he was buried only on September 3. The resting place of Michael Jackson was the Forest Lawn Cemetery near Los Angeles.
Jackson’s burial is shrouded in mystery, no one saw him in his coffin, it was closed. Therefore, there was a rumor that the singer is alive, and death is just an imitation. It is not known exactly where his body is located, because the cemetery near Los Angeles is called a temporary burial.
Many believe that the fact of death was very beneficial to the singer. His debts have long exceeded the million mark, and a farewell tour of 50 concerts was supposed to fix things. At that time, the amount from ticket sales amounted to $ 85 million, which went into his pocket. It was clear to everyone that he was simply physically unable to withstand this tour.
After the death of the singer, his albums began to be reissued and bring profit to his family.