From child star to accused child molester – JIM CARROLLlooks at the life and career of Michael Jackson
ONCE UPON a time, Michael Jackson really was the king of pop. In fact, he had several reigns in that regard.
There was the child star, who began performing in the family business, The Jackson 5, when he was just six years of age. By the time he was 11, he'd graduated from standing at the back playing the tambourine and bongos to fronting the group's debut Motown single I Want You Back. It went to number one and Jackson's haul of blockbuster hits had begun.
Then, there was the solo star. It was legendary producer Quincy Jones who put a chart-topping shape on Jackson’s sound.
The partnership began with the disco-flavoured Off The Wallin 1978, which produced hits like Don't Stop Till You Get Enoughand 10 million sales.
But it was 1983's Thrillerwhich was the singer's tour-de-force. This was sleek and brilliant pop music, an album which set a template for how r'n'b, pop and rock could come together with hugely commercial results.
It sold like no other album before it, amassing 60 million sales and seeing seven of the album’s nine tracks released as singles. Even the videos for the songs became events.
John Landis’s 14-minute mini-epic for the title track, featuring Jackson and a troupe of vampires voguing through the streets, cost $500,000 to produce and became one of the nascent MTV channel’s most-played clips.
But everything changed after Thriller.
While Jackson still kept making music – 1987's Badwas another big seller and saw him embark on his first solo tour and saw him play in Cork in 1988 – he was making headlines for much different reasons.
“Wacko Jacko” tales involving his Neverland ranch in Los Angeles, with its menagerie of chimps and other animals, began to appear.
The singer was painted as an eccentric, lonely figure, unable to cope with the magnitude of his huge success.
Yet these pen-pictures were mild compared with what was to arise subsequently. In 1993, the family of 11-year-old Jordy Chandler accused Jackson of molesting their son and police raised his Neverland home.
In 1993, Jackson also announced he was addicted to painkillers and cancelled a world tour to promote the Dangerousalbum.
He was married twice, first to Elvis Presley’s only child Lisa Marie in 1994. This ended in divorce in 1996 and he married Debbie Rowe the same year. The couple split up three years later. He had three children – Prince Michael I, Paris Michael and Prince Michael II.
In recent years, controversy continued to dominate his life.
A 2003 television documentary, Living with Michael Jackson, claimed that Jackson still had sleepovers with young boys and had his third child with a surrogate mother, but Jackson denied these charges.
At the time of his death, Jackson was preparing to perform 50 concerts at London’s 02 Arena. The shows, which were due to begin on July 13th, sold out within hours of going on sale.