The Years 1987 to 1989

At last, on 31 August 1987, the album «Bad» was released to the world. [With the exception of England, where this day is a public holiday]. Music sales were emptying the shelves faster than officials could refill them with copies of the album «Bad».

The Tower Records store in London sold two hundred copies of it in the first hour after the release of the album «Bad».  CBS [Epic] also estimated that by the end of the first day, one hundred and fifty thousand copies had been sold.

From the East (New York) to the West (Los Angeles) of America, people were lining up in front of the stores, and the stores hired more employees so they could serve them.

 «Bad» topped the pop and Black artists album charts for six and eighteen weeks, respectively, and remained on the pop singles chart for eighty-seven weeks, with thirty-eight of those weeks placing it among the top five albums. And in this way, Michael broke the record of the Eagles group , who had held the top ranks from first to fifth for twenty-six weeks with the album «Hotel California».

In Britain, the album «Bad» took the number one spot for five weeks and continued to stay on the chart for one hundred and nine consecutive weeks.

The album «Bad» was considered a tremendous success, and yes... Michael once again set a new record in the history of world music: «Bad» was the second best-selling album, at that time.

[The number one spot was also held by his own album «Thriller»]

Michael: ”When you feel like you’re racing against yourself, making an album becomes very difficult. It doesn’t matter how you look at it yourself; people will always compare the album «Bad» with «Thriller». You can always tell them, ”Forget «Thriller»,” but nobody will do it.“

On 12 September 1987, Michael began his first solo tour with a concert performance at the Korakuen Stadium [known as Tokyo Dome] in Tokyo _ Japan.

[Bad Tour]

Michael had invited two of the magicians, ”Siegfried and Roy“, to perform on his tour for their blindfold act. In return, he presented them with a song titled «Mind Is The Magic» for the opening ceremony of their show at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas.

[Roy — Michael — Siegfried]

Siegfried and Roy are considered Las Vegas’ number one attraction. And since the opening of their show in 1981, not even a single empty seat has remained in the theater.

On 1 March 1988, four new Pepsi commercials featuring Michael were shown at a press conference arranged for that purpose. The next day, during the broadcast of the 30th annual Grammy ceremony on television, Pepsi’s creative commercials featuring Michael were aired for the first time.

These commercials gained a great deal of popularity. And especially the Soviet television network requested permission to air them .

These commercials were the first American commercials to be broadcast by the Soviet television network. It was estimated that one hundred and fifty million people in the Soviet Union watched these commercials.

 On 20 April 1988, Michael Jackson’s autobiography, written by himself—something he had promised for a long time—was published by Doubleday. The editing of the book Moon Walk was handled by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

[Moon Walk book]

Reading this book is a memorable journey, into the depths of the feelings and inner life of a modern music genius. At the age of twenty-nine, Michael looks back on twenty-four years of performing on stage.

With sales of seventy thousand copies for the first printing, in just two weeks Moon Walk became the best-selling book in Britain. The book was reprinted for a second time in twelve thousand five hundred copies. And one week later, the third printing of the book was released to the market in thirty thousand five hundred copies.

In a list of the best-selling books of the day in America, published in the Los Angeles Times, Moon Walk ranked first. And in a list published in the New York Times, it had taken second place, which allowed it to reach the top of the list in the second week of its presence among the best-sellers.

These two lists of best-selling books are considered the most important lists in the publishing and printing industry.

Within a few months, it was announced that more than four hundred and fifty thousand copies of Moon Walk had been sold in fourteen countries around the world.

Michael dedicated this book to one of the people who had always been like a idol to him. ”Fred Astaire, a great and old actor.“

In Moon Walk, Michael speaks without any cover about his adolescence, his family, his first love, plastic surgery, his entirely exceptional career, and the strange and unfair rumors that have always surrounded his field of work.

In this book, he writes about his childhood:

”What I remember from my childhood is mostly work, even though I loved reading. I wasn’t forced by my parents to go on stage like Judy Garland. I did it because I enjoyed it, and for me it was an innate ability—like breathing. I did it because I had been made to. Not by my parents or my family. But by my inner self, which lived in the world of music.

Sometimes when I returned home from school, I only had enough time to put my books down and get ready to go to the studio. Sometimes I read until the end of the night—until it was time for me to sleep. On the other side of the street, across from the Motown studio, there was a park. I remember watching the children playing in the park; I just stared at them. In my mind, I couldn’t imagine such freedom and a carefree life for myself. And above all, I wished that I too had such freedom, that I could free myself from problems and be like those kids. We were doing very well in our work, but we worked as much as people who were twice our age.

As the leader of the group, I felt more than the others that I couldn’t even take one night off. I remember that after spending the whole day in bed because of illness, I performed on stage at night. In such moments, focusing on the performance became difficult, but I had memorized all the things that I and my brothers had to do on stage so well that I could do them even in my sleep.

Talent is something God gives to a person, but my father showed us how to grow it. We performed for him, and he would find fault with us. If you messed up, you got beaten. Sometimes with a belt, and sometimes with a whip. My father really made it hard for us—really hard. Marlon was the one who always got into trouble during rehearsals. But I got beaten more for things that happened outside rehearsal time. My father hit me so much and made me so angry that I decided to take revenge for all those beatings. I would take my shoes off my feet and throw them at him, or fight him with my fists. That’s why I got beaten more than my brothers. I fought back, and my father beat me severely in return. My mother says that when I was even smaller, I did the same thing, but I don’t remember anything. I remember that to escape my father, I would hide under the tables, and that made him even angrier. We had a very unstable relationship with each other.

My father has always been a secret to me, and he knows that himself. One of the things I’ve always regretted the most is that I was never able to build a close relationship with him. Over the years, he had built a wall around himself, and when he finished his work with the group, he realized that it was difficult for him to relate to us..... Up to today, I’m very grateful to him for the fact that, unlike many parents, he didn’t keep the money we earned for himself. Imagine stealing from your own children. My father never did such a thing to us. But I still don’t know him, and that is sad for a boy who is thirsty to know his father. He is still a mysterious man to me, and maybe he always will be...

I don’t know what my brothers and I were expecting, but nightclubs were something else. We performed among bad comedians, drunk people, and women who did striptease on stage. And I had been raised under religious beliefs. My mother was worried that I would spend my time with the wrong people and become familiar with things that I should learn about only a few years later.

Luck for us first meant something when we were given a full show. We performed five nights and six nights a week. And if my father could, he would take us to somewhere outside the city to perform on the seventh night as well. We worked very hard. But the crowds in the cafés weren’t bad for us.

We performed in cafés where, at that time, female striptease dancers also worked. I was used to standing in the corners of the stage in one of these clubs in Chicago and watching one of the striptease dancers named Mary Rose. At that time, I was nine or ten years old. The girl would take her clothes off and throw them into the crowd. And the men would pick them up and shout. My brothers and I watched all these events, memorized them, and my father didn’t care. We were exposed to many things that were repeated again and again.

Later, when we performed at the Apollo Theater in New York, I saw something that truly affected me, because I had never thought that such a thing could exist. Up to then, I had seen a few women who did striptease; but that night, a girl with very beautiful eyelashes and long hair came on stage and performed her act. She had an incredible performance. Suddenly, at the end of the show, she took off her wig, pulled out a big pair of oranges from inside her underwear, and it turned out that the girl was a man. That event affected me. I was still a child, and I couldn’t even imagine something like that. I looked toward the audience. They liked the show and cheered with joy and strongly. I was only a child, standing in the corner of the stage, watching all these things. As I said, I was really impressed. As a child, I learned a lesson from it. More than anything else. Maybe that incident freed my mind to focus on other aspects of life in adulthood.“

Michael writes about being surrounded by his fans: ”They don’t mean any harm, but I believe that being surrounded like that can hurt you. You feel like you’re being suffocated or torn apart. Thousands of hands grab at you. One of the girls twists your wrist while another is trying to remove your watch from your hand. They grab your hair and pull it hard, and the pain burns you like fire. You fall to the ground and get very bad scratches. I still have signs of some of those scratches on my skin, and I can remember which city each of them was created on my skin. It’s important to protect your eyes with your hands, because during these emotional frenzies, the girls might forget that their nails are long.“

In this book, Michael writes about his rise to fame and rumors:
”When I first became famous, I was still a chubby little boy with a round, chubby face. The roundness of my face stayed with me for years afterward, until I changed my diet and stopped eating red meat, chicken, pork, fish, and other fattening things. I only wanted to look better, live better, and live healthier. Gradually I lost weight, and my face became the way it is now. And the newspapers accused me of changing my appearance with plastic surgery. Aside from the surgery on my nose—which I freely admitted I had done, like many readers and film stars. They would choose one of my old photos from my adolescence or high school days and compare it with one of my new photos. In the old photo, my face was round and chubby, and I had African hair, and the lighting in the photo was very bad. The new photo showed the face of a much older, more mature person. My hairstyle had changed, and I had also had my nose operated on. Also, the lighting in the photos had improved over time. Such comparisons really aren’t fair.

I want to clarify the issue. I have never changed my cheeks or my eyes. I haven’t made my lips thinner, and I haven’t had any surgical procedures done on my skin. All these claims are ridiculous. If it were true, I would say so, but the truth is that it isn’t. I had my nose operated on twice, and recently I created a split in my chin [which today isn’t considered plastic surgery]. But that’s it. I don’t care what others say. This is my face, and I know myself.“

In this book, Michael describes his relationship with his father as stormy.

In an interview in 1993 with Oprah Winfrey, he said about these relationships: ”I was afraid... I was very afraid. He would sometimes come to see me. I would get nauseous from fear and throw up.“

When Oprah Winfrey asked him in that interview whether he had had this condition in childhood or in adulthood, he answered with one word: ”Both.“ At that time, Michael was thirty-five years old.

Molly Meldrum, an Australian music critic, wrote about Michael’s experiences as a little boy:

”When you and I were busy with childish games, he was on stage performing. When you and I were busy riding our bicycles, he was on stage performing. When we first went to school, he was on stage performing. And stage managers live in a world that is very, very different.

Based on what we’ve heard, Michael had a foul-mouthed father who forced him to stay in the studio, rehearse, and record. While kids his age were out playing with their friends.

It has been said that when Michael vomited in the restroom due to anxiety about performing in front of fifty thousand people, his father would pull him out of there and shove him onto the stage. We get anxious even about going on stage at school shows, even in front of only a hundred people. But Michael Jackson, as a superstar, experienced a very different situation.

In fact, Prince and Madonna, when they were teenagers, bought the Jackson Five albums. They had their childhood, and even if their early teenage years were painful and deprived them of many things, at least it wasn’t in the public eye. Michael never had that opportunity.

None of the stars in the history of music have been in the public eye as much as Michael. Perhaps with the exception of a small number of them, including Elton John, Boy, Paul McCartney, and Mick Jagger. Even then, all of them managed to spend at least their teenage years out of sight before everyone knew their names.

What is clear is that Michael didn’t have a normal childhood. Maybe being surrounded by fans and being pressured by them led to his shyness and sensitivity during the time when he wasn’t on stage.

His shyness is a known fact. Only in these recent years are the pieces of the puzzle of Michael Jackson slowly being found, one by one.

Smokey Robinson, one of the Motown artists, describes how carefully Michael paid attention to everything and how, like a sponge, he absorbed everything—especially in the music industry and stage management—and how curious he was, and still is. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 1993, Smokey Robinson said that ”Michael was like an old soul in the body of a child. He was never really a child.“

Michael’s teenage experiences had a greater share in shaping the complex personality that people around the world recognize him for in every country.“

[Excerpts from the writings of Molly Meldrum, an Australian music critic, about Michael’s childhood experiences]

In May 1988, Michael moved from the Hayvenhurst [the family home in Encino] to a villa in the Santa Ynez Valley, about one hundred miles north of Los Angeles. The 2,700-acre (117612000 square meters) Sycamore villa was renamed very soon to «Neverland». Neverland is ”Peter Pan’s“ city, the city of Michael’s favorite book: «Peter Pan The Boy From Never Neverland»

[Neverland]

On 18 May 1988, Michael’s first film «Moon Walker», in which he appears as the lead role, was shown for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival in southern France. The film was intended for release at Christmas.

On 2 July 1988, when the song «Dirty Diana» reached the top of the charts, Michael was the first artist to have five songs from one of his albums [Bad] in the top positions. Until then, nobody had achieved such a record.

Michael’s name was recorded in the Guinness World Records as the person who released the greatest number of hit songs and number ones in the 1980s. No other artist [whether female or male] had more number one songs than the King of Pop in the late 1980s.

In late October 1988, the film «Moon Walker» appeared on the big screens in Japan for the first time. And finally, on 26 December, it was released in Europe. Although some critics praised «Moon Walker» and others criticized it, the film was met with general public interest in both Japan and Europe. In England and France, people lined up in front of cinemas to see it.

Frank Dileo, who was Michael’s executive manager, decided not to show «Moon Walker» in the cinemas of the United States. On 10 January 1989, «Moon Walker» was released on video tapes in America. Only after a month, six hundred thousand copies had been sold. And that was just the beginning.

[Moon Walker film]

«Moon Walker» appeared at the top of the best music video cassettes chart. The film kept Michael’s name at the top row of the chart for twenty-two weeks. Until, at last, it was replaced by Michael himself with the documentary «Michael Jackson: The Legend Continues».

On 24 January 1989, after only two weeks since the release of «Moon Walker», the film surpassed the sales record of the film «Thriller: Behind the Scenes». And that’s how Michael broke his own record and pushed «Thriller: Behind the Scenes» down to second place. To this day, «Moon Walker» has been the best-selling music film, with «Thriller: Behind the Scenes» behind it.

Michael set another new record. Two of his music films occupy first and second place among the best-selling music films in the history of music.

On 27 January 1989, Michael held the one hundred and twenty-third and final concert of the «Bad» tour at the Los Angeles Sports Stadium.

[Bad Tour]

The «Bad» tour broke all previous records and became the biggest tour held up to that time. 
The worldwide «Bad» tour ran for sixteen months [12 September 1987 — 27 January 1989] and was held in fifteen countries around the world, and in total, four million four hundred thousand people from around the world attended the concerts of this tour.

 The «Bad» tour was also the highest-grossing concert up to that time, with earnings of more than one hundred and twenty-five million dollars. Until then, no other artist had earned such an amount from only a single tour.

Michael broke the record he himself had left behind a few years later with another tour.

During the time he held the «Bad» tour in Europe, Michael earned three pounds and four hundred and twenty-five cents per minute. Michael had signed a contract worth twenty million pounds, under which he received ninety percent of the income from all his concerts. After paying the share of his one hundred and forty-person entourage, he earned a net profit of about four hundred thousand pounds from each concert.

On 14 February 1989, news broke that Michael Jackson and his executive manager , Frank Dileo, were planning to separate from each other. No reason was given for this sudden separation, which gave the media the opportunity to speculate about possible reasons for the matter—perhaps Frank Dileo had tried to bring Michael under his control with his showy management techniques, and in this way make himself known. 

[Michael — Frank Dileo]

Frank Dileo was Michael’s executive manager from 20 March 1984 to 14 February 1989.

On 28 July 1989, when an animation made based on Michael was shown for the first time in the cartoon television commercials «The Rizzins Family», Michael was accepted as the newest member of this cartoon family. The name of this new cartoon character was «Michael Rizzin». Michael’s voice speaking was used in this commercial, but because of the exclusive contract Michael had signed with Pepsi, they couldn’t use his voice to sing the song «I Heard It Through The Grapevine», which had been made for the advertisement. After collaborating with the creator of this cartoon family, in the film «Moon Walker», Michael agreed that they could use his animation in these commercials.

On 13 September 1989, a press conference was held to announce the news of a new contract between Michael Jackson and L.A. Gear. This two-year contract required Michael to appear in their commercials, in addition to designing their clothing and advertising for the sale of a series of their shoes and sportswear.