父親としてのマイケルとその子供たち

以下の記事は、通信社やオンライン雑誌からの散在資料を使用して作成されました。

マイケルの死後、さまざまな雑誌は、家族、友人、同僚、マイケルの従業員へのインタビューを通じて、彼の性格のさまざまな側面を以前よりもはるかに明らかにしました。そうした側面の 1 つは、父親として、また家族の世話人としての彼の人生でした。マイケルの従業員や知人の多くは、マイケルが生きている間にこの情報を一般に公開することを望んでいましたが、機密保持を要求する制限的な契約条件のため、またはマイケルへの忠誠心のため、そのようなインタビューを拒否しました。

これらの人物の 1 人は、裕福な作家であり教育コンサルタントであるトニー・ブザンです。彼は精神開発テクニックに関する著作で広く知られるようになりました。 2006 年、マイケルは子供たちにより良い思考テクニックを教えるために彼をバーレーンに招待しました。トニーはタイムズ・オンラインに、マイケルは人々がよく知っている繊細でささやき声のような声ではなく、通常の男性の声で電話で話しかけたと語った。 45分間の会話の中で、マイケルはブザンに対し、自分の考えをマイケルの子供たちに説明し、考え方を教えるよう頼んだ。ブザンはすぐにバーレーンに行き、そこで子供たちが父親にどれほど愛着を持っているかをすぐに理解しました。

「私は毎日、彼らがインターナショナルスクールに行ったり来たりしているのを見ていました。彼らは喜んで行き、喜んで帰ってきました。この3人の子供たちは、父親に連絡して抱きしめるために、車から家まで全速力で走りました。」

ブザンさんは、マイケルが自宅をルネッサンスのアートスタジオに変えたと言います。壁にはラファエロの大きな絵が飾られていました。彼は、アレクサンダーからチャーリー・チャップリン、モハメド・アリに至るまで、天才たちに魅了されました。しかし、彼は自分が天才の一人であるとは考えていませんでした。彼はとても謙虚な人でした。彼は自分自身を学生だと思っていました。マイケルは絵画の傑作と並んで、自分の子供たちの巨大な像を壁に設置していました。

ブザンによれば、マイケルは厳格な父親ではなかった。子供たちの時間をさまざまな授業、楽器、チェスで埋めるような父親とは違っていたという。夜はテレビの前のソファでDVDを一緒に見て楽しみました。

ブザンさんによると、子供たちは父親と同じように集中力が高く、学習が早かったという。彼は、マイケルはこれまでの人生で最高の学生だったと言います。

Buzan says he saw no scenes of rage, anger, shouting, or yelling in Michael’s home.

“The kids enjoyed being together, and that is unusual for those three-child gatherings where conflict usually arises.”

The children have different personalities.

Buzan describes Michael Junior—known as Prince—as very intelligent, funny, but also serious. He is the child who draws the teacher’s attention in class. He is confident and quick to respond.

Paris is a composed, dignified little princess. Very independent and self-reliant, thoughtful, reserved, and patient. Quiet but kind. She always offers her things to others too. She has dignity and an extraordinary personality, and her relationship with her brothers is very good.

But Blanket, who was four years old at the time, was a little devil and an adventurer. Like a small dynamo, he was always moving and jumping. He would hang from things. He was a little Michael.

Buzan saw Blanket doing many dance moves. Michael had taught him his dance techniques.

They ate fresh vegetables, seafood, and fruit juice. There was no alcoholic soda in the house. The children were treated with respect. At the dining table, Michael would talk to the children about himself and his profession. Michael would talk to the kids about prominent figures in history, but there was no religious discussion. Buzan never heard Michael talk to them about Christ.

He talked about his creativity and how, in the past, people didn’t believe he could do certain things until they finally saw it with their own eyes. He loved fighting. Thriller was an achievement people said he couldn’t repeat. But Michael felt he could easily top it.

Lou Ferrigno, the bodybuilding coach who helped Michael prepare for the This Is It concerts, says that after rehearsals, Michael would play with the children.

“Years ago he told me he was infinitely lonely. But when I saw him, he was very happy and everything was perfect.”

On October 9, the Chicago Sun-Times ran a piece by Bill Zwecker about Michael’s children. In this short article, the writer quoted a source close to the family saying that the kids, who deeply miss their father, are trying to gradually adjust to life and the new world without him. The children talk about their father every day.

According to this source, Michael Junior is constantly working on a story on his laptop, which he introduces as “My Story.” The memories of the 12-year-old boy and his story after he witnessed his father’s death on June 25. Prince was the first person Dr. Conrad Murray called after he realized Michael had suffered cardiac arrest, and the little Prince witnessed the resuscitation procedures being performed on his father by the doctor. But why Conrad Murray made a 12-year-old child witness such an agonizing scene is a question that no one knows the answer to properly.

This source guesses that Prince’s story project—something like a diary—also includes several pieces of poetry written to his father in heaven.

Since their birth, the children have been exposed to different music styles. Classical music was Michael’s favorite, and according to the nurse and nutrition specialist who visited their home, the sound of music could be heard all the time. The Jackson family are all music lovers, and this source says Michael’s musical genius has also been passed down to his children. According to reports from this anonymous and unreliable source, Paris Michael Katherine has written several songs, and Michael Junior is working on lyrics too—and perhaps they want to form their own music group in the coming years. After Michael’s death, sensational newspapers quoted Joe Jackson, Michael’s father, saying that a group called “Jackson3” would be formed with Michael’s three children present, which received a negative reaction from many. Joe later denied the statement attributed to him and said such a group was unlikely.

This source also says that Michael’s youngest child, 7-year-old Prince Michael, known as Blanket, asked everyone to call him by his real name. Michael called him Blanket. But the meaning behind that word is very emotional and beautiful. Michael wanted Blanket to spend his entire life wrapped in a blanket of love. Michael called him Blanket so that every time his name was spoken, it would be a wish for him to have a life full of love and hope. It seems that 7-year-old Prince wants his father to be the only person who calls him Blanket, and he asked others to call him Prince or Prince Michael instead.

For years, no one could see the faces of Michael’s children. He took his children out in public wearing coverings on their heads so they could remain anonymous and their privacy wouldn’t be harmed by the swarm of photographers. Thanks to this anonymity, the children could leave the house without drawing attention, either disguised in costumes with Michael or even without Michael being present. In the past one or two years, in some situations, the children appeared with their father without masks or disguises, and wherever they went, a flood of fans, reporters, and local photographers followed them. After Michael’s death, for the first time, official photos of his children attending their father’s memorial without coverings were released to the world.

After that, as the media atmosphere calmed down, the children were taken out many times for scientific outings, museums, swimming, and even Disneyland—and it’s no surprise that paparazzi photographers were also always looking for them. Over the past week, the children visited a science center in California, and last Wednesday, photos of them returning from karate class were published by local newspapers. Sources close to the Jackson family report that the children’s mood is generally good.

Joe Jackson, the children’s grandfather, says all three of them are very intelligent and sharp, and their father cultivated these traits in them.

Raymond Benne, Michael’s former spokesman, after Michael’s death, said in an interview that the children attended private classes and each of them could also speak three or four other languages. When Raymond Benne stayed with Michael in Japan in 2006, he realized that the children all had a great deal of independence.

Michael’s employees at the Bel-Air home, where he died, say they received instructions from Prince to do things. Michael would inform his employees about what needed to be done through his eldest son.

Douglas Jones, Michael’s former chef at the Bel-Air home, says that at the time Prince was busy working on a project he wanted to use to register a record in the Guinness Book under his own name. Jones describes Prince as a young man in a child’s body who understands much more than his age.

After Michael’s death, in a conversation with RadarOnline, Jones told a story about Michael and his children and their little bird. He said:

“Michael often had dinner with his children. But sometimes when he wasn’t at home, Blanket, his youngest child, would take his father’s seat at the table, and his older brother and sister never complained about it. Because he was the youngest.”

“Once, 12-year-old Prince came to me and told me that their little bird had disappeared. One of the cats had knocked over its cage. I noticed the feathers scattered on the floor and told 11-year-old Paris, ‘Maybe it’s not like this, but do you see the feathers on the ground? I think the cat ate the bird.’ Paris was upset and said, ‘No, because no blood is here.’ And I said, ‘If the cat took the bird, it doesn’t necessarily mean blood would be here.’ Michael rushed to help find the little bird with the children, and ten to fifteen minutes later, he and Blanket found the bird dead in the theater. Michael thanked me and the children’s nanny for helping to find the bird. The kids were very upset and crying. Prince went into the backyard to bury the bird holding a small shovel.”

David Nordahl, a painter who had known Michael for years and painted several portraits of him, describes him as a real father—not a Hollywood father—in an interview with USA Today.

“At night, he would wake up to feed them and change their place. Those are the things a mother does for her children. During all the time I was with the kids, I never heard them cry and beg for something, or get angry. They were very well-behaved. I never saw them cry. They weren’t allowed to watch television or DVDs before doing their homework, and they weren’t allowed to play video games. Michael wanted them to grow up like normal children. The kids were very polite, humble, and sweet.”

This painter says that at Prince’s simple and brief eighth birthday party, he received a two-dollar gift from his father. While Nordahl expected something luxurious to come out of the box, he says Michael didn’t spoil the children.

Mark Lester, a friend of Michael and the godfather of the children, says the kids are very polite, very quiet, and calm. And despite the controversies and noise of Hollywood, they have a normal life. They haven’t been raised like famous children. He says the kids love designing and drawing, and that’s how they keep themselves entertained to cope with their father’s death.

In his television interviews, Michael’s brother Jermaine said that Paris falls asleep every night while hugging a teddy bear that their father had given her, because she still smells her father on it. Michael’s sister LaToya, in her interviews, said that Paris put Michael’s posters on the walls of her room and sang all his songs all the time, warming her head with drawings and watercolors.

Jermaine says that although Michael’s death has devastated the children, they are coping with this sadness. Blanket cries himself to sleep at night. But 12-year-old Prince and 11-year-old Paris try to help their 7-year-old brother understand the new situation.

Some sources say that after Michael’s death, Prince took on a guiding role in the home as the eldest child. Since their father’s death, they have lived in Encino with their grandmother and their cousins. This house is part of Michael’s property. He gave the house to his mother.

In her new interviews, LaToya Jackson says Prince has been dealing with depression and is going through therapy sessions to cope with the grief of losing his father. LaToya says he had a very close emotional relationship with his father and still cries intensely.

The children support each other, and Paris has a motherly relationship with Blanket.

Michael’s mother, Catherine Jackson, is a member of the religious sect Jehovah’s Witnesses, and photos were taken of the children holding books related to this faith. The family believes that religious teachings can help the children cope with this pain.

And finally, contrary to reports that 42-year-old Grace Roomebai’s relationship with the Jackson family had been disrupted, Grace has returned to the children’s lives. Mark Lester says she is the person most similar to their mother. Grace was hired as a nanny from the time their eldest child Michael was born in 1997, and in December 2008 she was fired by Michael’s then-program manager, Dr. Tami. Grace was seen in July while returning the children from their Jehovah’s Witnesses religious classes.

Michael’s brother Tito Jackson says the family is gradually coming to terms with Michael’s death. But their situation is a bit different because on television, radio, and newspapers they constantly see and hear and read about Michael. And people still come to them and express their condolences about Michael’s death. That’s why their grief doesn’t get old.

Jackie says it’s hard for her to sleep because she constantly thinks about Michael.

“Sometimes I wake up with wet eyes. He was so valuable to the world and to me. As a brother, I miss him so much. So much. And I can’t believe he’s not here with us anymore.”

The last time the brothers met Michael was at their parents’ 60th wedding anniversary ceremony, just a few weeks before his death.

Tito talks about his brother’s never-before-performed concerts: “I asked him how things were going, and he said the concerts would be amazing. He couldn’t wait for us to watch them. He didn’t tell us anything about it. He just wanted us to see it with our own eyes. I told him I love him, and he said he loves me more. I was very happy that I could see him at that time. That was our last meeting.”

Marlon says what brings him comfort is the thought that his brother is now in a better place.

“A piece of him will live with me forever, and that comforts me. After Michael’s death, every morning a hummingbird lands on the wall of my porch room for a few seconds. The last time he was there, I told him, ‘Okay Michael, how are things? I hope you’re doing well.’ And I think he is. In my heart, I feel that he is at peace.”

Source: eMJey / Chicago Sun-Times / The Sun / Daily mail / Mirror / Times Online / USA Today