The most successful entertainer of all time, pop star Michael Jackson's legacy will forever be tragically marred by the salacious rumors that dominated headlines the better part of his career. From child molestation, to purposefully altering the color of his skin, to buying the elephant man's bones, many sadly remember Jackson for the tabloid news stories and his eccentricities rather than for his music.
A new book hopes to change all of that, and offer some perspective. "Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson" by Randall Sullivan, purports to uncover the real story behind Jackson's public persona, revealing, among many shocking anecdotes, that the singer died a virgin.
Rolling Stone contributor Sullivan delved deep into Jackson's past to paint a more elaborate portrait of the King of Pop than the story typically offered in the news. The biography is currently being gutted by bad reviews online with most questioning the authenticity of the information, many calling the book a rehashing of tabloid fodder, and others accusing of Sullivan of getting basic facts about the Jackson autopsy wrong.
Of course, this is a situation where the only person who could offer any real answers is dead.
We're always up for a good story. So, follow along below for some shocking revelations from Sullivan's biography, via The Daily Beast.
Sullivan asserts Michael Jackson died a virgin and was "pre-sexual"
What many didn't understand about Michael's relationship with boys like Jordie Chandler, whose family would virtually ruin the singer with accusations of child molestation, is the reason he sought their company, says Sullivan.
"It wasn't an attraction that he felt for these prepubescent young boys, but a yearning to 'be one himself.' His Neverland Ranch was an attempt to live in this childhood world-a place of innocence and pure imagination. Tabloids mocked his childlike tendencies (he once hired the little people who played the Seven Dwarfs at Disneyland to his estate at Hayvenhurst) as creepy, calling him 'Wacko Jacko.' What they were missing, he says, was that-devoid of a childhood-Michael was still a child himself. "How to tell the world that he wasn't trying to be heterosexual or homosexual or even asexual, but rather presexual, was a problem he could never solve." Rather than a sexual predator, Sullivan writes, Michael likely died 'a 50-year-old virgin,' never having had sexual intercourse with any man, woman or child, in a special state of loneliness that was a large part of what made him unique as an artist and so unhappy as a human being," said the Daily Beast discussing excerpts from the book.
Michael's brothers forced a sexual intervention on him when he was 15.
"Michael turned 14 the same month that the album Ben was released-hitting puberty shortly after. As girls swooned over his dimpled smile, his father and brothers began ridiculing him about his sexuality-urging him to get out there and 'do it.' According to his sister Rebbie an 'intervention' of sorts occurred when Michael was just 15. Locked in a hotel room with two adult hookers-Michael was told to say goodbye to his virginity. Instead, he picked up the Bible on the nightstand and began 'reading passages from Scripture aloud to them.' When finally released from the room, the hookers were allegedly more shaken than Michael himself, who had tears streaming down his face," says the Daily Beast.
Jackson's lifelong obsession with makeup, masks, and surgery stemmed from a traumatic teenage bout with acne.
"'People actually shook their heads when they realized 'cute little Michael' had been replace by this awkward teenager with erupting skin,' he later told Los Angeles Times music writer Robert Hillburn. Michael's mom claims that his severe acne, which 'circled his face from forehead to chin,' changed him from an 'outgoing, devilish boy' to a 'loner.' It was during this embarrassing period for Michael that he first discovered the beauty of masks-while filming 'The Wiz' in New York. The full makeup that he wore daily to play the scarecrow in the show gave him the freedom to "hide and hold his head high at the same time." Sullivan says he 'reveled in the discovery of how freeing it could be to meet people while wearing a mask.'"
Michael Jackson seriously, seriously believed in leprechauns.
"'Be on the lookout for leprechauns,' he said to Prince, Paris, and Blanket when they arrived in Ireland for a vacation in 2006. Michael would, allegedly, admit to anyone that asked that he truly believed in the little fairies. 'He loves the whole idea of leprechauns and the magic and myths of Ireland,' said an unidentified source. In 2009, his older brother Jermaine admitted that Ireland was his little brother's 'getaway' and his favorite place in the world to go and escape his worries."
His first wife, Lisa Marie Presley, never saw him without makeup.
"A friend of Presley's, Monica Pastelle, explained how frustrated she was with the 'hours and hours her husband spent in the bathroom applying and removing various cosmetics.' Presley, though his bedmate for more than a year, had never seen him without makeup. She complained that she would 'find his pillow smeared with [makeup] in the morning.'"
Sullivan also writes that while the details revealed in Jackson's 1993 child-molestation investigation case were "undeniably disturbing," he truly believes Jackson was innocent. The author says that the $15million out-of-court settlement Jackson was forced to pay was textbook extortion.
"It was understood that Michael Jackson sought the company of prepubescent males because he yearned to be one himself. [He] wasn't trying to be heterosexual or homosexual or even asexual, but rather presexual (...) Of all the answers one might offer to the central question hanging over the memory of Michael Jackson, the one best supported by the evidence was that he had died as a 50-year-old virgin, never having had sexual intercourse with any man, woman or child, in a special state of loneliness that was a large part of what made him unique as an artist and so unhappy as a human being.
"Untouchable" is available now.