Lisa Marie has a Change of Heart
Michael Jackson is a powerful person who has a strong effect on people, even the most wealthy and famous who want nothing more than to be in his life. Apparently, Lisa Marie Presley was not immune to that influence. Despite all that had happened with him in their twenty-month marriage, she was compelled to keep abreast of the goings on in Michael’s life. Maybe in an effort to achieve that goal, she suddenly began socializing with Michael’s sister Janet. A few months earlier, the two were spotted together at a club in Manhattan called Life, seemingly enjoying each other’s company and causing people to wonder what in the world they were doing together.
Lisa explained to friends that she was advising Janet on how to get back in shape for her upcoming
Velvet Rope
tour; Janet had apparently gained about forty pounds and was determined to lose them, and more. However, it’s unlikely that Lisa and Janet were going to the gym together. It simply looked like they were having fun because, that same week, they were seen shopping, having lunch, going to the movies and even catching an off-Broadway play, both in disguises. In September 1997, Lisa attended the launch party for Janet’s
Velvet Rope
CD. Shortly after, they attended the MTV Awards together.
When Michael heard from Janet that she was socializing with Lisa, he became intensely interested. ‘Does she ever talk about me?’ he wanted to know. ‘I’ll bet she hates me, now. Does she hate me, now?’
Janet told her brother that Lisa seemed to hold no grudge against him for what had happened in their relationship and, in fact, would actually like to see him. What she didn’t tell him was that Lisa had been suspicious of Michael’s marriage to ‘Nursey’. She knew Michael well enough to know that his goal had always been to have children, and he didn’t seem to care how he got them. He had wanted Lisa to bear him a child, but she drew the line there since she didn’t want to bring a child into an unhappy union. She suspected that he and Debbie had an agreement to have a baby, and that their marriage was just a device to make it legitimate. Janet confirmed all of those suspicions, telling her that Michael ‘did it [married Debbie] for Katherine, really.’ Lisa didn’t hold against Michael any of his choices where Debbie was concerned. ‘You can’t blame someone for being exactly who they are, can you?’ she asked her friend, Monica Pastelle. ‘A lot of people use surrogate mothers and, if you look at this and really kinda squint at it, I think that’s what it is. But,’ she hastened to add, ‘it gives me a terrible headache if I think too hard about it, soI try not to.’
Michael then telephoned Lisa to ask if they could be friends. ‘I’ve always loved you,’ he said to her, according to a later recollection, ‘and I hate that way it ended between us. I really do.’
Lisa told him that an important aspect of her Scientology training is that she not hold on to bitterness and anger, and that she had dedicated herself to get past any negative feelings about him. He was happy to hear it. He then invited her and her children to join him in South Africa where his HIStory tour was finally wrapping up. His mother and father would also be there, he said, so Lisa wouldn’t have to feel awkward about the propriety of such a visit. They were helping him watch Prince Michael, he explained. (That may have been true, but Michael also had a team of nurses and nannies on hand.) Lisa couldn’t resist; she said, yes.
Whatever Lisa’s intentions had ever been involving Michael, she still had a deep connection with him – and seeing him building a family with another woman wasn’t easy for her. It had been some time since she had immersed herself in his world, which as she once said, was ‘the only way to figure out how he’s doing. You can’t ask someone how a rollercoaster ride is while they’re still on it – you just have to hop on too.’ Lisa had to see for herself how he had adjusted to life since they parted company. A lot had changed for him. He had sidestepped the molestation allegations, released new music, toured successfully, married, had a child. Finally, it appeared he was settling down, finding himself. Would she now find a new Michael Jackson, one that had risen from the ashes of the broken man she knew before. It was this curiosity that took her across the Atlantic, twice. She would first join him in London, where he would be playing Wembley Stadium (12-17 July). She had Scientology business there, she said. Then, she would return to the States, and rejoin Michael at the end of the tour in South Africa.
Perfect, Michael must have thought. As it happened, Debbie was joining him in France, Austria and Germany (25 June-6 July), just a week before Lisa’s arrival, to see him and Prince Michael, who was about four months old. By that point, she’d only seen the baby once, maybe twice, since he was born. She was planning to leave before the London dates, which was fine with Michael because she and Lisa would then not cross paths.
In Germany, Michael was upfront with Debbie and told her that Lisa would be joining him on his next dates in England and then, later, in South Africa. Debbie wasn’t thrilled with the news – she may have thought Lisa was encroaching on her territory – but she got over it, quickly. Their relationship wasn’t such that she could tell him what to do, anyway, even if they were married. Plus, she didn’t really care. ‘Look, the thing is this,’ she told a friend. ‘I don’t tell Michael Jackson how to live his life, and he doesn’t tell me how to live mine. [Debbie always referred to her husband as “Michael Jackson”.] And that’s a fact,’ she concluded. ‘So if he wants to run around with his ex-wife, I’m not going stop him. BecauseI don’t want him stopping me if I want to do the same thing with my ex-boyfriend.’
‘But that’s not a normal marriage, is it?’ protested Debbie’s friend.
‘We’re talking
Michael Jackson’s
marriage, here,’ quipped Debbie. ‘Come on! Get real. I have it under control. I’m a grown-up, and I know what I’m doing, and so does he. Besides,’ she said, ‘I think we’ll have a big announcement, soon.’
Debbie didn’t explain at the time, but she and Michael either had sex (as they would later insist), or did something more artificial to make it happen, but while she was in Paris, staying at the Disneyland Hotel outside the city, she became pregnant with his second child. She knew her relationship with Michael – such as it was, whatever it was – was not in jeopardy. They had an arrangement; it seemed to work.
Meanwhile, in London, Lisa and her two children joined Michael and his parents in London. They all stayed in Michael’s $10,000-a-night suite at the luxury Carlton Towers hotel.
Michael’s three dates at Wembley Stadium were all sold out; he was in a terrific mood. However, as devoted as Lisa was to it during their visit, she didn’t have enough quality time with him to get a handle on Michael’s state of being.
Three months went by, and Lisa joined him again in South Africa in October. This time Lisa stepped off the plane with a shock of blonde hair, moderately resembling the shade of Debbie’s hair. During this trip, she made a concerted effort to ‘weasel’ her way (as she later put it) into his busy days.
Lisa and Michael, and his parents, son and her children, all stayed at the Palace Hotel in the centre of Johannesburg. The former couple was seen holding hands and beaming at one another. Yet, beneath the veneer of her pleasant smiles, Lisa had begun to grow uncomfortable with the new Michael Jackson. While he was not nearly as troubled as he had been during her reign in his life, some of the changes she saw in him bothered her.
For one thing, the vulnerability that he had before, born maybe of paranoia or an impending sense of doom, had now been replaced with a kind of bravado. It appeared that Michael felt invincible. A particularly troubling fact for Lisa was the appearance of a thirteen-year-old Norwegian boy. He was a cute kid who wore a red baseball cap all the time, given to him by Michael. His presence, even if it was innocent, was disconcerting. Did Michael still not realize how dangerous it was for him, in terms of his public image, to have young boys with him on tour?
On Friday 10 October, Michael performed before 47,000 people at Johannesburg Stadium. Afterward, Lisa spent hours backstage with Michael. During that time together, she attempted to raise the topic of Michael’s new friend. The appearance of impropriety was something that she felt had to be addressed. Yet, Michael made it clear to her that the issue would not be discussed. It seemed he no longer required, or at least welcomed, her counsel.
It had been the self-doubting, vulnerable part of Michael Jackson that had always been the bridge between him and Lisa Marie Presley. Now, without that part intact, and with the bridge of their sexual compatibility also broken down, Lisa felt not just powerless, she also felt like an outsider.
The next day, Lisa and her children were on hand for the formal ceremony when Michael was made an honorary member of an African tribe, Bafokeng Ka Bakwena (People of the Crocodile). The 300,000-strong Bafokeng is regarded as one of the richest in the country due to its ownership of the world’s second-largest platinum reserve. Katherine and Joseph, who met the tribe a few days before, were also given ‘citizenship’ certificates.
Dressed in a military-style jacket adorned with gold badges on the chest and arms, Michael walked slowly through a crowd of native women and children in the town of Phokeng, ninety miles northwest of Johannesburg, after the ceremony. With Lisa clutching his arm proudly, Michael smiling benevolently and touched the hands of his admirers as if he was visiting royalty. At all times an aide carried a blue-and-yellow umbrella to provide shade for him and Lisa.
That afternoon, Michael and Lisa went water-skiing at South Africa’s Sun City resort. Then, that night they had dinner with Katherine at the resort. During the meal, they applauded as youngsters dressed in leopard skin tribal garb performed for them.
The next day, Michael rehearsed for his concert at Johannesburg Stadium. Lisa, with her plans to depart already made, watched from backstage, waiting for Michael to finish so she could say her ‘goodbyes’.
A small coterie of people watched Michael as he and the dancers rehearsed ‘Thriller’. In the middle of the song, he halted the performance. ‘Hold it, guys,’ he said. ‘That’s all wrong. It goes like this. Watch.’ He then glided across the stage effortlessly, as if on air, thereby demonstrating the correct moves for his troupe. Katherine, who was standing with Lisa, beamed.
‘When I think of how bad it got with those damn lies, and how far he has come since then, I have to cry,’ Katherine said, not taking her eyes off her son. ‘He was almost destroyed. Now, just watch him, he’s so darn good.’ She then put her arm around Lisa and gave her a warm look. ‘And it’s because of you that he got through it. Do you know that? Do you know how much we appreciate what you did for him?’
Lisa smiled dimly and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know if I helped, or not,’ she told Katherine, modestly. ‘I did love him. That I know. But, face it, Katherine, your son is one big mystery.’
Katherine tilted her head back and laughed. ‘Girl, tell me about it,’ she exclaimed.
Michael came off the stage just as the two women were sharing their conspiratorial moment. ‘Now, what are you two gossiping about?’ he asked, good-naturedly.
‘You!’ they both said, in unison.
He executed a quick, soft shoe routine, made a funny face at them, and went back to work.