What If?
It hit me whileI was standing in Michael Jackson’s kitchen eating a tuna sandwich. I’ll never forget the moment, which was as strange and surreal as one might imagine. It had been a week and one day since his sudden death on 25 June 2009. I had spent practically every moment doing television interviews and reporting the terrible story for CBS News, the television network for which I had covered Jackson’s molestation trial four years earlier. However, this time, it was different. The King of Pop was gone. He was dead. It seemed unfathomable to me, yet somehow, it was true. Still, sinceI had so much work to do I’d been trying to suppress my heavy emotion and complete the many jobs at hand. I found myself standing in Neverland’s exquisite gourmet kitchen with its steel appliances and fine, antique wood finishes becauseI was asked to conduct a tour of the famous estate for a CBS-TV broadcast. And it was while standing there eating that sandwich that it finally hit me. This is it, I realized. Michael is gone, forever. The sinking feeling in my stomach that I’d tried to ignore for a week gave way to almost overwhelming despair. It seemed unbelievably unfair. I looked out from the kitchen toward the expansive outdoor patio – the meandering brook, the enormous trees and, of course, the figurines of little children playing – and I tried to conjure up the laughter and music that once filled this cavernous space, the happy times.
Neverland Ranch was one of Michael Jackson’s greatest creations, the result of his imagination gone wild. He loved it here, and no wonder; it’s truly breathtaking. In many ways, Michael really had it made, I thought to myself as I took a look around. He was so blessed to live here. His entire life, in fact, was one of unbelievably good fortune. So how did it go so wrong for him? When did it happen? Obviously, many things had gone awry, and I had recounted the wrong turns in great detail over the years. But what was it about this place that seemed to bring all of the chaos into focus for me?
What was it?
In this very kitchen, I decided,
that’s
where it went wrong. And over there, in the breakfast nook – which is really about as large as most people’s living rooms – it went wrong there, too.
I walked into the breakfast nook, stood in the center of the room and took a look around. It was completely empty – as was the rest of the house – but the memories remained.
It was in these very rooms in November of 2003 that Michael Jackson introduced the world to a young boy named Gavin Arvizo, first in the kitchen and then the breakfast nook. He smiled at the youngster and gazed wistfully into a television camera for a Martin Bashir documentary and asked, ‘Why can’t you share your bed?’ Gavin, seeming totally enchanted by the pop star, rested his head on Michael’s shoulder. ‘The most loving thing you can do is share your bed with someone,’ Michael continued. But after Bashir pressed the issue, Michael tried to clarify it. It was almost as if it had suddenly occurred to him that his comments could be misconstrued. ‘Always give the beds to the company, you know?’ he said, now sounding a lot like his mother, Katherine, known to be the consummate hostess. ‘He [Gavin] was gonna sleep on the floor and I said no, you sleep on the bed and I’ll sleep on the floor.’ When Bashir pressed as to why Gavin couldn’t sleep in one of the guest units, Michael said, ‘Yes, but whenever kids come here they always want to stay with
me
. They never want to stay in the guest units, and I have never invited them in my room. They go, can I stay with you tonight? I say, if it’s okay with your parents, yes you can.’
As I walked into Michael’s living room, I found myself staring at the fireplace and wondering... what if? What if he hadn’t said those words on national television? What if he had had more sense, especially after the allegations of ten years earlier?
But was it so bad, really? Yes, it was, I decided at the time. Maybe now, looking back on it – knowing all we know and having been so inundated with nauseating testimony as a result of the subsequent trial – it seems almost inconsequential. But at the time, when those words came tumbling from Michael Jackson’s mouth, yes, it was bad. It was defining. In fact, it was the one moment that, without exaggeration, completely ruined his life. After the show was broadcast on 6 February 2003, certain children’s protection agencies raised questions, and one thing led to another before, finally on 20 September, Jackson was charged and arrested for child molestation.
If Michael had simply not taped that one segment with Gavin, I wondered, would he eventually have gotten into trouble somewhere else down the line? Who knows? But as I walked back into the kitchen alone with my thoughts, I felt so incredibly sad for him, for his family, for his friends and for everyone whose lives were affected by a single moment Michael probably viewed as totally insignificant as it unfolded.
Indeed, what if... ?