Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [136]
“Do you go out, do you date?”
“Who do you date?”
“Have you ever been in love? We’d like to know whether or not there is a possibility that you are going to marry one day and have children.”
Sixteen years later, after Michael Jackson died in 2009, Oprah played part of that interview. She said that she did not believe him when he told her that he had had only two plastic surgeries. She also seemed dubious about his claim of vitiligo, the disorder that he said bleached his skin.
During the interview, the smoke detectors went off at Neverland and the screeching noise forced Oprah to break for an unplanned commercial. Later, Diane Dimond, one of Jackson’s biographers, speculated that Jackson had planned the interruption to disrupt Oprah’s personal questions. Bob Jones, Jackson’s publicist from 1987 to 2002, who had coined the term “King of Pop,” recalled the interruption as a way for Jackson to bring on Elizabeth Taylor as a surprise.
“He had Liz there to trump Oprah’s questions, and also because he knew that Liz would add to the ratings.… Liz should’ve been there, considering all the jewels Michael gave her over the years. That was a very expensive friendship, let me tell you.”
Taylor told Oprah—who irritated the star by continuing to call her Liz instead of Elizabeth—that Michael was “the least weird man I have ever known,” in addition to being “highly intelligent, shrewd, intuitive, understanding, sympathetic, generous.” Years later Oprah said she did not think their friendship weird because they shared the same experiences of being child stars with abusive fathers.
During his 1993 interview, Michael Jackson looked “Off the Wall,” Oprah wasn’t “Bad,” and it never got “Dangerous,” but for ninety million viewers in the United States and one hundred million around the world, the interview was a pop culture “Thriller.” Jackson defended his preoccupation with children as compensation for his lost childhood and the urge to surround himself with unconditional love. “I find a thing I never had through them,” he said. Ten years later he would give an interview to British TV that led to his prosecution for child molestation, but he was found not guilty on all charges. He admitted to Oprah that he had a lifelong crush on Diana Ross, whom he seemed to resemble, and he claimed to be in love with Brooke Shields.
“Michael just BS’d Oprah about not being gay,” said Bob Jones, who was on the set during the interview. “Michael was a much bigger star than Oprah at that time—he was once the biggest black performer in the world—but that interview served both of them quite well. The one person Michael really wanted to be associated with was not Oprah but Princess Diana, and we did everything possible to get him an introduction, but the princess would not return his calls.… Finally we did the Prince’s Trust [a charity event] and Michael met her, at Wembley Stadium in London, but she didn’t say much to him beyond hello.”
Oprah’s special on Michael Jackson was the highest-rated non–Super Bowl entertainment event in almost a decade, exceeding everyone’s expectations, including those of sponsors. ABC reported that the show was one of the most watched entertainment programs in television history, and the fourth-highest-ranked entertainment show since 1960, behind only the finale of M*A*S*H (February 1983), the “Who Shot J.R.?” episode of Dallas (November 1980), and The Day After (November 1983). Time said, “Part grand Oprah, part soap Oprah, the Winfrey show was at the very least great TV: live, reckless, emotionally naked.” Life concurred: “Oprah delivered the goods and accomplished the near-impossible: She brought Peter Pan down to earth.” At last Oprah had won her place in prime time. “My finest hour in television,” she said.
FOR MANY years, the American Booksellers Association held its annual convention over the Memorial Day weekend, and in 1993, ABA, as it was called then, was a bacchanal. More than twenty-five thousand retailers, publishers, agents, and authors flew to Miami for four days and nights