There is no person who at least once in their life hasn’t tried to do the moonwalk, the iconic dance move forever associated with Michael Jackson. But was he really the creator of this legendary glide? This is not the only question that arises when you think about the King of Pop. Did Michael really bleach his skin on purpose? What was his relationship with his father? And who is to blame for the death of the beloved icon of millions?

This is the thorny life path of Michael Jackson, surrounded by hundreds of rumors, scandals, and a legacy that continues to captivate the world even years after his passing.

Childhood Without Childhood

Michael Joseph Jackson was born on August 29, 1958, in the small industrial town of Gary, Indiana. His father, Joseph Walter “Joe” Jackson, was a promising boxer who had moved to Gary at eighteen. There he met his future wife, seventeen-year-old Katherine Esther Scruse. Three months after their wedding, the newlyweds bought a two-bedroom house on the corner of Jackson Street and 23rd Avenue.

The couple had ten children, including twins Marlon and Brandon—the latter died immediately after birth. Michael became the eighth heir in the family. A two-room house with a living room, a kitchen, and a small utility room was not designed for such a crowd. Michael, along with his brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, and Randy, slept on bunk beds, while the girls—Rebbie, LaToya, and Janet—slept in the living room.

Katherine played the clarinet and piano well and had dreamed of becoming a country-western singer as a child. But fate decided otherwise. In the family, she played the role of a housewife and also worked at a Sears chain store. Joe also had musical talents; together with his brother, he played in the blues band The Falcons. However, the band did not have much success, and they eventually split up.

Joe’s priority was taking care of a large family. At times, he worked as many as three jobs simultaneously, but his primary position was as a welder and crane operator at the U.S. Steel plant.

Music accompanied the children of the Jackson family from childhood. “We were a family that sang all the time,” Michael later recalled. “We would take the furniture out of the living room and dance. We would have a songwriting competition while we washed the dishes. Music was our destiny.”

Joe had a guitar that was strictly forbidden for all family members to touch. However, one of his sons, Tito, broke this rule. Secretly from his father, he played the guitar and would have gone unnoticed if he had not once broken a string. The boy was punished, but at the same time, after fixing the instrument, Joe ordered Tito to demonstrate his skills. The elder Jackson was impressed by his son’s guitar playing, and he got the idea to create a family musical band.

As for Michael, his mother was the first to notice his talent. In one of her interviews, Katherine mentioned: “The children were singing, and Michael wasn’t even in the group at that time. When they started singing the chorus, I heard this beautiful harmony, and I looked over in the corner, and it was Michael. Nobody ever taught him to do that. I don’t know where it came from. He was just able to do it.”

Among his musical idols, Michael was most influenced by James Brown. “Ever since I was a small child, no more than like six years old, my mother would wake me no matter what time it was, if I was sleeping, no matter what I was doing, to watch the television to see the master at work,” he recalled.

Michael joined the Jackson Brothers in 1964. His brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon were already playing in the band at that time. The six-year-old boy became a backup musician and also mastered the congas and tambourine. Even then, he understood that his life was not at all similar to the childhood of his peers.

Furthermore, Katherine was a Jehovah’s Witness, and therefore it was not customary to celebrate “pagan holidays” in their family. Later, his brother Jermaine, in his memoirs, would remember how fascinated the boys looked through the window at the neighbor’s houses decorated for Christmas. “We observed all this from inside a house with no tree, no lights, no nothing. Our tiny house was the only one without decoration,” Jermaine wrote.

But that was the least of the problems. Father Joe turned the lives of his own children into a real nightmare. For the slightest offense, he could beat them with a belt, a cord from an electric kettle, or make them carry bricks for hours from one end of the garden to the other. They were afraid every time their father returned home because they didn’t know what kind of mood he would be in.

Katherine pitied them but rarely got involved in conflicts. She tried to make up for the bullying by letting the children play a little when Joe was not home. Such despotic upbringing formed a family model where the father was cold and cruel and the mother was loving and gentle. When the younger Jacksons saw other fathers hugging and kissing their children, it caused quite a bit of surprise.

“None of us can remember him holding us or cuddling us or telling us ‘I love you,’” Jermaine Jackson recalled.

Michael was bullied the most. His father teased him for having a “fat nose,” and if the boy made the wrong dance moves or forgot a line to a song, Joe would immediately slap him. At every rehearsal, the elder Jackson sat with a belt in his hand, ready to punish the children for the slightest mistake.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey many years later, Michael would say that he was terribly afraid of his own father. When the boy saw Joe, he could even feel nauseous from intense fear. However, Michael was quite fast, and sometimes he managed to escape and hide, but the punishment always caught up with him later.

“I just remember hearing my mother scream: ‘Joe, you’re going to kill him, you’re going to kill him, stop it,’” Michael recalled.

Later, Joe would deny regularly beating his son but would say that he could only spank Michael sometimes. His mother Katherine would call such upbringing common for those times. Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon would also say that there was nothing wrong with it—it was just how they were taught discipline. And Michael seemed to get a little more than everyone else due to the fact that he was the smallest.

Michael would remember his childhood as lonely and joyless. Many years would pass before, having already become a world-famous performer, he would say: “My childhood was taken away from me. There was no Christmas, there were no birthdays. It was not a normal childhood, nor the normal pleasures of childhood. Those were exchanged for hard work, struggle, and pain and eventually material and professional success. But as an awful price, I cannot recreate that part of my life. Nor would I change any part of my life.”

The Jackson 5

The name of the band changed from Jackson Brothers to The Jackson 5, and Michael became one of its main vocalists. In 1965, the brothers won one of the talent shows. Michael performed the Temptations’ song “My Girl” and also a dance to Robert Parker’s single “Barefootin’.” It was a real success.

Joe finally turned from a father into a manager. Children were forbidden to go out, make friends, or communicate with anyone except family members. All their time was occupied by constant and exhausting rehearsals.

“I remember going to the recording studio, and there was a park across the street, and I’d see all the children playing, and I would cry because it would make me sad that I would have to work instead,” Michael said.

Joe demanded that the children address him by name. Janet recalled how she once called him “Dad,” to which he strictly replied: “I’m Joseph to you.”

In 1966, the family band went on a tour of the Midwest. Besides local concerts and school discos, The Jackson 5 performed in so-called “black clubs” and as an opening act for Sam & Dave, the O’Jays, Gladys Knight, and Etta James. Despite their very young age, they also played in nightclubs and bars.

“I grew up onstage,” Michael said. “I grew up in nightclubs. When I was seven, eight years old, I was in nightclubs. I saw striptease girls take off all their clothes. I saw fights break out. I saw people throw up on each other. I saw adults act like pigs.”

A year later, the band won an amateur night concert held at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. During a performance at Beckman Junior High, the founder of the Steeltown Records label drew attention to the young musicians. The Jackson 5 signed a six-month contract with him and released their first single, “Big Boy,” performed by a nine-year-old Michael.

That same year, the Jacksons opened for Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers. Taylor was delighted and arranged their audition at Motown Records. Furthermore, Bobby produced some of the band’s songs, such as “Who’s Lovin’ You.”

Motown bosses were not thrilled with the idea of working with children at first, as they thought they were more problematic than adults. But one of the company’s workers, Suzanne de Passe, having heard the boys sing live, made efforts to give the band the green light. This woman played a large role in the creative development of The Jackson 5, becoming the band’s mentor after they joined Motown. She later helped Michael with his solo career and was the first to see him rehearse the iconic moonwalk in 1983.

“Michael Jackson was a human sponge,” she recalled. “He was soaking up as much information and knowledge and experience as he could. He was very much a fan of old movies—the Fred Astaires, Elizabeth Taylors, Katherine Hepburns. Those were the people that he pursued to get to know. He was definitely a curious, engaged, interested person. I think it’s no accident that he became the Michael Jackson that basically everyone knows.”

The Jackson 5 signed an exclusive seven-year contract with Motown and moved to Los Angeles with the whole family. The publicists decided that Diana Ross, the vocalist of The Supremes—one of the label’s most successful groups—should introduce the band to the public. With a cover version of the single “It’s Your Thing,” the Jacksons performed at the 1969 Miss Black America pageant and made their first television appearance.

Special attention was drawn to young Michael, about whom Rolling Stone wrote: “A prodigy with overwhelming musical gifts, who quickly emerged as the main draw and lead singer.”

A separate team of authors and producers began writing songs for the Jacksons. “I Want You Back” was the first track of the band to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Their debut album, “Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5,” also charted in 1969. The songs “ABC,” “The Love You Save,” and “I’ll Be There” occupied leading positions.

Despite the recognition, in later interviews, Michael admitted that he did not like his voice on the band’s first recordings. The singer complained about the high pitch of his voice, describing it as similar to the voice of Minnie Mouse.

“You can’t imagine how overwhelming it was,” Suzanne de Passe recalled. “It was like Beatlemania with young kids. None of us had ever seen anything like it. It was astonishing how quickly it all happened.”

On the wave of success, in the spring of 1971, Joe decided to move his family to a large house in Encino, California. The Jackson 5 continued to work relentlessly. They had a tight touring schedule and, with that, great popularity. It was so huge that the company Rankin/Bass created a cartoon of the same name about them, two seasons of which were broadcast every Saturday on ABC.

One of the Jacksons

Simultaneously with his work in the band, Michael released his debut album, “Got to Be There.” In a few more months, the fourteen-year-old teenager had a second solo album, “Ben.” His song of the same name became the soundtrack of an American horror film about killer rats. This track also took first place on the Billboard Hot 100. In total, the vocalist released four records with Motown: “Got to Be There,” “Ben,” “Music & Me” in 1973, and “Forever, Michael” in 1975.

In general, Michael became one of the first Black superstars, and The Jackson 5 was called a great example of breaking racial stereotypes. Subsequently, the band became the most profitable project of the label, whose records sold one hundred million copies.

“Dancing Machine” became one of the iconic hits. It brought the Jacksons a second Grammy nomination and also popularized the “robot dance,” which Michael first performed in one of the episodes of the popular music TV show Soul Train.

But despite worldwide success, in 1976, the band broke off relations with the label. The Jacksons received only 2.7 percent of the revenue for each record sold. Furthermore, Motown refused to allow them to produce songs independently. This was the official cause of the conflict. The company filed a counterclaim alleging violation of the terms of cooperation and denied the band the right to be called The Jackson 5. The only one who stayed with the label was Jermaine, who also married the daughter of the founder of Motown. In the band, he was replaced by his younger brother, Randy.

The band removed “Five” from its name, and now simply The Jacksons began to cooperate with Epic Records. From 1976 to 1984, they released six albums, with Michael writing most of the songs. He wrote “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)” with his brother Randy, and it was one of the most successful hits that the Jacksons recorded for the label.

In 1977, Michael was offered the role of the Scarecrow in the musical film “The Wiz,” directed by Sidney Lumet. Joe was not very pleased that the boy would participate in a project financially independent of all the Jacksons. But when Michael was offered $100,000 as a fee, the father-manager changed his mind.

Filming took place in New York, and Michael really liked the process. The role of Dorothy was played by Diana Ross. Once, she hinted to Jackson that he was learning the dance numbers too quickly, which made the actress feel insecure. The choreography was really easy for Michael, but out of respect for Diana, he deliberately danced a little worse than he could.

“The Wiz” flopped at the box office, earning only half the amount spent on the musical. But that did not matter because thanks to his participation in the project, Michael agreed to cooperate with the famous producer Quincy Jones.

“He was so shy he would sit down and sing behind the couch with his back to me while I sat there with my hands over my eyes with the lights off,” Quincy recalled of the first days of working with the young artist.

“Michael Jackson was a different kind of entertainer,” Jones wrote. “A man-child in many ways, he was beyond professional and dedicated. Evoking Fred Astaire, Sammy Davis Jr., and James Brown all at once, he would work for hours, perfecting every kick, gesture, and movement so that they came together precisely the way they were intended to.”

The first collaboration was the album “Off the Wall” in 1979. In this solo album, Michael did not want to sound like “Jackson” above all but sought to show his individuality. By the way, he hated to sing off the sheet while recording, so while working on the album, Jackson would spend evenings studying the lyrics and harmonies, and the next day he would come to the studio and sing them by heart.

The record was wildly successful and received positive reviews from critics and also added popularity to the family band.

“Anyone who tells you that they knew a record was going to be a big hit is a flat-out liar,” Quincy Jones claimed. “We had no idea ‘Off the Wall’ was going to be as successful as it was, but we were thrilled. Michael had moved from the realm of bubble-gum pop and planted his flag square in the heart of the musical pulse of the ’80s.”

In the same year, while performing complex choreography, Michael accidentally fell on stage and broke his nose. The musician had to undergo rhinoplasty, which turned out to be not entirely successful and led to breathing problems. But rumor has it that Michael really liked the visual result because his nose, which his father constantly teased, became a little smaller.

Jackson’s next operations were performed by the famous plastic surgeon Steven Hoefflin. Although the musician always denied that he changed anything except his nose: “I’ve had no plastic surgery on my face. Just my nose. It helped me breathe better so I can hit higher notes.”

In 1980, The Jacksons presented their fourteenth album, “Triumph,” in which Michael performed most of the vocal parts. The album sold two million copies, and the brothers went on a large-scale tour.

The performer’s solo career was also gaining momentum. He won three American Music Awards as well as a Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.” Along with this, he had the largest royalties in the music industry. But that was not yet the peak of his creativity. On the contrary, Michael set the goal of surpassing the success of his previous album.

Career Success

In 1982, Michael released “Thriller,” which became the best-selling album of all time worldwide. It turned out rather gloomy, but every song was killer. The album topped the US Billboard chart for thirty-seven consecutive weeks. Another record set by “Thriller” was winning eight Grammy nominations, and the single “Billie Jean” was recognized as the best rhythm and blues song.

But not everyone knows how much work and how many problems were behind the album’s success. Several busy months, falling behind schedule, working in three studios at the same time in order to meet the deadline. And then came the momentum.

Quincy Jones recalled: “We all gathered in Studio A to listen to the test pressing with this enormous anticipation. This was it, the eagerly anticipated follow-up to ‘Off the Wall.’ And it sounded terrible. After all of that great work we were doing, it wasn’t there. There was total silence in the studio. We’d put too much material on the record. Michael was in tears.”

They had to take two days off, after which they reworked the album for eight days, cutting, improving, and re-recording parts of the songs.

There was also a duet with Paul McCartney on the album. Although the song “The Girl Is Mine” was recognized by critics as the weakest on the album, it entered the top of the world charts and also received a gold certificate from the Recording Industry Association of America for selling a million copies.

A music video for the song “Thriller” was shot in support of the album, and it resembled an episode from a horror movie. In it, Michael turned into a werewolf and performed a zombie dance. At that time, “Thriller” was the most expensive music video in history. And it must be said that it completely paid off. The choreography in it is still popular, as is Jackson’s red jacket, which was at the height of fashion in the mid-1980s.

“Thriller” became the first music video to be entered into the Library of Congress in the US National Film Registry as culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. Sales of the album skyrocketed. The unbelievable success led to Jackson winning a record eight Grammy Awards in 1984—at the time, it was the largest number of awards ever received by one person in one year.

At the same time, in Michael’s house, you would not find a single statuette in a prominent place. “Because it makes you feel like you’ve accomplished: ‘Look what I’ve done!’” he explained. “I always want to feel like no, I haven’t done it yet.”

The Victory Tour

In 1984, all six Jackson brothers united to release their sixth album, “Victory,” which became symbolic in many senses. “State of Shock” became one of the main singles of the album. It was Michael’s duet with Mick Jagger. The latter, by the way, was not very satisfied with the final sound result: “He had the two of us practice scales for two hours, and then we recorded the vocals in two takes,” Jagger said. “When he sent the finished track to me later, I was kind of disappointed in the production and the mix. But I think he’s a really good singer.”

This song was originally recorded with Freddie Mercury. But it was difficult for the two legends to work together. Queen manager Jim Beach said that Michael was unhappy that Freddie was using illegal substances. In turn, according to Mercury’s manager, the frontman of Queen was annoyed by Jackson’s llama, which he brought with him to the studio. The world saw the collaboration of the two stars only after their death, in 2014.

After the release of the “Victory” album, all the Jackson brothers took part in a television special dedicated to the twenty-fifth anniversary of Motown Records. During the song “Billie Jean,” Michael, dressed in a black shiny jacket and with a white glove decorated with rhinestones, performed his famous moonwalk. And although most consider Michael Jackson to be its author, in fact, the singer was taught to perform it by the dancer Jeffrey Daniel.

“I had been practicing the moonwalk for some time, and it dawned on me in our kitchen that I would finally do the moonwalk in public on Motown 25,” Michael said. “Now, the moonwalk was already out on the street by this time, but I enhanced it a little when I did it. It was born as a breakdance step, a ‘popping’ type of thing that Black kids had created dancing on the street corners in the ghetto. So I said, ‘This is my chance to do it.’”

It was Michael who made the dance famous and wildly popular all over the world. Since then, the moonwalk would always be associated with Jackson. This performance earned him his first Emmy nomination.

Michael always knew how to dance. Since childhood, he liked to watch the performances of cult stars and tried to imitate their movements, from holding the microphone to dancing steps. Thanks to his unique choreography, Jackson became the only artist to be inducted into the American Dance Hall of Fame.

Michael Jackson became the real King of Pop music. The documentary about the music video “Thriller” brought him a Grammy Award. And the music video for the song “Billie Jean” became the first ever video by a Black artist to be broadcast on MTV.

Jackson’s new look—the leather suit, the red bow tie, and his signature white glove—became iconic. This style was copied by children all over America. It got to the point where one school, Bound Brook High in New Jersey, banned students from wearing white gloves to class.

The New York Times wrote great articles about him: “Star of records, radio, rock video. A one-man rescue team for the music business. A songwriter who sets the beat for a decade. A dancer with the fanciest feet on the street. A singer who cuts across all boundaries of taste and style and color too.”

The Pepsi Incident

Michael also took part in the filming of movies and commercials. In 1993, the Jackson brothers became partners with PepsiCo in a $5 million deal. In those days, it was a record amount compared to other celebrities. The first “New Generation” campaign sponsored the band’s tours and various events. For its promotion, Michael slightly changed the lyrics of the song “Billie Jean.”

In January 1984, the full lineup of the Jacksons was to be filmed in a commercial. In order not to overshadow the others, Michael tried to appear minimally in the shot. By the way, an interesting fact: Jackson did not drink Pepsi.

Participating in an advertising campaign for the brand almost cost Jackson his life due to one incident. During the filming of a simulated concert, pyrotechnics set Michael’s hair on fire. With second-degree burns, Jackson was taken to the Brotman Medical Center. After his treatment, the singer donated the $1.3 million in compensation he received from Pepsi for the incident to the burn unit.

At this time, the musician also underwent a third rhinoplasty. In the late 1980s, Michael signed a second contract with Pepsi for an even larger amount: $10 million. In general, the artist had advertising agreements with other companies, such as LA Gear, Suzuki, and Sony.

In December 1984, the Jacksons went on a tour of America and Canada in support of their “Victory” album. These were the last tours of the band with Michael. Disputes often arose in the family team. One of them was related to the so-called lottery that was invented for the tour.

Those wishing to attend the concert had to submit an application and immediately pay for four tickets—no more, no less. Winners got tickets; losers got their money back. The process of returning the funds would take some time, and for as long as the money was in the account, the Jacksons would receive about $12 million in interest from the bank.

Michael was categorically against such a trick. The price of the ticket was already quite high at $30; besides, people were made to buy four at once. A large number of fans of the band would not be able to afford it.

Despite this, listeners lined up in long lines for tickets to the band’s first performance in Kansas City. Michael ordered a halt to ticket sales and held a press conference where he declared: “A lot of people are having trouble getting tickets. The other day I got a letter from a fan in Texas named Ladonna Jones. She’d been saving her money from odd jobs to buy a ticket, but with the tour system, she’d have to buy four tickets, and she couldn’t afford that. So we asked our promoter to work out a new way of distributing tickets, a way that no longer requires a money order.”

However, newspapers had already started writing negative articles about the Jacksons’ lottery, and Michael’s idol, James Brown, refused the musician’s offer to perform with the band in New York because of this. It is possible that the singer decided to give the money earned from the performance to charity in order to atone for the public. Taking into account the successful ticket sale, the amount reached $5 million.

Relations between the brothers became even worse. They did not communicate with each other, traveled in separate cars, and even lived on different floors in hotels. The interests of each of the Jacksons began to be represented by lawyers.

The victory tour was a financial and emotional disaster masked by spectacular performances. Michael performed with visible distance from his brothers, often turning his back to them during songs. The chemistry that had once electrified audiences was gone, replaced by the cold machinery of contractual obligation.

When the tour finally ended, Michael made his position clear. He would never tour with his brothers again. The family band, the unit that had survived poverty, Motown, and the transition to Epic, had finally fractured beyond repair.

The Man in the Mirror

The mid-1980s saw Michael transform from a pop star into a global phenomenon of unprecedented scale. His face began appearing on every magazine cover. His music video premieres became global events. His dance moves were copied by children on every continent.

But fame came at a terrible price. The same media that worshipped him also began to tear him apart. Tabloids printed increasingly bizarre stories: that Michael slept in a hyperbaric chamber to slow aging, that he had bought the bones of the Elephant Man, that he was obsessed with plastic surgery.

Some stories were exaggerations of the truth. Michael had purchased a hyperbaric chamber for his burn treatments. He was fascinated by the Elephant Man’s story. He did have a complicated relationship with his appearance.

But the cumulative effect of these stories was devastating. The man who had once been celebrated as a genius was slowly being transformed into a caricature. “Wacko Jacko,” the tabloids called him. The nickname made him cringe.

Michael retreated further from public view. He purchased Neverland Ranch in 1988, a 2,700-acre property in Santa Barbara County that he transformed into a private amusement park. There was a zoo, a train station, a movie theater, and a carnival with a Ferris wheel, a carousel, and a roller coaster. He said he was creating the childhood he never had.

“He wasn’t trying to be weird,” said one of his longtime collaborators. “He was trying to heal. Neverland was his therapy. It was the only place where he could be a kid, where he could escape from the demands of being Michael Jackson.”

The irony, of course, was that Neverland would later become the focus of the most damaging allegations of his life.

The King of Pop

The 1990s began with Michael at the height of his creative powers. His 1991 album “Dangerous” was another commercial triumph, selling over 32 million copies worldwide. The accompanying music videos were cinematic masterpieces, and the Dangerous World Tour was a logistical marvel that played to over 3.5 million fans.

But there were cracks beneath the surface. Michael’s relationship with his father had deteriorated completely. In his 1993 interview with Oprah Winfrey, watched by over 90 million people, Michael spoke candidly about the abuse he had suffered as a child.

“When you’re growing up, you need to be hugged,” he said. “You need to be told, ‘I love you.’ I never got that. I never got a hug. I never got a birthday party. I never had Christmas.”

The interview was a public relations triumph. Michael came across as vulnerable, honest, and sympathetic. But it also opened the door for the first allegations of child sexual abuse.

The story of the 1993 allegations is complex and contested. Jordan Chandler, a thirteen-year-old boy, claimed that Michael had molested him over a period of months. Michael denied the allegations vehemently. The case was settled out of court for a reported $23 million, with Michael making no admission of guilt.

Michael’s sister LaToya initially claimed that Michael was guilty, later recanting and blaming her then-husband for forcing her to make the statements. The damage, however, was done. The public perception of Michael Jackson had shifted permanently.

The Second Trial

In 2005, Michael faced a second set of allegations. This time, he was formally charged with multiple counts of child molestation. The trial was a media circus, with cameras camped outside the courthouse and journalists filing daily updates.

Michael’s accuser, Gavin Arvizo, had appeared in a documentary with Michael called “Living with Michael Jackson.” In the documentary, Michael discussed sharing his bed with children, explaining that it was loving and non-sexual. The footage was used against him in court.

The trial lasted five months. Michael appeared in court every day, often looking frail and exhausted. He was supported by his mother, Katherine, and a rotating cast of siblings and friends.

On June 13, 2005, Michael was acquitted on all counts. The jury forewoman later stated that they had found no credible evidence to support the allegations.

But the ordeal had broken him. Michael left Neverland Ranch, never to return. He spent the next several years living abroad, in Bahrain, Ireland, and Las Vegas. His finances, once robust, had been drained by legal fees and lavish spending. He was reportedly hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.

This Is It

In March 2009, Michael announced a series of fifty concerts at the O2 Arena in London. The tour was called “This Is It.” Michael said it would be his final curtain call.

Tickets sold out in hours. Over a million people registered for the chance to buy tickets. The demand was so high that promoters added more dates, then more, until the original ten shows had become fifty.

Michael was fifty years old. He hadn’t performed a full concert in over a decade. He was in debt, in ill health, and under immense pressure to deliver the biggest comeback in music history.

The rehearsals began in Los Angeles in April 2009. They were held at the Staples Center and at a smaller soundstage in Burbank. The production was massive—a multimedia extravaganza featuring cutting-edge technology, elaborate sets, and a team of the best dancers, musicians, and technicians in the world.

Kenny Ortega, the director of “This Is It,” had worked with Michael on the Dangerous and HIStory tours. He was thrilled to be reuniting with him.

“This Is It was going to be the biggest, most innovative, revolutionary touring show to date,” Ortega said. “It was a multimedia extravaganza with new technology, never-before-seen production design techniques, state-of-the-art costumes and equipment, and the best dancers in the world. He was going to give us this apex of a performance. It was going to be even better than what was already the best.”

But from the beginning, there were warning signs. Michael was thin, too thin. He was eating only one meal a day, sometimes not even that. He was having trouble sleeping, sometimes going days without rest. He was taking prescription medications to manage chronic pain from past injuries and to help him sleep.

And he was taking Propofol.

The Final Curtain

On June 25, 2009, Michael Jackson died at his home in Los Angeles from cardiac arrest. The cause was acute intoxication from the anesthetic Propofol, administered by his personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray.

Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2011 and served two years of a four-year sentence.

The world mourned. Fans gathered outside the hospital, outside Neverland, outside the Staples Center where his memorial service was held. An estimated 2.5 billion people watched the service on television, making it one of the most watched events in history.

Michael’s children—Prince, Paris, and Blanket—appeared at the service. Paris spoke briefly, her voice breaking: “Ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine. And I just wanted to say I love him so much.”

The image of a young girl mourning her father was a stark reminder that beneath the icon, beneath the allegations, beneath the tabloid headlines and the plastic surgery rumors, there was a man. A son. A father. A human being.

Michael Jackson  died with an estimated $500 million in debt. His estate, through careful management and posthumous releases, has since earned over $2 billion.

The allegations of child sexual abuse continue to haunt his legacy. Some believe he was guilty; others believe he was the victim of extortion and a biased legal system. The truth, as in so many things related to Michael Jackson, remains elusive.

What is not disputed is his musical genius. The man who gave the world “Thriller,” “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” “Smooth Criminal,” and dozens of other timeless songs will never be forgotten. His influence on music, dance, and popular culture is immeasurable.

Michael Jackson was the victim of fame. The same fame that elevated him to godlike status also destroyed him. He was a man who desperately wanted to be loved, who never fully recovered from the emotional wounds of his childhood, who sought solace in the company of children because he believed they were the only ones who wouldn’t judge him.

Whether that makes him a monster or a victim, a predator or a lost soul, is a question that each person must answer for themselves.

What is certain is that the King of Pop is gone. And his music plays on, as timeless as the man himself was fragile.

The moonwalk, the glove, the high-pitched voice, the humanitarian anthems, the scandals, the trials, the tragedy—all of it is now part of the legend. And like all legends, the truth of Michael Jackson is far more complicated than the mythology.

He was born in a small house in Gary, Indiana, and he died in a rented mansion in Los Angeles. In between, he conquered the world and was destroyed by it.

He was Michael Jackson. The King of Pop. And there will never be another like him.