About Michael Jackson

Michael Joseph Jackson (born August 29, 1958), commonly known as MJ as well as the “King of Pop”, is an American musician, entertainer, and pop icon whose successful career and controversial personal life have been a part of pop culture for almost 40 years.

Michael Jackson is widely regarded as one of the greatest entertainers and most popular recording artists in history, displaying complicated physical techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, that have redefined mainstream dance and entertainment.[4] His achievements in the music industry have included a revolutionary transformation of music videos, establishing high-profile album releases and sales as a new trend for record companies to generate profits, dominating pop music during the 1980s, and becoming the first black entertainer to amass a strong following on MTV while leading the relatively young channel out of obscurity. His distinctive style, moves, and vocals have inspired, influenced, and spawned a whole generation of hip hop, pop, and R&B artists. He has been symbolically named the “Most Successful Entertainer of All Time” by Guinness World Records.

Jackson began his musical career at the age of seven as the lead singer of The Jackson 5. He released his first solo recording, Got to Be There, in 1971, while remaining a member of the group. In his solo career, Jackson recorded and co-produced the best-selling album of all time, Thriller, which has worldwide sales exceeding 104 million. After Thriller, Jackson continued to release internationally chart-topping albums like Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991), HIStory (1995), and Invincible (2001), his latest album of fully original material. Michael Jackson has received thirteen Grammy Awards and charted thirteen #1 singles in the United States, more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era. In November 2006, the World Music Awards announced that Michael Jackson had sold over 750 million units worldwide and given $300 million to charity, making Jackson one of the best-selling music artists and one of the most charitable humanitarians of all time, whose efforts on the latter front have been acknowledged with a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.

From 1988 to 2005, Jackson lived on his Neverland Ranch property, where he built an amusement park and private zoo that was frequently attended by disadvantaged and terminally ill children. Rumours of sleepover parties received negative media coverage after it was revealed that children frequently slept in his bed or bedroom. These first came to light when he was accused of child sexual abuse in 1993. Michael Jackson’s relationship with children was brought into the spotlight again in 2003 when the TV documentary Living with Michael Jackson aired. This resulted in Jackson being tried, and later acquitted, of more child molestation allegations and several other charges in 2005. Since then, Michael Jackson has lived in countries such as Bahrain and Ireland, but has since returned to the United States. Jackson is putting the “finishing touches on his new music” to be released this year.

Michael Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana to a working-class family. He was the second-youngest brother of seven and the eighth of ten children of Joseph (Joe) and Katherine Jackson. Katherine, a Jehovah’s Witness, raised the children in that faith, while Joe, who initially started studying with the Witnesses, eventually decided not to join. Jackson’s father, a steel mill employee who often performed in an R&B band called “The Falcons” with his brother Luther, was a strict disciplinarian. Many of the Jackson children recall being spanked or whipped by their father for misbehaving. Jackson showed musical talent early on and joined his brothers when they formed a group in 1964.

Michael Jackson’s personal life has been under the spotlight for decades. His marriages and children, his physical appearance, his humanitarian efforts, and accusations of child molestation have all witnessed a variety of media coverage all over the world.

Marriages and children

Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley, in 1994. Presley maintained during their marriage that they shared a married couple’s life and were sexually active. They divorced less than two years later, although still remain friends. Jackson’s second wife Debbie Rowe spoke about the couple’s post-marriage friendship amidst “stories about Michael having an affair with his ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley”, saying that: “They have a relationship, and what people don’t understand is his relationship with her is separate from his relationship with me. They’re friends, they’re very good friends… [and] I am glad that they have a relationship together. I am glad to see them together; they have a lot in common.”

On November 14, 1996, during the Australian leg of the HIStory World Tour, Jackson married his dermatologist’s nurse Deborah Jeanne Rowe, with whom he fathered a son, Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr. (also known as “Prince”), and a daughter, Paris Katherine Jackson. Jackson and Rowe divorced in 1999. Jackson later said that Rowe wanted him to have the children as a “gift”. The paternity of Michael Jackson’s children has been heavily debated by the public. Both Jackson and Rowe have always maintained that his first two children were conceived naturally.

Jackson’s skin color was a medium-brown color for the entire duration of his youth; his skin had been becoming paler gradually since 1982. This change became so noticeable that it gained widespread media coverage, with some tabloids claiming that he was bleaching his skin. The structure of his face has changed as well, and a number of surgeons claim that Jackson had undergone multiple nasal surgeries as well as a forehead lift, thinned lips and cheekbone surgery.

However, on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1993, Jackson said that the change in his skin color was due to the disease vitiligo. In the interview, Jackson became quite emotional, saying that: “I’m a black American, I am proud of my race. I am proud of who I am. I have a lot of pride and dignity… I have a skin disorder that destroys the pigmentation of my skin, it’s something that I cannot help, OK? But when people make up stories that I don’t want to be what I am it hurts me… It’s a problem for me that I can’t control.” Jackson also responded to tabloid rumors about the amount of plastic surgery he had had done, saying that he’s had “Very, very little. I mean you can count on my two fingers,” and furthermore said that “I’ve never had my cheekbones done, never had my eyes done, never had my lips done and all this stuff, they just go too far.” Further, Jackson wrote in his 1988 autobiography Moon Walk that he only had two rhinoplastic surgeries and the surgical creation of a cleft in his chin, while attributing the noticeable change in the structure of his face to puberty and diet.

Michael Jackson Photo Archive