Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul In Intimate Conversation, makes several revelations about the King of Pop’s life and thoughts.
The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul In Intimate Conversation book cover
The book, The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul In Intimate Conversation, has been authored by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Michael Jackson’s former spiritual advisor and friend.
The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul In Intimate Conversation is based on 30 hours of taped interviews, conducted between 2000-2001, in which Jackson talks about his children, his fear of aging, his desire to draw away from the public eye, Madonna’s purported interest and jealousy of him, and his preoccupation with mannequins.
According to Shmuley Boteach, Michael Jackson felt that his life was drawing to an end.
“He lost the will to live. I think he was just going through the motions of life toward the end,” Boteach said on NBC’s Today show.
The Michael Jackson Tapes: On Aging
Photo: Michael Jackson after innumerable cosmetic surgeries
The Rabbi says in his book that Michael Jackson was afraid of growing old, and, therefore, surrounded himself with yes-men and started abusing prescription drugs and cosmetic surgery, nearly ten years before his death on June 25, 2009.
“When the body breaks down and you start to wrinkle, I think it’s so bad…I don’t want to grow old.”
“I would like some way to disappear where people don’t see me anymore at some point. I don’t want to grow old. I never want to look in the mirror and see that,” Jackson said.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach said that Jackson was ashamed of the way he looked at that point. “Because I am like a lizard. It is horrible.”
A lot seems to have been said about impending death in the tapes.
The Michael Jackson Tapes about his children
Photo: Michael Jackson with son Prince and daughter Paris
Jackson apparently said that if it wasn’t for children, he would choose death. “I mean it with all my heart.”
A transcript from The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul In Intimate Conversation, on Shmuley’s website says:
My greatest dream that I have left—I have accomplished my dreams with music and all that and I love music and entertainment—is this children’s initiative, is this thing that we are doing.
But, um, ’cause I don’t care about [anything else], I really don’t, I don’t care about [career], I honestly don’t… What keeps me going is children, or else I would, I would seriously. . . I’ve told you this before, I swear to God I mean every word.
I would, I would just throw in the towel if it wasn’t for children or babies. And that’s my real, my honest [answer]. . . and I’ve said it before, if it weren’t for children, I would choose death. I mean it with all my heart.
Talking about the tough times in his life, Jackson said, “Anybody else would probably be dead by now, or a junkie, with what I’ve been through, Shmuley.”
The Michael Jackson Tapes on Madonna
Photo: Madonna and Michael Jackson
The pop star had a great deal to say about Madonna as well. In The Michael Jackson Tapes he apparently said, “I think she was sincerely in love with me and I was not in love with her. I think she likes shock value and she knows how to push buttons on people.”
He also said that Madonna did a lot of crazy things and that they had nothing in common. “She is not sexy at all. I think being sexy comes from the heart in the way you present yourself.”
He apparently said that Madonna was jealous of him as an entertainer. “She is a girl, a woman and I think that’s what bothers her. I think women don’t scream for other women. Men are too cool to scream for women. I get the fainting and adulation and she doesn’t.”
Shmuley Boteach maintains that Michael Jackson was attracted to women but was very shy. He said that that he was quite fond of Princess Diana, that she was his type and he didn’t like most girls.
Apparently, he also considered dating close friend Elizabeth Taylor, 25 years his senior, but was afraid of being publicly ridiculed.
“I know that if we ever did anything romantically the press would be so mean and nasty and call us The Odd Couple. It would turn into a circus and that’s the pain of it all,” Jackson said.
The Michael Jackson Tapes: About his Father
Boteach has posted a transcript of his conversation with Michael Jackson about his father, Joe Jackson, on his website.
Michael Jackson, “He did a brilliant job with training me for the stage as an artist, but [as a] father he was very, very strict. I hate to judge him, but I would have done things a lot different as a father. I never felt love from him.
I remember being on the airplane and they used to have to carry me on the plane because I hated turbulence and I would be screaming and kicking because we would take off in storms. I remember it very clearly. He would never hold me or touch me and the stewardesses would have to come and hold my hand and caress me.”
Apparently Jackson also said that his father beat him with and electric cord.
The Michael Jackson Tapes: About his obsession with Mannequins
Coming to his obsession for mannequins, Jackson said, “I needed someone. That’s probably why I had, uh, the mannequins, I would say. Because I felt I needed people, someone, and I didn’t have, I was too shy to be around real people.”
Michael Jackson also talked about Hitler. “Hitler was a genius orator. To make that many people turn and change and hate, he had to be a showman and he was.”
The reclusive pop star said that he could have changed Hitler. “You have to help them, give them therapy, teach them that somewhere, something in their life went wrong.”
The Michael Jackson Tapes: About Love
Shmuley Boteach: Did you know that that was part of being corrupted as a child when you start feeling that way—hatred? Did you know, “I gotta get rid of this somehow. I gotta do something about this”?
Michael Jackson: Yeah, I wanted to become such a wonderful performer that I would get love back.
SB: So you could change him, you thought. If you . . . so you thought that if you became a great star, very successful, and were loved by the world, your father would love you too.
On Loneliness
Michael Jackson: I wanted so badly to play in the park across the street because the kids were playing baseball and football but I had to record. I could see the park, right across the street.
But I had to go in the other building and work until late at night making the albums. I sat there looking at the kids with tears running down my face and I would say, “I am trapped and I have to do this for the rest of my life. I’m under contract.”
But I wanted to go over there so bad it was killing me, just to make a friend to say, “Hi.” You know…just to do that. I used to walk the streets looking for people. I told you that didn’t I?
On Jealousy vs Admiration
Shmuley Boteach: Were you ever jealous of someone in your career who made you work harder?
Michael Jackson: Never jealous. Admiration, complete admiration.
SB: So admiration can bring even greater goals than jealousy because it’s positive and not negative. So you would look at say, Fred Astaire and say, “I want to be able to do that.”
MJ: Yes, absolutely, Shmuley. Complete inspiration, never jealousy. It’s wrong, but people are like that aren’t they? It’s true Shmuley?
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is an orthodox Jewish rabbi who met Michael Jackson through British entertainer Uri Geller.
Boteach is the author of books like “Kosher Sex” and “Shalom in the Home.”
Boteach has said that he planned to release the book in 2003, to give people a better image of the star.
However, according to the Rabbi, the idea was abandoned after Jackson did not comply with a recovery program, part of which was waking up at a decent time and keeping away from children.
They fell out when Jackson was arrested the second time on charges of child abuse.
Michael Jackson’s family has not commented on the book so far.
