I think to be absolutely specific about the height of his success and not the height of his talent or creative ability, would be the period of time between May 83 when Motown 25 aired on TV and March 85, when "We are the World" came out.
During that two year period, there wasn't a man, woman, child, ages 4 to 94, black, white, green, purple or whatever in the world that didn't absolutely love and adore and were mesmerized by Michael. He was constantly in the news. Every move he made was monitored by the press. Dare anyone to say anything negative about him (as a handful did during the Victory Tour ticket fiasco) and you were liable to be attacked and beaten to a bloody pulp.
The first time I started seeing the tide turn was with the hydrobaric chamber story, which was just a little harmless thing that was publicity for Captain EO-if that story had been about anyone else, it would have been forgotten in 24 hours.
But that two year period of success was the basis for everything that came later-both good and bad.