Excerpt from My Friend Michael by Frank Cascio
The summer of 2001 found us on the set for the You Rock My World video, when John McClain, a long term adviser to the Jacksons, called me. He had met with the director, he said, and reported, “They want to use make up to darken Michael’s skin for the video. They also want to fill in his nose with putty.” He wanted me to suggest these cosmetic effects to Michael. He clearly didn’t know Michael at all.
I was stunned. And I refused.
“John, I cannot have this conversation with Michael. There’s no way he’ll ever go for anything like this. If you need to, go ahead. But I’m not doing it.” I didn’t want to get involved.
A little while later I was back in my hotel room when the phone rang. It was Karen Faye, Michael’s makeup artist, calling from Michael’s room. She was supposed to be getting him ready for the video shoot, but he had locked himself in the bathroom and she had no idea why. She asked me to come to the room immediately.
When I arrived, I heard Michael inside the bathroom, freaking out and throwing stuff around. Clearly John McClain had talked to him about the proposed changes to his skin and nose, and he was extremely pissed of. I tried to get his attention, but the chaos inside the bathroom went on. Finally I heard him bang something with such force that I got worried. I started trying to break down the door.
At last, Michael let me in. He was sitting on the floor. He’d been in the middle of having his hair cut when he’d heard the news, so his hair was half long, half short. He was holding his hands over his face, sobbing.
“Can you believe it?” he said. “They think I’m ugly? They want to put putty on my nose? What the fu** is wrong with them? I don’t tell them how they should look. Fu** them.” Talking through his tears, he kept saying, “They think I’m a freak, they think I’m a freak, they think I’m a freak.”
Seeing him crouched on the floor, sobbing and with his hair half cut, was devastating, to say the very least. This was the second time in recent days that I’d seen him break down. Although for years, the media had been mocking and attacking his appearance, Michael didn’t always react so strongly to what people said about him. It depended on the day. Sometimes he didn’t care what people though. He was a strong guy. Then there were times when enough was enough, and he would break down. The fact that his supposed allies were criticizing his appearance at a time when he was in such a fragile state was too much for him to bear.
This wasn’t the Michael Jackson that existed for the rest of the world. This wasn’t Michael Jackson the icon. This was Michael Jackson at his most vulnerable, his most human, being pushed to the brink. While it had become a habit for me to force him to face painful truths, this time there was no truth at stake. There is no objective right or wrong to a person’s appearance. Michael had been ignoring headlines about his appearance for years, so my advice to him now was simply not to listen.
“We can walk away from this,” I said. “They need you, you don’t need them.”
I canceled that day’s shoot and told everyone involved that we would start fresh the next day. Michael and I returned to our rooms and stayed in for the remainder of the day. Before leaving, I spoke to John McClain and the director of the video, Paul Hunter.
“John,” I said. “I can’t believe you said what you said to Michael. We’re going to finish this project, but there will be no more conversations regarding Michael’s appearance in the video. If that’s a problem, we’ll walk off the set for good and deal with the consequences.”
Now you don't have to believe this, I don't see the watertight logic in this that maybe I had before. But, again, there's no stories like this about Branca saying this about or to Michael. No, mundane antagonisms like this. Maybe Brancas a sychophant liar but he's not a critic.
Kinda ironic.
