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The King of Pop gave us music, moves, and mystery — but his interviews gave us something even rarer: the man himself. Join us as we count down the most unforgettable moments from Michael Jackson's televised interviews, where he opened up, let his guard down, and gave the world a glimpse behind the curtain!
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00:00I wrote a song called Dirty Diana and it's not about Lady Diana, it's about certain kind of
00:05girls. Welcome to WatchMojo and today we're counting down our picks for the most unforgettable
00:10Michael Jackson interview moments. For this list, we're looking at televised interviews where the
00:15king of pop opened up, showed off his personality and gave viewers a rare glimpse at the man behind
00:21the curtain. Did you buy the elephant man's bones? No, that's another stupid story. Number 10,
00:26Martin Beshear's accent gets Michael laughing, living with Michael Jackson.
00:31Why are you laughing?
00:39For all the controversy surrounding living with Michael Jackson, not every moment in the documentary
00:44is tense or uncomfortably probing. One of the lighter exchanges comes early on when Michael
00:49slips into a mock English accent, clearly amusing both himself and Martin Beshear.
00:56You said I'm gonna ask you, you said I'm gonna ask you. I like it.
01:01Away from the huge questions about fame, childhood and Neverland, Jackson briefly comes across as
01:07playful, goofy and eager to make the person across from him laugh. In a documentary remembered mostly
01:13for its heavier fallout, this little accent joke offers a rare flash of levity.
01:17Can you do an English accent? A bit. Nice to meet you. It's nice to meet you. A nice beautiful
01:28interview.
01:30Number 9, will Michael and Lisa Marie ever sing together? Prime time.
01:35One more question I want to make sure I ask. Are you going to sing together?
01:38No. I would love to sing with you. Would you like to sing with me? You don't sing?
01:45The Diane Sawyer interview with Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley is mostly remembered for
01:49much bigger, much more personal questions. But one of its more charming moments comes when the
01:54focus briefly shifts to music. Sawyer asks whether the couple might ever sing together. After all,
02:00this was the king of pop sitting next to the daughter of Elvis Presley. A duet between them
02:05would have been pop culture dynamite, even if it was never really likely.
02:09I don't sing. I did sing. But that's not why I married Michael. I don't need that. That's
02:14ridiculous. If I wanted it, I mean, I'm not going to marry someone for a recording career just to
02:19clear that up as well. What? Stop. For a second, though, we get a glimpse into their personal
02:27dynamic, with Michael playfully bugging his spouse. And for that brief second, we don't see
02:32Michael Jackson global superstar. We see Michael Jackson, the man.
02:36I'm going to let the two of you dupe this out over here. We'll take a break.
02:42Number 8. Describing how fame separated him from ordinary life. 2020.
02:47At first, it was weekends and vacations on stage. Within a few years, though,
02:51they were on the road more than at home.
02:53Long before MJ's mythology overtook his personal life, a young Michael was already trying to explain
02:58how fame had separated him from everyone else. In his interview with Sylvia Chase,
03:03he reflects on the things most people take for granted, like simply experiencing the world without
03:08being treated as a spectacle. He's coming out to see Michael Jackson, you know, want to look at him
03:12and see what he looks like. And he said he feels like an animal in a cage.
03:15I do all the time. Do you? Well, I shouldn't say all the time, but I get embarrassed easily. And
03:24I don't know, sometimes the time I'm most comfortable on stage in any place in the world.
03:30What makes the moment quietly sad is that he doesn't describe fame as glamorous or exciting.
03:35He describes it as isolating. Even at this stage in his career, Michael seems aware that his success
03:41has placed a wall between him and the average person. He can entertain millions, but he can't
03:46easily move through the world like everyone else. Early on, he knew that people wouldn't see him
03:50as just Michael. Some people who believe that having always been on stage, you've never had
03:55to deal with the real world. Yeah, that's true in one way. That's true in one way, but it's hard
04:05to
04:05in my position. I try to sometimes. Number seven, how Michael and Lisa Marie first met, prime time.
04:15We first met, she was seven years old, and I was 17. This was in Las Vegas. She used to
04:21come and see
04:21my show all the time. We had the only family show on the strip. It's the Jackson 5. And she
04:29used to
04:29come as a little girl and sit right up front. She came quite often. She came with a lot of
04:33bodyguards.
04:34Before Diane Sawyer's interview with Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley became more pointed,
04:39it opened with a surprisingly storybook question. How did this unlikely marriage even begin?
04:44Michael explains that they first met in Las Vegas when Lisa Marie was a little girl and he was a
04:49teenager performing with the Jackson 5. The story becomes even more memorable when Michael says that
05:07years later, he asked attorney John Branca to set them up. In an interview full of pressure and
05:12skepticism, this moment briefly lets their relationship shine for what it truly was,
05:16a pop culture fairy tale with deeply unusual roots.
05:20Well, at first, this is what happened when she was 18. I used to tell my lawyer, John Branca,
05:25do you know Lisa Marie Presley? He'd go, well, I represent her mother. I'd go, well,
05:31can you get in touch with her? Because I think she's really cute. He'd laugh every time. He goes,
05:36I'll do my best. That's what he'd say. Number six, the marriage question gets uncomfortably
05:41direct. Prime time. You said you don't sleep in separate bedrooms and I'm going to confess,
05:46okay, this is live TV and I'm copping out right here because I didn't spend my life
05:50as a serious journalist to ask these kinds of questions. But I'm not oblivious to the fact
05:55that your fans had one question they most wanted to ask of you. Diane Sawyer didn't simply ask Michael
06:03Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley whether their marriage was real. She asked the question
06:07everyone was whispering around, whether they were physically intimate.
06:11We want to know if you've done the thing.
06:14Michael, I know that this is an intimate question, but are you having sex together with Lisa Marie?
06:21Do you guys really love each other or are you just doing this to satisfy the media?
06:26Are you guys intimate?
06:28Again, I can't believe it. This is about the skepticism.
06:33Yes, yes, yes.
06:34It's an awkward moment and that awkwardness is precisely why it stuck.
06:39Lisa Marie answers forcefully while Michael mostly lets her take the lead.
06:43His private life had become so public that even the most intimate part of his marriage
06:47was treated as fair game on national television.
06:50The exchange says as much about the media environment surrounding Michael
06:54as it does about the couple themselves.
06:56We will be expecting a child now. When, I'm not gonna.
06:58We're not gonna say when.
07:00It's personal.
07:00Except in the hands of the heavens.
07:02But not yet.
07:03Did we marry out of convenience? That's really interesting.
07:05That's ridiculous.
07:05That's really interesting to me.
07:07Why?
07:07Well, why wouldn't we have a lot in common? That's the question. Why? Why not?
07:11Like we're faking this?
07:12Like, no.
07:13But you can't live with somebody day to day. We're together all the time.
07:16Number five.
07:17An impromptu performance of Who Is It?
07:19The Oprah Winfrey Show.
07:20I want you to sing something a cappella for me if you can.
07:22Oh, no.
07:23What can I sing?
07:25Who is it?
07:26The Oprah interview is packed with headline-making answers.
07:29But one of its best moments is purely musical.
07:32As to show how he creates,
07:33Michael casually starts beatboxing and singing part of Who Is It?
07:37No stage, no dancers, no elaborate production.
07:40It's just his voice and the rhythm.
07:42I gave my money.
07:44I gave my time.
07:59It's a reminder that underneath the spectacle, the image, and the endless scrutiny,
08:04Jackson was a working musician with an almost physical understanding of sound.
08:08He can be shy answering personal questions, but when he demonstrates a groove, everything sharpens.
08:13Suddenly, the interview stops being about the mystery of Michael Jackson
08:18and becomes about the craft that made him Michael Jackson in the first place.
08:21Don't you judge of my composure?
08:23Because I'm bothered every day.
08:26And she didn't leave a letter.
08:28She just then ran away.
08:31Ow!
08:32Fabulous.
08:32That's part of Who Is It?
08:34I mean, you wanted me to do it.
08:36I like you very much.
08:37I get embarrassed.
08:37I'm sorry I get embarrassed.
08:39We're going to come right back with more of Michael Jackson.
08:41Lying.
08:42Number 4.
08:43Opening up about his father.
08:45Living with Michael Jackson.
08:46When you would be practicing, you were very heavily disciplined by your father.
08:52What was that like?
08:57Michael spoke about his father, Joe Jackson, more than once.
09:00But his conversation with Martin Bashir is especially raw.
09:03He describes being afraid of him, the harsh discipline of his childhood,
09:07and the emotional impact it had on him as an adult.
09:09Well, I didn't have it that hard, because he used me as the example.
09:17It was like, do it like Michael.
09:19You know, and he practiced us with a belt in his hand.
09:23And if you miss a step, expect to be, uh...
09:29Joe Jackson helped shape one of the most successful entertainment families in history.
09:34But Michael repeatedly notes that that success came at a painful cost.
09:37In this interview, the superstar image drops away,
09:40and viewers see someone still trying to process the tension behind the Jackson 5 machine.
09:45It's one of the clearest examples of how Michael's adult persona can't really be separated from the childhood he felt
09:51he never had.
09:51But you were only a child.
09:53I know.
09:54You were a baby.
09:55I know.
09:56It's one thing to discipline.
09:57And you were producing successful records.
10:00I know.
10:00Number three.
10:01Explaining the Moonwalk.
10:03The Oprah Winfrey Show.
10:04Where did the Moonwalk come from, actually?
10:06Well, the Moonwalk came from these beautiful children,
10:10black kids who live in the ghettos,
10:12and, you know, the inner cities,
10:13who are brilliant.
10:15They just have that natural talent for dancing.
10:17Any of the new hot...
10:18The Running Man, any of these dances.
10:20They come up with these dances.
10:22All I did was enhance the dance.
10:23A few Michael Jackson moments are more iconic than the Moonwalk,
10:27so hearing him explain it to Oprah feels almost surreal.
10:30By 1993,
10:32that backwards glide had already become pop culture's shorthand for Michael himself.
10:36The black sequined jacket,
10:38the single glove,
10:39the flash of the white socks,
10:40and that legendary Billie Jean performance on Motown 25.
10:43No, I can show you a step or two,
10:46but I'm a little rusty right now.
10:47A little rusty.
11:00But when Oprah asks where the move came from,
11:03Michael doesn't treat it like some divine bolt of inspiration.
11:06Instead, he gives credit to the young black dancers he'd seen doing it first,
11:10describing them as brilliant kids with a natural gift for movement.
11:13Sure, the Moonwalk may have become inseparable from Michael Jackson,
11:16but here, he lets viewers see the process behind the illusion.
11:20Okay, just show me slow motion.
11:22Could you show me slow motion?
11:24Wait.
11:28It's like,
11:29it's pushing and...
11:35then there's...
11:36it's, it's mainly like a popping type of thing.
11:39Number two,
11:40his bond with Princess Diana, 2020.
11:42I met her first at a, um,
11:45my concert
11:45in London.
11:47She was, um,
11:49very kind,
11:51very loving,
11:52very sweet.
11:53What did you two talk about?
11:55I wrote a song called Dirty Diana.
11:57Michael's 1997 interview with Barbara Walters
12:00came shortly after the death of Princess Diana,
12:02and the connection he draws between them is quietly revealing.
12:05He talks about meeting Diana,
12:07her warmth towards him,
12:08and their shared experience of being hunted by the press.
12:11One of the most memorable details involves Dirty Diana.
12:15Michael says he removed the song from a concert out of respect for her,
12:18only for Diana to tell him she wanted him to perform it.
12:21He took me away,
12:23and she said,
12:25are you gonna do Dirty Diana?
12:30I said, no, I took it out of the show because of you.
12:32No, I want you to do it.
12:35Do it.
12:36Do the song.
12:37So she had a sense of humor with you?
12:39Yeah, of course.
12:41He then brings up his heartbreaking reaction to learning of her untimely death,
12:45and, in an eerily tragic moment,
12:47discusses praying that he wouldn't be next.
12:49Then, on top of that one,
12:51I said, there's another one.
12:52Real soon, I feel it coming.
12:54There's another one.
12:55It's another one coming,
12:56and I pray it's not me.
12:58Please don't let it be me.
12:59The Mother Teresa came.
13:03Are you psychic?
13:04Is that what you're saying?
13:07I don't want to say that,
13:08but I've done it before.
13:09Number one,
13:10The Vitiligo Reveal,
13:12The Oprah Winfrey Show.
13:13Is your skin lighter because you don't like being black?
13:16Number one,
13:17There, as I know of,
13:19there is no such thing as skin bleaching.
13:22I have never seen it.
13:23I don't know what it is.
13:24Well, they used to have those products growing up.
13:25I used to hear,
13:26always use bleach and glow,
13:27but you'd have to have about 300,000 gallons.
13:30Okay, number one,
13:30this is the situation.
13:31I have a skin disorder.
13:33For years,
13:34Michael's changing appearance
13:35had been the subject of rumor,
13:37ridicule,
13:37and intense speculation.
13:39In his 1993 interview with Oprah,
13:41he finally addressed
13:42one of the biggest questions directly.
13:44Michael said he had vitiligo,
13:46a skin condition that affected his pigmentation,
13:49and roundly rejected the idea
13:50that he was trying to erase his black identity.
13:53When people make up stories
13:54that I don't want to be who I am,
13:55it hurts me.
13:57So,
13:58it is,
14:00it's a problem for me,
14:01okay?
14:02I can't control it,
14:03okay?
14:04But what about all the millions of people?
14:06Let's reverse it.
14:07Okay.
14:07What about all the millions of people
14:08who sit out in the sun
14:09to become darker,
14:11to become other than what they are?
14:13The moment is still
14:14one of the most important interviews
14:15of his career
14:16because it shifted the conversation,
14:18at least temporarily,
14:19from tabloid guessing
14:20to Michael's own explanation.
14:22It was vulnerable and defensive,
14:24but most of all,
14:25clearly painful.
14:26More than anything,
14:27it showed how much of his body
14:29had become public property
14:30in the eyes of the media.
14:31Why is that so important?
14:33You know,
14:34that's,
14:34that's not important to me.
14:36I'm a great fan of art.
14:38I love Michelangelo.
14:40If I had a chance to talk to him
14:41or read about him,
14:42I would want to know about
14:43what inspired him
14:44to become who he is,
14:46the anatomy of his craftsmanship,
14:48not about
14:49who he went out with last night.
14:51Which Michael Jackson interview moment
14:52stayed with you the longest?
14:54The music,
14:54the memories,
14:55or the moments
14:56where he let his guard down?
14:57Be sure to let us know
14:58in the comments.
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