One-Hundred and Seventy-Nine

Shmuley, 2000/1 (Interview with MJ)

MJ: You know, if I meet some girl somewhere and I think she's beautiful, which I see a lot of them, that's great. I mean, I'll go on a date or something. Nothing wrong with that.

SB: If a woman walks round with all her cleavage showing....

MJ: Frank loves it.

(Michael gestured to Frank Cascio, who was sitting right next to us. We all laughed.)

MJ: Of course you want to look.

SB: A lot of people like being a sex-symbol. You don't like it because you are shy about it. Do you know when some women speak to you that it's what's on their mind?

MJ: Umhum. They tell me.

SB: I want to have sex with you?

MJ: Aha.

MJ: Yeah, they are loyal women. They have been loyal. They are activists. They will fight you about me.

SB: Like when Oprah asked you about your sex life, you responded with something to the effect, "That I'm a gentleman I don't talk about that." Do you feel that we should be more respectful of the sexual side of our lives? Has it all become to overt? I mean, you're naturally shy about this.

MJ: Yeah, I'm just naturally, um cause I think that's...Private. Yeah, that's my personal opinion. Other people who are exhibitionist, you know naturists, who go out nude and they feel different about it. Um, I don't know, I'm different in that way.

MJ: That's why it's my job to cast the girl, because it's my job to think they are cute. So I can do that if I really like them, like some of the girls you see in my videos. I have cast them because I really like them and it caused a problem afterwards because they start to really like me, and I don't want to get that serious, and it becomes a problem sometimes.

SB: So how often do you find that women really get clingy?

MJ: What do you mean?

SB: Like you said, it supposed to be a professional thing. You just film something with a female co-star but afterwards they become attached.

MJ: Yes, it happens.

SB: How do you break the news to them that you don't reciprocate?

MJ: When they see me running the other way. Yeah. Some of them follow me around the world and it's hard.

SB: That probably makes them chase you even more, because they probably are drawn to that boyish shyness. To be sure, many women like "bad" boys. But for the same reason, a lot like shy guys. In the same way they believe that they can redeem the bad boy and polish up this coarse diamond, they believe the same thing about the shy guy. They think, "Only I can bring him out of his shell." But I guess for a while with you running halfway around the world from them, they get the message. But you never tell them directly?

MJ: No, because it would hurt them too much.

SB: Is it possible, Michael, that you're attracting the wrong kind of girl because of your celebrity?

MJ: It's hard That's why it's hard, it's hard for me. It is hard. It's not easy for celebrities to be married.

SB: Do you think that you could only really marry celebrities so that they don't need you as much?

MJ: That helps, in my opinion. And they understand what you go through. They've been there.

SB: They help you for the right reasons, then?

MJ: Yeah, they're not after you know, What you've made [the money] or you know? [singing] "That's what you are...." [ He won a Grammy for that.]

SB: Right, right.

SB: Now out of your 5 brothers, you were getting more attention than any of them. You were becoming the star until you were spun off as a solo artist. Was that hard for your brothers to handle? Was it hard for you? Was there any analogy to the story in the Bible about Joseph and his brothers getting more attention than his brothers?

MJ: It didn't come into my mind and I didn't see it until later and then it showed up later. My mother saw it but she wouldn't bring it to my attention. But I think the wives kind of instigated it. It is what broke us up as a group. Wives are what broke up the Beatles. It's what broke up Martin and Lewis. It's what broke up all of the great acts. The wives get involved and they start saying to one member "You're the star. He needs you. You don't need him". Then he comes into work the next day puffed up with pride and they start to fight. And that's what happened with me and my brothers. They really did. I saw it happen.

SB: That's what turned you off marriage a bit?

MJ: It really did. I said, "I don't want no part of this". I said "I am not getting married".

SB: Was there any way to have stopped it? Could you have said to your brothers, "Look! What is happening to us?" Could you have stopped it? They married young. They must have been lonely as well.

MJ: They married young to get away from my father, to get out of the house. We begged them not to get married and they did.

SB: How do you feel about men who are not faithful to their wives?

MJ: I don't think it's good but I understand it. I know that is a strange answer.

SB: You find women fall in love with you all the time as the megastar, so you don't judge men who are unfaithful, because sometimes you'll ascribe it to women who make themselves available?

MJ: I don't judge them because women can do some things that make guys very unhappy. I have seen it with my brothers. I have seen my brothers crying, in tears and pulling grass out of the lawn with frustration because of their wives.

SB: Do you think a lot of their wives are more interested in their success than them?

MJ: Absolutely. They were after their money. That's why I said to myself that I would never be married. I held out the longest. I stayed at home until I was twenty-seven, twenty-eight.

SB: So part of the attraction to Lisa Marie Presley was that she had her own money and her own fame, and you didn't have to become anxious that she was interested in you for the wrong reasons?

MJ: Absolutely. She didn't take a penny [when we got divorced] she didn't want anything. She makes about a million dollars a year from Elvis memorabilia and selling all that stuff and she has her own thing. She is not here to take, you know.

SB: So that means there was almost like one girl in the whole world that you could marry because even a rich woman would want your name. You needed someone with money and a name. You were down to a Presley or a McCartney or something like that.

MJ: I know Lisa was great. She was a sweet person. But it is hard to tie me down. I can't stay in one place one time so that's why I don't know if I can really be completely married all the time.


Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: AzTruyen.Top