Warning: This post contains descriptions of abuse and trauma
Michael in the cover photo for Thriller (1982)
If we were to go back to 1981 – to the recording studio where the Thriller album was being finalised, we would find three men: Michael Jackson, Ron Weisner, Michael’s manager, and Quincy Jones, the celebrated producer of the album. Work on all the tracks including Billy Jean, Thriller, Beat it and Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’, was complete. The whole album had been mastered a second time after Michael’s initial disappointment (signalled by Michael running from the studio in tears) with the first attempt1.
As they listened together to the finished product, Quincy and Ron were trying to manage Michael’s expectations after the huge success of Michael’s ‘Off the Wall’ album. As they listened together, Quincy said gently, “Yeah Mike, you can’t expect to do with this one what you did with Off The Wall...” Ron added, “These days two million [sales] is a hot album”. “Yeah, it’s a tough market. Nobody’s having hits” responded Quincy…
Michael turned down the music: “What’s wrong with you guys? How can you say that to me?? You’re wrong! Dead wrong!”
By the next day, despite Quincy and Ron backtracking and reassuring Michael, he made an announcement: Thriller was cancelled: “It’s over. I’m not even going to let the album come out. Thriller is gonna be shelved for ever…I’d rather it go unheard than see it not get the attention it deserves.”1
Ultimately, the head of CBS Records, Walter Yetnikoff, called Michael to try to reassure him: “You’re the superstar, not them. We trust you, not Quincy. All due respect to the guy. And certainly not one of your managers. You’re the superstar.”
“You think?” Said Michael?
“Absolutely” said Walter.
The album was back on. Thriller (1982) would go on to sell more than two million copies. It would sell 70 million copies. It would be the best-selling album ever made.
Perhaps we get used to the idea, that for a major star, the phrase “two million copies” could cause offense. Perhaps such sensitivity is part of the ‘work ethic’ or ‘production values’ or ‘artistic temperament’ behind their success? But for this particular star, let’s look at where this sensitivity might have come from. There might be evidence that any fall from idealisation, or negative judgment in the smallest dose, for Michael Jackson, felt like a return to an actual place of danger. There might be evidence that the drive for success was also a flight from this same danger.
The main criteria for those celebrities selected for this blog are iconic, earned, sustained fame (see introduction). Michael Jackson certainly fits my criteria. How do I deal with the allegations of child sexual abuse arising before and after his death? This blog is about narcissism and not sexual crimes as such, and Michael has not been found in a court of law guilty of sexual crimes. But narcissism theory does have things to say about sexual exploitation and also of the use of dishonesty3. Does narcissism make us more prone to sexually abuse others? Does narcissism make us more likely to lie? In the Charles Chaplin post, I looked at the potential role of narcissism in Chaplin’s problematic and exploitative sex life. In part B of the Michael Jackson post, I will look at the role in Michael’s life of the maintaining of different versions of ‘reality’ and untruths and how this connects with narcissism.
The Jackson Five early on (Michael, front)
Joseph: Father, manager and abuser
Joseph Jackson was, as a child, looked after by an emotionally distant father before returning to the care of his mother when his father married a third time. He later dropped out of high school to take up boxing. Joseph was musical - mainly focussing on blues guitar – and started a band called The Falcons. He was in temperament unpredictable - sometimes explosive and sometimes bringing a powerful presence. When he met Katherine, Michael’s mother, she immediately fell “under his spell, gripped by his charisma, seduced by his charm, his looks, his power”. Katherine sensed she would always feel safe with Joseph who was in many ways her opposite1. The two married on 5th November 1949; Joseph 19 and Katherine 20.
Katherine: witness
Katherine Scruse was a shy girl who had contracted polio at 18 months. Till the age of 16 she wore a brace or used crutches and was in and out of hospital – greatly affecting her education. As a teenager she joined the school band and choir and sang in her Baptist church. Katherine had heard stories of her grandfather’s reputation as a powerful church choir singer and later decided this was in her blood. As she grew older, she focussed on country and western music, playing piano and clarinet.
We could contrast these two parents of Michael Jackson as the cold, ultimately abusive father, and the warm, submissive mother. But it may have been more complicated. Joseph once slapped Katherine on the face, but never did so again, after she attacked him with a ceramic bowl, cutting his face1.
Little Michael
The family grew quickly to include nine children: Rebbie, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, LaToya. Of the premature twins only Marlon survived. Then there was Michael, later followed by Randy and Janet. Around the time of Michael’s birth, Jermaine became seriously ill - placing a sudden financial stress on the family. In their tiny house in Gary, Indiana, the nine children all had chores to complete. Socialising was restricted to school. There was no welcoming or visiting of friends. The Jackson family was in some ways a closed community, under the leadership of Joseph.
Like so many black families in 1960s Indiana, the Jacksons were poor and frustrated and Joseph had dreams of making money in the music business whilst holding down labouring jobs. They needed to get out of Gary. Jermaine and Tito would watch their father’s band rehearse at weekends. It was Katherine though, who had something else in mind, remembering, it seems, the legend of her own grandfather’s church choir voice. When Joseph was working, she got the boys singing together with Tito sneaking into his parents’ bedroom and borrowing their father’s guitar. This was risky. Their father had a temper. When a guitar string broke, Tito was whipped. But Joseph then wanted to hear what the children could do. And something clicked into place in his mind. The breakthrough would not be Joseph, it would be the children.
The family dream takes shape
After years of hardship, an ambition and a dream formed that enveloped the whole Jackson family and brought about some hope. Joseph decided that Jackie (9), Tito (7) and Jermaine (6) were the group. The others would watch. A regime of rehearsing quickly grew to three hours per day in two sessions before and after school. Their sense of working on something special provoked teasing from neighbours. It was Katherine, again, that noticed something else. Amongst her nine children, she found Michael fascinating. She watched the way the small boy sang when mimicking Jermaine’s James Brown impressions. She thought of his dance moves as those of an “older person” – not a child as such. When thinking of her grandfather, it was Michael that provoked in her thoughts of reincarnation. When he returned from work one day, Katherine told Joseph, “We have another lead singer”1.
Trauma: Singled out for condemnation and attack
But by this time, Michael had already been singled out in a different way – by Joseph. On one occasion, Michael, after receiving a spanking from Joseph threw a shoe at him in defiance. His father shouted, “Are you crazy? You just signed your own death warrant! Get over here.” Holding Michael by the ankle upside down, he repeatedly hit the boy, as the family looked on in terror. Katherine screamed “you’re gonna kill him!” 1repeatedly. Joseph put Michael down, but Michael muttered “I hate you”. Noting these as “fighting words”1, Joseph followed Michael into his bedroom, shut the door and beat him further. Michael was three years old. It feels difficult to move on from this to write the next passage – as if doing so will somehow brush over the terror – and perhaps because some in Michael’s life did exactly that. He was three years old.
There are further examples of sadistic treatment by Joseph of Michael and his brothers. In order to teach the boys not to leave their bedroom window open at night, Joseph climbed in whilst the boys were asleep wearing a mask and screamed at them. The boys were terrified – crying and hyperventilating. There was an absence of affection, and he would rationalise that his brutal behaviour had a purpose – to teach the boys what would happen if they left the window open. Joseph once locked Michael in a closet for hours as punishment.1
Michael, aged nine or ten, being spoken to by his father in rehearsal
Trauma: The vulnerability and privacy of the child’s mind and body
Early on when the Jackson five were touring and staying in hotels, Joseph would make it clear to his sons that he was having sex with groupies in the next room (“Its ‘G’ night fellas”1). So, Michael, the youngest, was exposed inappropriately to the idea of adult sexual impulses and desires. These were impulses that meant he had to betray his mother (they would all have to lie)- and so betray his only possible protector against the secret murderousness of his father. When Michael’s brothers found a peep hole into a female dressing room at Chicago’s Peppermint Lounge, it was clear that in pre-pubescent Michael there were uncomfortable feelings over-riding any curiosity1. Perhaps sexual desires were already something very complicated in his mind.
At 14 Michael would have to “play asleep” when his older brothers would bring a groupie back to the shared hotel room. Things were not resolved for Michael when, at 15, he was locked in a room, by a family member, with two sex workers. On arriving home, their mother would reference the strict morality of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. There was nothing to bridge these two worlds, and only lies held everything together.
Biographer Taraborrelli describes Joseph Jackson as an “enigma” 1. As a psychologist I am a bit shocked by the blandness of this label. There were apparently violations of his children’s rights and safety across a whole range of situations. I read about how he was explosively violent, sadistic, dishonest, ruthless, exploitative, hypersensitive to disrespect, impulsive, sexually inappropriate and allegedly overtly sexually abusive with his children4. I wonder how far his abuse of Michael went. These brutalities were, it seems, kept within the family circle over which Joseph had absolute control. I think we can be more specific than ‘enigma’.
The map of narcissism2 (below) names the types of trauma that lead to narcissistic strategies and also names the types of strategy. Most theories of narcissism agree that neither physical nor sexual abuse are essential experiences for narcissism to develop. But the experiences that are named – condemnation, judgment, and a denying of the child’s emotional vulnerability or feelings (see the theory post) – will often come along with such abuses. And it makes sense, that if narcissism is a kind of phobia of vulnerability, some who have been physically or sexually abused might share this phobia - along with other potential consequences of abuse.
The map of narcissism2*
The map of narcissism implicates childhood condemnation and emotional neglect as setting a stage for narcissism to develop. It seems clear that Michael was singled out for a range of abuses including condemnation and judgment - connected with real and at times terrifying danger. Respect for the child’s emotional vulnerability was denied. Narcissism theory describes how the child, urgently needing strategies to manage this situation, can in some situations find performance, physical appearance and idealisation as a way to find distance from being overwhelmed3. In part B, I will look at illustrations in Michael’s life of how he was taught to perform, to be idealised and also to be dishonest, specifically to manage his escape.
References
1. Taraborrelli, J.R. (2004). Michael Jackson: The Magic, The Madness, The Whole Story. Pan.
2. Ryle, A. & Kerr, I.B. (2002). Introducing Cognitive Analytic Therapy. Wiley.
3. Diamond, D., Yeomans, F.E., Stern, B.L. & Kernberg, O.F. (2022) Treating Pathological Narcissism with Transference Focussed Therapy. Guildford
4. Jackson, L. (1992). LaToya: Growing up in the Jackson Family. Penguin.
*Ryle did not apply this approach only to narcissism. If this mapping approach has been used in your own therapy, this does not mean that you have narcissistic difficulties.