Michael Jackson, Netflix, and the Difference Between Memory and Myth

By Stacy M. Brown Senior Global Correspondent

The strangest thing about fame is not the people who possess it. It is the people who worship it.

For the past several days, I have watched the reaction to Netflix's documentary about Michael Jackson and his 2005 criminal trial. I understand the anger. I understand the suspicion. I understand why fans feel protective. What I do not understand is why so many people who have never been in the room insist on telling those of us who were there what we saw, what we experienced, and what we are permitted to think.

Let me say something plainly.

I knew members of the Jackson family well. Katherine. Joseph. Jackie. Tito. Rebbie. Jermaine. I spent time at Neverland. I spent countless hours at Hayvenhurst. I attended graduations, weddings, baby showers, celebrations, arguments, reconciliations, and family meetings. I listened more than I talked. I watched more than I spoke.

What I did not do was know Michael Jackson in the intimate way some people imagine.

I met Michael a handful of times. We were never close friends. We did not talk every week. We did not vacation together. Yet because I spent years around the people closest to him, because I witnessed things with my own eyes and heard things with my own ears, I am more than qualified to hold an informed opinion about the family, the man, and the mythology surrounding both.

That seems to trouble people.

The fan community has never really bothered me. Every celebrity has fans. Every movement has zealots. Every church has parishioners who believe too much and question too little. It comes with the territory. Sometimes they are like mosquitoes. Annoying, persistent, and unavoidable. You apply a little bug spray and continue living your life.

What has always fascinated me is not their devotion. It is their entitlement.

Some fans seem to believe proximity can be achieved through obsession. That reading every court filing, collecting every album, memorizing every interview, and spending every waking hour defending a person somehow places them on equal footing with people who actually occupied the same physical spaces.

It does not.

I was there.

I remember Michael and I making peace long before he died. Quietly. No cameras. No headlines. No social media. Frank DiLeo encouraged it. The late attorney Mel Sachs was present. We laughed. We talked. We embraced. Whatever disagreements existed after I wrote Bob Jones' book were left behind.

Years later, only days before Joseph Jackson died, he and I buried our own hatchet over the telephone.

Life is too short for permanent warfare.

Not everyone in the family reached that conclusion. That is their burden, not mine.

Which brings me to Netflix.

Yes, I participated.

No, I am not happy about it.

I filmed my interviews more than a year ago. The project presented to me was not about relitigating accusations that had already been tested in a court of law. Michael Jackson was acquitted on 14 counts by a jury of his peers. That fact remains unchanged whether one likes it or not.

What I believed I was participating in was an examination of one of the most remarkable courtroom victories in modern celebrity history and the extraordinary legal work performed by Thomas Mesereau and his team.

The timing mattered.

The 20th anniversary of the acquittal had already passed. The understanding was that this project would stand on its own. There was never any indication that it would be positioned in a way that could interfere with, compete with, or distract from the success of "Michael," the motion picture that has introduced an entirely new generation to his artistry.

I believe people involved in the project were not fully forthcoming about that timing.

That is my opinion.

I have received emails from Netflix representatives. I have received messages from their security personnel offering assistance and expressing gratitude for my participation.

I have not responded.

I do not intend to.

I have not watched the documentary. People whose judgment I trust informed me that portions of my commentary were being used in ways that did not reflect my intent.

That matters.

Because intent matters.

Truth matters.

Context matters.

And despite what some people want to believe, I am not the same person I was 20 years ago.

Have I criticized Michael Jackson in the past?

Absolutely.

I own every word.

Have I criticized Jermaine Jackson?

Without question.

I own those words too.

But maturity is supposed to teach us something. Wisdom is supposed to teach us something. Time is supposed to teach us something.

There comes a point when continuing old battles serves no purpose beyond feeding one's own bitterness.

I reached that point years ago.

Some members of the family have not.

Taj Jackson regularly attacks me on social media. I blocked him long ago. Not because I fear criticism. Anyone who has survived journalism for decades develops thick skin. I blocked him because I have no interest in participating in perpetual dysfunction.

The Jackson family has often struggled with boundaries.

They are accustomed to people wanting access.

They are accustomed to people seeking approval.

They are accustomed to people remaining available.

What they sometimes struggle to understand is that access can be revoked.

A relationship can end.

A door can close.

A person can walk away.

I did.

Not because they are evil.

Not because they are uniquely flawed.

But because some relationships become toxic and self-preservation requires distance.

Yet despite all of that, when Jermaine faced serious allegations this year and a multimillion-dollar judgment, I defended him publicly because fairness demands consistency. If I believe someone deserves due process, then I believe it whether I like them or not.

That is what integrity requires.

The truth is that no journalist has been more supportive of Michael Jackson's estate than I have.

I have watched John Branca and the late John McClain accomplish what many thought impossible.

When Michael died, he was drowning in debt. Today, because of decisions they made and battles they fought, his children stand to inherit wealth measured in billions.

That transformation is extraordinary.

I championed "Michael" when other journalists mocked it.

I organized groups to see it.

I praised it when it was fashionable not to.

I remember Jaafar Jackson as a child. I remember the pride in Jermaine's eyes. I remember Alejandra's pride too.

I remember late-night conversations at Hayvenhurst. I remember family disputes. I remember celebrations. I remember worries. I remember triumphs.

I remember Joseph Jackson scolding his sons and blaming their lack of work ethic for Michael's distance from them.

I remember Katherine's heartbreak.

I remember Jermaine's conversations with Michael.

I remember Larry King Live.

I remember Michael calling his brother and warning him that the Bashir documentary was coming and that it would shock the world.

I remember things because I was there.

Not because I watched YouTube clips.

Not because I joined a fan forum.

Not because I built an identity around defending a celebrity I never met.

Because I was there.

That does not make me infallible.

It does not make me the final authority.

But it does mean my experiences are real.

And no amount of online outrage can erase them.

The tragedy of Michael Jackson's life is that people still refuse to see him as a human being. His critics reduce him to accusations. His defenders reduce him to sainthood.

Neither side permits him his humanity.

But humanity is where the truth always lives.

Michael Jackson was brilliant.

Michael Jackson was wounded.

Michael Jackson was lonely.

Michael Jackson was generous.

Michael Jackson was complicated.

And Michael Jackson spent much of the last half of his life keeping his distance from the very family that continues to define itself through him.

Those are uncomfortable truths.

Yet truth has never existed to make us comfortable.

So let the fans rage.

Let the critics rage.

Let the family members who dislike me continue disliking me.

I have outlived all of those battles.

What remains is what has always remained.

The music.

The legacy.

The children.

The estate.

And the extraordinary story of a Black boy from Gary, Indiana, who became the most famous entertainer the world has ever known.

I supported that story yesterday.

I support it today.

And I will support it tomorrow.

No documentary changes that. No fan changes that. No family feud changes that.

The noise will pass.

The music never does.