Michael Jackson was one of the most photographed and discussed entertainers on Earth, yet according to the men protecting him during his final years, his own children barely saw the public version of their father. Inside the family home, the constant headlines, television coverage and internet commentary that followed Michael everywhere else were largely kept outside.
Bodyguards Bill Whitfield and Javon Beard said there was no internet available to the children and regular television was off limits. Instead, their entertainment was controlled inside the house. Beard said Prince, Paris and Blanket therefore never saw the way newspapers and television portrayed their father or even learned one of the cruelest nicknames attached to him.
Michael Jackson’s SECURITY Opens Up | Bill Whitfield
Beard said the children did not know their father had been called “Wacko Jacko.” To them, Michael was simply the parent helping with homework, making sure they ate properly and putting them to bed. The strange public mythology surrounding Michael Jackson existed almost entirely outside the walls of their home.
That separation makes more sense when looking at Michael’s long battle with tabloid coverage. Years before those isolated Las Vegas days, he had already turned his frustration into music. One of the clearest examples was “Leave Me Alone,” whose short film mocked sensational stories that had followed him through the 1980s.
Michael Jackson – Leave Me Alone [Remastered In 4K] (Official Music Video)
The video is almost the public version of what Michael later tried to prevent at home. Its exaggerated headlines and bizarre imagery confront the strange character the media had constructed around him. By his final years, according to his guards, he was no longer merely answering that world through songs. He was keeping his children away from it.
Michael Jackson spent decades under an intensity of celebrity few performers ever experienced, while creating Thriller, “Billie Jean,” “Beat It” and some of pop music’s most recognizable performances. Behind that enormous public life was a father trying to control what entered his children’s private world. Watch the videos above to see both sides of that extraordinary divide.