You Are Not Alone: Michael, Through a Brother’s Eyes

You Are Not Alone: Michael, Through a Brother’s Eyes
Jermaine Jackson

‘This is the truth as we know it. I have read so much about what people think they know about Michael, but this is about what really happened.’ Jermaine JacksonYou Are Not Alone is an intimate, loving portrait of Michael Jackson, illuminating the private man like never before. It is an invitation into Michael’s real character, private insights and hidden feelings: the innermost thoughts of a fiercely private individual.Jermaine Jackson knew Michael like only a brother can. In You Are Not Alone Jermaine brings light to the man behind the mask of superstardom, an identity that has lingered in the shadows for too long. You Are Not Alone is a celebration of the real Michael: the boy who shared a tiny bunkbed with Jermaine at 2300 Jackson Street, Gary, Indiana; the brother with whom Jermaine shared laughter, tears and memories; the boy who would grow up to become a legend.Raw, honest and incredibly moving, You Are Not Alone is also a sophisticated, no-holds-barred examination of Michael Jackson, aimed at fostering a true and final understanding of who he was and what shaped him. This is Michael Jackson – the man, not the legend – through a brother’s eyes.If you love Michael Jackson, this is the only book you will want to read.If you think you know the Michael Jackson story, it’s time to think again.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

Michael Through a Brother’s Eyes

Jermaine Jackson

Epigraph

I have built a monument more lasting than bronze and higher than the royal palace of the Pyramids. I shall not totally die, and a great part of me will live beyond death. I will keep growing, fresh with the praise of posterity.

– Horace, 23 BC

Contents

Title Page

Epigraph

Prologue – 2005

The Beginning – The Early Years

1. Eternal Child

2. 2300 Jackson Street

3. God’s Gift

4. Just Kids With a Dream

5. Cry Freedom

6. Motown University

7. Jackson-mania

The Middle – The Hayvenhurst Years

8. Life Lessons

9. Growing Pains

10. Separate Ways

11. Moonwalking

12. Animal Kingdom

13. The Hardest Victory

14. The Reunion Party

The End – The Neverland Years

15. Once Said …

16. Forever Neverland

17. Body of Lies

18. Love, Chess and Destiny

19. Unbreakable

20. 14 White Doves

21. The Comeback King

22. Gone Too Soon

Photographic Insert

Epilogue – Smile

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

2005

THE BATHROOM MIRROR AT A LITTLE hotel in Santa Maria, California, is fogged with condensation, and there is so much steam from my morning shower that my reflection is rendered invisible. As I stand at the sink, dripping wet and wrapped in a towel, the opaque glass is now nothing but an inviting canvas of mist on which to log a thought I have been repeating in my head.

‘MICHAEL JACKSON 1,000% INNOCENT’, I daub with my finger, ending with a full-stop that I convert into a smiley-face. Believe in the happy ending.

I stare at this message and focus on a visualised outcome: victory, justice and vindication. It is 10 March 2005: day 11 of the courthouse circus that sees my brother accused of child molestation.

‘MICHAEL JACKSON 1,000% INNOCENT’, I read again. I continue to stare at the top left corner of the mirror, watching the smiley-face start to run. Transfixed, I flash back to Michael’s bathroom at the Hayvenhurst estate in Encino, outside Los Angeles – his home prior to Neverland – and know that I am mimicking in 2005 what he did in 1982. Back then, in the top left corner of his mirror, he took a black felt permanent marker – to match the black marble – and scrawled: ‘THRILLER! 100 MILLION SALES … SELL OUT STADIUMS’.