From Here to the Great Unknown

Lisa first met Michael Jackson when she was a little girl, around six years old. Her father was performing in Las Vegas, and the Jackson 5 were also there. Lisa didn’t remember the meeting, but Michael did and made several efforts to connect with Lisa over the years. He was apparently “devastated” when Lisa married Danny, thinking “that he should be with [her] instead” (132).

Michael and Lisa first met as adults in 1993, after Lisa had made her demo tape. Lisa was wary of “becom[ing] someone else’s project” but agreed to meet with Michael to discuss her music. Michael Jackson was “subdued and extremely nice,” and he and Lisa “just clicked” (132). They began having lengthy phone conversations, and she went to Atlanta to visit him. After a few months, Michael’s molestation accusations became public, and he vanished from the public eye. Lisa was one of the very few people he stayed in contact with, and they spoke frequently. She took her children to visit him again in Las Vegas; they had separate rooms and remained platonic but would stay up all night talking to one another. They came from “similar circumstances,” allowing them to develop an “insanely strong” connection. Danny started to become suspicious and flew to Vegas to separate them, but Lisa insisted that she and Michael were just friends. At the end of the trip, however, Michael finally confessed his feelings for Lisa and told her he wanted to marry her. She felt the same way, but before she could tell him, she had to go home and tell Danny. Danny packed his bags immediately upon hearing the news, and Lisa and Micheal’s relationship quickly became physical. In the divorce, Danny insisted he wanted nothing from Lisa. However, she “forced him to take a little bit of money” (140). Although Danny was “devastated,” Lisa claims the two remained “best friends” and always maintained a united front for their children.

Riley remembers that her mother “wanted to be the perfect woman” for Michael (136); she was always impeccably dressed and made up when she saw him, and her nails were always perfectly done. However, this wasn’t a “requirement” for Michael, in fact, he preferred Lisa’s natural nails. She thinks that her mother was attracted to Michael because “he was misunderstood” and “she wanted to fix him” (139). He was “larger than life,” like Elvis had been, and Lisa later told Riley that he was the only one who “ever came close to being like her dad” (140). Lisa’s “whole world would stop” when Micheal came to the house, and their relationship quickly became “a very big deal” (141). Riley and Ben had to stay home from school to hide from the paparazzi, and security followed them when they left the house. Lisa had always struggled with her role as the unwilling “princess of America” and the public scrutiny that came with it. However, “she paradoxically fell in love with Michael Jackson,” and “the fame grew exponentially” (142).

Michael and Lisa were married in the Dominican Republic in front of two witnesses. Lisa was incredibly happy. They would stay up all night talking, sober. Michael had a “truly remarkable” energy that Lisa had “never ever seen or felt in [her] entire life, other than with [her] dad” (144). Micheal and Lisa both came from poverty, had “generational addiction issues,” and intimate knowledge of what it was like to possess or be near “godlike fame.” She fell in love with the “normal” side of Michael that most people didn’t get to see. She got to see him “with his guard down,” and he appreciated her honesty and directness, at least until she “aimed [her] honesty at him” toward the end of their relationship (144).

At home, Lisa and Micheal “were a regular married couple” (145). Michael was christened “Mimi” by Riley and Ben because Ben couldn’t pronounce “Michael.” They mainly lived in Lisa’s Hidden Hills house, but Riley also remembers waking up to see a pet giraffe out her window at the Neverland ranch. Lisa traveled with a team of 10 security guards, and the family was accosted everywhere they went. One of the few conflicts between them was the fact that Micheal wanted children of his own. Lisa wasn’t sure about having children with Micheal the way she knew she wanted them with Danny, and he would sometimes threaten to have children with someone else.

As Michael worked to settle the accusations of child molestation, Lisa stood by him, even agreeing to an interview with Diane Sawyer to vouch for him. However, the pressure was taking a toll on Michael, and Lisa “started noticing differences in him” (148).

Riley remembers her mother and Michael’s honeymoon phase lasting a year before “things went downhill” (148). Lisa began to notice patterns that reminded her of Elvis and started to suspect that Micheal was using drugs. They began to have volatile fights, and Lisa started suspecting that Micheal was using her for the “novelty” of being with Elvis’s daughter. Lisa began noticing other “red flag[s].” Micheal began spending a great deal of time at his doctor’s office, and he had his own anesthesiologist. He refused to answer Lisa’s questions about his health and eventually made her leave the hospital for “causing too many problems” (151). Lisa decided to file for divorce.

The divorce was finalized, and Michael remarried, but he and Lisa “went back and forth for years” (152). Finally, in 1997, Lisa decided she had no choice but to “cut Michael out of her life” (154). After he died, Lisa told Oprah that Michael feared “ending up like [Elvis]” and would often ask her about her father’s death (154). She attended Michael’s funeral and sat alone by his coffin for hours, hoping “to apologize for not being around” (154). She later told her daughter that they communicated through dreams for months after his death.