An interview with guardian that includes a lot of interesting stuff
The Jacksons: 'People have tried to tear down our family name'
They are famous as the most dysfunctional dynasty in showbusiness. But now The Jacksons are back with a new tour, and brothers Tito, Jackie, Marlon and Jermaine are keen to set the record straight
Share 7
inShare
0
Email
Paul Lester
The Guardian, Thursday 21 February 2013 13.57 EST
Jump to comments (0)
The Jackson Five (clockwise, from rear left): Jackie, Marlon, Tito, Jermaine, and Michael with theit parents Joe and Katherine in 1970. Photograph: John Olson/Getty Images
Three of the five original members of the Jackson 5 are waiting for the Guardian in a boardroom at the Grosvenor Hotel on London's Park Lane. Tito, 59, is wearing a deerstalker like a funked-up Sherlock Holmes and puffing away on a gold electronic cigarette. Jackie who, at 61, is the oldest Jackson, is the one whose face and light, high-pitched speaking voice most resemble his legendary younger brother's. And Marlon, 55, the closest in age to Michael and the latter's playmate on the road when the boys bestrode the earth, is the moustachioed one who for some reason keeps slipping into a mockney accent.
But where's 58-year-old Jermaine? Ah, here he is, making a late superstar entrance that befits his status as the most famous living male Jackson, the one who was in Celebrity Big Brother and who had solo hits. He is rail-thin – Michael-thin – and, with his low-fade hair and black leather jacket/tight-jeans combo, cuts an impressive figure (although he is the only one not wearing shades). No wonder Marlon does a drum roll on the boardroom table when he strolls in.
"You don't have one, you don't have two, you don't have three, you have four Jacksons," he announces as Jermaine takes his seat for this interview to publicise the brothers' Unity tour, their first since 1984.
There was some hubbub in the hotel lobby when it transpired that the four surviving members of the biggest boyband in history had entered the building. But how did it compare with the reception 40 years ago, when, as the Jackson 5, they were charting all over the world with those dazzling Motown fusions of Smokey Robinson melody and Sly Stone energy such as I Want You Back, the Love You Save, Never Can Say Goodbye and I'll Be There? Or to 30 years ago, when, as the Jacksons, hits such as Can You Feel It? and Walk Right Now made them, along with Earth Wind & Fire, the planet's leading purveyors of symphonic boogie and hi-tech disco? If they walked down the street now, would there be anything like the commotion they caused in 1973 or 1983?
"It's the same effect for me, with all the beautiful women," says Marlon. "They'd want autographs, take pictures."
"It's like we're having photo sessions all the time – right, guys?" posits Jackie.
How crazy was life back then?
"It was too much."
Marlon remembers flying into London in 1971, and the pilot warning them that there were 10,000 fans waiting at the airport. So, what happened when they landed?
"We got attacked! By the beautiful British women."
Tito's memories aren't so fond.
"I got caught outside the limo," he recalls, faux-cigarette vapour trailing from his mouth. "I was riding on top because they were so anxious to get away from the fans they forgot me. I was banging on the roof!"
"I was like, 'Tito's on top, Tito's on top!'" gasps Marlon. "Michael had on a scarf and they were pulling it one way and another, choking him. They were grabbing our hair, trying to get a piece of us."
Jermaine has so far been quiet, but apparently he was the Jackson the ladies most wanted a piece of back in the day. And rumour has it Michael and Marlon were there when it happened.
"Jermaine made Michael and I hide under the bed," complains Marlon. "We were little so we did as we were told."
He thinks back to the "people sleeping in the hallway … They'd crawl in between the floors through ventilation shafts to try to get to our rooms." Tito would check into a hotel and go to crash out, only to find strangers in his bed. Every evening on tour, the group's security would sweep their closets for stowaways. But one night, Jermaine managed to sneak in a girl.
"And I'm on top of her," he says, picking up the story, "trying to get a little kiss."
A little kiss, right.
"And she's like, 'I feel something. Somebody's touching my leg.'" This is Marlon now, and he's giggling like he's back in that bedroom, under the covers with Michael, amazed at the (rather creepy in retrospect) experience they have just shared. "She felt three hands!"
More giggles. I ask whether they think One Direction fever or Biebermania are as intense as the fandemonium directed at the Jackson 5 and the feeling is that neither reach quite as deep. Marlon recalls going to an African village, where it was all grass huts and no running water, and they knew about the Jacksons. Similarly, Jermaine was in Senegal, "way out, where they didn't have TV or radio", just after Obama got elected, and while there was little or no awareness of America's first black president, as soon as they clapped eyes on one of R&B's royal family, the children of the village "started running and screaming".
The Jackson saga is one of colossal triumphs. But it has also been, in terms of scandal, tumultuous. The word drops like a small bomb. In the aftershock there is hushed but frenzied chatter. Marlon seems the most intrigued.
"You want to say 'tumultuous'? I want to get to this tumultuous stuff!"
OK, but first, was it a blessing having massively successful siblings such as Michael and Janet out there on the frontline, deflecting a lot of the attention away from them? They take this slightly the wrong way.
"No, no," replies Jermaine, "the Jackson 5 was the foundation of all of this."
"There wouldn't have been no Janet – there wouldn't have been no Michael – without the Jackson 5," agrees Marlon, who has a series of questions of his own. "What is Janet's last name? What is Michael's last name? What is Jermaine's last name? It's about the Jacksons. Now I'm not going to stereotype you, but there have been many journalists who have written about those 'tumultuous' things you just mentioned, that just aren't true."
Which have been the most hurtful?
Jermaine leans forward, not quiet any more. "We are pissed off," he says, "and I'm going to tell you why. They accused my brother of those false allegations of child molestation. To hear them in court saying all those horrible things … They knew he didn't do them, but they wanted to tear down his name and this family's name."
They have a theory about the vilification and hounding of their brother – as Jackie puts it, "it was all about the catalogue". That should read "conspiracy theory": they make connections between Michael's record company Sony and his continued acquisition of chunks of Sony/ATV Music Publishing – he bought a 50% stake in 1985 – and the doctor (Conrad Murray) who was found guilty in 2011 of the involuntary manslaughter of the King of Pop. But these must surely be far-fetched. Still, there's no denying the determination to find an alternative, grander explanation for his death beyond overmedication.
"Bottom line? They killed him," declares Jermaine. Who killed him? Sony? "The black man killed the black man." Hold on: is he saying that Murray was a stooge of the record company? "The doctor was just a finger to a bigger hand."
The theorising comes thick and fast. It's a bit scattershot. There are digressions about Michael's introduction to Demerol, the painkiller he was allegedly addicted to when he died, by his friend Elizabeth Taylor. Particularly wild is the strand about the raiding of Neverland, as police tried to find evidence of Jackson's child molestation, on November 18, 2003, the exact same day as the release of his Number Ones compilation album. The brothers' contention is that the more popular Jackson became and the more control he had over Sony/ATV's catalogue, the more they sought to reduce his power.
"It was the biggest album he ever could have had," says Jermaine, "probably bigger than Thriller. And they put this crap out about him, on the same day of its release? That's no coincidence."
It must have been difficult watching these events unfold. "Especially," says Marlon, "when you know [the accusations] are not true. Then on top of that, I'm going to put you in this situation: out of nowhere thousands of police cars come to your home, ransack your house, and rip everything up."
"They stole money, too," points out Jermaine. "$800,000 in cash."
"And no one's reprimanded – they just walk away," presses Marlon, perhaps alluding to the fact that the police entered areas not on the original search warrant, without reprisal.
Jackie was at Neverland shortly after the raid. He says Michael showed him all the bugs. "They were listening in on him all the time. I couldn't believe how he was treated."
Was it a sort of crucifixion? After all, Michael was, to many, a pop messiah. The brothers, practising Christians – except for Jermaine, who converted to Islam in 1989 – are uncomfortable with the analogy.
"I wouldn't say that," winces Jackie. "No one's bigger than God or Jesus. But everywhere Michael went, every country, when he left the airport people would line up on the freeway just to get a glimpse of him."
He possessed the charisma of a religious figure. But was he less saint than pariah? "I'll just say this," says Jermaine with a flourish. "God blessed him because he knew what Michael was going to do with his talent. He was a voice for children who were starving, and he brought the world songs like We Are the World, Heal the World and Man in the Mirror. Everything he did was for the betterment of mankind. You mentioned Jesus. Look what he did when he walked the earth. He did all those miracles and they still found a way to nail him up on that cross."
Did they find it hard to keep their heads while Michael was losing his mind?
"We never got involved in those kind of things," says Jackie when asked whether they experimented with drugs.
When the inquiry leads to groupies, Jermaine inadvertently says something offensive. "We love women. We're not faggots." Marlon corrects him: "We're not gay." Jermaine responds: "Faggots, gay. Whatever you call it."
"There's nothing wrong with it," decides Marlon. "I have gay friends."
If anything, the Jacksons are outspoken to a fault, whether it's Tito telling me how much he spends on luxury cars or Jermaine revealing that his wife has given him permission to take another wife. Such candour is rare given their stature and the scrutiny they have endured these past four decades.
"We talk about anything, because we know the truth," offers Jermaine.
Is there anything they won't discuss? "Well, you would know by now," grins Marlon, "because I've got an eject button right here."
Laughing and joking, they seem grounded, considering their reputation as music's most dysfunctional family.
"Do you think we're crazy?" asks Marlon. "We're not dysfunctional."
What about the false story (gossip site TMZ published a rare retraction) that emerged last year alleging that Janet slapped Michael's 14-year-old daughter Paris around the face? "That's not true," confirms Jermaine.
Or the one about Jermaine and younger brother Randy (a member of the group from 1975 to 1990) fighting over custody of Michael's three children and the subsequent disappearance in mysterious circumstances of the brothers' mother Katherine?
"That's not true."
Care to elaborate?
"The guy who's around them became a little too hands-on," he explains. "He started off as a driver and suddenly he's trying to run business and picking attorneys. And my mother went to get rest in Arizona and he reported her missing because she went missing from him. That's all that happened. And the Janet thing – listen, you know how these young kids are tweeting and tweeting, so Janet was just trying to take the phone from Paris, telling her, 'You need to stay off the phone.' Janet would never do that [ie slap her]."
So they're still in touch with Michael's kids?
"I'm in touch with all my nieces and nephews," insists Marlon.
Garrulous, playful, the Jacksons are not the clammed-up interviewees you might imagine. I tell them I was expecting a tense encounter. They are pleasantly surprised.
"No! Really?" says Jackie, smiling. "You see? Don't believe everything you read."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/feb/21/people-tried-tear-down-jackson-name
