When Michael Jackson died in June last year he had for long stopped being a human being of flesh and blood in the world’s eyes. He had become a timid fantasy creature hiding at his ranch in Neverland and it was seen free to speculate about him and his life.
To meet Kiki Chambers is therefore a wakeup call. She is a woman who has washed his clothes, cleaned his house and watched him play with his children.
“I don’t want the world to remember him as a crazy person, because he wasn’t. I want him to be remembered as a human being who wanted to make the world a better place and as a father, because that’s the role I saw was most important for him,” she says.
She, who has watched a superstar from the inside, would also like to witness of how damaging fame and wealth can be.
“I’ve seen what price a person has to pay when the world worships you. We are meant to worship God, not His creations,” she says.
Kiki Chambers now lives in a small town in the west of Sweden. The contrasts are big from warm California and life at Neverland, the ranch which Michael Jackson built when trying to create a lost childhood.
She takes her laptop and shows us clips on Youtube from the inside of Michael Jackson’s home. She points at the place in the kitchen where there was always candy, the stairs where she once fell. She also points out other celebrities who she met.
”Elizabeth Taylor was always very nice when she came to visit, others were not,” she says.
Kiki Chambers worked at Neverland from 1991 to 2003. She got the job as a coincidence.
”I knew a man at a building company who worked at Neverland. I used to joke around with him, telling him that if they ever needed a maid they should call me. And they actually did.”
She was one of many maids who worked full time at the ranch. When she was hired, she was told not to look Michael Jackson in the eyes or take initiative to talk to him. Kiki Chamber’s is a very straight forward and talkative person though, so she had a hard time following the rules. She used to tell him jokes, and one time she thought that she had gone too far, but when others were fired, she was the one who always got to stay.
“One time he asked me why no one ever spoke to him. I then had to tell him that those were the rules we were given, but he didn’t understand why, he hadn’t actually made those rules,” she says.
She remembers the first years as happy and joyful. Michael Jackson used to love to play with the children who came to visit Neverland.
“He liked to laugh, he was open and happy,” she says.
But in 1993 Michael Jackson was accused of sexual molestation towards a boy named Jordan Chandler.
“After being accused, which I am sure he was not guilty of, it was like he changed. He wasn’t as happy anymore,” she says.
As time passed by, Kiki Chambers got a friendly relationship with Michael Jackson.
“He used to tell me that he could hear my laugh all the way across the house,” she says.
It sometimes happened that they, late at night, sat down in one of the rooms for longer conversations. He sometimes asked her for advice since there were so many people that wanted to be close to him and use his fame.
“He asked me if he could trust this person or this person. It was hard, it wasn’t my place to judge who he should be surrounding himself with,” she says.
It also started coming more and more doctors to visit Neverland. They gave Michael Jackson different kinds of prescripted medication. Kiki Chambers soon realized that something was very wrong. Michael Jackson could act normal one minute, just to be noticeable high on medication the next.
”It was hard. I was just a maid, but when was it my responsibility as a human being to do something? What could I do? I prayed to God: Why am I here?”
Everyone who was working close to Michael Jackson tried to keep this a secret since they knew what kind of scandal this would cause in the media. To Kiki Chambers, it was a hard thing to do.
“One night, one of my superiors told me that Michael Jackson had been given some medication. But something was very wrong, you could tell just by looking at him, and I got scared. After that, I told my superior that if this ever happens again, I will call 911, I don’t care what consequences it will give me. Because I knew that I could never live with not to have done anything if he died."
As a Christian she tried to affect Michael Jackson in a positive way. She gave him Christian books and wrote Biblical verses on the board in the kitchen, which he gave her credit for.
”I want people to know that Michael believed in God, it was no doubt about it,” she says.
One time, Michael Jackson and his crew went to do some errands down town, where Kiki Chambers’ Christian friend was working at a hotel She then asked Michael Jackson if he wanted to see him and he said yes.
”We started talking and when we were about to leave, my friend asked me if we could pray together. We all joined hands and he started to speak in tongues. In my mind I said to God: I really hope you know what you’re doing right now. When we left, a person from the crew asked about what had just happened, what language he was praying in. Michael then explained, completely natural, that my friend had been speaking in tongues, and then told them about what it means when you do that.”
When World Trade Center in New York was attacked, Michael Jackson got really shaken. He gathered all of the staff outside where they held hands.
”He asked me to pray to God. I was stunned, but he continued: Pray Kiki, do it. Inside, I prayed to God to help me and, now, I don’t even remember what I prayed.”
In the beginning of the years of 2000, Michael Jackson’s world started to fall more and more apart. Another boy, Gavin Arvizo, accused him of sexual molestation. Kiki Chambers is totally convinced that Michael Jackson is innocent to all the accusations and that the parents were after money.
”What parents leave their children for weeks and weeks at somebody else’s house? That was really irresponsible done of them. And the children got spoilt and manipulative. They asked us what it was going to be for dinner and then they demanded something else, just because. They made is work harder and harder and threatened us to get us fired if we didn’t serve them alcohol,” she say.
The following circus in the media made Michael Jackson depressed.
”He wondered why people called him Michael Jackson, that made him really upset and it was painful to him.”
Kiki Chambers describes Michael Jackson as a very complex person. She means that he was a really good business man, but on the other hand he would literally throw money at his so called friends. He was timid and shy, but could at the same time make big statues of himself.
”He wanted so badly to love and to be loved,” she says.
What she considered was most important to him, was his three children. Kiki Chambers says that he was a good father, even though he was struggling with his addiction to painkillers and medication.
“He loved his children, he sacrificed himself for them. He never had a childhood of his own, therefore it was very important to him how his children were raised. And that’s why he used to cover them up and never show their faces when they went outside.”
In 2003, Kiki Chambers left Neverland. The last time she met Michael Jackson was during the trial in 2005 where she was a witness.
”Michael wondered how it went, and I said it went good. But he then got told that it was not permitted to speak with the witnesses.”
After that she didn’t have any contact with him, even though she had friends who were still working in his staff. During that time, she prayed and hoped for him, but in June last year, the call that she feared for, suddenly came.
“It still hurts so much to talk about and I haven’t even been able to start grieving. I see his face in the newspapers and I read so many lies about him. I don’t know how to cope with all the feelings I have, but I pray to God and I know that He’s got everything in His hands now.”
