Michael Jackson's Pepsi Commercial Shoot Still Haunts Director - Yahoo Music ! June 24th, 2014

[MJ TinkerBell]

The Yahoo Music Article:

Michael Jackson's Pepsi Commercial Shoot Still Haunts Director!
By Billy Johnson, Jr. - June 24, 2014 8:45 PM /Yahoo Music​

More than 30 years after Michael Jackson was burned on the set of a Pepsi-Cola commercial — and five years after Jackson's shocking death on June 25, 2009 — director Bob Giraldi finds it tough reflecting on the tragic event.

"I don't have fond memories of that shoot," Giraldi tells Yahoo Music. "It's not a moment that I like to remember. I've put it out of my repertoire when I think of working and being around Michael in his genius."

On Jan. 27, 1984, while taping a performance scene for the infamous Pepsi ad, an explosion caused Jackson's hair to catch fire, resulting in the superstar being hospitalized and treated for third-degree burns.

According to an Us Weekly report that ran less than a month after Jackson's death in 2009 (when the magazine acquired and released disturbing, previously unseen footage of the Pepsi accident), the singer was never quite the same after being set ablaze by pyrotechnics that day at Los Angeles's Shrine Auditorium. Us reported that Jackson's addiction issues (as well as his obsession with plastic surgery) began after he was prescribed several types of painkillers to ease the suffering from the burns on his scalp and body.

Giraldi, who also directed the music videos for Jackson's "Beat It" and the Paul McCartney collaboration "Say Say Say," says the "finger-pointing" that followed the Pepsi tragedy made an already horrible situation much worse. The accident signaled the end of Giraldi's working relationship with Jackson, who had scored one of the biggest celebrity product endorsement deals at the time.

Before the incident, Giraldi remembers other unrelated issues on the commercial's set. The director, who had helmed spots for McDonald's, Diet-Rite Cola, and Almond Joy, recalls tension between the talent and executives. He suspected that corporate demands on the artists were overwhelming, and the pressures ultimately had an impact on the creative.

Jackson's interaction with a young Alfonso Ribeiro (dressed like Jackson) and a group of kids dancing in the street did not capture the emotion that Giraldi had been aiming for, he says today. "None of that really had a pureness to it as the videos that I did with [Michael] and Paul McCartney, and that has to do with the pressure and the tension of advertising commercial sets and clients and expectations."

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Giraldi adds he and Jackson remained cordial over the years. "[We saw] each other since at affairs and other occasions, just in passing, and greeted each other with hugs," he recalls. And not all of Giraldi's memories of the Pepsi incident are sad ones.

"One of my fondest memories of him was on the set of Pepsi-Cola commercial when the brothers were downstairs in the dressing room," Giraldi recalls. "While I was talking to Jermaine and some of the brothers, we all heard a blood-curdling scream and we thought, 'Oh my God, someone has gotten to Michael, or got at him.' We all ran to where the scream was coming from. It was coming from bathroom downstairs in the dressing room area... He had dropped his white glove into the toilet, and was screaming for someone to please get it out of there. We all looked at each other like, 'Who’s going to be the schmuck to go down and pick out his glove in a bowl?' And it was a prop guy who was smart enough to come in with a wire and pick it up. I’ll never forget that moment, which shows you how even the biggest of superstars have to use the bathroom."

Giraldi, who has worked on set with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, says Jackson was by far the nicest. "My relationship with Michael was kind and gentle," he says. "There was a kindness and gentleness that I don't usually see in the performers. I've done this for 40 years and I've worked with a lot of so-called self-important people, and it seems that Michael still remains the number-one celebrity that I've ever worked with yet."

The Source:
https://music.yahoo.com/blogs/music...al-shoot-still-haunts-director-004515504.html​

 

[Doggone]

Sometimes I really wonder how Michael would have been if his hair didn't catch fire... Or if he hadn't vitiligo. Would he be a different person? That guy had bad luck... He had lupus, vitiligo and his hair was on fire. I feel so sorry for him... :sad:

 

[tricia70]

It was such a shame really. He had never touched the stuff, was adamantly against it. And then this happens. So many bad things happened to him health wise after this incident. Darn

 

[wendijane]

Who was in control of the pyrotechnics that day? they should have took more precautions. They knew Michael wore hair gel,. Where they ever fired?

 

[#MJforever57]

It was said that Michael came down to early i don't know how true that is or if pyrotechnics went off too early.

I ask myself that question all the time what if Michael didn't get burn? The first thing that came to mind no drugs Michael wouldn't have touch them.

 

[#MJforever57]

Who was in control of the pyrotechnics that day? they should have took more precautions. They knew Michael wore hair gel,. Where they ever fired?

That a good question that might could have been the reason Michael hair caught on fire because of the gel.

 

[wendijane]

 

[barbee0715]

No. That was actually a very bad (and not funny) joke back in the day. I'm glad he's showing remorse because more and more I think he's pretty responsible for the negligence of the crew.
I used to think this was a freak accident but I just read an interview where he said he substituted the rubber knife in Beat It for a real one. And didn't tell them.
Who does that??

 

[PoP]

As much as I couldn't care less about Pepsi anymore, but what I'm hearing Giraldi must've been really scared for Michael's incident and I don't understand why people believe that incident is the reason why Michael took pain medications, that's never the real reason at all. NONE!

 

[#MJforever57]

As much as I couldn't care less about Pepsi anymore, but what I'm hearing Giraldi must've been really scared for Michael's incident and I don't understand why people believe that incident is the reason why Michael took pain medications, that's never the real reason at all. NONE!

This is the only reason i can see why Michael started to take the pain medications because of the burn are you saying there is another reason? If so explain.

 

[#MJforever57]

No. That was actually a very bad (and not funny) joke back in the day. I'm glad he's showing remorse because more and more I think he's pretty responsible for the negligence of the crew.
I used to think this was a freak accident but I just read an interview where he said he substituted the rubber knife in Beat It for a real one. And didn't tell them.
Who does that??

That was a real knife those guys had i didn't know that.

 

[wendijane]

Who had a real knife ? Sorry that just flew past me :better:



Edit~wow ..... :thinking: ...

 

[PoP]

This is the only reason i can see why Michael started to take the pain medications because of the burn are you saying there is another reason? If so explain.

Well why they keep saying that as an addiction to Michael?

 

[wendijane]

Well why they keep saying that as an addiction to Michael?

I strongly believe that Michael was only addicted to meds to try to kill the pain which he had to struggle with for the rest of his life .A pain which made it hard to Sleep, To breathe, to live. A pain which echoed the rest of his life. Which seems COULD have been prevented by the above person and crew . So neglect I feel was for sure on that set that day Pop :better:. I also believe it was more than likely caused by hair products because that's just common sense to me. Who else sees it that way? As for the knife, I don't know about that. It just make a strongly strange situation stronger, and gives even more reason to be looked into.

 

[PoP]

I strongly believe that Michael was only addicted to meds to try to kill the pain which he had to struggle with for the rest of his life .A pain which made it hard to Sleep, To breathe, to live. A pain which echoed the rest of his life. Which seems COULD have been prevented by the above person and crew . So neglect I feel was for sure on that set that day Pop :better:. I also believe it was more than likely caused by hair products because that's just common sense to me. Who else sees it that way? As for the knife, I don't know about that. It just make a strongly strange situation stronger, and gives even more reason to be looked into.

Well I do know he's been in pain and being ansomniac for years because of it and he's trying to get those subdued and they just wannna take the addiction seriously like he's a junkie and we all know he's no junkie which is why they wanna take it the wrong way. I can believe that he did use some hair products which is flammable that started it all. I just get sick and tired of hearing "addiction" is all.

 

[Petrarose]

Guys please any fire going to your hair is going to burn out your hair whether you use hair jell or not. All burn victims who have the fire moving to their heads will have their hair burnt, so blaming some jell makes no sense. I always heard it was a problem with timing which caused the problem and that seems a better explanation than hair jell.

I guess people like in the article are taking pieces out of context from the trial and saying he was addicted due to the burn, but there is no evidence that Michael had an addiction in the 80's when the burn took place. It seems more likely that medication taken for the restructuring in the 90s caused a problem.

 

[Love.him]

Michael was told to take longer going down the stairs by Giraldi and it is then that his hair caught fire. It's either in Michael's autobio or the Jackson Dreams film from the 90s. So it was ufortunately the director's fault.

It was said that Michael came down to early i don't know how true that is or if pyrotechnics went off too early.

I ask myself that question all the time what if Michael didn't get burn? The first thing that came to mind no drugs Michael wouldn't have touch them.

 

[wendijane]

Some hair gels are extremely flammable. Technically, products can make your hair burn faster than it normally would because of the oils and polymers in them.

 

[Petrarose]

Some hair gels are extremely flammable. Technically, products can make your hair burn faster than it normally would because of the oils and polymers in them.

But we are not talking about faster but cause. True it could make it burn faster, but the hair itself without the gell will burn out when the fire hits it. That is the point, so the fault is not the jell but the timing or whoever told Michael to take his time coming down. Another example is that our clothes can be flamable, but we can't blame the clothes for causing the burn if a flame is directed at our body. Most humans are clothed. If I have cream on my arm, my arm will burn regardless of the cream, if the fire gets to my flesh. Ask people who used to "press" their hair before, and they will tell you how quickly a too hot iron can burn out all the hair on the hot comb. It happens that quickly without any jell, and we are talking abut a flame here.

 

[#MJforever57]

Guys please any fire going to your hair is going to burn out your hair whether you use hair jell or not. All burn victims who have the fire moving to their heads will have their hair burnt, so blaming some jell makes no sense. I always heard it was a problem with timing which caused the problem and that seems a better explanation than hair jell.

I guess people like in the article are taking pieces out of context from the trial and saying he was addicted due to the burn, but there is no evidence that Michael had an addiction in the 80's when the burn took place. It seems more likely that medication taken for the restructuring in the 90s caused a problem.

That true you hair will burn without jell in it. Michael did say in his book that their told him he was going down to early so Michael did wait. That why i couldn't understand why ppls were saying that Michael was addict to drugs because i didn't see any evidence in the 80's that Michael was either you are right.

It was after the burn that Michael started to take medication. And i agree after the 90's it did become a problem for Michael. That burn change Michael life forever.

 

[#MJforever57]

Michael was told to take longer going down the stairs by Giraldi and it is then that his hair caught fire. It's either in Michael's autobio or the Jackson Dreams film from the 90s. So it was ufortunately the director's fault.

No we can't blame anybody here we don't know what really happen other then what we have read. I agree it is unfortunately that this happen to Michael. Michael did say in his autobio that he was told he was going down to early so he did wait. After he was going down is show how his hair got caught on fire and we know the story from there.