Free The Michael Jackson Tapes by Shmuley Boteach

himself to me and misrepresented himself to the world. He made me believe that his first priority was to help the world’s children and live a life of unequalled altruism. And while he may have believed that, in reality Michael could never fully overcome the gravitational pull of superstardom. More than anything else, Michael misrepresented himself to himself. He had two sides, the giver and the narcissist, but was blind to the latter.
    My relationship with Michael wasn’t quite finished, however. Summer came and my family was together on an RV trip. Frank called and said, “Michael asked me to call you. We can’t do the concert without you. You’re his closest friend, Shmuley. He wants you and the kids to be there. It just wouldn’t be the same otherwise.” I pulled off the highway to talk it over with my wife. I knew I had to decide right then and there. Thank God my wife was there. I wasn’t sure I had the power to resist the magnetic attraction of a superstar. My wife, who is the most wholesome person I know and who has a complete immunity to all
things involving fame and celebrity, helped me over the mountain and I decided that I would decline.
    I was Michael’s friend and rabbi, not his fan. My purpose was to redirect his life with a moral and spiritual foundation, not to clap when he moved his feet. I would not be a sycophant. I would never go back to our friendship unless I could influence him positively. I would not sit passively and watch his decline. I could never allow myself to be compromised in this way. I called my office and dictated the following message to be faxed to his personal assistant:
    Rabbi and Mrs. Shmuley Boteach thank Mr. Michael Jackson for his kind invitation to his thirtieth anniversary concert but regret that they will be unable to attend.
    In the end it was a painful but necessary moment. I was acknowledging that something about Michael was beyond redemption and that if I returned to his orbit I would sink too. I later explained to Frank that I was never the friend of Michael Jackson the superstar. I loved and cared for Michael Jackson the man. Since he had buried that side of himself, I was moving on. I wanted to go back to what I had been before Michael Jackson: a rabbi who tried to spread the glory of God rather than bask in the glow of a superstar.
His Demons
    There was a time when I felt Michael could redeem his life, and that I could be a strong, perfect, caring guide to help him. Many others thought they could play that role too—from his mother Katherine, to his first wife Lisa Marie Presley when he was coping with the 1993 allegations and his drug addiction, to Frank Cascio, whose devotion to Michael knew no end. But for all Michael’s strengths—his fierce determination, his pure talent and charisma, his patience, his innate gentleness and love of children—there were forces in his life that he didn’t want to overcome or didn’t have the strength to—especially his own hubris, his use of drugs, and the stone around his neck with the 1993 and then 2003 molestation charges.

Messiah Complex
    What most corrupted the life and career of Michael Jackson was his belief that he was different from ordinary folk—more elevated, more sensitive, more long-suffering—and thus not subject to rigid rules of right and wrong. His hubris knew no bounds. If you thought he was having too much plastic surgery, well, you could never understand the imaging needs of a superstar. And if you thought that sharing a bed with a child, however platonic, was morally deplorable, well, that too was because seeing it from your mortal vantage point could never enlighten you as to how the self-proclaimed “voice for the voiceless” saw it. While Michael could be forgiven for his naïve assumption that even hardened mass murderers have something good left in them, what is truly shocking is his belief that he could somehow have gotten