“Very odd”: George Michael’s bizarre meeting with Michael Jackson that ruined a charity song
Say what you want: George Michael really was the pop star with the ultimate heart of gold, and nothing could ever take that away from him.
This was a man who quietly donated millions of his earnings to countless charitable causes near and far – it didn’t matter if he didn’t know the person or wasn’t personally affected: his mantra was that if he saw someone in need and was moved by their cause, he would do everything in his power to help them… It was a truly commendable outlook.
Less commendable, for a whole host of reasons, was Michael Jackson. Of course, there was no denying the massive monetary values he gave to charities, but something about his work was always done with the flash of the cameras in mind, the stunts, and the publicity. By comparison, while the British pop star could have his moments, he was less inclined to give in the spotlight.
But nevertheless, it wasn’t an entirely unreasonable idea for him to think that combining forces with the King of Pop could really do some philanthropic good in the world. Particularly in the height of the moment they found themselves in, when apartheid was entrenching South Africa, Michael was a man on a mission, and felt that Jackson was the perfect candidate to help him.
So he and his manager set off to Jackson’s sprawling home in Encino, Los Angeles, in the hopes that the star could be convinced to lend his voice to an anti-apartheid charity single. How foolish their ambitions turned out to be. “Michael Jackson, I had a very odd meeting with, which convinced me that that’s not going to happen,” Michael recalled with a grimace.
The main reason for this was a rather large and overt physical cue which no one could have ignored. “We were shown into this waiting room,” Michael said, which “was, as you can imagine, just absolutely jammed with gold records – the largest of which unfortunately happened to be a huge one in the shape of South Africa,” he revealed, rather unbelievably. “So I thought I was in trouble”.
That could well have been the understatement of the century, but with things already seeming bad, they only continued to get worse. The delegates had the meeting, but “in that time, Michael Jackson never once looked at me. Not once. He was talking to me, but addressing my manager and his manager. But I was sitting next to him!”, the former Wham! star explained.
Perhaps needless to say, the single never went ahead. No one can discredit Michael’s efforts towards trying to advance the cause, but ultimately, “that didn’t happen because Michael didn’t want anything political going on”. It was the final hammer blow to his dreams, but also undeniably a disappointing end to what could have really been a force for good.
As much as Michael may have drawn the short straw in that situation, at least he is the one whose legacy is not tainted by a number of less-than-charitable realities behind the philanthropic veneer. At the end of the day, Jackson should have listened to his own lyrics: “If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change.”
