Features
'Lost boy' Jackson remembered sadly
Jennifer Chapman 27th June 2009
Michael Jackson
A lost boy was the one image that played over and over in the mind of Australian journalist Janise Beaumont following the news of Michael Jackson's death.
Ms Beaumont spent just an hour interviewing a 12-year-old Michael in Sydney when he was part of the Jackson 5.
What stayed with her most from that interview was Michael's “very sad eyes”.
He was also a very polite child and referred to Ms Beaumont as ma'am.
But he never smiled and came across “as a robot”.
“It was clear he was a boy that totally missed out on having a childhood.
“I'm not a world expert but my own view is that this Peter Pan mindset that he took on was in all probability about him trying to claw back his childhood.”
When media around the world spread the word the 50-year-old pop musician had died from a cardiac arrest an outpouring of emotion was blared across television sets, radios and online.
Ms Beaumont described Jackson's death as “heartbreaking” and “desperately sad”.
“The phrase that kept coming into my mind (yesterday) was a lost boy.
“I feel we all really need to think about how we treat our stars. We suck the life out of them.”
Ms Beaumont describes her interview with Jackson in her new book Charlie, At Last a Memoir.
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