Jermaine Jackson spent his childhood as one of Michael’s big brothers, singing right beside him in the Jackson 5. In 2011 he sat down with NPR to tell the small family stories most people never hear, the kind only a brother would know.
Back then the family lived in Gary, Indiana, a hard-working steel town just outside Chicago where money was tight and the house was small. The five brothers shared one bedroom and slept in triple bunk beds. Nobody had much, but little Michael always found a way to keep busy and keep the other kids entertained.
One of his ideas was candy.
He would buy it at the corner store and sell it to the other kids around the neighborhood. A little boy with his own little shop. Jermaine laughs about it now, and he says it was Michael all over. “Michael’s just being a kid, very mischievous and just all over the place,” he told NPR.
The problem was the way he priced it.
Michael sold the candy at cost. He charged the other kids the exact same price he had paid at the store, so the business never earned him a single cent. “Even when he sold it he would sell it for the same price he bought it for,” Jermaine said.
A boy with a candy stand who would not mark anything up. He just liked having something to hand the other kids, and the fun of it mattered more to him than the money. That was the whole point for him.
That is when their father stepped in. Joe Jackson managed the boys and had a good eye for talent and effort, and when he heard how the candy was selling, he gave his son a warm bit of fatherly advice. “So my father said stick to music because you’re not making any profit,” Jermaine said.
It is one of those little stories that tells you who Michael was long before the world knew his name. The giving was there from the very start, back when his whole audience was a handful of kids on the block.
You can hear Jermaine tell it himself, in his own voice, in the full NPR conversation.
Jermaine Jackson telling the candy story on NPR (audio and full transcript)
Listen to Jermaine tell the candy story on NPR
Jermaine shared the memory while promoting his book about his brother, “You Are Not Alone: Michael, Through a Brother’s Eyes,” which came out that September. The whole interview is full of moments like this one, warm and ordinary and a little surprising.
He summed up those early years in Gary in one simple line. “We grew up loving each other and very, very close,” he said.
The candy stand never turned a profit. But Joe got his wish. Michael stuck to music.