By the mid 2000s, Michael Jackson had been through something few people could imagine. Years of brutal headlines and a long, public trial had played out under a global spotlight that treated his every move as a scandal. In 2005 a jury cleared him of all charges, but the damage to his spirit was already done.
Worn down and wanting to disappear, Michael left America behind and went to live quietly in the Middle East. He was finally out of the glare, but the years of attacks had followed him inside. According to people who were close to him then, he had sunk into a deep and quiet despair, no longer sure of the one thing that had always been his: his music.
One small moment from those days says more than any interview ever could.
As the story has been told, Michael was riding in a car when one of his own songs came on the radio. He turned to the people with him, clearly stunned, and asked if they still played his music. He was not joking. He honestly did not know. The relentless noise of the previous years had convinced him that the world had moved on and forgotten him, that his bond with the public had been cut for good.
His friends had to gently set him straight. They told him his songs were still everywhere, playing on the radio and filling clubs around the world. He could hardly believe it.
If only he could have seen himself the way the rest of us always have:
Michael Jackson – You Are Not Alone (Official Video)
Because the truth was the opposite of what he feared. Every time Michael actually stepped outside, crowds surged toward him, screaming and reaching out for him, exactly as they always had. The headlines were loud, but the love was louder. The real fans had never gone anywhere.
It is a hard thing to sit with, that a man who gave the world so much joy could be made to feel so small and so forgotten. But there is comfort in how the story ends. The music he doubted is still playing today, long after the noise faded, and new listeners find it every single day.
Press play and remember what Michael could not always see. He was never, for one moment, alone.