Halloween was a big deal in the Jackson house. Maybe bigger than you would guess.
Years later, Michael’s son Prince sat down for an interview and explained why. For him and his brother and sister, Halloween was “that one day out of the year where we got to go out with my dad to some family friend’s houses.” Think about that for a second. For most kids, trick-or-treating is just another fall night. For Michael’s children, it was the one evening they got to be out in the world like everybody else.
Prince had a sweet reason for loving it so much. Halloween, he said, was one of the few times when “it’s normal for everybody to wear masks.” So the family blended right in. Nobody looked twice.
They would go door to door at friends’ homes and fill their bags like any other kids. And every year, Prince says, the same thing happened to him. He ate so much candy he made himself sick. He laughed while telling it, remembering “getting so sick just trying to eat as much of the candy as I could.”
But here’s the twist the kids never expected.
When they got back home with their full bags, Michael already had a plan. He was a careful dad, and he wanted to keep them safe. So he did something with all that trick-or-treat candy that surprised them every single year.
What was it? That’s the part worth hearing from Prince himself.
The video below is a full episode, so look for the stretch where Prince talks about Halloween and the candy.
Michael’s son Prince telling the family Halloween story
Watch that part to see Prince’s face as he describes it, and to hear exactly what his dad handed the kids in place of the candy they had collected.
It’s a small thing. But it says so much about the kind of father Michael was at home, far away from the stage and the crowds.