There was a pool table in the den of the house where Kyle Richards grew up. When she was a little girl, the lead singer of the Jackson 5 gave her a dance lesson on top of it.
Kyle told the story in 2017 on “The Tomorrow Show,” in a long sit-down interview posted on the show’s own YouTube channel. Most people know her today from “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.” Fans who grew up in the 1970s may remember her as a child actress on “Little House on the Prairie” and in the 1978 movie “Halloween.”
Michael came into her life through her big sister. Kathy Hilton met Michael when she was 13 and went to high school with him, Bravo reported in 2017. Before long the friendship took in both families.
“My sister Kathy was very close, so we became like family with them, with the Jacksons,” Kyle said. “Michael and the whole family, La Toya, Janet, all of them, still to this day.” According to Bravo, the Jackson kids were often at the Richards house, and the two families spent Christmas together over the years.
Kyle’s stories from back then start at the roller rink. “When we were kids, we would go to the roller rink and he would hold my hand and he would get so shy and embarrassed,” she said. Then she showed what he did the moment people spotted him. “He would go like this,” she said, acting out how he’d let go of her hand.
The fans were the problem, not her. “He would get so stressed with everybody coming up to him,” Kyle said. “It was the Jackson 5 then.” She called him “the most loving, sweet, gentle, kind soul I’ve maybe ever met.” Back at the house, there was the pool table in the den.
So what did he teach her up there?
It was the Robot. “When I was a little girl I remember he taught me how to do the Robot standing on a pool table in the den in my house,” Kyle said.
That was Michael’s own move in those years. In the fall of 1973 he did the Robot during “Dancing Machine” on “Soul Train,” and the cameras caught all of it. The song went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1974. So the little girl in the den learned it from the same Michael who danced it on “Soul Train.”
Kyle tells it all herself. Watch her hands when she gets to the roller rink.
Kyle Richards remembers Michael on “The Tomorrow Show”
This is the full interview from the show’s official channel. The Michael part starts at about 53:38, and she gets to the pool table at about 54:49.
Years later, Kyle saw another side of him. “He was an amazing father with his kids,” she said.
Michael let her take Paris and Prince to the movies, with bodyguards along. Before they left, he told his kids, “You’re going to be fine, you’re going with Auntie Kyle.” She remembers him getting his daughter ready himself, putting on her little shoes and her sweater. “Just the sweetest, kindest man, such a great father,” she said.
At the theater, Kyle asked the kids what they wanted. Paris asked, “Can I have a Sprite?” But she had to call her dad first. “Is it okay if I have a Sprite, is it okay if I have Skittles?” Kyle remembers her asking him on the phone. She tells that part at about 55:49. Even at the movies with Auntie Kyle, the Sprite had to go through Dad.