Al Malnik had been around plenty of famous people. But when the Miami businessman brought his family to stay with Michael Jackson, the thing he talked about afterward had nothing to do with fame.
Malnik is Bigi’s godfather. Bigi is Michael’s youngest son, Prince Michael II, born in 2002. Fans first knew him as Blanket, and today he goes by Bigi.
The two families got along easily, and the kids had a lot to do with it. Malnik has triplets, and they were about the same age as Michael’s two older children, Prince and Paris. Put five little ones together and you don’t need much of a plan.
“We would travel often with Michael and the family, going down to Acapulco or other family vacation spots,” Malnik told Haute Living.
Then came a stay at Neverland, Michael’s ranch in California.
For a houseful of children, it doesn’t get much better. The ranch had its own zoo and its own train, and Malnik’s kids got the tour from the best guides they could have asked for.
“The kids, of course, loved Neverland; they went around with Michael’s children and saw the zoo and rode the train,” he said.
The grown-ups were looked after too. Guests at Neverland stayed in bungalows, and the Malniks got the one that carried the name of Michael’s close friend, the movie star Elizabeth Taylor.
“The most important bungalow there is called the Elizabeth Taylor suite, which is where we stayed,” Malnik said.
On that very first night, the phone in the bungalow rang. Michael had set up a welcome, and the voice on the other end was Elizabeth Taylor’s.
“The first night, he had Elizabeth Taylor herself call me, welcoming me to her suite at Neverland Ranch!” Malnik remembered.
You’d think a call from a Hollywood legend would be the part of the trip the family brought up forever. It wasn’t what amazed them most.
What really got the Malniks was something you’d find in any ordinary house on any ordinary morning. It’s the chore parents ask for over and over, usually more than once before breakfast.
In Malnik’s words: “He liked to clean his own room and make his own bed, and he taught his kids to do that, too, much to our amazement.”
So the most famous entertainer in the world, on a ranch with a zoo and a train, was the one smoothing out his own sheets. And he didn’t stop with himself. Prince and Paris were expected to do the same.
Malnik’s word for it was amazement. Anybody who has ever stood in a child’s doorway pointing at an unmade bed will get why.
There’s a video on YouTube posted under the name Spencer Nicole Malnik, titled as a look back at Michael with her and her family, and it’s worth watching for a feel of the friendship Malnik described.
Michael Jackson and the Malnik family
Prince and Paris were little then, and Bigi was the baby of the house. Malnik’s triplets got to ride the train and see the animals, but they also got a close look at how Michael ran things at home.
And the part their dad remembered was a made bed.