These days, it’s not uncommon to see artists walk off stage when a fan runs up to them. Security gets called. Videos go viral. Fans get reminded of their place.
Michael Jackson was the opposite of that.
People who met him — at concerts, outside hotels, backstage — described the same thing every time. He didn’t just wave.
HE STOPPED. HE LOOKED AT YOU. HE EMBRACED PEOPLE GENTLY, TOOK THEIR GIFTS WITH GENUINE GRATITUDE, POSED FOR PHOTOS, AND TOLD THEM HE VALUED THEM.
Not as a crowd. As individuals.
He Treated Them With So Much Love
His vocal coach Seth Riggs described what happened before shows on the Bad World Tour. Critically ill children would arrive on stretchers, barely able to hold their heads up.
Michael would kneel down, press his face right next to theirs for a photograph, and give them a copy to keep.
He also made sure 400 tickets at every Bad Tour concert went to underprivileged children from local hospitals and orphanages.
He brought fans on stage during shows. When one woman fainted standing next to him, he quietly lifted her and carried her to a bodyguard while continuing to sing.
He Was An Absolute Sweetheart On Stage Compared To Artists Of This Era
HE COMPARED HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH FANS TO SOMETHING ALMOST SPIRITUAL — he said he couldn’t be angry at the people who came to him, couldn’t push them away, because what he had was given to him for a reason and it was meant to be shared.
He was the most famous human being on the planet.
And the people who actually got close to him walked away feeling like he genuinely cared whether they were okay.
That’s not something you fake for 40 years.