Michael Jackson wrote hundreds of songs. Almost all of them were released, promoted, toured, and turned into videos. One was not. He wrote it for a single person, performed it in front of her exactly once, and never put out a studio version in his lifetime. The song is called “Elizabeth, I Love You.” And the woman it was written for had never sung professionally in her life.
She was Elizabeth Taylor — the biggest film star of her generation, twice an Oscar winner, and Michael Jackson’s closest friend on earth.
The date was 16 February 1997, at a television special celebrating her 65th birthday, with proceeds going to the fight against AIDS. It was also Michael’s first public appearance since the birth of his son Prince — and Elizabeth was that child’s godmother. He walked out and sang her a song nobody had ever heard, with no pyrotechnics, no dancers, and no effects—just him and the words.
Michael Jackson – Elizabeth, I Love You | Full Performance, 1997 (Remastered)
To understand why it mattered, you have to know how the friendship started — because it began with her walking out of one of his concerts.
Michael had sent Taylor a set of VIP tickets. When she arrived, her seat was so far from the stage that she could barely see or hear anything, so she got up and left. Michael spent the rest of that show thinking Elizabeth Taylor was out there watching me. When he found out afterward that she had gone, he rang her the next day, almost in tears. She explained she had left because of the seats, not the performance. What was meant to be a short apology turned into a three-hour phone call. A few months later she came for tea, and he brought his chimpanzee Bubbles along. She did not mind in the slightest — she loved animals too.
That was the beginning of a friendship that lasted more than a quarter of a century.
Elizabeth Taylor Reveals Michael Jackson’s DARKEST Private Moments!! | thdetailsil.
What bound them together was something almost nobody else on earth could offer either of them. Neither of them had ever had a childhood. She became a global star at 12 with National Velvet. He became one at eight with the Jackson 5. Taylor explained it plainly to Barbara Walters in 1997: “One of the reasons I think Michael Jackson and I are so close is because neither one of us had a childhood, and we can relate to that.”
That is exactly what the song is about. The lyrics talk about a child star in Hollywood, about being sold grace and beauty and talent, and about people who “robbed you of your childhood, took your youth and sold it for gold.” He calls her a survivor who outlasted everyone who started with her. He is not writing about a film career. He is writing about the only other person who knew what his own life had been like.
She protected him fiercely for the rest of her life. She told Barbara Walters in 2002: “He has been hurt by so many people. I think I’m the only person in his life that has not betrayed him.” He described her the same way: “I’ve met a lot of people in my life, and very few are real, real friends. Elizabeth is one of the most loyal, loving, caring people that I know.”
She once summed up the whole thing better than any biographer has. “Michael and I love each other, like a brother and sister.”
He sang that song for her once, in a room, on her birthday. Then he never sang it again.