Long before Michael Jackson became the King of Pop, women were already writing him letters claiming he had fathered their children.
It started back in the Jackson 5 days, when groupies would wait outside venues and hotel rooms, chasing the brothers and inventing stories about secret babies.
Michael couldn’t understand how someone could claim a child belonged to him when he had never even met them.
Michael Jackson Was Hunted By Crazy Fans
One letter in 1981 made his confusion even more real. A WOMAN WROTE TO MICHAEL, INSISTING HE WAS THE FATHER OF ONE OF HER TWINS.
He had never met her, never spoken to her, yet she kept writing, again and again, saying she loved him and asking how he could turn away from his “own flesh and blood.” The letters didn’t stop. They got worse.
Eventually, a package arrived at his home.
INSIDE WAS A PHOTO OF THE WOMAN, A GUN, AND A NOTE INSTRUCTING MICHAEL TO TAKE HIS OWN LIFE AT A SPECIFIC TIME.
She wrote that she planned to do the same, taking the child’s life first, so the three of them could finally be together forever in another life. Michael couldn’t ignore it any longer.
The family later learned the woman was placed in a psychiatric facility.
THAT NIGHTMARE BECAME THE SEED FOR “BILLIE JEAN.”
Michael always said there was no real Billie Jean, that she was a mix of every obsessed fan his brothers had dealt with over the years.
The Real Life Billie Jean Stalker
But the gun, the letters, and the chilling demand to die together were not fiction. They came straight from his own life.
The woman Billie Jean may be fictional, but the terror behind the story that gave rise to the song is chilling.
A song the whole world danced to was really Michael processing the fear he lived with in silence.