‘HE HAS A THING FOR KIDS’
Inside Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley’s bizarre ‘phoney’ marriage which ‘paedo’ superstar used to cover up child abuse
ONE year after the first of many child sexual abuse allegations, Michael Jackson did something that stunned the world: He married Lisa Marie Presley.
The King of Pop’s unlikely union with Elvis Presley's daughter came as Jackson was facing unprecedented scrutiny about his private life — namely, his string of close friendships with little boys.
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While Jackson had brief romances with actresses Tatum O’Neal and Brooke Shields in the late 1970s and early 80s, by the mid-80s his romantic relationships appeared non-existent.
But it was during this time Jackson was regularly seen in public with a succession of pre-teen male companions.
Among them Wade Robson, James Safechuck and Jordan Chandler, all of whom would go on to accuse Jackson of molesting them.
It was his relationship with Chandler that would turn the speculation about Jackson’s close friendships with young boys into a media storm.
In 1993, Jordan's father accused Jackson of molesting him, claiming he revealed the details of their sexual encounters while under the influence of drugs during a dental procedure.
That case was settled out of court as the Chandlers receiving a reported $22 million.
But it meant the spotlight was firmly on Jackson’s unusual personal life.
“I remember Michael saying to me that he’s going to have to have these public relationships with women, so that people don’t think anything,” James Safechuck reveals in the harrowing Channel 4 documentary Leaving Neverland.
“He would always say that he’d have to go get married at some point, but that it wouldn’t mean anything.”
A HASTY WEDDING
On May 26, 1994, one year after the Chandler sex abuse case was settled, Jackson and Presley wed at a ceremony in the Dominican Republic.
They’d first met in 1974, when Jackson was 16 and Presley was six, and had struck up a friendship as adults in 1992, speaking on the phone regularly since then.
Despite their long friendship, at the time of their wedding neither the press nor public was aware that the pair even knew each other.
The wedding was kept secret for two months until Presley confirmed the union in a statement declaring:
“I am very much in love with Michael, I dedicate my life to being his wife.
“I understand and support him. We both look forward to raising a family and living happy, healthy lives together. We hope friends and fans will understand and respect our privacy.”
Presley was already the mother of two young children, a five-year-old daughter and 18-month-old son.
She had divorced their father, musician Danny Keogh, just 20 days before she and Jackson married.
Jackson had always been guarded about his private life, complaining of constant tabloid intrusion, but all that changed when he had a wife.
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A VERY PUBLIC COUPLE
They first appeared on TV together at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards, their brief appearance on stage apparently serving solely as a chance to parade their relationship to the public.
“Just think — nobody thought this would last,” Jackson said as he gestured to his wife of three months, before they wrapped their arms around each other and locked lips.
From there, the pair courted the media, sitting down with journalist Diane Sawyer in June 1995 for a lengthy televised interview.
The questions were confronting: Sawyer, clearly incredulous, was upfront with Jackson about his child sex abuse allegations.
She asked: “What is a 36-year-old man doing sleeping with a 12-year-old boy — or a series of them?”
He replied: “I’ve never invited anyone into my bed — ever. Children love me; they follow me.”
Presley defended her husband — saying she’d seen the children he surrounded himself with.
She said: “They don’t even let him go to the bathroom without running in there with him … when he jumps in the bed, I’m even out. He jumps in there with them.”
Asked if she would let her own son do that, Presley added: “If I didn’t know Michael, no way.
“But I happen to know who he is and what he is, and I know that he’s not like that. I know that he has a thing for children.”
And quizzed on their sex life she added: “Do we have sex? Yes, yes, yes.”
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NAKED MUSIC VIDEO
Their public displays of affection even extended into Jackson’s music career.
The video for his 1995 single You Are Not Alone - penned by R Kelly - was inexplicably filled with scenes of the couple lounging together naked.
Presley filed for divorce in early 1996, citing “irreconcilable differences” and noting in her filing that they had separated in December 1995, shortly after Jackson had been hospitalised after a collapse.
As part of the settlement, Presley received ten per cent of the royalties from Jackson’s greatest hits collection HIStory, which featured the single You Are Not Alone.
Despite their split, the pair were spotted together throughout 1997 and 1998 and she travelled with him on tour and spent her birthday with him.
Jackson then wed longtime friend Debbie Rowe in November 1996 in Sydney while on the Australian leg of his HIStory world tour.
Their even more unconventional union lasted just three years, during which time Rowe gave birth to Jackson’s two eldest children, Prince and Paris.
In 2003, Lisa Marie insisted their marriage was genuine — if unorthodox.
She sat down again with Sawyer, eight years on from the car crash interview soon after the wedding.
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She said: "It’s unfortunate that not a lot of people know who he really is because he doesn’t let anybody see it.
"He has an idea of how he should represent himself to the public which he thinks works for him, which is that sort of meek, victim, quiet thing that he does,” Presley said.
“He wants to lock into you and he wants to intrigue you and capture you, and whatever he wants to do with you, he can do it. He’s very capable of doing that.
“I fell in love with him, I did. Everything I said was the truth.”
A version of this article first appeared on
The official music video for Michael Jackson's number 1 hit You Are Not Alone
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Lisa Marie Presley opens her heart about the high and lows of her marriage to King of Pop Michael Jackson
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