Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (20 page)

Margaux Hemingway

At the time, Ruth Joanna Coffine, a Torontobased journalist, was attempting to write a book
about the dysfunctional O'Neal family. She eventually abandoned the project, but not before completing a chapter devoted to the "Michael/Tatum affair,"
which she described like this:

"Michael was a virgin when he met Tatum, and
a virgin when he left her," Coffine claimed.
"There are two reasons Michael Jackson refuses
to have sex with a girl in spite of literally hundreds of offers, most often from
white girls. First, he's afraid of sex. His mother, Katherine, taught him it's a
nasty thing to indulge in. Secondly, he doesn't give a damn for it. When his
interest eventually surfaces, it might not even be a girl that Michael is attracted to, and I don't mean an older woman either. Tatum was ripe for the plucking, and stunningly beautiful. Her soft blonde hair and `bassinet pink skin' was
desired by every Lothario in Hollywood who had a Lolita fantasy. I really feel
Michael could have seduced her-certainly one of his brothers would have
gone for her-but Michael is, if you can believe him (and I don't), saving it
`until the right woman comes along.' Yeah, right!"

Tatum was known as a "disco baby," dancing the night away at clubs, with
older friends: the far more sophisticated Bianca Jagger, Cher, or Margaux
Hemingway.

"Tatum was younger than Michael," Margaux once said. "In terms of
experience, Michael seemed as naive as a nine-year-old girl, whereas Tatum
talked like she had a track record to match that of Jayne Mansfield."

The faux romance between Michael and Tatum ended when he invited her
to the premiere in New York of The Wiz, in which he'd been cast as the
Scarecrow. Michael wanted to show up with "arm candy"-in this case,
Tatum-and asked her to go with him. Tatum claimed that her talent agency protested violently, telling her, "You can't go to a premiere with a nigger."
Tatum turned Michael down, and he was so insulted he would go for months
without speaking to her again.

Michael's relationship with Tatum had begun impulsively and it eventually flickered out. However, in 1980, he would write the song, "She's Out of My
Life." It was said to have been inspired by his so-called love affair with Tatum.

In the years ahead, Tatum had an outing or two with Michael and that was
that. But she resurfaced in his life in 2003 when she went public to denyonce again-Michael's seduction claims. In a documentary, Living With
Michael Jackson, Michael told Martin Bashir, a British journalist, that Tatum
attempted to bed him, but he couldn't go through with it because he was overcome with shyness. Jackson claimed, "She told me to go over and lie on the
bed. I lay on the bed and she slowly walked over, and she touched the button
on my shirt to open it."

In the interview, aired on both British and American television, Michael
said he covered his face with his hands and wouldn't let them down. "She just
walked away," Michael said. "I was afraid." Tatum lashed back, claiming
"Michael has a vivid imagination. Michael did come over to my house when
my father was home, but at twelve years old, there was no way I was capable
of being as mature or as sophisticated as he claimed I was."

Michael's encounters with Tatum were mild compared to other rumors
sweeping the nation. Another faux romance. Rumors even made the headlines
that Michael was going to undergo a sex change operation and become the
"bride" of Clifton Davis. These allegations first appeared in Jet magazine.

Davis was a most unlikely "husband" for a future transgendered Michael.
Born in Chicago at the close of World War II, Davis is familiar to TV addicts
who saw him in the lead role in Thats My Mama in the 1970s and on Amen
in the 1980s. He won a Tony Award for Best Actor in 1972 on Broadway for
his performance in a musical version of Two Gentlemen of Verona. He was
also a songwriter, writing The Jackson 5 hit, "Never Can Say Goodbye."

An ordained Seventh Day Adventist Church minister, Davis was astonished to be linked with Michael in a rumored homosexual relationship.

Marlon Brando, who always had his ear tuned to a good rumor, said, "If
you're going to tell a lie, make it a big one. Whoever started this rumor wasn't satisfied with a potential same-sex marriage. They had to go all out and
throw in the sex change. In a way, the rumor had a strange kind of logic. Davis
is straight. If he ever were to marry Michael, he would insist that our friend
transform himself into a woman."

Michael was unaware of the rumor until one afternoon on Hollywood
Boulevard when he was casually browsing through a record store. One young
man, perhaps no more than fifteen, rushed up to him: "Please, don't cut it off! Don't become a girl."

Without an explanation, the young man then ran screaming from the store.
Later that night, Michael learned of the rumor linking him with Davis and the
sex-change operation.

At the time, Michael had never met Davis. That meeting came later, in Las
Vegas, when Davis, accompanied by Leslie Uggams, came backstage to congratulate Diana Ross on her spectacular appearance at Caesars Palace. Davis
shook Michael's hand.

Unlike Michael, Davis was confident in his own sexuality and could
regard the rumors with a certain detachment after his initial astonishment.
"Michael," he said at the time of their initial meeting, firmly shaking his hand,
"I think you'd make an ugly girl. You really don't have to go to such an
extreme to have me become your husband." He laughed at the absurdity of it
all.

"I am not a homo," Michael announced heatedly to Ross, Uggams, and
Davis.

"We're all God's children," Davis said. "Be what you want to be."

"There's nothing gay about me!" Michael was overheard saying.

In the years to come, much of the world would disagree with Michael's
assessment of his sexual preference and label him gay whether he was or not.

Although rumors about the sex change and his upcoming "marriage" to
Davis eventually died their predictable death, the gay charges would remain
forever.

In the political correctness battle, Michael lost the first round when he told
one reporter for the Los Angeles Times that he found "homosexuality disgusting, and it's completely against my religion."

Being a homosexual himself, the reporter was immediately offended.

Some officials at Epic were horrified as well. Market surveys had shown
that homosexual men and women formed one of the largest blocs of record
buyers. The day he pronounced homosexuality disgusting, thousands of gay
men agreed to boycott any of his future records. Public relations men in the
record business apparently got to Michael, warning him "to cool it."

In subsequent statements to the press, he toned down his inflammatory
rhetoric. "I am well aware that plenty of my fans are gay, and I appreciate that.
I am not bothered by their choice of lifestyle. However, such a lifestyle is not
suitable for me-I'm not gay! And that's that! I know the media will print
what they will, but when they print that I'm gay, they are lying to the
American public. There's not even the slightest gay streak in me. Just because
I have a high, soft voice doesn't mean I'm gay. Millions of men throughout
the world have soft, high voices-and aren't gay but married with children."

At times throughout his career, Michael seemed sensitive about his speak ing voice. Naturally, its high pitch inspired
more rumors, one being that he took sex hormones to heighten the pitch of his voice, if such
a thing were possible. Again, these rumorsperhaps accurately-were vehemently denied.
"What people spreading those rumors were
really saying," said an executive at Epic, "is that
Michael is not a real man."

Clifton Davis

Like many Jehovah's Witnesses, Katherine
herself was a homophobe. "I go nuts when I
hear people calling my son, Michael, gay. He is
not! A mother knows. He follows the teachings
of our church which condemns the homosexual
life. Michael reads his Bible every night. In it he
reads that homosexuality is a sin against God's
wishes. Michael does not disobey the will of
God."

These protestations fell on deaf ears. Hundreds upon hundreds of fans
stopped buying Michael's records. "How could I have boyfriend fantasies
about him any more?" asked Alexis Philip, who was the president of
Michael's fan club in one of its Ohio branches. "I was shocked to learn that he
wanted to have a vagina instead of a dick-that's one of the most sickening
things I have ever heard in my life. Before I learned the truth, I used to think
Michael was a great singer. Today if I hear his voice on the radio, I cut off the
station. I have also urged my girlfriends never to buy another Michael Jackson
record."

Confronting a member of the press in Los Angeles, Michael faced a barrage of questions, all of which dealt with the gay issue. "I am not gay!" he shot
back angrily, a denial he was repeating more and more. "I'm not a homo. Not
in the least. People make up stories claiming I'm gay just to sell papers. The
idea of me having sex with men is absurd. I would never do that. I refuse to
cheapen myself like that. Just because I'm not seen in public with a lot of girlfriends doesn't mean that I don't have them. But I like to keep my private life
private. I believe in protecting the privacy of the young girls I date."

The biographer, J. Randy Taraborrelli, once wrote: "Michael Jackson
would never allow himself to have homosexual relationships, even if he did
have feelings for other men. He is much too puritanical, a result of his religious background."

Of course, no one could ever make such a statement about another human
being without inviting ridicule. As one more astute journalist put it, "We can
never know what is going on inside the heart of another human being. We can't share their dreams and desires. Some people are homosexuals and
haven't even faced up to it. It is foolish for one person to claim that another
person does not have homosexual desires. How could we possibly know that?
I've led a completely straight life all my years except for one or two very early
and very tentative experiences with another boy when I was fourteen. It was
nothing, really. But every few weeks or so, I ask myself if I'm not a secret
homosexual. But I try to wipe it from my mind because I don't want to go
there."

One night Michael Bennett and playwright James Kirkwood were discussing the casting of a Broadway musical, A Chorus Line, in a bar at the
Astor Colonnade in New York. Kirkwood was the first to suggest Michael for
one of the roles, and Bennett, after thinking it over for a while, finally agreed.

When the role was offered to Michael, he was thrilled but finally decided
not to take the part of a dancer, who at the show's climax, reveals himself to
be gay, with all the trials and controversies that his sexual preference has cost
him. Michael's reason for turning down the role was "because people will
think I'm actually gay myself-and not just playing the part of a gay in a
musical." What Michael didn't seem to realize was that thousands of people
were beginning to think he was gay whether he played gay on the stage or not.

The press speculation about Michael's alleged homosexuality began to
reach unprecedented heights for an entertainer, a situation that would "become
nuclear," as Kirkwood put it, in the years ahead.

In a cover story for Time magazine, Jack Cocks wrote that Michael's
"high-flying tenor makes him sound like the lead in some funked-up boys
choir, even as the sexual dynamism irradiating from the arch of his dancing
challenges government standards for nuclear meltdown. His lithe frame, fivefathom eyes, and long lashes might be threatening if Jackson gave, even for a
second, the impression that he is obtainable. But the audience's sense of his
sensuality becomes quite deliberately tangled up with the mirror image of his
life. Undeniably sexy. Absolutely safe. Eroticism at arm's length."

Michael spoke candidly to his vocal coach, Seth Riggs, about the popular
conception that he was gay. "The other day a big, tall, blond, nice-looking fellow came up to me and said, `Gee, Michael, I think you're wonderful. I sure
would like to go to bed with you.' I looked at him and said, `When's the last
time you read the Bible? You know you really should read it because there is
some real information in there about homosexuality.' The guy said, `I guess if
I'd been a girl, it would have been different.' And I said, `No, there are some
very direct words on that in the Bible, too."'