"When you look in the mirror, are you happy with what you see?"
(MJ) "In- in what way?"
"Just when you look there, in terms of that social philosphy."
(MJ) "Uhm... I'm never totally satisfied, I always wished the world could be a better place,
uhm... no, not at all. Y'know, hopefully that's what I... do with my music. Bring happiness to people, and uh...
to bring joy."
"Rumours about his supposed mammoth plastic surgery, about his supposed fascination for bizarre relics like the Elephant Man."
"How much of it is true? Ask the question and you meet Michael's manager, cigar smoking Frank Dileo.
He joined the interview as Michael's friend and sit behind him.
Now about those headlines.
(Interviewer) "Does it affect you? Does it hurt you? To see some of the idiotic stories that are written?"
(Frank Dileo) "Yeah, I'll answer that question if you don't mind.
Uh... it hurts me, and if it hurts me I know it hurts Michael.
He's a little more blase about it than I am, I mean, he
just sort of shrugs it off, but I find it very terrible that some of the stuff that is written,
uhh, particularly about plastic surgery, and uh, it's not the majority of it-
not the majority, ALL of it is garbage and rubbish,
and uh- you know, if that's the best thing that- that's the only thing they can figure out to do with their life, then y'know, they're pretty sick people."
"There is nothing I could- I could control in my life but my eating.
And Joseph told me 'Oh, you're so black, or you have such a big nose.'"
"He told you you were black?"
"Yes! When I was little.
'You are so black you don't look like my child. Your nose is so big' and this and that.
They used- they used to call me big nose and stuff,
and instead of retaliating on them, I just did it with myself."
"Michael? Are you happy with your face?"
"Yeah, I'm happy with my face and stuff."
"Are you happy you did all the surgery?"
"Yeah."
"That's good."
"Because I don't want to look like Joseph."
"Well, you don't!"
(Oprah) "How much plastic surgery have you had?"
(MJ) "I've had very little, very- you can count 'em on two fingers.
I mean, let's say this: If you wanna know about those things other than nosy people in the work,
(They talk over each other) Oprah: "Once we say it, we don't have to say it anymore."
(MJ) "Read my book! Moonwalker. It's in my book." (Oprah) "Mhm."
(MJ) "Y'know, let's just put it this way: If all the people in Hollywood who have had plastic surgery,
if they went on vacation, there wouldn't be a person left in town.
(Oprah) "Mhm. I think you might be right." (MJ) "I think I am right. I mean... it'd empty."
(Oprah) "So did you start- okay. Did you start having plastic surgery because of those teen years? Because of not liking the way you look?"
(MJ) "No, not really." (Oprah) "Not really?" (MJ) "No, it's only two things. Really get my book. It's no big deal."
(Oprah) "Okay. You don't want to tell me what it is? You had your nose down obviously."
(MJ) "Yeah! So did a lot of people that I know." (Oprah) "Yeah."
(Oprah) "And so, when you hear all these things about you, and they have been more than-"
(MJ) "But I've never had my cheekbones done, never had my eyes done, never had all- my lips done, all this stuff. They just go too far,
I mean, it's crazy. But this is something that happens like, every day,
with other people."
(Oprah) "Are you pleased now? With the way you-"
(MJ) "I'm never pleased with anything, I'm a perfectionist." (Oprah) "Yeah."
(MJ) "It's part of who I am."
(Oprah) "And so, when you look in the mirror now, and the image that looks back at you, do you-
are there days when you say 'well I kinda like this or I like-"
(MJ) "No, I'm never pleased with myself." (Oprah still talking) "I'm lookiing pretty good today?'
(MJ) "No I'm- Uhm... No, I try not to look in the mirror, I really do, because I'm never happy with what I see, so I go out to my work and get it done."
"...to look completely male, to be in the androgynous zone, I think they wanna know... it is a decision on your part some way?
the way you look, where does it come from?
(MJ) "I think it creates itself, nature."
"He's- he's an artist, he has every right, and he is constantly remodifing something or changing or reconstructing it or,
y'know, working on some imperfection that he thinks needs to be worked on- if he sees something he doesn't like, he changes it, period.
He re-sculpted himself. He's an artist."
"He may wanna put a red dot right there one day."
"Is it true that your father used to say you had a fat nose?" (MJ) "Yeah."
"What did he say? What did he actually say?"
(MJ) "God your nose is big. You didn't get it from me!"
"What does that do to someone who is going through adolescence?"
(MJ) "You wanna die. You wanna die and on top of that you gotta go on-stage in the spotlight
in front of hundreds of thousands of people and just, God
it's hard. I would've been happier wearing a mask."
"What do you say to people who say, 'well, when Michael Jackson was a boy, he was a black kid,
and now as an adult, he looks like a white man'?
(MJ) "Well, you could ask God that, that has nothing to do with me, okay? And that's ignorance."
"What do you mean it's got nothing to do with you?"
(MJ) "I don't control, y'know, puberty, I don't control the fact that I have vitiligo, I don't control, you know, uh...
how many- how many white people, when they're little kids, look white, now they look- they sit out in the sun all day to look black.
And the sun tan lotion business is a multi-billion dollar business.
Nobody says nothing about that.
They do, y'know, they're trying to be other than what they are, but that's okay, I guess, right?"
"Are you trying to be other than what you are?" (MJ) "No."
"So when they say things like you've had implants in your cheeks-" (MJ) "Oh god..."
"You've had a dimple made in your chin, you've had your lips enlarged... (MJ over him) "Oh god, oh please, that's- please,
...you've had your eyelids reconstructed," (MJ) Oh please, this is stupid. That's too much.
(MJ) That's stupid!" "None of it is true?" (MJ) "Come on, none of it is true."
(MJ) "None of it is true, it's BS, they made it up. They lie. They don't wanna give me credit for anything.
One paper said I had each- 'cuz I was growing a little beard, he had each little hair transplanted into his face with a laser,
Lasered in. How ignorant is that? I can't even grow a beard now? You ignorant fool who wrote such a thing. So don't- don't believe that stupidity.
Don't waste your money on it, 'cause when you're buying it you're not buying something based on what's true, it's not the truth."
"You know, you've- you've physically changed, haven't you? The photographs of you, if I look at them-
(MJ) "No, it's not adolescence, it's called growing and changing."
"Yeah but even the shape of your face has changed."
(MJ) "No, no, I see no- I've had no plastic surgery on my face, just my nose.
It helped me breathe better so I could hit higher notes, and have clear-
the press, is like the- I don't know, nothing's been done to my eyes, cheekbones, chin, lips, nothing."
They made it all up." "Do you think that people do go too far with plastic surgery? Generally.
Do you think they come-" (MJ) "Well it's up to them!"
"So why are you so defensive when people say 'Mick Jagger had one, Paul McCartney may have had one,
oh, Michael Jackson's had one!'
(MJ) "They don't do it that way." "What do they do?"
(MJ) "Because they pick on me like I'm the only one that does it, that's why."
"So you- if you- if people said 'well Michael's the same as everyone else'?" (MJ) "Yeah."
"Then it wouldn't upset you so much." (MJ) "It wouldn't upset me so much."
"Y'know, if you wanna have a facelift, you have a facelift." (MJ) "Yeah! If it makes you happy..."
"The star, who spent his adult life morphing from one look to another,
actually admits his own face repulses him."
"I saw it on the computer. It made me sick when I saw it."
"I look like a lizard, I look like... It's horrible, I- I don't like- I never like it.
That's why I wish I could never be photographed or seen. And I- I push myself to go to the things that we go to.
I just don't want to look old. I hate to see people grow old, Shmulay."
"He would see himself in the mirror with wrinkles, he had a whole thing about getting older.
Did he ever talk to you about plastic surgery?"
"I used to tell him he has to stop, he swore to me he did, but he didn't."
"Jackson also shared
some disturbing details about his eating habits,
confessing that on his "Dangerous" tour, his friend, Elizabeth Taylor, literally had to force him to eat."
(MJ) "I wouldn't eat. She took the spoon and would put it in my mouth." "Really?"
(MJ)" When I get really upset or hurt, I don't eat, I go on a food- I just- I just don't get- until I'm unconscious.
Then they started doing it intravenously, you know? Because I just- My body breaks down, I won't eat..."