MJJC Q&A WITH BILL WHITFIELD AND JAVON BEARD,

AUTHORS OF REMEMBER THE TIME: PROTECTING MICHAEL JACKSON IN HIS

FINAL DAYS


What made you want to write a book?
We wrote the book because we had a story to tell about the Michael J ackson we knew.
It wa about sharing what we personally witnessed and were a part of. If youre a Michael
J ackson fan and supporter, you deserve to know him more on a personal side, not just
who he was but what he endured as a man, and as a father. You deserve a true
account from those that were there, not from those who can only repeat what they
heard second hand.

We wrestled a long time with whether or not was should write a book. Fundamentally,
we agree with those who say Mr. J ackson deserves his privacy and deserves to rest in
peace. But ultimately we came to the conclusion that his fans deserve to know and,
hopefully, in some way it will bring closure to some and truth to others. We also felt an
obligation to tell the world about our time with Mr. J ackson because there really is no
one else to tell this part of the story. During the time Mr. J ackson spent in Las Vegas,
between his return from Ireland and the start of This Is It, there simply werent a lot of
people around. Very often the only people there were us, Mr. J ackson, and the three
children. Mr. J ackson has been robbed of the opportunity to tell his own story, and the
children were too young to really know a lot of what was going on at the time. That
leaves us. If the world ever wants to fully understand what happened to this beloved
and incredible man, this is a story that needs to be told. We already know how Michael
J ackson died. Our aim is to help people understand why.


How long did it take you to write the book? Was it a challenge putting the
experience of protecting Michael Jackson into words? Please tell us about this
experience.
The longest and hardest part of the process was finding the right publisher who
understood our approach and our philosophy. When he was alive, Mr. J acksons world
was full of vultures looking to take advantage of him in every way possible. We saw that
with him and we saw it again after he passed away, in the way people approached us
about our story. There was a long, on and off process of interviewing possible
collaborators, close to two years. Once we found the right partners, people that we
trusted and felt comfortable with, the actual writing of the book actually took about a
year. We spent several days sitting down, reminiscing and just telling our story, and
then over the next several months, spent hours on the phone going over chapters,
making edits, and so forth.

In the beginning, it was difficult talking about our experiences. Often times it made us
angry, thinking, Was there more we could have done? It was also painful to relive
some of the bad things that happened to him. He was not at peace a lot of the time,
because of how bad he was portrayed in the media, because there were so many
people he couldnt trust. We always wanted to shield him from it, but there were some
things you just couldnt control. But the more we wrote and relived the moments we
shared with Mr. J ackson, the more we knew we were doing the right thing.


Most books about Michael are written with lots of sensationalism. Yours is not.
Why is that, and why have you taken the approach of a general spoken account?
Sensationalism was the opposite of what we wanted to write. First of all, our time with
Mr. J ackson was not sensational in either a good way or a bad way. There were no big
tabloid scandals, but there werent any sold-out stadium concerts, either. Most of our
two and a half years with Mr. J ackson were a quiet time when he was focused almost
entirely on raising his children and giving them a home. There was a lot of tension and
drama going on with his family and with his business affairs, but no big spectacle, so
telling our story is an opportunity to see who the man really was away from the
cameras.

We always tell people we didnt work for the King of Pop. We worked for Michael
J ackson. Those were two different people. It was only at the very end, when the
machinery of This Is It started winding up in Los Angeles, that we saw the tabloid
spectacle take over, and not in a healthy way. But we were not a direct party to that. We
stayed in Vegas, handling some of Mr. J acksons business there, and we were slated to
rejoin him in London to handle security on the estate he was going to rent.

We chose to tell the story in the way we did, through our own personal, conversational
voices, to give readers the sense of being there as things happened. A lot of what you
read about Michael J ackson either puts him on a pedestal or throws him in the gutter.
We wanted a book that gave Mr. J ackson his proper respect and honored his legacy,
but also a book that was down to earth and showed him as a real, everyday person,
because thats what most people misunderstand about him. The tabloids always wanted
to paint him as some kind of cartoon, but behind the King of Pop spectacle there was a
real human being who was full of great love and generosity, but who also suffered from
pain and loneliness. We wanted to show the world that real human being, because
Michael J ackson deserves to be treated like a person.

We also chose to tell the story from our own point of view in order to avoid all the
second-hand speculation and the recycling of tabloid stories that other Michael J ackson
books always rely on. Given the way the media treated Mr. J acksons life, to this day we
dont really trust anything written about him that we didnt witness first-hand. Other than
referencing well-documented information about Mr. J acksons past (like how many
albums Thriller sold) and using some basic facts established in public records (like how
the mortgage on Neverland was handled) the book is strictly an account of what we saw
and heard and what our reactions and feelings were. We wanted it to be as honest and
real as possible.


Lots of people from Michaels past have used knowing/working with him to make
money. Can you tell us if that was your moti vation for writing this book?
Money was and never has been our motivation. We turned down cash offers from
tabloids that wanted us to dish dirt on the more scandalous elements of Mr. J acksons
life. (We didnt actually have much dirt to give them, because thats not the man that we
knew.) As we discuss in the intro to the book, we did not sell this for a huge advance to
a big publisher looking for tabloid secrets. We went with a small publisher who was
willing to pay a modest advance to take a chance on the kind of book we wanted to
write. We also did not take any of the upfront money ourselves. We invested it in
making sure Mr. J acksons story was done well. We paid most of it to a writer, Tanner
Colby, a New York Times bestselling author, who we felt would handle the story with the
respect it deserves. The rest of it went to cover various expenses, like travel to meet
with our editors and so forth. The only way we will make money from this book is on the
back end. If you, the fans, decide that we have done a good job and this is a book you
choose to support, that will be our reward.


What was your opinion of Michael before you started working for him? Did your
opinions change after working for him?
Both of us were always huge fans of Michael even before working for him. Bill still has
all the old 45 singles from growing up with the J ackson 5. J avon literally had Smooth
Criminal set up as his ringtone when he got the call to come and work for Mr. J ackson.
Neither of us ever believed the allegations made against him, or any of the other crazy
things printed in the media. He always seemed so sweet and soft spoken, like he
couldn't hurt a fly.

Unfortunately, as with many celebrities whose lives are distorted by the tabloids, you
dont believe whats being said but you you dont have the personal knowledge to say
different. So when we were given the opportunity to work for him, we paid more
attention to him and his actions and we saw things that validated what wed always
wanted to believe about him. We saw how much of a hands-on father he was, how he
cared so much for the less fortunate. So, our opinions of him didnt really change, but it
was nice to learn that that the Michael J ackson we supported as fans was not the
Michael J ackson that had been reported in the media.


Did Michael have a favorite radio station/songs to listen to while in the car/SUV?
Mr. J ackson only listened to classical music in the car. Sometimes, if one of us had the
radio on an R&B station, hed ask us to leave it, but otherwise it was pretty much always
classicalwith one exception. There was one song that happen to come on the radio,
and after hearing it he had us go to Best Buy and purchase it for him. Then he played it
over and over again in the car, singing along in the backseatand he sang that song
with conviciton. It was song that really spoke to him and the challenges he was dealing
with. But for that you have to read the book.


Did Michael ever invite fans inside his home to hang out?
Mr. J ackson often invited fans in to visit at Neverland, but the houses he rented in Las
Vegas were not the same. They were not homes he wanted to show off and entertain in.
They were just places to stay, really. So we never had the fans come inside. Most of the
time we spent visiting with the fans was in the car, on the way in and out of the house.
Wed always stop and hed say hello and chat for a bit.

While living in Las Vegas, Mr. J ackson was looking for a new limousine, and one
summer evening we arranged for him to take a test drive in an SUV stretch limousine.
The vehicle seated sixteen people. As we pulled out from the driveway, there were
about five fans sitting outside the gate. Mr. J ackson directed the driver to stop the
vehicle, he rolled the window down, and asked the fans if they wanted to go for a ride.
Then he opened the door and they jumped in. We drove around for about 45 minutes,
and Mr. J ackson and his fans just casually chatted. As nerve racking as it was for us as
security, all went well. He loved it and so did they.


Did you ever hear Michael talk without his falsetto?
No. Mr. J ackson always spoke in the same quiet, soft-spoken voice he used in public.


Michael loved reading a lot. As far as you know, did he like novels or did he prefer
to read autobiographies or books that tell real stories? If he preferred novels,
what was his favorite genre?
Mr. J ackson read just about anything he could get his hands on. We were constantly
taking trips to Barnes & Noble, dropping five, ten thousand dollars on books in a single
night. If there was a particular preference he had, we couldnt say. If there was one
book we saw him reading most frequently, it would be the Bible.


Can you tell us the differences between the public Michael and the private
Michael?
The public Michael J ackson was an entertainer. The private Michael J ackson was a
father, a son. The public Michael was very image conscious. When he knew he was
going somewhere and there were going to be a lot of cameras, he would fly in his
hairstylist and get a one-of-a-kind outfit made by a top designer. He would spend 4 to 5
hours just preparing himself for the cameras and the bright lights. The private Michael
just loved being with his kids, watching movies, eating popcorn, and walking around the
house in pajamas without a care in the world.


Can you describe a typical day in the life of Michael Jackson?
The business side of Mr. J acksons life was an ongoing machine. Through his
management and his legal representatives, his days were often pre-scheduled with
conference calls and meetings. Each day an itinerary was prepared for Mr. J ackson of
where he needed to be, who he needed to talk to. Sometimes he followed the schedule
the the letter, and other times he said the hell with schedule and he did whatever he
wanted to do.


In protecting Michael, what was the scariest thing you saw him do that caused
you to worry about hi s safety?
To be honest, in the beginning the biggest challenge was you guys: the fans. As with
every celebrity weve worked for, its always about keeping the fans and the crowds at
arms length. Everybody is a potential threat. Of course, Mr. J acksons relationship with
his fans was different. Hed roll the car window down and wave people over to chat, to
hang out. Being security, our natural instinct was to try and get in between to act as a
buffer, but Mr. J ackson would always wave us aside and say, Be nice to my fans.
Theyd never let anything happen to me. He knew that his fans were his greatest
supporters and protectors.

Other than that, because of his childrens safety, Mr. J ackson was hyper vigilant about
security. Having been one of the most famous men on Earth his whole life, he knew
everything there is to know about personal protection and privacy, so it was rare he put
himself in any kind of dangerous situation. He was mindful of the fan who shot and killed
J ohn Lennon. He knew some people were overly obsessed with him and he was afraid
of someone using their being a fan to get close enough to harm him. So Mr. J ackson
may have let his guard down to be close to his fans, but as his security team we never
did.


How did Michael cope with all the tabloid trash that was written about him? How
computer savvy was Michael? Did he use the internet often? What websites did
he visit? Were his children allowed to use the television or the Internet?
He didnt cope with it. He refused to. He shut it completely out of his life. He didnt want
his children exposed to it. Since various talk show hosts still mocked and joked about
him, there was no broadcast or cable TV in that house. They only watched movies and
shows on DVD. The only newspapers he read regularly were the Wall Street Journal
and the Robb Report, because neither of those have tabloid news in them. Whenever
we went to newsstands and bookstores, his managers would let us know if any current
newspaper or magazine was saying negative things about him. If there were, one of us
would go in advance to remove all those issues from the racks. For the same reason,
he never went on the Internet and never allowed the children on it unless they were
monitored. The only web surfing he did was a few times after Bill showed him how to
shop and bid on eBay for collectable items.

Having cut himself off from the media, one of Mr. J acksons primary news outlets was
you, his fans. He read every single letter he received; wed take him on long drives and
hed sit in the back and go through the mail. Hed get letters from people telling about
their personal experiences in China, in the Middle East, from all over the world. They
gave him suggestions on what he should sing about. Those letters were his inspiration
and his connection to the outside world.


Tell us a little more about Michael's relationship with his kids. How did Michael
discipline his children?
It wont come as any surprise to MJ J Community members that Mr. J ackson was a kind
and loving father. What people may not know is just how attentive and engaged he was
in every single aspect of their upbringing. He was up on all the state-mandated
homeschooling requirements, and he sat down every week with the school teacher to
go over her lesson plans, making sure the kids were meeting and exceeding all the
necessary goals. If we left the house and it was cold out and Blanket didnt have his hat
and mittens, wed get a call, Come back to the house. You forgot the mittens. He was
present for everything, in every way. Its safe to say that being a father was the most
important thing in Mr. J acksons life at that point, more than recording, performing, you
name it. The kids came first no matter what.

To be honest, Mr. J ackson didnt have to discipline the children very often. For the most
part, they were very well-behaved, very courteous, always please and thank you for
everything. Blanket was the wild card, the rebel. When one of them did misbehave, or if
one of them did poorly on a school assignment, he might sit them down and give them
the responsibility talk, or he might take away some of their privileges, like canceling a
movie night or something like that. But even that was rare. He was an excellent father
and he raised those three kids with good character and good values, and you can see
that in the way theyve dealt with the enormous pressures that have been put on them
since he passed away.


Did Michael ever go to nightclubs while living in Vegas?
In Vegas, Mr. J ackson was very focused on being a father, helping the kids with their
homework every night and being up early to make them breakfast and get them dressed
for school in the morning. So there werent a lot of big nights out. We went to one Prince
concert on the Strip, and Mr. J ackson declined an invitation to go backstage and talk
with Prince. It was late and his kids were still up, and he knew they wouldnt go to sleep
until he got home. So we took him straight home.

We did go to one nightclub when he was staying at the Palms in J anuary of 2008. Mr.
J ackson just wanted to hang out and do some people watching. This club had a VIP
balcony that overlooked the crowd, so we set it up for him to go down there. We were in
the club for maybe two to three minutes when the deejay started playing one of his
songs; they were mixing it, cutting it together with a bunch of other tunes. Mr. J ackson
was bopping his head along, and he said, Wow, I didnt know that they still played my
music.

We were like, what?! We told him, Sir, they still play your music all the time. In bars,
clubs, everywhere.

He said, Really?

He seemed surprised. Hed been out of the spotlight and beaten up by the tabloids for
so long, at that point that he was really worried that maybe the world had moved on,
that he wasnt as popular anymore. It really made him happy to hear his songs in the
club like that.


What was the happiest you saw him? What was the saddest?
The happiest we ever saw him was during the quiet, simple moments, like when wed
sneak him and the kids into the movies so he could see a big action movie on opening
day and enjoy it with a big audience like a regular family, or during the months we spent
in Virginia, when he and his kids stayed in this house with a huge backyard. From a
distance you could see the four of them running around the house, playing and
laughing. It was good hearing him laugh. He did so loudly, too.

The saddest we ever saw him, hands down, was when his brother Randy crashed
through the front gate with his car and sat in the driveway, demanding money, ruining
Mr. J acksons chance to attend Elizabeth Taylors birthday party. You have to read the
book to get the whole story, but after that happened, Mr. J ackson disappeared into his
room and we didnt see or hear from him for three days.


Did Michael ever teach you the moonwalk?
He never showed us how to moonwalk, but he did tell us how he did the lean in on
Smooth Criminal. Amazing!


Who in your opinion was a reall y good friend of Michaels? Who stood by him
through good and bad? Who was the person Michael spoke to most often on the
phone?
Mr. J acksons mother was probably the only one who unselfishly stood by him through
all the madness. There were those like Miko Brando, Chris Tucker, Eddie Griffin and
Rev. J esse J ackson that visited him a few times, and their friendships appeared to be
genuine, but it was his relationship with his mother that he cherished and valued most.


Did Michael tell jokes?
Mr. J ackson had a great sense of humor. He would often joke and laugh with his kids
and with us. We definitely made an effort to capture that in the book, because a lot of
whats written about him doesnt show that wonderful side of him.


Was there ever a time when you saw Michael get particularl y angry for one reason
or another? Can you tell us about a time when he lost his temper?
Mr. J ackson was famously non-confrontational. He didnt like conflict, but given the way
he was treated by the paparazzi and some people in the industry, he had a lot to be
angry about. Sometimes it would come out. Most of the time, we worked for the sweet,
gentle man who sang Heal the World, but every now and then wed see the guy from
Scream.

One afternoon in the spring of 2007, Mr. J ackson was on Bills cell phone for a
conference call with his manager and his lawyer. We heard a loud crash in the security
trailer and ran around to the kitchen to see that hed hurled the phone through the plate
glass door, shattering it into a thousand pieces. He had his head in his hands, saying,
Theyre all devils. I should have my father come and kick their asses. Then he offered
to buy Bill a new cell phone.

There was one other occasion, in Washington, DC, when Mr. J ackson saw a security
camera that he thought was taking secret video footage of his children. Lost his
temper doesnt begin to describe his reaction, but for that youll need to read the book.


How often did Friend and Flower visit Michael? Have you heard from either of
them since the memorial?
Friend and Flower only visited while we were staying in Virgina, and separately of
course. Since the memorial, Bill has occasionally communicated with Flower via email,
usually around the anniversary of Mr. J acksons passing or on his birthday.


Did he appear healthy/ready for the This Is It concert? Was he scared?
Apprehensi ve? Didnt want to do it but had to commit?
For the most part, Mr. J ackson always appeared in good health, but he often mentioned
that he wasnt up for the same kind of rigorous, athletic performances he gave during
the Bad and Dangerous tours. He was fifty years old, and some of those years were
pretty rough on him. His voice was in great shape, as amazing as ever, but these
promoters were making physical demands that he knew he couldnt live up to. When the
idea was floated of doing fifty shows, we heard him on the phone saying, I cant do fifty
shows. He said it like these people were crazy even for asking him to do it. But
whatever was going on with his business affairs, hed been backed into a corner where
he was being told he had no choice. It was not something he did with great enthusiasm.


You said you spoke with Michael just before he died. Did he seem happy? Can
you talk about your last phone call with him? What is the last thing that Michael
said to you?
Our last conversations with Mr. J ackson were just brief calls about everyday, work-
related matters. Nothing terribly significant was said, because nobody knew what was
going to happen. J avons last conversation with Mr. J ackson was several weeks before
he passed; Mr. J ackson called to check up on some things he had in storage in Las
Vegas and asked how J avons family was doing, which he always did. Bills last
conversation with Mr. J ackson came a few days before his passing. He seemed to be in
good spirits. We were in Vegas, working on plans for security at the London estate, and
Mr. J ackson called because he said he wanted us in LA and wanted to make
arrangements for us to get there. We didnt get to LA in time.


What do you miss most about him?
We mostly miss the quiet, simple moments, just watching him enjoy life as a father, like
watching him trying to comb Pariss hair and not doing it that well, or telling Blanket not
to wander off, or helping Prince and Paris with their little sibling spats. We also miss
taking long rides with him and just talking about whatever came up. Hed ask us to turn
the radio down and hed ask us about our families and how our kids were doing. Wed
see a girl walking up the street and hed ask if we thought she was cute and if we said
she wasnt our type hed say we needed glasses cause she was fine. We also miss the
excitement of being around him and never knowing what the day would bring.


Finall y, is there any message you want to send to the members of MJJCommunity
and Michael Jackson fans in general?
The fans should know that, other than Mr. J acksons mother and his children, they were
the number one priority in his life. He always cherished the support they gave him
through all the ups and downs, and he loved them for never turning their back on him.
He always knew that without the fans, there would be no King of Pop. He owed it all to
you. And we owe you, too. As stated in the book, there would be no book without the
support and love of Mr. J acksons fans. We wrote this for you. It feels good knowing we
are supported, and without you none of this would have been possible. Much love to all
of Mr. J acksons fans and supporters.