26th
Seven years ago, Michael agreed to do a rare cover interview for Vibe. At the time, he was in avoid-the-press mode; with the exception of Oprah Winfrey and Diane Sawyer, he wasn’t talking to anybody. But for some reason, he said yes to Vibe—on one condition: Regina Jones had to do the interview. So Jones headed up to Neverland, which was, as she remembers it, one big fun house. Michael was very sweet and childlike, she says, joking about their shared past. Until, that is, she asked a question that bothered him. She asked him about his plastic surgery.
“His immediate, hostile response was, ‘That’s a stupid question,’” Jones remembers. “And then he kept talking. ‘We’re family, why would you ask that? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?’ I’ll never forget that. And I felt ashamed of myself, and I told him that. But I told him that I was there to do an interview.”
