“So,” Bashir cleared his throat. The beginning of the end had finally started. “When we were… talking some time ago, you-you talked about how when you went through adolescence, you had a terrible time.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, remembering how I felt when we had the conversation and how I felt in my childhood all at once.

“And, in fact, I had to look at some pictures of you during that period. And… You did have a lot of spots,” he confirmed something I had been trying to tell the public for years. “One of the things that you’ve clearly used to overcome this is changing your appearance. You- You’ve- You kind of- You physically changed, haven’t you?” He stammered. “The photographs of you, if I look at you…”

“No,” I corrected him quickly. “It’s called adolescence.” I know what he’s getting at, and I’m not going to allow it. “It’s called growing and changing.”

“Y-yeah, but even the shape of your face has changed.”

“No, it has not,” I shook my head. How Ima change the shape of my face? “I’ve had no plastic surgery on my face. Just my nose. It helped me breathe better so I can hit higher notes.”

He looked at me dumbfounded for a second. The once lighthearted energy had switched to intense criticism. “Michael, are you seriously saying that you’ve only ever had one operation?”

I held up two fingers, “two.”

“You’ve had two?”

“As I can remember, yeah. Just two.”

“But, if I look at some of the photographs of you in your adolescence-”

“Yeah, I changed! People change!”

“But even after, when you did the Thriller album, your- Your lips are very different now to what they were then.”

Now he’s just reaching. “No,” I shook my head. I’ve done absolutely nothing to my lips.

“But they do look different!”

“No. Nope. Sorry,” I continued to shake my head. “That’s someone else.”

“You don’t think so?”

“Nope!”

“But you know, on a serious point, in some ways, I can understand it.” Understand what? “Because-“

“I’m happy with my lips,” I interrupted him. Because how he gon’ tell me I changed my lips when I’ve had the same crooked-lipped smile since I was a child?

“No, but- But I- Forget the lips specifically,” he laughed. Apparently, he was frustrated, but he has no right to be the one frustrated here. He’s not the one being accused of having surgery on something that he didn’t have surgery on.

“Everybody in Hollywood gets surgery. Plastic surgery wasn’t invented for Michael Jackson,” I jokingly pointed at him, but I was serious. Everyone here in Hollyweird has had some type of surgery, but no one talks about them. But when it’s me, it’s a problem? You got people out here getting nips, tucks, fake breasts, cutting off genitals, stretching their faces to look younger, and I get a couple nose jobs, and it’s world war three??

“No, I’m not suggesting it was invented for Michael Jackson.”

“Everybody gets it.”

“But what I’m saying is, sometimes people go too far?”

“So, you’re suggesting I’ve gone too far?” I asked him.

“Sometimes, if they’ve got a lot of money and they have an opportunity, sometimes they can think, ‘oh, I’ll do things.’ Especially, given your childhood. I mean, while we’ve talked over the past couple of months…” I looked down at my right hand, flexing and stretching it. So, because I have a lot of money because I’ve gone through things that the average person doesn’t, it’s a problem when I want to change something in my life? How come it’s a problem when I do it? I bet if he had the same amount of money and opportunities as I, if he had been through the same thing I had, he would have done just about the same thing. But because I’m Michael Jackson. Because I’m plastered all over the world. Because I’m what the world proclaims a “weirdo,” I can’t do things other people do. See? That’s that hypocrisy, and I don’t like it. “…you told me in Las Vegas that your father used to talk about your nose.”

“Yeah,” I rolled my eyes. 

“So, I can understand why you wanted to change your appearance! It makes sense! I wouldn’t want-”

“Yeah, but just that, though. Just that. Not the whole face. Just the nose. They try to say, ‘why do you keep changing it?’ That’s not true,” I rolled my eyes again. “It’s just the nose, you know?”

“Even though the shape of the face is different?”

I sighed, “you keep saying that, but I keep telling you, I have not changed my face. I keep reiterating that I haven’t changed my face, and you keep trying to tell me about my own face!” I laughed out of frustration, “how you gon' tell me about my body?”

“Because the entire world watched you grow up, Michael. We’ve seen you grow from an eight-year-old boy to a forty-four-year-old man, and the changes you’ve gone through have not been the same as those of your brothers and sisters.”

“Okay,” I nodded. “Okay, look,” I pointed at my chin. “You see this cleft in my chin? That’s from puberty. I got that from Joseph. My nose? Surgery, sure, whatever. My lips are still the same. My skin is due to vitiligo. The shape of my head is the same. I wear makeup sometimes. A little contour will change the look of the face, ya know? Ask Karen. She’ll tell you. It’s like magic. But this?” I waved my hand over my entire face and head. “This is the product of growing up. You don’t look the same as you did as a child the same way I don’t. See, it’s things like this that I have to shield my children from. When they see me, they just see Daddy. When I show them older pictures of me, they ask questions, and I tell them the truth. I don’t lie. I would never lie. So, if I wouldn’t lie to my children, why do you and the rest of the world think you’re so important that I have to lie to y’all? Who are you for me to lie to?”

Bashir’s face fell. If he could have turned red with embarrassment, he would have. But he couldn’t. Instead, he stood up and asked for a break.

Karen came over to clean up any makeup or blot out any sweat. 

Now he knows how it feels when someone tries to humiliate someone. What happened to “we’re not gonna do this here?” What happened to hearing me out? Or was that something he said just to butter me up in the beginning? Because now, the accusations are getting out of hand. I felt it a little bit earlier, but I guess he decided to save the mess for the end. What he fails to realize is that I’m tired. 

I’m tired of the lies being said about me. I’m tired of people trying to bring me down. I’m tired of people trying to ruin the reputation that I’ve tried for years to build up. It gets tiring. I have to hear it from every end of the earth. No one knows what that feels like. Being hated by people who don’t even know you but base their thoughts on hearsay. No one knows what it’s like to be criticized for every single thing you do when the next ordinary person is doing the same thing, but it’s not a problem when they do it. It’s a problem when I do it. When Michael Jackson does it, it’s a problem. And all of a freaking sudden, it’s a problem when I’ve been attacked my entire life relentlessly, but when I clap back, when the nice person finally has something to say and defend themselves, now I’m “showing my true colors.” No, after having mercy and grace and forgiving everything everyone has ever had to say about me, I’ve finally had something to say to defend myself. But you. You ignorant, entitled, hypocritical ass people; now, when your feelings are hurt, it’s a problem. Yeah, well, kiss my ass. 

Bashir returned and sat down, “there was a little bit of tension in the air, so I figured we’d cool down a bit.” I kept quiet. I have nothing more to say. Bashir gestured for the cameras to begin rolling again. “I want to change the subject.”

“Okay. Good. Let’s go,” I nodded.