In June 1986, Michael Jackson underwent another operation to have his nose made slimmer, his fourth rhinoplasty. He also wanted Steven Hoefflin to create a cleft in his chin. Years later, he would tell one associate that the ‘greatest joy I ever had was in knowing I had a choice about my face.’ This same associate asked Michael for advice about rhinoplasty surgery, and Michael recommended that Steven Hoefflin operate on him. ‘There's nothing to it, man,’ Michael said. ‘After the first one, it doesn't even hurt that much. Once you have it done, you'll never stop looking in the mirror. That's how great you'll feel about yourself. Do it. You'll love it.’
When Michael told Katherine he was going to have a cleft put into his chin, she thought he was going, as she put it, ‘overboard’. ‘Why?’ she wanted to know. ‘I just don't understand.’
As Katherine told a friend of hers, Michael explained, ‘I can afford it, I want it, so I'm going to have it.’ It was as if he were buying a new car instead of undergoing painful, appearance-changing plastic surgery. Whereas most people can only fantasize – ‘Wouldn't a new nose be nice, and maybe a new chin too?’ – Michael could afford to make those whims a reality. ‘And I think if more people could afford it, they would do it too,’ his sister Janet has reasoned. ‘I see nothing wrong with it.’
One psychologist has speculated that it was Michael's narcissistic side that dictated he have a cleft carved into his chin. ‘Michael Jackson was obviously becoming more and more enchanted by his own image,’ Dr Raymond Johnson said. ‘He is apparently continuing his quest for the perfect face.’
‘I do want to be perfect,’ Michael confirmed. ‘I look in the mirror, and I just want to change, and be better. I always want to be better, so maybe that's why I wanted the cleft. I don't know how else to explain it.’
Of course, one of the public's favourite theories about him is that Michael was trying to transform Himself into the image of Diana Ross – as if Diana has a cleft in her chin! Mostly this theory is the result of the popular connection between the two stars over the years, and some family members' recollections of Michael making statements to Janet and LaToya such as, ‘You're not pretty until you start looking like Diana.’ After surgery and with the help of carefully applied makeup, Michael sometimes did resemble Diana, with tweezed, arched eyebrows, high cheekbones, and a tapered nose (actually much more tapered than Diana's). Still, the resemblance was in the eye of the beholder. When an associate told Diana that Michael was trying to look like her, Diana was dismayed by the notion. She sized Michael up and snapped, ‘I look like that?’
In fact, Michael does not want to look like Diana, even if he was enraptured by her image, allure, glamour and, also, her power. He did try to recreate her from time to time, though, by playing out certain ‘Miss Ross’ fantasies in front of witnesses. Beverly Hills limousine chauffeur, Ralph Caricosa, recalls having driven Michael to a destination. He looked into the rear view mirror and asked, ‘Where to now, Mr Jackson.’ Michael said, ‘Call me Miss Ross, won't you?’ Then, there was the night Diana caught him putting on her makeup backstage at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Former Supremes star Cindy Birdsong reported that when Diana scolded him (‘How many times have I told you to stay out of my makeup!’), Michael responded by saying, ‘But, Diana, it's magic.’
Once, when Michael checked into the swank Helmsley Palace in Manhattan, he telephoned the front desk from a house phone in the lobby and, in front of amused witnesses, used his best imitation of Diana's speaking voice to hoodwink the operator. ‘My suite is not good enough,’ he said, acting like a disgruntled diva. ‘How dare you put me in that suite? There are no flowers, and I think I saw a mouse, and I'm, well, I'm just really upset. I can't even go back up there.’
‘Who is this?’ the surprised operator apparently asked.
‘Why, it's Miss Ross,’ Michael answered, trying to suppress a giggle. ‘Miss Diana Ross. Who do you think it is? How dare you even ask?’
By the time the operator put him on hold, Michael was grinning from ear to ear. ‘She believes me,’ he whispered, excitedly. ‘She thinks I'm Diana Ross!’
The operator came back on the line. ‘Diana Ross isn't staying here.’ ‘Oh, she's not?’ Michael responded. ‘Sorry.’
Then he quickly hung up, laughing so hysterically he could barely catch his breath.
Most people who know Michael agree that there are two reasons why he has had so much plastic surgery. First of all, he strove for some ideal of physical perfection, or his version of it, anyway. He spent most of his life studying pictures of himself, not to mention the hours dancing in front of mirrors, looking at videos, deciding which are his best features and which are not. ‘I just want to look the best I can look,’ he told Frank Dileo.
‘But when do you stop?’ Frank asked.
Michael shrugged. ‘I'm a work in progress,’ he said with a gentle smile.
Publicly, Frank never had much patience for questions about Michael's plastic surgery, mostly because he could not explain it. ‘Okay, so he had his nose fixed, and the cleft – big deal. I got news for you,’ he said, ‘my nose has been broken five times. It's been fixed twice. Who gives a shit? Who cares? Elvis had his nose done. Marilyn Monroe had her nose done, had her breasts done. Everybody's had it done.’
As well as improving his appearance, Michael also had another reason for the operations. All of the Jackson boys grew up to resemble their father, Joseph. Michael could not have imagined a worse fate for himself, and he did everything he could do to destroy the resemblance. Certainly, he has many of his father's characteristics, whether or not he recognizes them: Joseph's determination to the point of ruthlessness, his coldhearted business sense, and on the plus side, his love of family. Emotionally, Michael may be a lot like Joseph – though he would never emulate Joseph's coldhearted unfaithfulness in love – and, he has said, it frightens him. Outside, though, he isn't like Joseph at all.
‘He told me so himself,’ said a former girlfriend of Berry Gordy's who has known Michael for years. ‘He would do anything not to look like Joseph. Believe me, the last thing he wants to see when he looks at the man in the mirror is his father. With each operation, he distances himself not only from his father but from the whole family. I'm afraid that's the sad point of all the surgery.’
‘The tragedy is,’ concluded Joyce McCrae, a longtime intimate who worked in Joseph's office, ‘no matter how much Michael tries to scrub Joseph off his face, he's still there.’
Or as Joseph Jackson so aptly put it, ‘It takes a father to make a son.’
It was after Michael's operation to have a cleft in his chin that he first began being seen wearing a surgical mask with a black fedora and sunglasses. The press speculated that he was obsessed with catching germs, reminiscent of Howard Hughes' fixation with health issues. Michael said nothing publicly. ‘If you knew Michael well enough, you knew what was going on,’ Joyce McCrae said. ‘As soon as I saw him wearing the surgical mask, I said, “Oh, he's had the cleft done.” People told me, “What? That's ridiculous.” Well, sure enough, that's what was going on.’
At this time, Michael appeared at a movie memorabilia showcase at the Continental Hyatt Hotel in Hollywood wearing a blue surgical mask and a black fedora. To say he looked conspicuous would be an understatement. When the vendors saw him coming their way, they would triple the prices of all of their goods just because they knew Michael represented a windfall for them. He was shopping for Disney memorabilia with a young boy and Bill Bray, his security man. Whenever he saw something he liked, he mumbled through his surgical mask for Bray to purchase the item. Bray would then pull out a wad of hundred-dollar bills, pay the vendor, and move on to the next display. The fact that the prices were raised especially for him did not escape Michael. ‘They see me coming, and they feel like I have a lot of money, so they take advantage of me,’ he told me. ‘That's not really fair, is it?’
‘No, it's not, Michael. But what's with the surgical mask?’ I asked.
‘I had my wisdom teeth taken out,’ he told me. ‘Oh, man, the misery. You can't believe what I have been going through.’ ‘Sounds awful,’ I said.
Michael shook his head, sadly. ‘It is awful.’
When Michael did not cover his face with a surgical mask, he would venture forth in public wearing a hairy gorilla head mask with fur and beady eyes. ‘I love it when people stop and are scared,’ he said. ‘And I love it when they don't know that it's me inside the mask. I just love that.’ It's a great paradox about Michael that he is as much a public show-off as he is a recluse. Sometimes, though, his exploits can prove embarrassing. Once, while walking through an airport wearing the gorilla mask, he tripped over a sand-filled ashtray and fell to the floor in a heap in front of a host of paparazzi, all because his vision was obscured.
When the bandages came off after the cleft operation, Michael concentrated more than ever on his appearance. The new cleft seemed oddly out of place on the bottom of his soft, ingénue-like face. After all of the procedures, Michael's nose was slimmer than ever. It also pointed upward, an odd touch. Tweezing his eyebrows gave him a softer, even more feminine look. His skin seemed to be getting lighter with each passing day. He had begun using an over-the-counter skin-bleaching cream called Porcelana to achieve that look. LaToya used it as well. They had crates of this cream stored at Hayvenhurst, hording it as the most valuable beauty product ever produced.
Also, Michael existed on a strict macrobiotic diet that had left him quite thin and made his face look even more sculpted. ‘If I ate like him, I'd be dead,’ Frank DiLeo said succinctly.
In truth, Michael Jackson had begun looking more than a little unusual. It was difficult to be in the same room with him and not stare in disbelief, especially if you had known him since he was a child. Comedian Eddie Murphy probably put it best when he said, ‘I love Michael, but the brother is