"I sensed from him how lonely it is. ... How lonely it is at the top," Oprah said while watching her interview with Jackson.
The talk show host also referred to the music icon as "very likable. After this interview, I really thought I could be his friend. ... He was as honest as he knew how to be and as forthcoming as he wanted to be," Oprah reflected.
In the 1993 interview that re-aired on "The Oprah Show" on Wednesday, Jackson opened up about everything from his plastic surgery, the abuse he allegedly suffered from his father Joe, his love interests and his purpose in life. "My purpose, I think, is to give in the best way I can," Jackson told Oprah, then going on to talk about his love for music and performing.
"I was surprised he was willing to go that far," Oprah said of the interview. "I see now how profoundly lonely he was. I heard and sensed it then but I didn't feel how lonely he was."
Jackson said of his father in the interview, "I love my father but I don't know him. ... He was very strict, very hard, very stern." The King of Pop also revealed that he would become physically sick at just the thought of his father and that feeling carried into his adulthood. He continued to apologize to Joe Jackson throughout the interview over the comments he was making. "Please don't be mad at me Joseph," Jackson said to the camera.
Oprah recalled feeling Jackson's "sense of fear and sadness" when he was talking about his childhood.
The talk show host disclosed how she will remember Jackson, saying, "He was a person who was passionate about life. He was really passionate about his work."
One of the last questions Oprah asked Jackson in the 1993 interview was how he would like to be perceived. Jackson answered, "I just simply want to be loved wherever I go."
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Comments (69)
And she may have had a point when she said that MJ was profoundly lonely. Oprah was honest, that is good.
MJ loved his father but he feared him and did not
understand him the way he...