"I've known Elizabeth closely since which was 16."
"Oh, she's very loyal, I see Elizabeth Taylor all the time. She's my dear friend,"
"I've met a lot people in my life..and very few are real real real friends. You could probably count 'em in one hand... Elizabeth is one of the most loyal, loving, caring people that I know."
"Remember the time when I was alone
You stood by my side and said: "Let's be strong"
You did all these things.. That only a true friend can do.."
"Elizabeth Taylor is gorgeous, beautiful, and she still is today, I’m crazy about her."
"Well, I've stopped being such a recluse now. My friend Elizabeth Taylor has got me out. Every Thursday we go to the movies together. She is Godmother to my son Prince and we get on so well. I said I could get Warner Brothers to put aside a studio just for us every week to watch films in private, but she forces me out. She's the only person who can get me out in public. We walk in, sit down, watch our film and walk out. And every time we leave the audience all stand up and applaud us. It's funny."
~ Michael Jackson ~
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2001,
Q: Critics refer to you as the self-proclaimed King of Pop. Did you choose that title?
Michael: I never self-proclaimed myself to be anything. If I called up Elizabeth Taylor right now, she would tell you that she coined the phrase. She was introducing me, I think at the American Music Awards, and said in her own words — it wasn't in the script — "I'm a personal fan, and in my opinion he is the king of pop, rock and soul." Then the press started saying "King of Pop" and the fans started. This self-proclaimed garbage, I don't know who said that.
Michael: Elizabeth has this little girl inside of her who never had a childhood. She was on the set every day. She loves playing with a new gadget or toy, and she's totally awe-inspired by it. She's a wonderful human being
Michael Jackson: Elizabeth Taylor is very childlike. There's nothing that you can do when she'll say, "I don't want to do that." When Bug's Life came out, she bugged me over and over to fix my schedule so we could see the cartoon. So we had to go to a public theater at about 1:00 o'clock. She makes me go out every Thursday because she says I'm too reclusive. Everybody's at work, so there's no one there and we never pay... we come with nothing and they always say, "Oh, my God, Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson." We get free popcorn, everything. She loved Bug's Life and loves Neverland. She'll go on the carousel and the Ferris wheel, but not the scary rides.
There are other childlike qualities of Elizabeth Taylor. She was in Jane Eyre around eight or nine. Our fathers were very much alike, tough, hard, brutal. She's playful and youthful and happy and finds a way to laugh and giggle even when she's in pain. She's ready to play any game, go swimming. She's very good with children. She loves toys and cartoons. I get to learn so much from her. She'll tell me about James Dean and Clark Gable and Spencer Tracey and Montgomery Clift, because she did movies with all these people. She tells me what they were really like, the ones who were nice people and the ones that weren't.
We were in Singapore—she came on most of the Dangerous tour with me—and we decided we wanted to go to the z(X). And we hung out and had our own private tour and we had fun. She's Prince and Paris's godmother and Macaulay's their godfather. She's just retained that little girl quality. That little child you see in Jane Eyre and Lassie Come Home, that's still in there. It's in her eyes. She has this glow like a child. It's so sweet. But Shirley [Temple Black], too. She says, "You get it, don't you. You're one of us."
"[Elizabeth Taylor and I] we're like brother and sister, mother and son, lovers... it's a potpourri... it's something special. We go through this whining thing on the phone... "I need you..." "Oh, I need you, too." We can talk about anything. She's been my most loyal friend. She says she adores me and would do anything for me. She says Hollywood has to write a movie for the two of us. We just have to do something together."~ Michael Jackson
Q: Do you get jealous when she dates other men? She got married in your backyard.
Michael Jackson: Do I get jealous? Yes and no. I know that if we ever did anything romantically, the press would be so mean and nasty and call us "The Odd Couple." It would turn into a circus and that's the pain of it all. You know, I push her in a wheelchair sometimes, when she can't walk. It's none of their business what we have together. I have to be with people like me. Some rappers will say to me, "Let's hang out. Let's go down to a club." And I'll say, "What? Let's hang? I don't think so." That kind of tiling's not a party for me.
On that tour [Dangerous], she fed me because I wouldn't eat. When I get upset, I stop eating, sometimes until I'm unconscious. She took the spoon and opened my mouth and made me eat. She said she wouldn't let me go without her, and her doctors advised her not to go. She went to Thailand and followed the tour all the way to London.
“When I hear the name Michael Jackson, I think of brilliance, of dazzling stars, lasers and deep emotions. I adore Michael Jackson. I think he is one of the world’s biggest and greatest stars, and it just so happens that he’s one of the most gifted music makers the world has ever known.
What makes Michael more unique may be the fact that all of his accomplishments, his rewards, have not altered his sensitivity and concern for the welfare of others, or his intense caring and love for his family and friends, and especially all the children the world over. I think Michael is the litmus paper. He is always trying to learn. He is so intelligent that he is alarmingly bright. He is also very curious and wants to draw from people who have surveved. People who have lasted. He’s not really of this planet.
He is filled with deep emotions that create an unearthly, special, innocent, childlike, wise man that is Michael Jackson. I think Michael appeals to the child in all of us, and I think he has the quality of innocence that we would all like to obtain or to have kept. He has one of the sharpest wits, he’s intelligent and he’s cunning - that is a strange word to use about him, because it implies deviousness and he is one o the least deviuos people I have ever met in my life - he is honesty personified - painfully honest - and vulnerable to the point of pain. He is so giving of himself that, at times, he leaves very little to protect the beautiful inner core that is the essence of him. That is the thing that I love so much about him and that makes the world identify with him in the way it does. Michael Jackson is, indeed, an international favourite for all ages, an incredible force of incredible energy. In the art of music, he is a pacesetter for quality of production, in the vanguard for high standards of entertainment. What is a genius? what is a living legend? What is a megastar? Michael Jackson, that’s all. And just when you think you know him, he gives you more…I think he is one of the finest people to this planet, and, in my estimation, he’s the true King of Pop, Rock and Soul.”
- Elizabeth Taylor (The introduction on “Dancing The Dream” book)
“My heart … my mind … are broken. I loved Michael with all my soul and I can’t imagine life without him. We had so much in common and we had such loving fun together. I was packing up my clothes to go to London for his opening when I heard the news. I still can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it. It can’t be so. He will live in my heart forever but it’s not enough. My life feels so empty. I don’t think anyone knew how much we loved each other. The purest most giving love I’ve ever known. Oh God! I’m going to miss him. I can’t yet imagine life without him. But I guess with God’s help … I’ll learn. I keep looking at the photo he gave me of himself, which says, ‘To my true love Elizabeth, I love you forever.’ And, I will love HIM forever.” ~ Elizabeth Taylor ~
