MICHAEL HUNG BACK
“Michael was being shown through the hospital by doctors and nurses. They were doing the usual things – greeting children on the wards, giving them presents, spending some time with them. Then, they walked along a corridor between wards and there was a separate room with one child in it. Michael asked why the child was alone and what the room was. The doctors told him it was a quarantine room – that they had to restrict who could go in there because the child was seriously ill and they didn’t know what was wrong with him or whether the boy’s illness was contagious. The doctors carried on walking. Michael hung back, and when they had gone ahead a little, he ducked into the room. All hell broke loose. The doctors and nurses panicked but none of them wanted to follow Michael into the room unprotected. Joe told me that they watched through the window as Michael sat on the bed with the child, spoke to him and kissed him on the forehead. Then Michael just calmly came out of the room and of course the doctors didn’t want to scold him – he was Michael Jackson, after all. But they were clearly anxious. Afterwards Michael’s cinematographer Joe Wilcots asked Michael why he had done it – what on Earth had he been thinking to take what could have been such a serious risk with his own health. Michael replied very simply: “I wanted to do what the child’s mother would have done, if she was here.” He knew no danger would keep a parent from their child. No risk would stop a mother reaching her child and making sure he knew he was loved. This has always epitomised, to me, Michael’s relationship with children. He seemed to feel a parent’s love and a parent’s responsibility for every child in the world." ~ Maria Crawford (om Michaels besök på ett sydafrikanskt barnsjukhus 1997)