“Whenever I got into it like that, Mr. Jackson would always talk me down. ‘Bill, be nice to my fans,’ he’d say. ‘They’re not going to let anything happen to me. They’re harmless.’

 

Part of our apprehension was that at first we didn’t understand what his relationship with his fans was. We were surprised to learn that he stayed in touch with some of them, would correspond with them. They would call his manager and send messages through her. When he talked to them, there were a lot of exchanges of ‘I love you’ and ‘I love you more.’ They were always bringing him presents, personal things. They’d say, ‘I made this for you’; ‘Here’s a stuffed animal’; ‘Here’s a Peter Pan trinket.’

 

His relationship with his fans—I’d never seen anything like it with other celebrities. Never. No matter how famous. With other celebrities, you see the groupies hanging around, but these were not groupies. Mr. Jackson actually knew a lot of them individually. He remembered what show he first met them at, how many years they’d known each other. He’d point out fans that he’d seen in other countries. Here we were in Las Vegas, and he was going, ‘That one there, I remember him from Germany.’

 

It was an interesting relationship, him and the fans. He loved them as much as they loved him. From his bedroom window upstairs, he could look directly out to the street where they were camped out. Sometimes we’d glance up and see him, looking out from behind the curtains, just watching them, observing them. They’d sit and wait; he’d sit and watch.”

 

~ Remember the time: Protecting Michael Jackson in his final days