By 1972, the older Jacksons had left a long trail of broken hearts as they toured the country, city by city. Then they rented an apartment near their house in Encino, where they could hang out with their female conquests away from Katherine's scrutiny.

  Rhonda Phillips was one of "those" girls. Today, she is a fourty-nine-year-old divorcée who lives with her three children in Long Beach, California. Back in August 1972, she was eighteen when she met her idol, Jackie, who was twenty-one. She had been selected from the audience by one of the group's road managers when the brothers were on stage at the Forum in Inglewood, California. Backstage, Jackie gave Rhonda a slip of paper with an address on it and told her to meet him at that location in an hour. As she mulled over his offer, she sensed someone behind her, and turned around. It was Michael. "He was just a cute little guy," she said. "He had big teeth, a flat, wide nose, a perfectly combed natural; he looked like any pretty fourteen-year-old black boy you'd find in the neighbourhood. He noticed the slip of paper in my hand."

  "Did Jermaine give you that?" he asked.

  "No, Jackie."

  "He wants you to meet him, doesn't he?" he asked.

  "Yes," Rhonda said. "I don't know if I should –"

  Michael cut her off. "Don't," he said. "I don't think you should meet him."

  Rhonda asked Michael why she shouldn't go. She remembered his answer: "My brothers don't treat girls too good. They can be mean. Please, don't go."

  Rhonda remembered thinking that Michael was only fourteen; what could he know? She changed the subject and asked him for his autograph. She thrust forward the piece of paper Jackie had given her, he scribbled on it and handed it back to her.

  The group's representative had arranged the cab fare for Rhonda to meet Jackie. She was taken to the Jacksons' apartment in Encino. As the car pulled up to the curb, she happened to turn over the slip of paper in her hand and realized that Michael had written more than just his name on the back of it. There was a message: "I hope you don't go." It was signed "Michael Jackson."

  She went inside the apartment complex, found the Jacksons' and had sex with Jackie. "I won't be able to see you after this," he told her when they were finished. She began to cry.

  "Suddenly, I was ashamed," she recalled many years later. "He held me for a little while and then told me that someone from Motown would be waiting outside to take me home. He kissed me, and I left. The whole thing took less than half an hour."

  As Rhonda was walking down to the street, a white Rolls-Royce pulled up. Michael and Marlon were sitting in the backseat. The car pulled up to the curb. The boys got out and Marlon ran past Rhonda up to the apartment. Michael came over to her.

  "What are you doing here?" he asked, his tone accusatory. "Were you up there with Jackie?"

  "Yeah, I was," she answered.

  "Did you have sex?" Michael wanted to know.

  Rhonda began to cry.

  Michael shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry," he said. "Did he make you do it?"

  "No, of course not. I wanted to."

  "You wanted to?" Michael asked, seeming astonished. "But why would you want to?"

  Rhonda got into the car. She rolled down the window. Michael was still standing at the curb. "Are you gonna be all right?" he asked.

  "Yeah, I will be," she answered.

  "By now, I was sobbing," Rhonda recalled. "I rolled up the window and the car pulled off. I looked out the back window and the last thing I saw was Michael Jackson standing there waving goodbye to me."

 

~ The Magic, The Madness, The Whole Story, J. Randy Taraborrelli