Pop music legend Michael ‘The King of Pop’ Jackson was born on this day in 1958 in Gary, Indiana.
Jackson began performing with his four brothers in the pop group known as The Jackson 5 when he was a child. The group scored its first number one single in 1969, with I Want You Back.
By the age of 11, Jackson was appearing on TV, and by 14 he had released his first solo album. A Jackson 5 TV cartoon series appeared in the early 70s, and in 1976 the Jackson family, including sister Janet Jackson, launched a TV variety show called The Jacksons. It ran for one season.
Throughout the 70s, media attention focused on Michael, who piped vocals in his high voice for ABC, I’ll Be There, and many other Top 20 hits. Jackson released several solo albums in the 70s, but his great breakthrough came in 1979 with Off the Wall.
He became the first solo artist to score four Top 10 hits from one album, including She’s Out of My Life and Rock with You. His next album, Thriller, released in 1983, became the biggest selling album up to that time, selling some 45 million copies around the world.
This time, he scored seven Top 10 singles, and the album won eight Grammy Awards.
Although his next album, Bad (1987), sold only about half as many copies as Thriller, it was still a tremendous best-seller. In 1991, Jackson signed an unprecedented $65 million record deal with Sony. That year, he released Dangerous.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Jackson developed a reputation as an eccentric recluse. He moved to a 1 000 hectare ranch called Neverland, which he outfitted with wild animals and a ferris wheel.
He underwent a facelift and nose job and was rumoured to have lightened his skin through chemical treatment, though he claimed his increasing pallor was due to a skin disease. In 1993, scandal broke when Jackson was publicly accused of child molestation and underwent investigation.
In 1994, Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley, but the couple later divorced. Jackson then married Deborah Rowe in 1996, and the couple had two children, Prince and Paris, before divorcing in 1999.
Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009, in Los Angeles, California, just weeks before a planned concert tour billed as his “comeback.” He was 50 years old.
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