Todd Bridges Talks About Michael on His Latest Book "Killing Willis"

After we had been dating for a while, Janet told me that her brother Michael wanted to meet me. I was excited to be introduced to him. Like everyone else, I had grown up listening to the Jackson 5, so I was a fan. Also, Michael and I were pretty much the only black teen idols at the point, and I was curious to see what he was like and if his experience of fame was the same as mine.

I went to pick Janet up at the house her family was building then. They were in the middle of construction, and there were all of these exposed pipes everywhere. This was before Michael's album "Thriller" had come out, and Michael was going around the house singing "Thriller" into all of these little pipes.
"This is Thriller", he sang into one pipe.
And then he ran over to another pipe.
"Thriller", he sang into that pipe.
He had this high-pitched giggle, and he was laughing like crazy about how the pipes made his voice sound all weird and distorted. He was basically this big kid, always finding the fun in everything.

I didn't ever really get to know the rest of the family that well, but Janet, Michael, LaToya, and I spent a lot of time together that year. Michael was always just silly and a lot of fun. Not that he ever really had the chance to be himself. We were both struggling with the challenges of growing up in the public eye, and that meant putting on a smile even when things were far from fine. He never got a break. I think, eventually, it was too much for him. Now that he's gone from us, I hope he's found some peace. I'll always have a tremendous amount of admiration for him.