Naomi: I’ll put my own music on. (hears music playing and walks into a room and points at TV screen with young Michael singing I Want You Back in 1970 with the purple hat) Look at him! Look at how beautiful he is!
He called up and asked if I’d do his video with Herb Ritts and I said yes, I’d love to. I didn’t believe it at first and then… we had a lot of fun. We were like two children. We had water fights and (giggles) cream can fights, whipped cream can fights. He was great to work with. Michael Jackson is a true, is very professional, he’s a perfectionist. He knows everything. He’s very smart. He knows where every single thing he’s doing, he’s got it under control, he knows everything. People probably wonder how, he has so much going on, but he manages to do it. People like Michael Jackson, Madonna I admire and respect and have much admiration for.
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NARRATOR: And while Naomi was a star in her own right, she couldn’t believe which megastar wanted her in his next video.
(footage of “In the Closet” shown)
NAOMI: When Herb Ritts (the director of “In the Closet”) called me, I said, “Yeah, right! Michael Jackson really asked ME.”
NARRATOR: The video would be Jackson’s “In the Closet.”
HERB RITTS: And we looked at lots of dancers. And you know, we know Naomi really well and work with her all the time. I remembered she’s a great dancer, she has incredible presence. I wanted kind of a Spanish, exotic kind of a woman and Naomi has an incredible rhythm for this. I mean, and she’s trained as a dancer.
NAOMI: When Herb works, it’s always with such enthusiasm. He loves everything he does, that you just say, “Okay okay, I’m going to do it, count on me, okay.”
NARRATOR: Naomi braved the scorching California desert to meet Michael Jackson.
NAOMI: He was very sweet, he’s very shy. I mean, I would say like, “bloody hell” and he’d say, “Don’t swear, Naomi! Stop cursing!” I’d be like, “Sorry!” (laughs)
NAOMI (commenting on the video): Well, I’m supposed to be flirting…
(woman in the background): You grabbed his @$$.
NAOMI: Did I? I don’t think so.
(footage is shown of Naomi and Michael)
NAOMI: Herb… pushed me to do it. It’s all Herb’s fault, Herb’s the director, I have to do what I’m told. I was being obedient.
NARRATOR: Although she appeared nearly naked in photographs and on the runway, this solo erotic dance brought back the shy little girl in the supermodel.
NAOMI: Well, we had black curtains and everything. They could see it on the monitor, but they were not in front of our faces, ’cause I would never be able to do THAT.
NARRATOR: What Naomi WAS able to do was stay in step with the man who perfected the moonwalk. No easy task…
HERB RITTS: Naomi just has this natural ability to work with him, and it’s very difficult. If he’s being spontaneous, to have somebody who doesn’t dance every day find those moves and work AND have a presence and be flirty AND, um, have that chemistry and that connection.
NAOMI: And I kept up with him. That was what I was there to do.
(footage of Michael pretending to strangle Naomi during an erotic scene)
NAOMI: It was fun. We were joking ALL the time. It was like, jokemaster. It was constantly jokes, jokes, jokes. It was fun.
NAOMI: He had a discipline probably of what it was like to do film, because it’s doing the same thing over and over again, picking up,picking up, in the heat, and the continuity of how your hair has to be, how your makeup has to be, like you wanted to change something on the second day, you can’t. That’s the way you started off, that’s the way you have to keep going.
NARRATOR: And what did the King of Pop compare the Queen of the Fashion Kingdom to?
NAOMI: The sweetest thing Michael said to me was, um, that I reminded him of a fawn, which is like a baby deer. He said that is what he thought I looked like. I thought that like a “Bambi,” and I thought that was very sweet.
NAOMI (during the end of the show, when she was commenting on everybody):
He is a brilliant artist. He is a legend, and always will be.
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Naomi Campbell, seen recently dancing it up in Sobe’s Life Water commercial featuring Thriller, comments about how everybody wanted to learn the dances in that video. She adds, “It was brilliant.”
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Naomi Campbell, who paid the festival a brief visit alongside the prime minister’s wife Sarah Brown for the White Ribbon Alliance, a campaign to raise awareness about women who died in pregnancy, was shocked at the news.
Campbell featured in Jackson’s 1992 music video In The Closet, and knew him well. “I’m just like everyone else – in shock,” she said, stood on the top of the Ribbon Tower, looking out at panoramic views over the site.
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Some of the memories that were flashing through my mind:
Michael on location in the hot and dusty southern California desert looking a bit thin and vulnerable under the merciless sun. Then the strains of “In the Closet” from his album “Dangerous” drifted across the set and he was rolling on the ground with Naomi Campbell in a sensual embrace that was wild enough to have the crew applauding when the director yelled, “Cut.” His energy was amazing.
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British supermodel NAOMI CAMPBELL has paid tribute to MICHAEL JACKSON, branding him the “first global superstar”.
Campbell starred in the video promo of the singer’s 1991 track In The Closet, and struck up a firm friendship with the King of Pop.
The beauty was devastated to learn of his passing on Thursday (25Jun09) after he suffered a cardiac arrest – and has paid a moving tribute to the man she calls an “all-time great”.
She tells Vibe.com “I grew up with Michael Jackson, he was a good friend and the most exciting and innovative entertainer to have lived.
“No artist has connected to their audience like Michael and no one will ever be able to match what he has achieved. He gave back to people through his charity work and was an amazing father and human being.
“Michael touched people of every race, nationality, age and was the first truly global superstar. He is one of the all-time greats and his role in popular culture will never be surpassed and never ever be forgotten.”
“The video is smoldering in its simplicity, and is devoid of the special effects and super-embellished wardrobe that had become his trademark, showcasing a new confidence in Michael, his hair pulled off his face in a simple straight ponytail.
“This confidence to be able to simplify and step away from what people expected from him struck a particular chord with me, at the time a young woman growing up in London, and it is something I hold true to to this day. Thank you, Michael.”
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Michael Jackson: Womanizer, Did the Gloved One have loved ones?, By Dr. Firpo Carr, Los Angeles Sentinel Newspaper, October 1 – 7, 2009
Naomi Campbell (In the Closet): Supermodel Naomi Campbell ravished Michael in this 1991 video, just as her onscreen character called for. In a Vibe interview conducted by Memsor Kamaraké Naomi said the following after hearing of his death: “I grew up with Michael Jackson, he was a good friend and the most exciting and innovative entertainer to have lived. No artist has connected to their audience like Michael and no one will ever be able to match what he has achieved. He gave back to people through his charity work and was an amazing father and human being. Michael touched people of every race, nationality, age and was the first truly global superstar. He is one of the all time greats and his role in popular culture will never be surpassed and never ever be forgotten.” Aside from this video, what else did Michael and the supermodel have in common? Both their mothers are Jehovah’s Witnesses and endeavored to raise them “in the Truth.”