I got to interview Michael Jackson only once, at the family home in Encino, Calif. This was on the occasion of his 21st birthday, and I remember thinking that for a guy approaching a milestone, he didn’t seem very happy. Truth is, he seemed tired. Not from fatigue or exertion. It was an existential tired, as if he felt worn down by the simple act of being.

I remember Jackson did not walk about the place so much as haunt it, slumping from room to room as a great weight rested upon his sparrow shoulders.

He complained to me that he was lonely, told me how he wandered the ...

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