Six years after his death, an ally of Michael Jackson’s wants his real story told.
Shana Mangatal is an actress and talent manager who claims she and Jackson had an on-off relationship for several years before his June 2009 death.
The Los Angeles resident recently spoke to Radar Online about the Michael Jackson she knew behind closed doors, and how the public’s perception of him was hugely inaccurate.
Now, Mangatal is writing a tell-all, Michael and Me: The Untold Story Of Michael Jackson’s Secret Romance (Chicago Press Review, August 2016), and in it she reveals that no one was more shocked by the sexual abuse claims than Jackson himself.
Mangatal told Radar that the King of Pop never wanted to disappoint his fans, and had a very difficult time saying no.
Some fans, Mangatal recalled, “wanted their kids to be with Michael.”
“His problem was that he couldn’t say no to anybody – especially kids. He was just so sweet and kind. He could never say no and when he finally did, parents would become upset.”
When Jackson was first accused of molesting children in 1993, he and Mangatal were filming a short called Is This Scary? about a community who turns on a man they deemed a “weirdo” who looks different and “loves kids.
The “normal” residents accused the man of scaring their children. When the weirdo asked the children themselves if he appeared frightening, the parents attempted to speak on their behalf.
“Son, do I scare you?” the weird asked a boy, who answered “no.”
But the boy’s father interjects.
“Yes, yes you do scare him.”
Mangatal said that it was a strange coincidence that production for the film was happening at the same time as the lawsuit.
“He was just devastated – he couldn’t go on,” she told Radar.
“He couldn’t finish filming and we had to cut it short because he couldn’t believe it.”
Mangatal believes that Jackson wanted to make the short so that parents would see the damage they were causing.
“That was his way of saying it’s the parents who were forcing this kid to say that he did something to him, and that’s what Michael said to me as well,” she explained.
“He would always go back to that video in our conversations.”