Michael Talks To Oprah(February 10,1993)-(8)

Michael: Well, I haven't read LaToya's book. I just know how to love my sister dearly. I love LaToya and I always will and I always see her as the happy, loving LaToya that I remember growing up with. So I couldn't completely answer on that.
Oprah: Do you feel that some of the things that she's been saying are true?
Michael: I couldn't answer Oprah; honestly I haven't read the book. That's the honest truth.
Oprah: Well, let's go back to when you were growing up and feeling all of this, well, I guess it's a sense of anguish, I guess, so there was no one for you to play with other than your brother's, you never had slumber parties?
Michael: Never.
Oprah: So I'm wondering for you, being this cute little boy who everybody adored and everybody who comes up to you they're pulling your cheeks and how cute; how adolescence going through that duck stage where everything's awkward, and I'm wondering when you started to go through adolescence having been this child superstar, was that a particularly difficult time for you?
Michael: Very. Very, very difficult, yes. Because I think every child star suffers through this period because you're not the cute and charming child that you were. You start to grow, and they want to keep you little forever.
Oprah: Who's they?
Michael: The public. And um, nature takes its course.
Oprah: It does.
Michael: Yes, and I had pimples so badly it used to make me so shy, I used to not look at myself, I'd hide my face in the dark, I wouldn't want to look in the mirror and my father teased me and I just hated it and I cried every day.
Oprah: Your father teased you about your pimples?
Michael: Yes and tell me I'm ugly.
Oprah: Your father would say that?
Michael: Yes he would. Sorry Joseph.
Oprah: What's your relationship like with him?
Michael: I love my father but I don't know him.