How Come Nobody Ever Apologizes to Michael Jackson: Emmanuel Lewis

On last week’s edition of How Come Nobody Ever Apologizes to Michael Jackson, we covered how Michael Jackson helped Ryan White and his mother upon White being diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. This week, we’ll be diving into somebody who continues to be one of Jackson’s biggest defenders—Emmanuel Lewis. Now before I start, I want to address something. Over the years, many people have tried to put a sinister twist on Jackson’s friendships with kids, while also trying to make it seem like kids were the only people he ever became friends with. That is simply not true. I will be doing a separate segment on this soon, but the truth is—Jackson formed friendships with many people of all ages, including those who were in his age range and much older.

For example, when Jackson was a teenager, he became friends with Fred Astaire and would hangout with him regularly, and when he was in his early twenties, he established a relationship with Katharine Hepburn, who at that time was in her seventies. Again, I’ll be diving into this topic more, but to reiterate—Michael Jackson had friendships with people of all ages. Now, I already provided a quote about why Jackson liked being around kids in some earlier segments of this series, but as a reminder, he stated on many occasions that children were among the few people that didn’t treat him like he was “Michael Jackson.”

When Jackson was around kids, it not only allowed him to escape his celebrity for brief moments, but it was also a way for him to experience the things he didn’t get to much as a working celebrity child such as…water balloon fights and scavenger hunts.

Now back to Emmanuel Lewis.

Michael Jackson became friends with Lewis and his family around 1983. Over the years, many people have tried to make this seem “weird,” but as is the case with many elements of Jackson’s life, the people that were actually involved don’t think of it as such. As I like to do often with this series, I will let Emmanuel speak for himself. During a 2012 interview with Criss Angel, Lewis stated that Jackson stayed with his family while recovering from the scalp surgery he needed after the events of the Pepsi burn.

“Michael used to live at my house. He lived at the condo with my mom and brothers. When he had the Pepsi burn surgery —it was really bad—he was under a lot of medication. Instead of going home, he decided to check into the Sheraton hotel, and I was like ‘Oh no that’s Mike—that’s my boy, I can’t let him recuperate at a hotel! I told him that we were coming to kidnap him, and me, my mom and my brothers took him in.”

“I had an extra room for my sister who stayed in New York with her daughter, and so he literally recuperated for months at my condo.”

Here’s a picture from around that time period. As you can see, Jackson has a surgical cap on his head.

Lewis also recently offered some more tidbits on his friendship with Jackson during a June 2024 interview with B High ATL. In it, he stated he was there when Jackson closed his deal with Sony, and took the opportunity to defend his friend once more against the allegations.

“He (Jackson) was very upset about the allegations. Children and performing for the kids were something that were very near and dear to Michael. I was able to be there when a lot of these non-profit organizations like Make-A-Wish were asking him to see these kids. He’s going to the hospitals—I don’t know how many hospitals we visited, and how many times we had kids that we didn’t even know if they were going to make it another week. I had that a lot, but he had that quadruple times more because he’s the King.”

“To see something that he loved so dearly and have it turned against him —It’s like you’re having kids and now all of sudden they’re turned against you, and you’re being accused of something that…there’s nothing in your earthly being that will allow you to even think the way they’re even talking. To have something come against you that you love—he loved kids because he didn’t have a childhood—My childhood was a little bit different too, that’s why we had so much stuff alike because I started off early, and he started off even earlier. It was weird and I was like ‘dude if there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know—I’ll come to court.’”

“I asked, and they wouldn’t let anymore people come to court on his behalf. They didn’t allow that to happen, but I’m told him I was here. It’s just sad because most people weren’t sure—they were leaning in one way. Now all the news done came out, all the lies that were told and all the money grabs that were out there—people are still believing nonsense, and the truth is finally out! So imagine being accused of something—how do you even prove you’re innocent? How do you do that? It’s pretty wild.”

What Lewis is saying now is the exact same thing he’s been saving for the last thirty years, and yet unbelievably, there are still certain groups of people that try to speculate/say that Jackson abused Emmanuel Lewis despite his own repeated denials of any such thing, and these talking points usually come in the form of two pictures Jackson’s detractors believe somehow “prove” something.

Picture No. 1

This is Michael Jackson, Emmanuel Lewis and Jackson’s longtime bodyguard Bill Bray, who had been with him since he was a child. Jackson was so close to Bray that he viewed him as a father figure. As you can see, they are rough housing/fighting here, and clearly, there was somebody else in this room with them, and that person is the one that took the picture.

Picture No. 2

First off, only somebody who is sick minded would find something wrong with this, but…Emmanuel addressed this himself on X (then known as Twitter). Once again, credit to True Michael Jackson for the snapshot.

So as you can see—they were in a conversion van, and Emmanuel Lewis’ mother was right there. Plus, two of Jackson’s security guards were present and his personal photographer. Some of Jackson’s detractors know the stories behind these pictures, but what they try to do is purposely post them with no background information in the hopes of people not recognizing Lewis or Bill Bray. And if somebody is manipulating their “evidence”…well then that tells you everything you need to know right?

I’ll leave you with Emmanuel Lewis’ statement after the release of Leaving Neverland in 2019:

“Let’s be 100% clear here I was never a victim. My big Bro Michael has been nothing but kind and a role model to me and my family. I suggest you pick a subject you really know because obviously you don’t know Michael and you don’t know me. Spread peace not false rumors”

To be continued…