Meet the Cork superfan who gained access to Michael Jackson's inner circle
Talitha Linehan from Boherbue, Co Cork has published a book on her memories of her time with Michael Jackson
Prior to 2007, if anyone had asked me what my most amazing time with Michael was, the answer would have been obvious: it was the day that I spent with him at Neverland Valley in September 2003. But as the magical year that was 2007 unfolded, it became increasingly difficult to speak in terms of superlatives, to pinpoint the encounters that surpassed all others, a trend that would continue throughout the rest of my time within Michael’s world.
Yet, certainly one of my most magical encounters was the final one of that year, which was the culmination of a wave of enchantment that had swept into my life about a week earlier, when I’d received a lovely surprise in the mail: a photograph of Michael and me hugging at Los Angeles International Airport that I’d given to him earlier that year, with a message from him written across it. I’d never before received anything in the mail from Michael, and I’d also never before seen my name written in his handwriting, making this unexpected gift my most cherished to date.
I was planning to go to Ireland for Christmas, as I did every year, and what I wished for more than anything was to reach out to Michael one more time, to thank him for giving me the most magical year of my life. It was the first week of December and I was in Las Vegas and he was in Los Angeles, and I didn’t have time to go to LA before I left for Ireland, making the prospect of connecting with him one more time seem slim, bordering on impossible. Nonetheless, I decided to go Christmas shopping for him and his three children, hoping that the act of doing so would release my intentions into the universe, where some greater power might see them met.
I wished and prayed, much as I had been doing since I was a young girl in the Irish countryside, gazing up at the stars, and what do you know, a few days later, Michael arrived in Henderson, just south of Las Vegas, and checked into the Green Valley Ranch resort.
With two gift bags, containing beautifully illustrated books for the children and a Pinocchio marionette for Michael, all neatly wrapped and decorated, I drove to the Green Valley Ranch. I had planned to drop the gifts off at the front desk but then I spotted a security guard called Bill, who I recognised from the house in Las Vegas, getting out of his jeep.
Bill disappeared inside the hotel before I could speak with him, so I decided to leave him a note, explaining to him who I was and why I was there. I asked him if I could please give him my gifts for Michael, and told him I would be parked by the resort’s shopping plaza all day and could come and meet him any time. Then I slipped the note under his windshield wiper and spent the day Christmas shopping at the nearby plaza, feeling unusually floaty, as if I knew deep down that beyond the festive spirit, some deeper strain of magic was in the air.
At 6pm, the stores closed and I returned to my car, disappointed that Bill hadn’t called but hoping that he still would, at which point I could return, as my home was a mere 30-minute drive away. I was about to leave when a jeep that looked like Bill’s arrived, circled the parking lot, and then parked across from me. Nevada didn’t require vehicles to have front licence plates (unlike California), so I wasn’t sure if it was Bill’s jeep (which had a personalized and therefore memorable licence plate, which I would have recognised) and assumed that it was not, that it was merely a coincidence.
The door opened and, to my delight, Bill stepped out, smiling at me. I leapt out, shook his hand, and thanked him for coming, and he told me that he’d shown the note to Michael and that he’d said he knew me and agreed to my request. I gave the gifts to Bill, thanking him again, and returned to my car. I was still sitting there, busying myself on my phone, when I heard the honk of a horn and glanced up. The sound was coming from the jeep and waving out its back window was a hand I’d recognise anywhere. It was Michael’s hand; it was Michael!
I leapt out of the car again, my heart exploding in happiness, and when I looked inside the jeep, I saw that Michael was sitting on the back seat with his three children, all beaming out at me. I may have been standing on concrete ground in a parking lot that evening, but throughout my time with Michael, I felt like I was floating inside a puff of fairy dust, an illusion reinforced by the carol singing in the distance and the starry sky above, but most of all by the touch of Michael’s hand, wrapped around mine, the depth of love in his eyes, and the melodious sound as he spoke my name for the first time in my presence, wrapping his voice around each syllable, making my heart sing.
“Thank you so much for the beautiful gifts, Talitha,” he said, in his soft, silvery voice. “You are so thoughtful and kind.” He had the children thank me too, and I, in turn, thanked him for the signed photograph, which he told me that he’d sent because he’d wanted me to know that he was thinking about me.
After some more sweet exchanges, the conversation flowed, as it always did between us, and the two older children joined in, telling me about the movies they’d seen recently and their beloved pets, a chocolate Labrador called Kenya, who I’d seen at the house in Las Vegas, and an orange tabby cat called Kaity (as spelt on a photo of her that Paris gave me the following year), who they’d acquired since then.
“Michael, are you still afraid of the dog?” I asked, and both he and Bill burst out laughing.
“How did you know that?” asked Michael.
“Oh, I’ve known that for ages,” I said. “You said it in an interview once. It surprised me because you love animals.” “See, she remembers everything!” he said to Bill.
“It’s true. I’m terrified of dogs. But this one is the best breed for children. He’s a chocolate Labrador. They’re the best breed. You can even have them around babies. They’re very gentle.”
He asked me what I was doing for Christmas, and when I told him I was going to Ireland, he and the children began reminiscing about their time there again. I told Michael I could see how the beauty of the countryside might remind him of Neverland, which is in the mountains, surrounded by forests.
“Oh, but it’s more beautiful than Neverland,” said Michael. “Much more beautiful.”
“Is it really? In what way?”
“Just the forestry there, it's so special. I never saw anything like it.”
“And that house you stayed at…”
“It is so beautiful on the inside. I will take you there some day.”
“Okay, Michael, I'm going to hold you to that!”
“Do! You are always welcome,” he said, squeezing my hand. “You know,” he continued, “I always felt a special affinity to Ireland, even before I ever went there. How could you not love that beautiful, emerald island? It's so green and luscious and has such beautiful forestry. And I love all the folklore and fairies and elves and leprechauns.” Then he and Paris and I had a discussion about Irish folklore and banshees.
And later, Michael returned to the topic and I assumed he was talking about when he went to Ireland in 1988, during the Bad tour, to perform a concert in Cork: “Our first time in Ireland, everyone was so warm and friendly and welcoming. From the moment we stepped off the plane, they were lining the roads, farmers and workers. Oh, it was incredible!”
The conversation went on and on and on, and I felt like I was going to explode into a million pieces if he said my name or held my hand or stroked my cheek or told me how much he loved me one more time.
We talked about Christmas and the Bible and dreams and energy and the projects he was working on and his plans for the future. I became tearful as I told him how much he’d inspired me as a young girl, reaching across the universe through his creative endeavours, and he became all the more affectionate as I shared this with him.
He told me that he’d written a song about his fans and how we make him feel, how deeply we touch his heart, and later he said: “I remember everything you all do for me, the cakes and the candies and all the letters and the tea on the card when we were all sick in Tokyo. I remember everything.”
The card he was referring to was one that the four girls I had stayed with in Tokyo and I had made after we’d heard, towards the end of our visit to Japan, that he had caught a cold. It was a handmade card with a photograph of us on the front, sitting on the bed in our hotel room holding three signs that said “Get” “Well” “Soon.” Inside, we’d attached sachets of tea and honey, and written a message of love and good wishes to him, and then we’d given the card to the security guards stationed outside his hotel room on the floor above.
That was nine months ago, and Michael still remembered that card, enough to bring it up in conversation, knowing that I was one of the girls involved. I contemplated that later, imagining how many cards and letters and gifts he must have received since then, especially during his two visits to London, where he’d gone in March of that year and again in May, as well as all of the places he’d visited and all of the people he’d met and all of the new memories he’d formed, and yet still, he’d held in the forefront of his mind that simple little card, fashioned out of a piece of cardboard folded in two.
Ever since I’d felt my love for Michael released, at the age of thirteen, he had always been magical to me, and this was the first time I expressed that to him in person, as opposed to in letters, to which most of my expression to him over the years had been confined. I asked him and his children if they’d seen the movie , and they all responded enthusiastically, talking over each other as they told me how much they loved it.
“I knew you would all love it,” I said. “I loved it too. It was like stepping into a fairy tale. I wish I could live in Andalasia [the magical kingdom in the movie]. Well, I kind of do. I mean, you're my fairy tale, Michael.”
“Oooh,” said Michael, and he brushed my cheek with his hand, making me flutter.
“You are,” I said. “I remember when I was really little, I didn't think you were real. I thought there was Santa and Peter Pan and Michael Jackson. I mean, real yes, but living in another dimension. Not like in the real world. You were too magical to live in the real world.”
“Aw, do you hear that?” he said to his children. “That is so beautiful. You are very sweet,” he said, while stroking my cheek again.
At one point, the bodyguard Bill asked me how I’d known they were coming to the parking lot to find me, and I said, I hadn’t known it at all; at least as far as I’d known, I hadn’t known, but maybe on some deeper level, I had, just as I’d known without knowing to go to the Wing Lei restaurant at the Wynn in February, where I’d seen Michael for the first time that year.
“See,” said Michael to Bill. “She’s clairvoyant. I told you.”
“I am,” I said. “Really. When it comes to you, I have this sixth sense. I just follow the energy.”
Before parting, Michael told me that he was going to put my gifts under the tree, and that he and his children would open them on Christmas morning, leaving me with a beautiful image to envision as I spent the holidays with my family in Ireland. As the jeep moved away, it drove over a concrete bumper stop and I heard Michael’s laughter ring out as he waved once more out the window, to assure me that he was okay.
He was okay and I was in heaven, because for the first time in my life, I hadn’t gone to him; he had come to me, sought me out in a parking lot under a starlit sky, and that final encounter of that magical year left me feeling more deeply loved and blessed than ever before, bursting with joy and gratitude.
- Extract from 'Chapter Six: A magical year' in by Talitha Linehan
- Now available on Amazon and other retail sites
- michaeljacksonandme.com
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