Michael explained that his face was so covered with acne and his nose so large at that time that visitors to the family home in Encino sometimes wouldn't recognize him. "They would come up, look me straight in the eye and ask if I knew where that 'cute little Michael' was." It was as if the "whole world was saying, 'How dare you grow up on us.' "

Michael said he started looking down at the floor when people approached or would stay in his room when visitors came to the house.

Michael vowed to do whatever it took to make people "love me again." The rejection fueled his ambition to be the biggest pop star in the world and to try to make his face beautiful. Unfortunately, Michael's need was so great that no amount of love seemed to be enough.

The stage was his sanctuary. There, he was larger than life and no one could threaten him. Every time he left the stage, he said, he felt vulnerable again.

In the 1981 interview, he told me, "My real goal is to fulfill God's purpose. I didn't choose to sing or dance. But that's my role, and I want to do it better than anybody else. I still remember the first time I sang in kindergarten class. I sang 'Climb Every Mountain,' and everyone got so excited.

"It's beautiful at the shows when people join together. It's our own little world. For that hour and a half, we try to show there is hope and goodness. It's only when you step back outside the building that you see all the craziness."

Michael's hunger for fame and success struck me as increasingly obsessive and unhealthy.

Even though 1982's "Thriller" was the biggest-selling album of all time, Michael told me one night that his next album would sell twice as many copies. I thought he was joking, but he had never been more serious.

As years went by, I watched with sadness as his music went from the wonderful self-affirmation and endearing spirit of "Thriller" to something increasingly calculated and soulless. His impact in the marketplace waned accordingly. It appeared that his desperate need for ultra stardom -- the "King of Pop" proclamation -- and his escalating eccentricities made it difficult for audiences to identify with him.

Even some of his "Thriller" fans were ultimately turned off. In the public mind, he went from the "King of Pop" to the "King of Hype."

When I surveyed leading record industry executives in 1995 to determine pop's hottest properties, Michael wasn't in the top 20.

One executive said flatly: "The thing he doesn't understand is that he'd be better off in the long run if he made a great record that only went to No. 20 than if he hyped another mediocre record to No. 1. The thing he needs is credibility."

Another executive said simply that Michael was "over."

Michael was furious when he called me the day after the story ran in The Times.

How could I betray him by writing such lies?