He was the most famous human being on the planet. A man who could not walk down a street, eat in a restaurant, or visit a park without inciting a global media frenzy. His movements were electric, his voice was iconic, and his face was known in every corner of the Earth. He was Michael Jackson, the King of Pop. Yet, behind the sold-out stadiums, the screaming fans, and the blinding flashbulbs, lived a man of profound and painful contradictions: a man who confessed he was so lonely and “too shy to be around real people” that he filled his home with mannequins just to feel like he had “someone”.

In a series of startlingly candid interviews, the veil of the world’s biggest superstar was pulled back to reveal the painfully human, shy, and searching heart beneath. These weren’t polished press junkets. They were raw, unfiltered confessions of a man who admitted he “needed love real bad” and chased a globe-spanning career in a desperate attempt to find it.

Perhaps the most telling, and heartbreaking, of his admissions was his reason for owning mannequins. “I needed someone,” he explained, his voice soft. “That’s probably why I had the mannequins, ‘cuz I felt I needed people… someone… and I didn’t have. I was too shy.” This single image—a global icon seeking companionship from inanimate objects—paints a devastating portrait of his isolation. He felt “strange” around “everyday people” and admitted that the only place in the world he was truly comfortable was on stage. Everything else, he said, was “foreign to me”.

This profound disconnect from “real life” started in his childhood, a childhood that was anything but normal. He recounted in shocking detail the early inspiration for one of his biggest hits, “Billie Jean.” The song’s paranoid, accusatory lyrics—”Billie Jean is not my lover… she’s just a girl who claims that I am the one, but the kid is not my son”—were born from a disturbing reality he witnessed as a child.

“There were a lot of Billie Jeans out there,” he recalled. “A lot of girls who used to… they used to call them groupies in the 60s.” He described having to share bedrooms with his brothers on tour, an experience that robbed him of his innocence. “There was some action going on in my room every night. I could hear it.” While he pretended to be asleep, as he was instructed, he heard everything. “I would hear these girls come in and I would hear them say, ‘Is that little Michael?’… and they go, ‘Oh, he’s so cute’.” This experience, he confirmed, was the seed for the song. He later saw the fallout: “Every girl claimed… their son was related… to one of my brothers.”

This chaotic, adult-rated childhood, combined with a famously difficult relationship with his father, forged his entire life’s motivation. He didn’t chase fame for the money or the accolades. He chased it for something far more fundamental. “I think all my success and fame… I’ve wanted it. I wanted it because I wanted to be loved.” In a moment of pure vulnerability, he was asked if he thought becoming a great star would make his father love him, too. He answered with a simple, quiet, “mhm”. “I was hoping I could,” he elaborated. “And I was hoping I could get love from other people, ‘cuz I needed it real bad.”

The tragic irony was that the very fame he achieved to get love, built an impenetrable wall that made finding “real” love almost impossible. He was a man who could make 100,000 people scream by pointing, yet he confessed, “I’ve never asked a girl out in my life.” They had to ask him. “I can’t ask a girl out,” he said, embarrassed. He was “just beginning to learn about friendship,” especially with women.

He wasn’t without love. He admitted to being in love with Brooke Shields and “another girl.” He spoke with deep, lifelong affection for Diana Ross, with whom he and his brothers lived for years. “I never said this, I always had a crush on her,” he smiled. “I loved her very much… she was my type.” He adored Elizabeth Taylor, calling her “gorgeous, beautiful,” and when asked if the rumors were true that he had proposed to her, he demurred with a coy, “I would like to have.”

But these were loves from within his insulated world of celebrity. He craved a “real relationship with someone who doesn’t want me for… that,” he said, implying his fame. But he was also terrified. He had seen the dark side of relationships up close. “Women can do some things that make guys very unhappy,” he said, referencing his brothers. “I’ve seen it with my brothers… I see my brothers crying in tears and pulling the grass out of the lawn out of frustration because of their wives.”

This mix of intense shyness, fear, and an old-fashioned worldview defined him. When an interviewer brazenly asked him, “Are you a virgin?”, his reaction was one of pure, flustered embarrassment. “How could you ask me that question?” he stammered. “I’m a gentleman… you can call me old-fashioned if you want… but… that’s very personal.” He never answered, but his response revealed more than a “yes” or “no” ever could. He was a man out of time, holding onto a code of privacy in a world that demanded his every secret.

But there was one secret, one dream, he was more than willing to share: his desperate desire for a family. “I’m very family orientated,” he said, noting he came from a family of 10 children. “I don’t think I could live without that bond.” When asked if he wanted a big family, his eyes lit up. He said he told a woman he wanted “12”. When the interviewer seemed shocked, he doubled down, “I’m serious… probably twice that size.” He wanted 18 kids.

This wasn’t a casual wish. It was a core part of his being. “I would feel that my life isn’t complete if I do not,” he stated firmly. “I adore the family life. I adore children… that’s one of my dreams.”

But the dream was, for a long time, deferred. “I couldn’t right now,” he lamented, “because I’m married… I am married to my work.” It was a marriage that he felt was necessary to achieve the perfection he demanded, but it came at a devastating personal cost. In a final, heartbreaking admission, he spoke of a promise of children that was broken. “She promised me that before we married, that that would be the first thing, we’d have children,” he said, his voice trailing off. “I was brokenhearted.” The pain was so intense, he “walked around all the time holding… baby dogs and crying. That’s how badly I wanted it.”

This was the man behind the moonwalk. Not a god, not an alien, but a profoundly gifted, profoundly wounded human being. He was a man who craved the simple, “real” things in life—friendship, a date, a family—but was trapped by the colossal, global persona he had built to find love in the first place. The King of Pop had the adoration of a billion people, but all he ever really wanted was the love of “someone.”