A grocery store was once shut down so Michael Jackson could shop like an ordinary person

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/02/a-grocery-store-was-once-shut.html

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Hm… he probably got the checkout people to actually acknowledge his existence, and not just get to watch the kid bagging try to hit on the girl scanning the groceries… that’s not ordinary…

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Fascinating and heartbreaking.

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There are a few things impossible for kids today under 20 to conceive of: a world with no internet, the lack of pocket cell phones, and a time when Michael Jackson was considered a sort of magical god among men.

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This is so off the charts of reality. First, he wants to experience the real world by putting on disguises and watching people at Disneyland. But then he has this whole fake super market scenario created just for him. It’s all fake. It’s too bad there were no people in his close entourage that simply told him " No, Michael, no, you can’t do that."

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I now feel even sadder for Michael Jackson than usual.

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Shouldn’t, maybe, as money obviously opens doors that are normally closed to the rest of us, but I take your point.
I guess it takes away some of the creepy factor of such behaviour if you can empathise and realise how far removed he was from everyday simple pleasures.

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I was going to ask, wouldn’t a disguise make for a much more authentic experience at a grocery store? Rather than putting on a disguise to visit a place that isn’t as fake as Disneyland, he made a grocery store into his personal Disneyland so he wouldn’t have to wear the disguise.

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Disguises + Disneyland = fake. Shutdown supermarket = fake.

Did nobody think of combining the disguise idea with just going to a regular open-to-the-public supermarket?

Although I wonder if he was capable of behaving “normal” enough to blend in at a supermarket. The disguises might work better at Disney where people expect costumed and eccentric characters to be wandering around…

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My thoughts exactly. After all his ​extreme encounters with mobs of fans in the 80’s, I’m surprised MJ didn’t keep a staff of costumers and makeup artists on hand just so he could go do normal stuff incognito.

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God he looked like Skeletor at the end.

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Spotted at Walmart one time. Big sale. Little boys’ pants half off.

Edit: Buying them for his young friends. That’s the ticket. No big deal. No innuendo. Possibly. Checked sources, found more info than you could ever want to read here: https://www.quora.com/Was-Michael-Jackson-really-a-paedophile plus multiple long Wikipedia articles on the various cases. Ick, but YMMV.

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Lol!

MJ died about a week before I got married. My best man spent the bachelor party torturing me with all the horrible MJ jokes he was going to tell in his speech at the reception. I’m like, “Christ, no! Grandma will be there!”

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I definitely feel bad for him, he had no semblance of normalcy because of what his dad put him through since he was extremely young. As a kid he was already a massive star, imagine photographers following your every step… Putting on a disguise might not work if you’re being followed. I’m glad a friend was able to do this favor for him but for sure breaks my heart

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I couldn’t imagine how awful it must be to be stopped all the time, even for people just to say hello. I’ll take “rich” as long as it doesn’t include “famous.”

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There’s always got to be someone.

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Lest we forget. Anyway, it was about shopping.

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We had the same thought, but the Pulp version was the first to come to my mind:

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This is especially true if you show them the thriller video and tell them at a certain point that was the pinnacle of pop culture.

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