File:Michael Jackson with James Safechuck (31955983537).jpg

Shot #2 of 2

Michael Jackson, Jimmy Safechuck and I - the second of two photos we posed for. This photo was taken immediately after the first because Michael said he had blinked his eyes and suggested we take another.

This photo was taken around the pool area of the Kahala Hilton Hotel (today called Kahala Resort) in Honolulu, Hawaii, in early February 1988. The small boy dressed like Michael is James ("Jimmy") Safechuck, a boy who appeared in a Pepsi commercial with Michael and was traveling with him. They were inseparable around the hotel together, chasing each other, playing tag, making soap bubbles on a balcony of the hotel, walking closely on the beach together and looking at the hotel's dolphins, turtles and penguins together. Michael, though 29 1/2 years old at the time, acted more like someone Jimmy's age. Jimmy is about 10 years old at this time.

Michael and Jimmy were staying at the Kahala Hilton Hotel (today called Kahala Resort) and I saw them 7 different times around the hotel over 3 days - during the day walking together on the beach, standing together in the lobby, together on a room's balcony, looking at the dolphin area together, and looking at the turtles and penguins kept on display around the swimming pool.

Once time Michael and Jimmy were out in the daytime around the pool with Jimmy's mom. I took a dozen or so photos from a nearby high location (see those photos in this album). Another time I saw Michael, Jimmy and his mom standing on the balcony of a room making soap bubbles in the air (see photos of them on the balcony in this album).

Michael was in Hawaii to make an appearance at a Pepsi bottlers convention that was taking place at another hotel 15 minutes away, the Sheraton-Waikiki Hotel, a 30-story hotel located in the heart of crowded and touristy Waikiki Beach.

This was the first of two photos we took together. After we took this shot Michael turned to me and said "I think I blinked. We should take another one." Sure enough, when I got the film developed later Michael's eyes are closed so we took a second one (you can see that photo in this album also). I thought it was very nice of him to tell me we should take another shot.

When I asked Michael if he would pose for a picture with me and he agreed, but said we should move farther away from the hotel so as not to attract attention. As Michael and I stood side by side ready to take the picture it occurred to me that it would be polite to ask Michael's young friend to join us. I didn't want the boy to feel left out, shoved aside by a fan only interested in the star. He seemed happy to be invited to join in the photo. I only found out Jimmy's name later, and that he was the boy appearing in a Pepsi TV commercial with Michael at the time.

This photo was taken at night around the pool area at the Kahala Hilton Hotel in early February 1988. This was four years after Michael's scalp was burned during the filming of a Pepsi commercial, two years after he was diagnosd with vitiligo, a skin condition, one month before he finalized the purchase of the land that would become Neverland, and four months before he began sexually molesting Safechuck according to the documentary Leaving Neverland.

Michael was extremely sweet and nice to us, and we talked to him for about 15 minutes. He asked us where we were from and told us he was going to be touring in Europe later in the year. When I saw him and asked for this picture he said "They'd be mad if they knew I was out here" which I assumed meant he had sneaked out of the hotel away from his security and that they would be upset if they knew he had ventured out alone. But there was nobody out around the pool and animal area but he and Jimmy, myself and my friend's Jack and Don. Just the 5 of us, so he was in no danger of getting mobbed. Still, he didn't want to attract attention.

Later as we were talking a young girl and her parents wandered by and saw Michael and got his autograph and their own photo with him.

Note: Permission granted for anyone to publish or post this photo anywhere. Please credit "Photo courtesy of Alan Light" if you can. Thanks.

Link to the 1987 TV commercial with Michael Jackson and Jimmy Safechuck: