Dirty Minds
In June 1993, Jordie Chandler was scheduled to graduate from junior high school’s seventh grade. For months, he had anticipated the students’ party that would commemorate the milestone for them. Though Jordie had always been a popular student and had many friends, lately he seemed not to be in communication with many of them. He had become so antisocial since meeting Michael Jackson, his parents were concerned. However, the fact that he was still enthusiastic about going to the end-of-the-year dance did suggest to Evan and June that their son was still a normal teenager.
However, when Jordie walked into his mother’s bedroom to announce that he had decided not to attend the school function and wanted, instead, to spend the evening with Michael Jackson, she was worried. He had more fun with Michael than he did with his school chums, he told June, and if he could have it his way he would just as soon be with Michael. June, according to her later recollection, tried to convince Jordie that he should not abandon friends his own age for Michael. It was possible, she told him, to cultivate relationships with his school friends as well as with Michael. ‘You don’t have to choose one over the other,’ she said. However, Jordie didn’t see it that way; as far as he was concerned, his fellow students didn’t understand him the way Michael did and, worse, he said, they were unkind to others because they had been ‘conditioned’ to hate, just like adults. June was at a loss. Hearing her son parrot Michael’s philosophy was disconcerting. ‘You’d better talk to your dad about it,’ she suggested.
Evan Chandler’s position about Jordie’s decision was absolute. ‘Over my dead body,’ he told him, angrily. ‘You can not spend all of your time with Michael Jackson. I won’t allow it. Enough is enough.’
‘Well, you can’t stop me,’ Jordie said, defiantly. ‘I’ll do what I want to do.’
Evan, as he would later recall it, had begun to think that Michael was gay and that perhaps Jordie might be, as well. There was no other explanation, he thought, to such obsession. Whatever was going on, though, he felt that he needed to reconnect with his son. If the two could better communicate, he might then be able to figure out the problem. ‘I’m sick about all of this,’ he told Jordie. ‘We love you so much. Why have you turned your back on us? You can have Michael in your life,’ he concluded, ‘but you can also have us, and everyone else.’
When Evan went to embrace his son, Jordie was stiff and unaffectionate. Jordie didn’t want to hear what Evan had to say and didn’t want to engage with him on any level. Evan would later say that he felt then that he was losing his son to another man, and that he became more determined than ever to stop that from happening. He had no recourse but to lay down the law: ‘You’re going to that damn dance, Jordie. You are not spending the night with Michael Jackson.’
‘No, I’m not,’ said the youngster. ‘You never liked Michael,’ he said, as he stormed off. ‘You
acted
like you did. Michael told me that’s what was going on, and he was right.’
In the end, Jordie did not attend the school dance. He spent the night with Michael.
Though Michael Jackson may not have intended to do so, his presence in Jordie’s life had caused a terrible turmoil for the youngster, as well as for his parents, Evan and June, and even his stepfather, Dave Schwartz. The emergence of Michael into their lives had thrown everything into wild disarray, pitting the three adults against one another, and then Jordie against all of them, resulting in distrust and frustration for all. Without effective communication, it was inevitable that there would continue to be serious problems at home for Jordie.
Was Michael aware of his part in what was happening to Jordie’s family? One of his advisers recalls a conversation with him about Jordie, which took place while the two were sitting in a golf cart on the Neverland acreage, star-gazing. ‘You know, maybe you should just leave Jordie alone,’ suggested Michael’s adviser.
‘Nope,’ Michael said succinctly, recalled his adviser.
‘Why?’
‘What can I say?’ Michael asked. His expression was serene as he stared into the infinite space.
‘But look at all of the chaos your friendship with him is causing Jordie,’ observed the adviser. ‘Don’t you think you should back off?’ the adviser asked, still pushing.
Michael became angry; he could go from calm to fury in seconds. ‘Look, I’m not the one causing problems,’ he said. ‘It’s Jordie’s parents. They can’t accept that my relationship with him is innocent. They have dirty minds. There is nothing sexual going on. Why can’t people just get that?’
‘But, Mike…’
Michael rose and walked away before the conversation could be finished.
If what those who know him best say is true, that Michael is a child at heart, there’s definitely a flip side to such immaturity: he acts like a spoiled little kid when he can’t have his way. He is often unable to see any point of view other than his own.
On 7 July 1993 Evan Chandler struck a damaging blow to Michael’s friendship with Jordie and also, as it would happen, to his own relationship with his ex-wife, June, when he filed for a modification of her custody agreement. The documents petitioned the courts to forbid Jordie from going anywhere near Michael, and from visiting him at any of his homes, or anywhere else. Evan requested that Jordie receive psychiatric help to determine the full extent of Michael’s influence on him. He also accused June of ‘nurturing’ the relationship between Jordie and Michael, which he viewed as unhealthy, ‘because, according to what I know, she [June] receives expensive gifts, cash and vacations from Jackson’.
In the affidavit, Evan declared that he had discovered that Michael ‘routinely spent the night with my son and they slept in the same bed. I then asked him directly if he was having sex with my son. Jackson refused to give me a straight answer. He rather told me that he would continue sleeping with my son and that he thought it was “cosmic” and that he and Jordie were made to be together.’
Michael was hurt and, of course, angry. He was also still unwilling to consider the option of sacrificing his own wants and needs in order to allow Jordie some space to reconnect with his parents. Rather, he viewed the adults in Jordie’s life as validation of his personal philosophy that grown-ups cannot be trusted, are certain to act in irrational ways and can be counted on to sink to the lowest, most base behaviour. If Evan had Jordie’s best interest at heart, Michael reasoned, surely he would allow such a loving friendship to continue without questioning it and assuming the worst about it. Plus, the heart wants what it wants – and Michael Jackson wanted to be with Jordie Chandler.