How famous was Michael Jackson at his peak?

[Michelle]

During Thriller, very big. I was about eight at the time and he was spoken about like a legend, any of his new videos was a major sensation, everyone studied the dance moves and tried to do them especially the moonwalk but nobody I knew could haha. I thought the guy was almost superhuman and never would've thought he'd be dead from an overdose at 50.

This was before all the Internet and before MJ music videos were very cheaply made, he made them into mini movies that told a story and launched the whole MTV era. Plus everyone wanted to see what his next look would be, his physical appearance would change a lot.

Where I lived the major highlight of the week was watching the top 10 countdown on TV each week, MJ was always there. So he pretty much dominated. It's much harder for an entertainer to do that now just because there's so much more media available. Also, we didn't know quite so much about celebrities lives back then, they sorta seemed like a species from another planet. Now they put pictures of their naked butts on Twitter lol.

This was when I was very young, I became more a grunge fan later on. At his peak MJ was huge but everything seemed to change after he burned his head. He started to become more infamous for rumors about him and changing color of his skin.