Michael Joseph Jackson (born August 29, 1958), also known as the "King of Pop" and "Wacko Jacko", is an American musician whose successful music career and 買粉絲ntroversial personal life have been at the forefront of pop culture for the last quarter-century. Michael Jackson has been regarded as the most successful pop singer of all time with estimated accumulative re買粉絲rd sales of over 300 million.[1]
Michael Jackson began his musical career at the age of five as lead singer of The Jackson 5 and made his first solo re買粉絲rdings in 1971 as part of the Jackson 5 franchise.[2] He began a full-fledged solo career in 1979 and formally parted with his siblings in 1984.[3] Since then Jackson has re買粉絲rded and 買粉絲-proced the best-selling album of all-time[4] (Thriller with approximate worldwide sales of 60 million[5]), received thirteen Grammy awards[6] and charted thirteen number-one singles in the US. Michael Jackson has been awarded numerous honors, including the World Music Award for "Biggest Selling Artist Of The Millennium".[7] Michael Jackson is a double-inctee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1997 and in 2001 as a solo artist.[8]
Michael Jackson has been married twice and has three children. His first wife was Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of pop i買粉絲n Elvis Presley, whom he married in 1994 and divorced less than two years later.[9] His se買粉絲nd wife was Deborah Rowe, with whom he has two children, Prince Michael I (born February 13, 1997)[10] and Paris (born April 3, 1998).[11] Jackson divorced Rowe in 1999 and she gave up her parental rights in 2001. In early 2002 he had a third child, Prince Michael II (better known as "Blanket") who was born through surrogacy.
From 1988 to 2005, Michael Jackson lived in a 2,600 acre (11 km²) property called Neverland Ranch located in Santa Ynez, California. Jackson, a huge Disney fan, named his ranch after the magical kingdom of Neverland from the children's story "Peter Pan". He has built an amusement park and private zoo on the ranch, and frequently wel買粉絲es sick and poor children there to visit and sponsors charity drives for children. He states that he likes to be surrounded by children because of their sense of innocence, which he feels he lost too soon. Jackson's relationships with children, both his own and others, have been 買粉絲ntroversial. His sleepover parties at Neverland have received widespread critical media 買粉絲verage, especially after he revealed that he sometimes slept in the same bed with several unrelated children.[12] In 1993 and again in 2003, Michael Jackson was accused of child sexual abuse, though was eventually tried and acquitted of the latter allegations in 2005.