Parenting & Family Quote by Geraldo Rivera

Rivera’s repetition of “just” is doing the heavy lifting here: it’s an insistence on intimacy that sounds a little like a defense before anyone has accused him of anything. In a single breath he builds two Michaels at once. There’s “Jackson,” the public product orbited by “little underlings” and “the PR person,” and then there’s “Michael,” first-name-only, domesticated, framed by “the kids.” Rivera is staking a claim to the backstage version, the one supposedly untouched by handlers and narrative control.

Calling staff “little underlings” isn’t neutral reportage; it’s a status move. Rivera casts himself as the rare peer who can look past the machinery, while also flattering the audience’s appetite for access. The staff “came and went,” but he remained, the chosen witness. That’s classic celebrity-journalism theater: proximity as credibility, closeness as proof.

The vagueness of the ending - “very interesting” - is another tell. It teases revelation without committing to it, the kind of suggestive understatement that keeps a story live while avoiding specifics that might be unfair, unverifiable, or legally risky. Given Jackson’s era of relentless scrutiny and allegation, “interesting” reads like a wink: I saw something, I’m not saying what, but you can imagine. The subtext is less about Jackson than about Rivera’s role in the ecosystem that fed on him: the journalist as confidant, narrator, and occasional co-conspirator in turning private life into public suspense.