The Gloved One’s Afterglow : Simi Valley Basks in International Media Spotlight After Bizarre Michael Jackson Visit

Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have pop music star Michael Jackson thrust upon them.

A handful of people in a suburban Ventura County community achieved greatness by the latter method this week in an odd encounter with Jackson, who was discovered shopping in a gawky disguise he hoped would give him anonymity.

Instead, the episode drew worldwide press attention. Store clerks, police and a security guard said Thursday they have become overnight celebrities because of the episode in the usually tranquil city of Simi Valley. Within 24 hours, they were hauled in front of cameras and deluged with telephone calls from newspapers as far away as Japan and London.

“I talked to ABC News in New York last night,” said Simi Valley Police Lt. Richard Thomas. “I said, ‘My God, no wonder this guy wears a disguise, he gets so much attention.’ Channel 4 begged me to get somebody to the jewelry store to be filmed.

“I thought it was kind of silly,” Thomas said.

The episode began Monday afternoon when employees at a jewelry store in the Sycamore Plaza shopping center grew suspicious of a thin customer wearing false teeth, a phony mustache, a bulky wig and a baseball cap. They called a security guard, who asked the man who he was and why he was wearing a fake mustache.

“I have to,” came the reply. “I’m in disguise. I’m Michael Jackson.”

A check of the man’s identity showed that he was who he said he was. Jackson had gone to look at rings and buy toys for a boy who was with him. Following the encounter with the guard, he visited another store, then left in a Mercedes-Benz after police questioned him briefly.

He left behind a sprinkle of fame.

Renee Verhey, 21, manager of a bridal shop next to the jewelry store, said she was interviewed by four television stations after she spoke to Jackson.

“I just walked up to him and said, ‘Are you Michael Jackson?’ and he was, like, afraid,” Verhey said. “He kept on adjusting his little mustache. I asked him why he’s wearing fake teeth, and he said, ‘Well, I’m in disguise.’ ”

“I thought he was a drug addict or something, because he had a band aid on his nose,” Verhey said.

Rhonda Burt, 17, was working at a gift shop two stores down from the jewelry store when Jackson, wearing his disguise, came to the counter. “He asked to pay for his things and he did, and he left,” she said.

She did not recognize him until police arrived several minutes later. Nonetheless, her encounter sparked requests for film interviews from “Entertainment Tonight” and four Los Angeles news stations, she said.

The English “have a massive interest in him because he’s so eccentric,” said Ian Black, the West Coast correspondent for the London Mirror, a popular tabloid that ran a 15-paragraph story on the incident. “To us, as a figure, he’s so enigmatic. We call him ‘Wacko-Jacko.’ ”

Unfortunately, not all of the attention has been welcome, said security guard Geoff Blevins. The jewelry story has been subjected to a bomb threat and dozens of calls charging the store with racism because Jackson is black, Blevins said.

Phone Threats

An anonymous caller said she was going to send the NAACP to blow up the store, he said. Another caller said protesters would be coming on a bus to harass store employees. Neither of the threats had materialized Thursday.

The threats prompted the store to refer all press inquiries to the company’s corporate headquarters in Irving, Tex.

Blevins believes Jackson could have avoided the exposure simply by changing tactics. “He would have been better off coming as himself, calling security guards and coming through the back door” of the jewelry store, Blevins said.

Jean Bradford, 44, who was doing some shopping at the mall Thursday, said she feels sorry for Jackson.

“I think it’s a shame to go through what he has to just to shop,” she said.