POP/ROCK - Jan. 13, 1993

Getting It Straight: Michael Jackson’s attorney on Tuesday branded as “absolute hogwash” a story claiming that the superstar insisted on having a young white dancer play him as a boy in an upcoming television commercial in order to create the impression that he was fair skinned when he was young. Atty. Bert Fields said at a press conference that the commercial shows Jackson both as an adult and as a boy, and Jackson’s face as a boy is superimposed on the body of a dancer. The dancer, he said, was chosen not because of the color of his skin but because of his “extraordinary ability to imitate Michael’s moves. . . . It was never the intention to have an actor actually appear as the young Michael.” Fields also threatened libel action against publications which fail to check stories about Jackson before printing them.