The Adopted Jackson (editing)

Chapter 5 - A Fire Flashback

Although it wasn’t long before Sharice and Michael had to perform with the Jackson’s once again since the founder of Motown (Berry Gordy) was organizing a 25 year anniversary for Motown and he wanted the Jackson’s to participate in the show. At first Sharice and Michael were strongly against the performance but when their mother Katherine intervened they were soon on side with the show even though they still made sure that they were in control when they mentioned ‘the only way we’re doing the show is if we can do one of our songs afterwards’ reluctantly everyone agreed.

The rehearsals went smoothly and so did the show although when Sharice and Michael came backstage after their performance they were very glum since they mentioned that their signature move (the Moonwalk) didn’t go as well as planned and they felt that they ruined the show despite the standing ovation they received.

Although that wasn’t the end of the Jackson’s performing together since a few weeks later Joseph received an offer to do an advert for Pepsi; but this time Katherine jumped in from the start to get Michael and Sharice on board although they were really not very happy about it. Michael repeatedly said ‘I have a bad feeling about this’ but nobody listened to him, instead they just went ahead with the rehearsals but disaster struck during the filming of the finished thing.

Michael and Sharice started at the top of a staircase on a set, it was planned that they were to walk down the stairs and fireworks would set off at either side of them but one of the fireworks malfunctioned and went off too early hitting Michael in the head and setting his hair in the fire. Sharice saw the flames and suffered a flashback from when she saw her family perish in the house fire when she was a baby.

From that moment on Sharice was terrified of fire and that flashback kept coming back to her every night when she slept. Michael was taken to the hospital and was kept in for weeks while his scalp was healing, whereas Sharice went to the doctors a few days after the Pepsi incident to see what they could do about the flashbacks she was having. She was referred to the hospital to see what they could do; luckily they managed to prescribe her some tablets which she would have to take for the rest of her life to stop the flashbacks from returning or to make them less frequent.