Jackson’s chimp Bubbles enjoys life out of public eye

Bubbles gained fame over two decades ago as Michael Jackson’s simian companion. Now at age 26, Bubbles has retired to the Center for Great Apes outside Wauchula, Florida. When Bubbles was 5 years old, he and Jackson toured Japan, where the chimp moonwalked for the media.

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Michael Jackson and the ‘extreme’ price of fame

The celebrity flameout is a Hollywood cliché — a mantel worn tragically by the likes of Lenny Bruce and John Belushi and handed down through the years to tabloid-populating stars such as Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. But Michael Jackson, dead at 50 after a life marked by unrivaled heights of pop brilliance and bizarre behavior that threatened to overshadow it, stood at the pinnacle of celebrity and embodied all the turmoil it can entail. It’s a perch experts say played a major role in his troubles in life and, perhaps, his untimely death

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Spike Lee Remembers Michael Jackson

In 1996, Spike Lee — director of films from Do the Right Thing to Malcolm X to the recent documentary Kobe Doin’ Work — traveled to Brazil with Michael Jackson to produce the music video for his controversial song “They Don’t Care About Us.” He talked to TIME about his experiences, Michael Jackson’s legacy and having the Gloved One as a houseguest. What’s your favorite Michael Jackson song I was born in 1957; he was born in 1958

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Test your Michael Jackson knowledge

The horde of people gathered on the streets outside Liverpool Street train station, one of the city’s major transport hubs, and burst out into cheers, chants and dances to the tunes of “Billie Jean,” “Bad” and “Thriller.” Life-long Jackson fan Milo Yiannopoulos organized the moonwalk, the singer’s trademark backwards shuffle, by sending messages via Twitter and Facebook. His messages went “viral” –spreading like wildfire around the Internet — as the number of people wanting to join his impromptu “flash mob” event far exceeded his expectations: “I don’t know what I’ve unleashed here,” Yiannopoulos, who said he doesn’t even know how to moonwalk, told CNN

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Top 10 Michael Jackson Moments

As a scrawny 11-year-old from Gary, Indiana in child-sized bellbottoms and a radiant smile, Michael Jackson first stepped onto the scene at age 11 as part of the unforgettable Jackson 5. The Motown group, one of the biggest pop acts of the 1970s, was made up of Jackson and his four brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine , and Marlon The Jackson 5 were introduced to the public by Diana Ross on August 11, 1968, in a performance at a club in Beverly Hills, and made their first television appearance at the Miss Black America Pageant in New York. Their first single, “I Want You Back,” hit number one on the Billboard charts by January 1970

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