Brooke Shields says she “instantly became friends” with Michael Jackson after meeting him when she was 13.

“Nothing was jaded about him. I just was so impressed by his sweetness,” Shields tells Rolling Stone’s special commemorative issue on the King of Pop, on stands Friday.

He was thoughtful, sensitive, sweet, and had a funny sense of humor,” she goes on. “If you got to talk to him about music or about the future of technology, his voice would get deeper, he would start talking, and it was as if he was this genius.”

Sexuality didn’t play a role in their relationship, she explains.

“As he grew older and the more he started to change physically, the more asexual he became to me,” Shields says. “It was easy for him to be a friend to me, because I was the most celebrated virgin ever; it’s ridiculous, but I was America’s virgin.

“You saw women who were more sexual, who wanted to throw themselves at him and feel like they were going to teach him; we just found each other, and we didn’t have to deal with our sexuality. As I grew up and started having boyfriends, I would share with him, and he was like a little kid who talked about the bases- what first base was, what second base was, and it sounded very odd to the outside, I can imagine, but to the inside, to someone who’s never really left his bubble, you can understand how he would be curious.” Shields continues.

“There were times when he would ask me to marry him, and I would say, ‘You have me for the rest of your life, you don’t need to marry me, I’m going to go on and do my own life and have my own marriage and my own kids, and you’ll always have me.’ I think it made him relax. He didn’t want to lose things that meant something to him,” she adds.

She last saw Jackson at Elizabeth Taylor’s 1991 wedding.

“He seemed like his own funny self,” she says. “We snuck in and took pictures of ourselves next to her dress. We always seemed to revert to being little kids. It was a sanctuary for him, because he knew I never wanted anything from him but his happiness.”

Source, Bauer-Griffin

Corey Feldman showed up at Michael Jackson’s public memorial Tuesday at L.A.’s Staples Center dressed as the King of Pop.

He arrived at 10:19 a.m. dressed as the singer from his Dangerous era – wearing all black, a military-style jacket, a black fedora and sunglasses. He also had strands of his hair hanging in front of his face – a ‘do Jackson famously sported.

Feldman used a Kleenex to wipe tears from under his sunglasses.

John Mayer gave him a puzzled look.

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(All the Jackson brothers, who served as pallbearers, also wore sparkly silver gloves.)

Feldman befriended Jackson in the 1980s. The two had a rocky relationship during Feldman’s teen years and eventually drifted apart. They didn’t talk for several years before Jackson’s death.

After Jackson’s June 25 death Feldman wrote on his website: “I am trembling and shaking at the moment and it is very hard to type. I am filled with tremendous sadness and remorse. All I choose to remember from this point is the good times we shared and what an inspiration he was to me and the rest of the world. Nobody will ever be able to do what Michael Jackson has done in this industry, and he was so close to doing it all again. I am truly, and deeply sorry for all of the heartbroken fans and supporters worldwide. I think I am still in shock. So I must end this now.”

Source

The event gets underway 10 a.m. at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Kobe Bryant, Mariah Carey, Jennifer Hudson, Usher and Lionel Richie are among the celebrities who will participate. It is expected to run 6+ hours.

More than 1.5 million people entered a free draw for tickets and ticket holders began arriving in the early hours of Monday to collect their wrist bands for the six-hour show at the home of the LA Lakers.

Streets surrounding the stadium have been closed off by an army of 3,200 police officers.

Organizers expect upwards of one billion people to tune in via CBS & MTV in the US, BBC2 & Sky in the UK and on the web all round the world. Experts are saying the service is expected to be the biggest event in the history of the internet.

ICYDK will continue to cover the memorial all day – so check back here!

The event gets underway 10 a.m. at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Kobe Bryant, Mariah Carey, Jennifer Hudson, Usher and Lionel Richie are among the celebrities who will participate. It is expected to run 6+ hours.

More than 1.5 million people entered a free draw for tickets and ticket holders began arriving in the early hours of Monday to collect their wrist bands for the six-hour show at the home of the LA Lakers.

Streets surrounding the stadium have been closed off by an army of 3,200 police officers.

Organizers expect upwards of one billion people to tune in via CBS & MTV in the US, BBC2 & Sky in the UK and on the web all round the world. Experts are saying the service is expected to be the biggest event in the history of the internet.

ICYDK will continue to cover the memorial all day – so check back here!

Free video streaming by Ustream

CBS and Ustream have teamed up to bring you the Michael Jackson memorial online, live.

The memorial is expected to start at 9:00 A.M. PST and is reportedly 6 hours long.

Watch the Memorial via CNN & Facebook here.

Watch the Memorial via Myspace here.

At the same venue — the O2 in London — where Michael Jackson was set to perform a series of concerts, Madonna took time out of her show last night to honor the late singer.

Despite reports that Debbie Rowe plans to fight for custody of her two children with Michael Jackson, her lawyer insists she has not made up her mind on the matter.

“Debbie Rowe has not reached a final decision concerning the custody proceedings,” attorney Eric M. George told reporters during a press conference Thursday. “As many of you know, my belief is that the pending custody proceedings are the most private and the most sensitive of matters as they impact the lives and the fates of young children. To that end, I’ve endeavored out of respect for Michael’s children and family, especially in this time of grieving, to keep silence on these matters, to deny all interview requests and to share only that information involving upcoming public court proceedings.”

Earlier Thursday, NBCLA’s Chuck Henry reported that he has spoken to Rowe – mother of Prince, 12, and Paris, 11 – and she told him, “I want my children.”

Although Rowe herself has not spoken publicly about the custody proceedings, George said, “I have no reason to doubt that what was reported from that conversation was accurately and ethically reported, but that said, it would be a distortion of the truth to allow that single snapshot of a single conversation, to stand as the truth on Debbie’s position on this sensitive matter.”

“Once again, the truth is that Debbie has not reached a final decision concerning the pending custody proceedings,” he concluded. “When Debbie does take a position in the public forum of a court, those positions will, of course, be conveyed to all interested persons. In the meantime, I very much appreciate everybody’s continued respect for Debbie’s privacy at this time, and I’m very sorry, but I cannot address any questions at this time.”

In Jackson’s will (released Wednesday) the singer –- who died at age 50 after suffering cardiac arrest June 25 — named his mother Katherine as guardian of his three children – Prince, Paris and 7-year-old Blanket. (If Katherine died before him or couldn’t serve as guardian, Jackson nominated Diana Ross, according to Jackson’s will.) He “intentionally” omitted Rowe from his will, he said.

Last week, Katherine filed a petition in Los Angeles Probate Court seeking legal guardianship of the children. (In her 22-page petition, she claims the children “have no relationship with their biological mother.”) A guardianship hearing scheduled for Monday has been postponed until July 13 at the request of attorneys for Rowe and Katherine Jackson.

Rowe wed Jackson in 1996 (he was a patient in the dermatologist’s office, where she worked as a nurse). The children were born through artificial insemination. (The new issue of Us Weekly exclusively reports that the children’s father is Arnold Klein, Jackson’s L.A.-based dermatologist and Rowe’s former boss.)

After Jackson and Rowe divorced in 1999, she agreed to give up her parental rights, insisting Jackson was a good father.

Since their father’s passing, the kids have been with the Jackson family and “are happy,” Jackson patriarch Joe said at a press conference Monday. They’re with “other young ones in the Jackson family…. They were never around other kids.”

A source tells Us the Jacksons have not yet reached out to Rowe.

Source, Bauer-Griffin