On July 28, Tavis Smiley came to the Barnes & Noble at the Grove in Los Angeles to promote his new book, Before You Judge Me: The Triumph and Tragedy of Michael Jackson’s Last Days. Minutes before his discussion of the book in front of attendees, I sat down with him and asked him a few questions about his book and his thoughts about the controversial presidential election currently taking place.
- What was his motivation?
- What can readers expect to read about that they haven’t heard about on television?
- What if it was a miracle that Michael Jackson made it to 50 years old?
These are just a few of the things that Smiley delves into during this interview. You can expect to hear all of this and more in the exclusive video interview that will only be available on the Los Angeles Sentinel website.
You can also expect to see a snippet from the book discussion that Smiley engaged in with readers. Here he talks about how Michael Jackson was on “propofol by day and Demerol by night” and transitions into how he and Prince used to hang out in various countries together and talk about a lot of things, but even throughout all of these years, Prince never spoke of Michael… not once. This was after discovering, though, that Prince and Michael were close friends, despite the “Prince or Michael” rivalries going on early in their careers.
