Billie Jean - Wikipedia

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There never was a real Billie Jean. The girl in the song is a composite of people my brothers have been plagued with over the years. I could never understand how these girls could say they were carrying someone's child when it wasn't true.

—Michael Jackson, Moonwalk (1988)[6]

Jackson said that "Billie Jean" was based on groupies he and his brothers encountered while they performed as the Jackson 5.[6][7][8] "They would hang around backstage doors, and any band that would come to town they would have a relationship with, and I think I wrote this out of experience [sic] with my brothers when I was little. There were a lot of Billie Jeans out there. Every girl claimed that their son was related to one of my brothers."[9]

According to Jackson's biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, "Billie Jean" was inspired by letters Jackson received in 1981 from a woman claiming he was the father of one of her twins.[10][11] Jackson, who regularly received letters of this kind, had never met the woman and ignored those claims. However, she continued to send letters stating that she loved him and wanted to be with him, asking how he could ignore "his own flesh and blood". The letters disturbed him so much that he began to suffer nightmares.[10]

Eventually, Jackson received a parcel containing a photograph of the fan, a gun, and a letter instructing him to die at a particular time. The fan would do the same once she had killed "their" baby, so they could be together in the "next life". The Jacksons later discovered that the fan had been sent to a psychiatric hospital.[10]

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