Shana Mangatal
I always welcome new books that are written about my beloved Michael Jackson and read each one thoroughly but there are many problems with this and the main issue is the author herself many contradictions and falsehoods which with a quick research can be debunked.
However, I'm going to keep my review based solely on the book,
As an avid book reader ever since the day I learned how to read, I always made it a habit to dig deeper behind the meaning and read between the lines.
I read Shana's book with an open mind and most certainly rigorously I wanted to know what she had to tell and what is behind her obvious bitternessfrom her own words and she did reveal herself.
The book starts with Ms, Mangatal going to her first Michael Jackson solo concertthe Bad Tour inThe first concert she attended was the Jacksons Triumph tour in.
Right from the Prologue you'd notice the first and most certainly not last unreasonable claim, quotation from the book: “He then launched into a beautiful rendition of his hit song Human Nature.
See that girlshe knows Im watching, She likes the way I stare, As his smooth voice effortlessly glided over the lyrics, he pointed right to me, I squealed so loud, he started smiling, I had been screaming the whole time, so there was no doubt he had noticed me before then, He kept glancing at me for the remainder of the concert and I was sure we had made a love connection.
”,screaming fans and yet Ms, Mangatal want to convince the rational reader that she managed to grasp his attention and establish “a love connection” this easily
However, I tried to look past this shallow attempt that most certainly would appeal to fangirls.
The real story begins when she moved to Los Angeles and sat out to make it in Hollywood as a singer she had no luck or as an actress she only landed small roles here and there so to survive in California she had to look for a job, as she claimed, she first worked as a tour guide and then she landed a better job as receptionist for Gallin Morey Associatesin which she stayed for aroundyears.
Some of Gallin Morey clients included Renee Zellwegger, Paul Walker, Mariah Carey, Milli Vanilli, Dolly Parton, Whoopie Goldberg, Martin Lawrence, Korn, Mariah Carey, Nicole Kidman, Paul Walker, and, unsurprisingly, Michael Jackson.
Now let's explore the book
The cover of the book is silly, I understand when someone wouldn't want to blast her lover private pictures on the internet, That is respectable but when you write a book revealing private matters e, g. kissing a man's private genitalia, it wouldn't hurt to provide one proper and more “romantic” picture as a coverother than this meet amp greet photothat of course if she has any at all.
I feel cheated, Now, the author claims that this book “shows the side of Michael people never knew, ” I started with it and I was looking forward to read more about that 'hidden' side, however, there is absolutely nothing! Most of her information that she shares are coming either from tabloids or people from the camp.
I wanted a firsthand information about the promised side of Michael that the advertisement claimed we never knew and I wanted it coming from Shana as the source, not “I heard from.
. . ” “Someone told me. . ” or “I read from a magazine, . . ”
I searched within the book and there is no real understanding of the man nor his art, mere tabloidish assumptions.
The simplest facts are untrue and can be easily debunked, Also, the timeline is wrong, The first part of the book reads like a fanfiction, the second half reads like a terrible soap opera,
Her reasoning for his change of color is that he wanted to achieve colorlessness, Quotation from the book: “ In fact, his wish was to be color less, which I suppose he achieved, I suspect it was his years of enduring the pervasive racism that he constantly spoke about existing within the music industry that caused him to want to be without color, almost to prove a point.
He never explained any of his actions to the public and was deeply misunderstood because of it, ”
Now two problems with this exact quotation:He suffered from Vitiligo,He did explain his actions to the public keyword: Oprah Winfrey interview but manyincluding the authorwere following the tabloids, Ms. Mangatal did mention Vitiligo once which means that she's wellaware of his skin condition then what is the point of mentioning this unreasonable "colorless" theory
Ms.
Mangatal supports the selfproclaimed King of Pop falsehood that many journalists up til his death insisted on referring to him as such.
Although his achievements most certainly merited such title and morewhat makes this claim bogus is that this title was given to him in the earlys! But again, this is not the only time that Ms.
Mangatal endorses tabloid stories. Quotation from the book: “This experience taught me that if a star is in trouble, you should always be skeptical of any statements or actions coming out of that camp.
You would be better off reading the tabloids for true information, ”
Ms. Mangatal contradicts herself quite a lot, One time she says that she had suspicions of his friendship with Jordan Chandler when she was watching the AMAs and other times she says that she believes his innocence yet on some other parts she revert back into putting comments that can be misinterpreted! You either believe in his complete innocence, which was proven in the court of law or you simply do not which will mean that you do not know him after all but going back and forth depending on the mood is just odd.
Ms. Mangatal keeps on telling how Michael never gave a closure nor made it clear not wanting to be with her but there's this story that she shares in the book about the one time after the first allegation when her coworkers at Gallin Morey started throwing out the idea that she and Michael should get married.
They thought it was a good idea to rectify the bad publicity, Jim told Shana to make sure that her passport is up to date because they wanted to send her overseas to be with Michael as his 'girlfriend' for some tour dates and perhaps get caught in photos.
All was left is to "convince Michael," Jim told her, She got extremely excited. Tour dates came and went and she still wasn't flown out to be with him, Obviously, they tried to convince Michael and he rejected the idea all together,
Quotation from the book: “, . . Instead of flying me to be with him, he chose them, I couldnt believe it. ”
There's this one story in which she tells about the time she received a death threat phone call and unreasonably enough Michael was her first suspect! She also thought that she was being followed and her phones were bugged which led her to temporarily doubt his innocence! Quotation from the book: “I admit, after this incident I started doubting Michaels innocence a bit.
If he were completely innocent, I thought, why would someone go to this extreme to keep me quiet” But after wasting precious pages with this odd story she concludes that it was not him.
I couldn't help but wonder why and how in hell was Michael even her first possible suspect
You see, Ms.
Mangatal plays it smart within the pages of this book, She limited their first interactions to what she described as steamy phones calls, Why Because phones calls do not require validation, But lets stop here for a second and analyze this: would Michael the evercareful phone a woman he barely even knew on her work number and have steamy phone calls without a care in the world There's a certain part in which Ms.
Mangatal even suggests that he was probably “pleasuring” himself to the sound of her voice, Outrageously unbelievable! But I think Ms, Mangatal had to restrict their interactions to phone calls because it is safer this way,
Even the one night she claims that they spent together “making love” is questionable, I mean, it sounds like it's out of some terrible fanfiction with weak dialogue that would only appeal to fangirls.
Lets be real, if Michael Jackson is ought to have some sex, is he going to tell the girl to simply not to tell anyone To swear To PROMISE Now, Michael is known to be the most private person and he had a welljustified trust issues so does it make sense that he will ask for a promise Or would he ask her to sign some sort of nondisclosure agreement Most certainly the latter.
According to Shana, he only asked her to promise not to tell anyone before having sex! Four words: get out of here.
Quotation from the book: “You swear” “Yes, Michael, I swear. ” “You really have to promise me, because no one can know about this, No matter what happens in the future, please remember to keep this between us, Its very important. ” “I promise, Michael. ”
It is wellknown that Michael loved experienced womenquick look at his dating history will prove this right away.
Ms. Mangatal claims that he preferred to be “the aggressor” and preferred shy and quiet girls, This couldn't be more further from the truth, I couldn't help but wonder which Michael Jackson is she talking about Certainly not the Michael Jackson,
The parts that I personally found disturbing to read:
She keeps on changing amp contradicting her own opinions of him depending on whether or not they were on good terms during those certain times.
I mean, if he was calling the office regularly and asking about her then he's the most amazing person on this earthshe describes him as loving, polite, alert, caring, innocent, happy, clearheaded among other positive descriptions.
However, when he stopped calling, she then describes him as drugged, cold, spiteful, cold, mean, vicious, vindictive, improper, paranoid and preferred the company of young boys over having a healthy relationship with the most attractive woman on this planetShana Mangatal.
Quotation from the book: “I always felt that Michael didnt feel worthy enough to have a pretty girl want him in that way.
”
She seemed gloating when misfortune befell on him like it was some kind of punishment for not choosing her.
Quotation from the book: “This is the craziest day in the history of Gallin Morey, I said, exhausted yet excited by all of the drama.
” This was after thefalse allegation: how could she be excited that his life was being destroyed If the love of my life is in that deep trouble I know for certain that I wouldn't be “excited by the drama.
” She seemed to only sympathize with him when she felt there was some hope for her to get through to him.
Ms. Mangatal states in the book that she attended a business dinner hosted by a highranking executive at Lisa Maries record label.
That's when the story of Michael using sex to control Lisa comes up and how he would withhold it to barter for other things that he wanted.
In my thinking, this sounds like it came out of a tabloid paper, Now, let's remember why Michael wanted divorce from Lisa she promised him before marriage that they will have kids together, after marriage she broke that promise for whatever reason which led eventually to irreconcilable differences.
How does it make sense that he wanted to have his own kids so bad and at the same time he would withhold sex It just doesn't make any sense.
In, Ms. Mangatal planned with one of Michael's assistants and unsurprisingly a close friend of Shana which in the book was called Nicolethis Nicole was fired by Michael so Nicole took it upon herself to guide Shana on how to take her place in taking care of Michael's children.
Put in mind that Michael didn't ask for help but those two found it their mission to find a way to get into the house.
Now this is absolutely disturbing, Michael did not want to have anything to do with Ms, Mangatal foryears other than simple friendship and she, herself, confessed in the book indirectly of how she relentlessly pursued him whether he was married or single over and over again with no luck at all, so what made her believe that he'd actually want her to take care of his children What made her believe that was an acceptable idea
In the book she talks about meeting Michael and his children while she was working with David Copperfield and she gushes about how Michael was all over her he even kissed her but when Bill Whitfieldwho Ms.
Mangatal thanked among others in the acknowledgments sectionwas asked about that on Twitter, he replied: “honestly, I don't know if she and MJ had anything prior to my working for him, during my time with MJ I never heard of her.
”
Although Ms. Mangatal did put multiple commentaries about Michael's friendship with kids that could easily be misinterpreted by the media but she insisted on defending his innocence from the bogus crime he was accused of and was acquitted from inand denied witnessing or hearing anything about inappropriate behavior but then I wonder why add the odd commentaries refer to
Only one chapter that is decent and sounds sort of factual the shooting of Ghosts.
There was a couple of humorous stories but these stories are nothing new though and the only conversations that she and Michael shared somehow always was the shooting of Ghosts.
Now, if these two people are madly in love as the author claims, they would've found other things to discuss.
In conclusion:
This book is not for the real fans of Michael Jackson or those who really knew him.
After reading the whole book thoroughly Ms, Mangatal failed to deliver any romance between them, The only obvious thing is that Michael was super nice to her while she kept misinterpreting every word he ever said to her.
In my humble observation it seemed like Ms, Mangatal managed to screw up a normal friendshipwe all know how friendly Michael wasand turn a simple flirtation into a makebelieve romance.
She stalked him made friends with most people that she thought could get her closer to him called him obsessively that he had to change his phone number sent him gifts although he didn't send her nothing back she had only one picture with himbackstage as meet amp greet session started rumors about false love affair when he clearly
wanted nothing to do with her no significant member of Michael's inner real camp came out to acknowledge her not to mention that he was married twice and not one time to her.
How is that for a romance
sitelinkRead the full review here,
And Me by Shana Mangatal
is a beautiful indepth depiction of Michael Jackson and the wonderful adventure of young love.
The book held my attention from the second I started reading until the very end even when reading it a second time.
We know how it ends and my heart still breaks, Michael is truly missed every day and this book gives him back to us for a short time while reading the book.
I wanted a trash read and I definitely got it, I have no idea if any of this is real, but there is some interesting ideas into Michael's personality that I could truly believe.
I do have to say that it felt like I was reading fan fiction a lot of the time, but I can sense that she is a true fan of Michael.
The last chapter made me sad about his death all over again,
Let me state from the outset that she may well have been Michael's secret girlfriend but it was so secret that even he didn't know about it.
Based upon several conversations I had with Ms, Mangatal, as well as engaging several email exchanges, I have no other choice but to conclude that her book is a cleverly timed, wellcrafted, extraordinary fabrication.
Firpo Carr
I always welcome new books that are written about my beloved Michael Jackson and read each one thoroughly but there are many problems with this and the main issue is the author herself many contradictions and falsehoods which with a quick research can be debunked.
However, I'm going to keep my review based solely on the book,
As an avid book reader ever since the day I learned how to read, I always made it a habit to dig deeper behind the meaning and read between the lines.
I read Shana's book with an open mind and most certainly rigorously I wanted to know what she had to tell and what is behind her obvious bitternessfrom her own words and she did reveal herself.
The book starts with Ms, Mangatal going to her first Michael Jackson solo concertthe Bad Tour inThe first concert she attended was the Jacksons Triumph tour in.
Right from the Prologue you'd notice the first and most certainly not last unreasonable claim, quotation from the book: “He then launched into a beautiful rendition of his hit song Human Nature.
See that girlshe knows Im watching, She likes the way I stare, As his smooth voice effortlessly glided over the lyrics, he pointed right to me, I squealed so loud, he started smiling, I had been screaming the whole time, so there was no doubt he had noticed me before then, He kept glancing at me for the remainder of the concert and I was sure we had made a love connection.
”,screaming fans and yet Ms, Mangatal want to convince the rational reader that she managed to grasp his attention and establish “a love connection” this easily
However, I tried to look past this shallow attempt that most certainly would appeal to fangirls.
The real story begins when she moved to Los Angeles and sat out to make it in Hollywood as a singer she had no luck or as an actress she only landed small roles here and there so to survive in California she had to look for a job, as she claimed, she first worked as a tour guide and then she landed a better job as receptionist for Gallin Morey Associatesin which she stayed for aroundyears.
Some of Gallin Morey clients included Renee Zellwegger, Paul Walker, Mariah Carey, Milli Vanilli, Dolly Parton, Whoopie Goldberg, Martin Lawrence, Korn, Mariah Carey, Nicole Kidman, Paul Walker, and, unsurprisingly, Michael Jackson.
Now let's explore the book
The cover of the book is silly, I understand when someone wouldn't want to blast her lover private pictures on the internet, That is respectable but when you write a book revealing private matters e, g. kissing a man's private genitalia, it wouldn't hurt to provide one proper and more “romantic” picture as a coverother than this meet amp greet photothat of course if she has any at all.
I feel cheated, Now, the author claims that this book “shows the side of Michael people never knew, ” I started with it and I was looking forward to read more about that 'hidden' side, however, there is absolutely nothing! Most of her information that she shares are coming either from tabloids or people from the camp.
I wanted a firsthand information about the promised side of Michael that the advertisement claimed we never knew and I wanted it coming from Shana as the source, not “I heard from.
. . ” “Someone told me. . ” or “I read from a magazine, . . ”
I searched within the book and there is no real understanding of the man nor his art, mere tabloidish assumptions.
The simplest facts are untrue and can be easily debunked, Also, the timeline is wrong, The first part of the book reads like a fanfiction, the second half reads like a terrible soap opera,
Her reasoning for his change of color is that he wanted to achieve colorlessness, Quotation from the book: “ In fact, his wish was to be color less, which I suppose he achieved, I suspect it was his years of enduring the pervasive racism that he constantly spoke about existing within the music industry that caused him to want to be without color, almost to prove a point.
He never explained any of his actions to the public and was deeply misunderstood because of it, ”
Now two problems with this exact quotation:He suffered from Vitiligo,He did explain his actions to the public keyword: Oprah Winfrey interview but manyincluding the authorwere following the tabloids, Ms. Mangatal did mention Vitiligo once which means that she's wellaware of his skin condition then what is the point of mentioning this unreasonable "colorless" theory
Ms.
Mangatal supports the selfproclaimed King of Pop falsehood that many journalists up til his death insisted on referring to him as such.
Although his achievements most certainly merited such title and morewhat makes this claim bogus is that this title was given to him in the earlys! But again, this is not the only time that Ms.
Mangatal endorses tabloid stories. Quotation from the book: “This experience taught me that if a star is in trouble, you should always be skeptical of any statements or actions coming out of that camp.
You would be better off reading the tabloids for true information, ”
Ms. Mangatal contradicts herself quite a lot, One time she says that she had suspicions of his friendship with Jordan Chandler when she was watching the AMAs and other times she says that she believes his innocence yet on some other parts she revert back into putting comments that can be misinterpreted! You either believe in his complete innocence, which was proven in the court of law or you simply do not which will mean that you do not know him after all but going back and forth depending on the mood is just odd.
Ms. Mangatal keeps on telling how Michael never gave a closure nor made it clear not wanting to be with her but there's this story that she shares in the book about the one time after the first allegation when her coworkers at Gallin Morey started throwing out the idea that she and Michael should get married.
They thought it was a good idea to rectify the bad publicity, Jim told Shana to make sure that her passport is up to date because they wanted to send her overseas to be with Michael as his 'girlfriend' for some tour dates and perhaps get caught in photos.
All was left is to "convince Michael," Jim told her, She got extremely excited. Tour dates came and went and she still wasn't flown out to be with him, Obviously, they tried to convince Michael and he rejected the idea all together,
Quotation from the book: “, . . Instead of flying me to be with him, he chose them, I couldnt believe it. ”
There's this one story in which she tells about the time she received a death threat phone call and unreasonably enough Michael was her first suspect! She also thought that she was being followed and her phones were bugged which led her to temporarily doubt his innocence! Quotation from the book: “I admit, after this incident I started doubting Michaels innocence a bit.
If he were completely innocent, I thought, why would someone go to this extreme to keep me quiet” But after wasting precious pages with this odd story she concludes that it was not him.
I couldn't help but wonder why and how in hell was Michael even her first possible suspect
You see, Ms.
Mangatal plays it smart within the pages of this book, She limited their first interactions to what she described as steamy phones calls, Why Because phones calls do not require validation, But lets stop here for a second and analyze this: would Michael the evercareful phone a woman he barely even knew on her work number and have steamy phone calls without a care in the world There's a certain part in which Ms.
Mangatal even suggests that he was probably “pleasuring” himself to the sound of her voice, Outrageously unbelievable! But I think Ms, Mangatal had to restrict their interactions to phone calls because it is safer this way,
Even the one night she claims that they spent together “making love” is questionable, I mean, it sounds like it's out of some terrible fanfiction with weak dialogue that would only appeal to fangirls.
Lets be real, if Michael Jackson is ought to have some sex, is he going to tell the girl to simply not to tell anyone To swear To PROMISE Now, Michael is known to be the most private person and he had a welljustified trust issues so does it make sense that he will ask for a promise Or would he ask her to sign some sort of nondisclosure agreement Most certainly the latter.
According to Shana, he only asked her to promise not to tell anyone before having sex! Four words: get out of here.
Quotation from the book: “You swear” “Yes, Michael, I swear. ” “You really have to promise me, because no one can know about this, No matter what happens in the future, please remember to keep this between us, Its very important. ” “I promise, Michael. ”
It is wellknown that Michael loved experienced womenquick look at his dating history will prove this right away.
Ms. Mangatal claims that he preferred to be “the aggressor” and preferred shy and quiet girls, This couldn't be more further from the truth, I couldn't help but wonder which Michael Jackson is she talking about Certainly not the Michael Jackson,
The parts that I personally found disturbing to read:
She keeps on changing amp contradicting her own opinions of him depending on whether or not they were on good terms during those certain times.
I mean, if he was calling the office regularly and asking about her then he's the most amazing person on this earthshe describes him as loving, polite, alert, caring, innocent, happy, clearheaded among other positive descriptions.
However, when he stopped calling, she then describes him as drugged, cold, spiteful, cold, mean, vicious, vindictive, improper, paranoid and preferred the company of young boys over having a healthy relationship with the most attractive woman on this planetShana Mangatal.
Quotation from the book: “I always felt that Michael didnt feel worthy enough to have a pretty girl want him in that way.
”
She seemed gloating when misfortune befell on him like it was some kind of punishment for not choosing her.
Quotation from the book: “This is the craziest day in the history of Gallin Morey, I said, exhausted yet excited by all of the drama.
” This was after thefalse allegation: how could she be excited that his life was being destroyed If the love of my life is in that deep trouble I know for certain that I wouldn't be “excited by the drama.
” She seemed to only sympathize with him when she felt there was some hope for her to get through to him.
Ms. Mangatal states in the book that she attended a business dinner hosted by a highranking executive at Lisa Maries record label.
That's when the story of Michael using sex to control Lisa comes up and how he would withhold it to barter for other things that he wanted.
In my thinking, this sounds like it came out of a tabloid paper, Now, let's remember why Michael wanted divorce from Lisa she promised him before marriage that they will have kids together, after marriage she broke that promise for whatever reason which led eventually to irreconcilable differences.
How does it make sense that he wanted to have his own kids so bad and at the same time he would withhold sex It just doesn't make any sense.
In, Ms. Mangatal planned with one of Michael's assistants and unsurprisingly a close friend of Shana which in the book was called Nicolethis Nicole was fired by Michael so Nicole took it upon herself to guide Shana on how to take her place in taking care of Michael's children.
Put in mind that Michael didn't ask for help but those two found it their mission to find a way to get into the house.
Now this is absolutely disturbing, Michael did not want to have anything to do with Ms, Mangatal foryears other than simple friendship and she, herself, confessed in the book indirectly of how she relentlessly pursued him whether he was married or single over and over again with no luck at all, so what made her believe that he'd actually want her to take care of his children What made her believe that was an acceptable idea
In the book she talks about meeting Michael and his children while she was working with David Copperfield and she gushes about how Michael was all over her he even kissed her but when Bill Whitfieldwho Ms.
Mangatal thanked among others in the acknowledgments sectionwas asked about that on Twitter, he replied: “honestly, I don't know if she and MJ had anything prior to my working for him, during my time with MJ I never heard of her.
”
Although Ms. Mangatal did put multiple commentaries about Michael's friendship with kids that could easily be misinterpreted by the media but she insisted on defending his innocence from the bogus crime he was accused of and was acquitted from inand denied witnessing or hearing anything about inappropriate behavior but then I wonder why add the odd commentaries refer to
Only one chapter that is decent and sounds sort of factual the shooting of Ghosts.
There was a couple of humorous stories but these stories are nothing new though and the only conversations that she and Michael shared somehow always was the shooting of Ghosts.
Now, if these two people are madly in love as the author claims, they would've found other things to discuss.
In conclusion:
This book is not for the real fans of Michael Jackson or those who really knew him.
After reading the whole book thoroughly Ms, Mangatal failed to deliver any romance between them, The only obvious thing is that Michael was super nice to her while she kept misinterpreting every word he ever said to her.
In my humble observation it seemed like Ms, Mangatal managed to screw up a normal friendshipwe all know how friendly Michael wasand turn a simple flirtation into a makebelieve romance.
She stalked him made friends with most people that she thought could get her closer to him called him obsessively that he had to change his phone number sent him gifts although he didn't send her nothing back she had only one picture with himbackstage as meet amp greet session started rumors about false love affair when he clearly
wanted nothing to do with her no significant member of Michael's inner real camp came out to acknowledge her not to mention that he was married twice and not one time to her.
How is that for a romance
sitelinkRead the full review here,