Here's a very insightful and honest interview from MJ's former guitarist, Jennifer Batten. She discusses many things including the TII rehearsals and TII film footage that was selected for the film. She discusses some things that are pretty hard to hear, but needed to be said.
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LoginHere is an excerpt from the interview:
But unlike some of Jackson's friends, Batten says she was able to bring herself to watch This Is It, even if she did have mixed feelings about it.
"I hadn't seen any video of him for years and just to see his talent, even when he wasn't going full out, the way he sang Human Nature was just chilling. The way his body moves - there was just no other dancer in the world that was like that. So I enjoyed it."
But thanks to a close friendship with Jackson's make-up artist Karen Faye, who worked with the star during his This Is It rehearsals, Batten says she's able to see the other side of the coin. Since Jackson's death Faye has written on her facebook page that Jackson was frail, cold to the touch and losing weight rapidly.
"She was closer to Michael than anyone," says Batten, "She warned people that he was not well but everybody ignored her. You didn't see it on the screen because they took every day that he rehearsed and pieced together the best bits. You didn't see him when he was struggling up a ramp because he didn't have any energy and he hadn't eaten for two days. They're not going to put that in the film. I mean, one of the songs he was wearing four different costumes. That just tells me that he never sang the song fully through."
