LIHU‘E — While many members of the media scramble to find some kind of final scandal in the death of pop icon Michael Jackson, Lihu‘e resident Bill Kerbawy prefers to remember the King of Pop the way he was offstage.
LIHU‘E — While many members of the media scramble to find some kind of final scandal in the death of pop icon Michael Jackson, Lihu‘e resident Bill Kerbawy prefers to remember the King of Pop the way he was offstage.
“He’s very shy. He’s very humble,” said Kerbawy, who was working as a house detective at the Helmsley Palace Hotel in New York City in 1984 when Jackson visited several times while in town for concerts.
“I enjoyed meeting with him, spending time with him. The energy he radiated as a human being was totally opposite than his stage persona,” Kerbawy said in an interview Monday.
Kerbawy remembered Jackson as someone who felt that people could overcome anything with love. So, Kerbawy feels the best thing for the King of Pop’s children would be for the people who love the children to get together and decide what’s best for them.
Kerbawy was always assigned to Jackson at the hotel where it is a policy to assign a hotel security member to each VIP guest.
Jackson had his own bodyguards, said Kerbawy, who also worked for nearly 18 years as a New York State Supreme Court officer (similar to Hawai‘i sheriffs), which gave him full police powers and statewide jurisdiction.
“Michael when I spoke to him was not concerned by money,” he said. “He was a loving soul, all about the message.”
Kerbawy, who said he is certain everything happens for a reason, never thought he would meet Jackson and never thought he would ever live and work on Kaua‘i.
But after 9/11, an early-retirement offer was presented that doubled his pension, so he sold his house on Long Island and bought a home on Kaua‘i. He worked at Wilcox Memorial Hospital and Lihu‘e Airport in security, but arthritis and other problems forced him to file for and receive disability.
Kerbawy said he was at Lihu‘e Library recently and heard some young people talking about Jackson’s death. He said they were blown away when he whipped out his picture of him with the King of Pop.
“When Michael died, yeah, I prayed,” said Kerbawy, 60. “It is a personal story.”
Jackson was “a lover of people.”
