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The Wiz Premiere

Tatum O’Neal, “A Paper Life” autobiography

[Michael had] played the Scarecrow in The Wiz, the urban remake of the Wizard of Oz, which starred Diana Ross as Dorothy. For the film’s premiere, Michael invited me to be his date. I asked my dad, who didn’t care one way or another if I went, but my talent agency was dead set against it. I was told, in exactly these words: ‘You can’t go to a premiere with a ni**er.’ Hollywood!

VIBE magazine; June/July 1995

When I was 12, he asked me to go to the premiere of The Wiz with him, and my agent at the time said it wasn’t a good idea, maybe because they felt he wasn’t a big enough star yet. He never talked to me after that. I think he thought I just canceled, but it wasn’t me at all. I was a child doing what I was told. I want you to print that, because I don’t think he ever knew that. I lost touch with him because of it, so I don’t really know him anymore. But I love him; he’s one of the nicest, most innocent people I’ve ever met. I love “She’s out of My Life” because I think it describes our friendship at that time.

That upset me tremendously. Had I been old enough–or had I the parental support–I could have stood my ground & insisted ‘Oh yes, I can.’ But my father was too disengaged to help me think it through. So, without telling Michael the reason, I turned him down. He was devastated. After that Michael didn’t speak to me for years, until I ran into him at the Helmsley Palace in New York.