It’s a strange thing, how some people pass through our consciousness with virtually no impact, while some people touch our lives in an indelible way, even if we never actually knew them. They sneak up on us until one day, we cannot perceive a world without them in it. Michael was always one of these souls for me. (& thanks #ThrillerLive, for putting a tribute and moments silence in tonight show that made me cry). We then stumbled on a street part on fans in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. #MuteWho? 🤚🏼🤷🏻♀️ 10 years ago today, I was literally woken to the saddest news I’ve yet had to receive - and then had to go to school. Even at just 13, the emotion was gutted out of me. Michael gave a voice to all the underdogs of the world… which I suppose must make me one, too, because no one has ever spoken to my mind the way he does. I felt lost without the reassurance I’d once had: that at least he existed, someone who stood up for people who cared too much, who no one seemed to understand, who people underestimated. The entire world was shrouded in sorrow for weeks, if not months, after they realised they had lost him... but that sorrow never really left for me. At his Oxford University Union Address in 2001, Michael spoke eloquently on many things, but most notably he said, “No one has lived a life like mine. Before you judge me, I ask, try hard to love me". As someone who has always often found loving easily quite difficult, it has always struck me just how EASY loving Michael, and seeing him just as a human being, always was. Nowadays, if I could say anything to a man robbed of his childhood, and then any shred of his self worth before he even knew how to build any, it would be this: You deserved better... and I hope you’ve found it, now, wherever you are. Rest easy, Applehead. ‘See you in July.’ ❤ #HonorMJ #RIPMJ #MJInnocent (Also, a thank you to all the MJFam in my life who’ve made the last ten years more bearable. Your stories of Michael have been such a balm me). “If you enter the world knowing you are loved, and leave the world knowing the same, whatever happens in between can be dealt with. (at Thriller Michael Jackson Lyric Theatre) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzJg0P5nSzg/?igshid=1r7nsk3asvddo