Spike Lee's BAD25 Documentary Toronto Premiere

For the premiere of Spike Lee's BAD25 Documentary in Toronto, Canada, the acclaimed director wore a custom pair of the Air Jordan VII with plenty of Michael Jackson iconography. Designed by artist Van Monroe, the shoe features the BAD25 Logo on the toe while the name of the tracks on the album can be found on the side panels and Jackson's image is on the heel of the shoes.

Spike Lee is the director and star of many of Michael Jordan's most famous commercials, so his ties to the brand are well-known, highlighted by Jordan Brand having already released two signature shoes in honor of the director, the Jordan Spiz'ike and the Jordan Son of Mars. Michael Jordan also appeared in Michael Jackson's "Jam" video.

But during the premiere Spike Lee also talked about the shameful way Michael Jackson was treated by media. 

“People, they had the hater-ade. They were drinking hater-ade,” the two-time Academy Award nominee said in an interview from a swanky hotel suite Saturday during the Toronto International Film Festival, where the movie screened.

“Read the reviews of the BAD album. They wrote like this was some piece of (crap). And (they) don’t call him by his name — ‘Wacko Jacko?’ It’s shameful…. Those people should be ashamed what they did to him.”

And while Lee’s reverential film remains studiously focused on Jackson’s work, it also reveals much about an intensely private man who really never experienced privacy.

BAD25 picks up in the wake of the titanic success of Jackson’s second album as an adult solo artist, 1982′s game-changing stunner “Thriller.” The best-selling album of all time, “Thriller” it’s been certified platinum 29 times over in the U.S. alone while going twice diamond in Canada.

But Jackson wasn’t satisfied with that. Just as he was determined to make “Thriller” a much bigger success than his 1979 disco-informed classic “Off the Wall,” Jackson thought he could similarly top the biggest hit of all time. As Lee’s film uncovers, Jackson even used to scrawl “100,000,000″ on mirrors and notebooks as a reminder to himself of the impossibly lofty sales number he wanted to achieve with BAD.

“Michael was not stupid,” said Lee. “He saw many people, black artists, who were at the top and then ended up broke. He saw many great black artists who were confined to just being black artists. Michael’s about breaking boundaries.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a perfectionist. Now, me, I’m not going to do 80 takes like David Fincher of somebody picking up a magazine. I’m not going to do that! But it was his money…. He put his money into his work.”

The legendary filmmaker behind “Do the Right Thing” and “Malcolm X” was born in 1957, a year before Jackson.

He vividly recalls seeing Jackson as the overwhelmingly gifted young phenom headlining the Jackson 5 when they first shimmied across the stage at “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Years later, Lee was a film-school student left so enthralled by the videos for “Thriller,” “Billie Jean” and “Bad.” And when he heard about Michael Jackson's death, was devastated.

“I was messed up for months about that,” said the 55-year-old. “I grew up with Michael. I’m a year older than him. When I was 10, he was nine. So I didn’t know him, but I saw him grow up.”

Along with Lee’s film, the 25th anniversary of “Bad” is being celebrated with a new deluxe re-release on Tuesday.

Lee doesn’t think there’s room for debate over how the record — which featured such hits as the title track, “Man in the Mirror,” “The Way You Make Me Feel” and “Smooth Criminal” — wears its age.

“Look at the Billboard charts when ‘Bad’ was released 25 years ago, and then listen to those songs, and see if they still sound contemporary or dated,” said Lee, whose film will air on ABC on November 22 in Canada.

“‘Bad’ still stands up. Those other songs that were on the Top 10 list 25 years ago? Who were they? Thin Lizzy? Are we still speaking about those people? The greats will stand the test of time. It’s not even an argument.”

Lee also admit that he was curious about Michael Jackson's gradually lightening skin tone, which later it was learned that Michael Jackson's colour was changing due to the skin condition vitiligo.

“Black folks were wondering about that. I’m not going to lie,” Lee said. “Because Michael never came public that he had this disease. I was one of them. Like, ‘Wait a minute man. What’s up brother?’ Indeed Michael Jackson did not initially want to talk about vitiligo as he thought was too much private, but afterwards he was forced to make it public due to media accusations of bleached his skin as a refusement towards his race. Although, even after Jackson's admission, media continued to repeat the same lie for years.

“I’m not going to lie. That’s full disclosure. And I’m not speaking on behalf of 45 million African Americans, but there were discussions about Michael’s complexion.”

As for the BAD25 documentary, Lee had access to a deep well of sensational archival footage, supplementing original interviews conducted with Jackson collaborators including Scorsese and director Joe Pytka (as well as such admirers as Kanye West, Mariah Carey and Canada’s Justin Bieber) with clips of Jackson in the studio or warming up on video sets.

But Lee also showed other aspects of Michael Jackson's life, like his adoption of devious disguises just to meet up with his brothers for dinner, since every public appearance devolved into hysteria and whose earliest memories of childhood were indivisible from showbiz.

“He had to sing and dance to eat since he was six years old,” Lee said simply. 

At one point in the film, a teary-eyed confidante of Jackson’s relates a conversation they shared in which he yearned to be a fly on the wall at a party, to see what normal people talked about.

And when Lee was asked what that cost was, he replied, “Look, he’s not here. He’s not here. Not in this physical form. You get to be the most recognizable person on this planet, there’s a price for that…. You could say he paid with his life, really.”