‘We were scammed’: 16 years after his death, Michael Jackson’s gravity-defying lean is called a sham – was it?
By Fred Onyango,
2025-05-03
If you’ve been alive long enough, there comes a time when you have to play the role of telling people no, Santa isn’t real . It’s never fun. There’s nothing to gloat about. You actually kind of wish you still believed the comforting lie. So unfortunately, I have the displeasure of being the one to inform the people that no — Michael Jackson wasn’t such a good dancer that he could defy gravity.
Now, let’s be clear: by a long mile, Michael Jackson is still the best performer the world has ever seen. The only other person who might compare is probably Beyoncé — but even with her, perhaps because of the overfamiliarity that comes with contemporary celebrity, her very presence doesn’t cause fans to faint where they stand. The Hive might be militant, but they’d probably agree that if there’s anyone above her in talent and impact, it’s the King of Pop.
Over the past week, a video went viral revealing exactly how Michael Jackson pulled off his famous forward lean from the Smooth Criminal video. Over his long career, MJ had a knack for creating dance moves that every kid would try at least once with their friends. The moonwalk, especially, was the move every cool kid in class had to know in the 1990s. But the forward lean? Nobody else could do that. And for a very long time, despite all his controversies , people thought MJ was just that good.
Every few years, though, a new generation finds out the secret was actually in the shoes. In fact, given how much competition there was during Jackson’s prime — Prince, James Brown, all these guys could sing and dance — Jackson went ahead and patented it. Like his peers, he was fiercely protective of his intellectual property, which meant only he could use the anti-gravity shoes. And because of that, people genuinely believed he could lean that far forward without falling.
When the video hit X, people were reacting with hilarious disbelief. Some mourned their childhoods. Others felt duped. One user even wrote, “We were scammed.”
A good magician never reveals their tricks. And while learning the details can make you appreciate the craftsmanship, most artists understand that the illusion of the impossible is more enchanting than the skill behind it. Maybe that’s why Jackson never revealed the trick to his fans. But the details of the anti-gravity shoes still exist in full on History by Mail . So, these shoes had a slot in the heel that would engage with a peg that rose from the stage floor at the right moment. Once locked in, the peg anchored the foot, allowing Jackson to lean forward far beyond normal human balance.
But of course, the shoes didn’t do all the work – his upper body strength and core control were still crucial in this difficult move.
Luckily for fans, there’s an upcoming Michael Jackson biopic that might go into detail about this and other major milestones in his life. It’s always tempting to dismiss music biopics because they can feel like visual Wikipedia reenactments. But with time, it becomes clear that culture often needs reminders of what made certain people in history so extraordinary.
On X, people have also been debating various genres and disciplines by asking who belongs on a given Mount Rushmore — from wrestling to hip-hop to acting. But for Michael Jackson? He’s probably the one person you could argue deserves a mountain all to himself. And stories like this — a full 16 years after his death — prove exactly why.
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