Everyone’s talking about the new Michael (2026).
I’ve been thinking about the night I told Michael Jackson to his face that he had no business being in a women’s restroom.
It’s a story I keep returning to, whether I’m speaking to journalism students or sitting at a dinner table. Two decades on, it hasn’t lost its grip on me.
To say I met him would be misleading. This was no fan moment. It was a confrontation. I said a few things I probably shouldn’t have. He didn’t hold back either.
It was November 12, 2005.
Still new to Dubai, I was window-shopping at Ibn Battuta Mall with my wife and young daughters when a strange scene caught our attention.
Outside Magrudy’s bookstore (now shut down) in the Egypt Court, a young woman was chasing an abaya-clad figure, hurling expletives.
The figure stumbled and fell just as I reached them. It was 7.15 pm.
“Catch him, there’s a man inside that abaya,” the woman shouted.
“A man? Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. He was in the women’s toilet, applying make-up. When I tried to stop him, he attacked me. I’m calling the police.”
She was hysterical.
I approached the figure, now flanked by three children. “Is that true? You’re a man?”
Silence.
“If what she’s saying is right, you’re in serious trouble. The police are on their way.”
“We’ll see,” came the reply in a male voice.
“You were in the women’s loo?”
“I can go wherever I want.”
“Even there?”
“Anywhere.”
There was something about “ respecting his privacy” and him being in the “wrong place at the wrong time.”
He must be high, I thought.
“You’ve violated the privacy of women and now you talk about yours? Who do you think you are?”
“And who are you?” he snapped.
“Press,” I said, flashing my newly acquired ID.
The woman began clicking pictures. The figure darted into the bookstore. The children followed.
People started clustering around us. I already had a story.
At 7.45 pm, I called my editor, Nirmala Jansen. I had just been hired for a weekly tabloid, XPRESS, but it hadn’t launched yet. She alerted the desk at our sister publication, the English daily, Gulf News.
A man in an abaya caught in a women’s restroom: interesting, but not a big story. Not yet.
Within hours, this was going to explode.
By 8.30 pm, mall management and security stepped in, pushing people back.
I went up to a mall management representative, showed him my card, and asked what was going on.
He glanced at it. “So the press is already here. That was quick. I’m sorry, I can’t comment,” he said, clearly rattled.
I called Nirmala again. “This abaya guy must be someone important. They’re not touching him, they’re pushing us away.”
I had a cheap phone with a useless camera. I pulled out my analogue camera, but the guards stopped me.
Around 9.30 pm, the woman in the oversized hat came up to me.
“There’s been a misunderstanding. It’s being sorted out. We don’t want any bad press.”
“That’s fine. But I need to know who he is.”
“Give me your number. I’ll check with him. If he agrees, he’ll call you.”
I would later realise she was Grace Rwaramba.
I handed her my card. She glanced at it and went back inside.
Minutes later, my phone rang. An Etisalat number.
I answered. Silence.
“Hello? You want to say something?”
Nothing.
The line went dead.
I dialled the number back.
Inside the cordoned-off Magrudy’s, barely fifteen metres away, I saw the man in the abaya take out the ringing phone and place it on a bookshelf.
It was a Vertu.
Rich bloke. Probably some spoiled sheikh’s son.
By now, police were everywhere. The area had been sealed off. No one was being allowed into the bookstore.
An Indian couple carrying clothes were ushered in.
My wife and kids were getting restless but i wasn’t leaving. Not until I knew who this was.
A guard finally broke the deadlock.
“Do you know who he is?” I asked.
“No, sir… but they’re saying he is Mikil Jai Kishen. Have you heard of him?”
I froze.
“Michael Jackson? Did they say Michael Jackson?”
“Yes, sir… that’s what they’re saying. You know him?”
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered.
I had just been arguing with Michael Jackson and didn’t know it.
Inside the bookstore, he was watching me. He knew I’d figured it out.
I called Nirmala. “Stop the press! It’s Michael Jackson.”
I was still on the phone when he pointed me out to the police.
They moved in immediately.
I was pulled aside, my phone taken, my details noted.
“Michael Jackson is a guest,” one officer said. “You write one word about this and there will be a problem. Is that clear?”
I nodded. “Can I go?”
“Not yet.”
I was made to wait in a small office inside the bookstore.
My phone kept ringing in the officer’s pocket. I didn’t know if it was my wife or the newsroom.
They let me go at 11 pm.
I checked my phone. Eight missed calls from the newsroom.
Eight missed calls.
I drove straight to the Gulf News office on Sheikh Zayed Road. My wife and children waited in the canteen while I filed the story, minutes before deadline.
The story ran on the front page the next day, without my byline, of course.
Within hours, it had been picked up elsewhere.
I had Michael Jackson’s Dubai number for years. I tried calling it a few times. It rarely rang. When it did, no one answered.
His publicist later said he had entered the women’s restroom by mistake, unable to read the Arabic sign.
That never quite added up. The signs were in English too.
More likely, he walked in because he was in an abaya and couldn’t exactly walk into the men’s.
I went back to the story in June 2009, after his death. A salesman at Magrudy’s told me he and his children had been hidden in a small staff pantry before being escorted out through a fire exit.
Over the years, the story took on a life of its own.
At one Eid gathering, a host introduced me as the journalist who had “rescued a woman from Michael Jackson with a left jab.”
He even acted it out, stepping into the middle of the room, throwing an imaginary punch.
“Whoosh,” he said. “And Michael Jackson was on all fours.”
Then he turned to me.
“Maz, tell us what really happened.”
This piece is adapted from my book, The Maz Files: Scoops, Scams & Showdowns.
You can find it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Maz-Files-Scoops-Scams-Showdowns/dp/9360450375