18/05/2026
So it’s 1987, Sydney Australia, Michael Jackson appears at my shop doors with two bodyguards. I could hardly believe my eyes, I went to the door, and sure enough, there he was, asking if he could come in and look around my store. What struck me was how polite and ordinary he seemed. He looked at a lot of things in my shop including spiderweb cowboy boots to which he said “oh I can’t dance in those”. He pointed at quite a few things and stated they were “bad” referring to his hit single at the time, in fact he said “bad” quite a lot, it was his thing. He then pointed at the leather jacket, tried it on, loved it and put it on my counter. He grabbed lots of other things, so there was now a pile on my counter. I remember thinking to myself, wow this will pay rent for a month. I then asked him to sign my wall, grabbed a black marker pen, and said just write it anywhere, and he wrote on the wall next to the counter; “To Melanie, love Michael Jackson” which then became a tradition for rock star royalty to sign that same wall. This wall ended up being completely covered in signatures. He politely thanked me for opening the store for him as the doors weren’t open to the public yet. So technically, he was Wheels & Dollbaby’s first offical customer. I believe the jacket is now in a museum somewhere in America. I’m really happy that a whole new generation is getting to see the brilliance of in the new biopic ‘Michael’. Mel x 🦊