Peter Pan Speaks

At 34, Michael Jackson is still the world's most fragile child star. When he was 11, the Cupid and Kewpie doll of the Jackson 5, he had three No. 1 hits. He did O.K. on his own too: the two best-selling albums in history (Thriller and Bad) and a contract with Sony Entertainment valued at a billion dollars. For most of the '80s, long before anyone felt compelled to dub him the King of $ Pop, he was that and more.

Yet, as he revealed in his 90-minute TV chat last week with talk-show empathizer Oprah Winfrey, Jackson is at heart as vulnerable as the handicapped children he generously welcomes to his ranch near Santa Barbara, California. He calls it Neverland, an allusion to his status as pop's Peter Pan. But Jackson may feel more kinship with another English outsider, John Merrick -- that sweet-souled, tragically deformed creature, the Elephant Man. "I love the story," he told Winfrey. "It reminds me of me a lot . . . It made me cry because I saw myself in the story."

Jackson can cry out loud; that is his agony (displayed to Winfrey) and his art (in performance). These days he is doing both: the world's most reclusive exhibitionist -- or most exhibitionistic recluse -- is everywhere. For the Clinton Inauguration, he led an all-star reunion of his 1985 We Are the World chorale. He spurred the Super Bowl to the largest U.S. TV audience ever, supervising a 98,000-person flash-card promotion for his Heal the World charity for inner-city children. He appeared at the N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards and the American Music Awards ceremonies.

Cynics can find a reason for this. He is no longer, quite, Michael Jackson. The Thriller album sold 21 million domestic copies (and 27 million more worldwide); Dangerous, his latest set, has trudged along at 4 million since its release in November 1991. In a Los Angeles Times survey of music moguls, Jackson ranked just 14th on the list of stars deemed worth signing to long- term contracts. Last year, according to Forbes, he made less money than Winfrey ($51 million to $88 million).

Pop music is a fickle muse; anyone can lose the knack. But Jackson lost touch. Not as a performer -- his falsetto and his footwork still dazzle -- but with his audience. His career went stratospheric, and he went extraterrestrial. He seemed like one of the exotic animals he keeps in his backyard habitat. For some imaginary Madame Tussaud's, he transformed himself into his own waxed, blanched figure.

Last week Jackson tried for mass-media redemption and went megaplatinum. Part grand Oprah, part soap Oprah, the Winfrey show was at the very least great TV: live, reckless, emotionally naked. For his first television interview in 14 years, Jackson won a huge audience -- the largest, excluding Super Bowls, in a decade -- and a forum to counter some of the zanier rumors that have swirled around him. He rebutted the charge that he sleeps in a , hyperbaric chamber; the photo suggesting that he did actually showed him, he said, testing equipment at a burn center he founded after being "burned very badly" while shooting a 1984 Pepsi spot.