In 1993, Michael Jackson professed his love for Brooke Shields on national television.

Speaking on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show, the performer explained that he was privately dating the actress and model.

“We try not to just be everywhere and go everywhere,” Jackson explained, claiming they were keeping their relationship behind closed doors.

“It’s mostly at home. She’ll come over, I’ll go to her house because I don’t like going out in public.”

Throughout his long running career, Michael Jackson was connected to a number of women – from his marriages to Debbie Rowe and Lisa Marie Presley to his alleged flings with Diana Ross and Madonna.

But according to new reports, Michael Jackson’s relationships may not have been what they seemed after all.

Watch the trailer for new documentary Leaving Neverland here. Post continues below…

Speaking in newly-released documentary Leaving Neverland, one of Jackson’s accusers, James Safechuck, alleged that Jackson pursued relationships so that the public wouldn’t get suspicious about his close friendships with young children.

“I remember Michael saying he was going to have to have these public relationships with women so people wouldn’t think anything,” Safechuck said in the documentary.

“He would always say he was going to get married. He said, ‘One day, I am going to go get married but it wasn’t going to mean anything.'”

For Jackson and Shields, their relationship was never conventional.

The pair, who bonded over their time in the spotlight as young children, first met in 1978

“We were like two little kids,” Shields wrote in her memoir There Was a Little Girl.

“From the day we met, we saw something of ourselves in each other.”

From there on, the pair remained close friends for many years but according to Shields, "nothing happened" between them.

"Of course we loved each other, but nothing happened romantically,” she explained in her memoir, according to People.

"I would be like, ‘Oh please, knock it off.’ He was like this kid who would ask you [about dating and romance]. Nobody was telling him and nurturing this stuff and I think he was terrified. He was terrified and sort of juvenile. I think there was an arrested development," she continued.

"But he wanted us to never not be with each other."

Following Jackson's death in 2009, Shields went on to speak about their bond at his memorial.

"Whenever we went out together and there would be a picture taken, there would be a caption of some kind, the caption usually said something like ‘an odd couple’ or ‘an unlikely pair.’ But, to us, it was the most natural, and easiest of friendships," Shields said in her speech.

It's believed the pair hadn't spoken for over a decade before Jackson passed away.

The Quicky, Mamamia’s daily news podcast, discusses Leaving Neverland. Post continues after audio.

Not long after Jackson's death, Shields opened up more about her relationship with the King of Pop.

"I would say, ‘You have me for the rest of your life, you don’t need to marry me, I’m going to go on and do my own life and have my own marriage and my own kids, and you’ll always have me,'" she told Rolling Stone. "I think it made him relax. He didn’t want to lose things that meant something to him."

Within the interview, Shields also claimed that over time, Jackson became "more asexual" to her.

"You saw women who were more sexual, who wanted to throw themselves at him and feel like they were going to teach him. We just found each other, and we didn’t have to deal with our sexuality," she recalled.

"As I grew up and started having boyfriends, I would share with him, and he was like a little kid who talked about the bases – what first base was, what second base was, and it sounded very odd to the outside, I can imagine, but to the inside, to someone who’s never really left his bubble, you can understand how he would be curious."

Shields married professional tennis player Andre Agassi in 1997 before the couple divorced in 1999.

She has been married to American producer Chris Henchy since 2001.

Leaving Neverland is available to watch now on Ten Play.

Read more on this topic:

Without us noticing, it looks like Michael Jackson groomed us for decades.

The signs Michael Jackson was grooming the children he was close to that so many missed.

"It wasn't going to mean anything": Why Michael Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley.

'Blanket' Jackson was just seven when his father died. This week he stopped talking.

The two boys who followed Wade Robson into Michael Jackson's bed insist they weren't abused.

Debbie Rowe says she gifted Michael Jackson two children because he was a 'wonderful man'.

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