Michael Jackson - Billie Jean - Lyrics Meaning

Michael Jackson released Billie Jean in January of 1983, an immediate success as were many of his songs. Billie Jean became a topic of conversation among fans and listeners, everybody wanting to know what the meaning of Billie Jean truly was. Over the course of more than two decades, rumors flew and the meaning behind Billie Jean was changed and reinterpreted countless times.

One of the theories surrounding Billie Jean was that it was about a mentally ill fan that claimed to have an affair with Michael Jackson, and supposedly she had a child. Jackson denied that that was the meaning surrounding that song, but he kept the truth a surprise for some time. A more recent rumor surrounding the meaning of Jackson's song has to do with a similar situation, but involving his father, Joe Jackson having an affair with a producer's daughter and never claiming the child as his own.

Michael Jackson did an interview in Thailand and presented an entirely different side of the story as to the meaning behind Billie Jean, stating that the name was simply an anonymous name that represents a wide variety of girls that the Jacksons dealt with in their rising fame. A more familiar and frequently used term might be groupie. Jackson eloquently explained, "Every girl claimed that their son was related to one of my brothers."