Video of Michael Jackson Using His 'Natural Voice' Goes Viral

Footage of Michael Jackson's "natural voice" has reemerged online, stunning music lovers.

The King of Pop—who passed away in 2009 at the age of 50—was known for his distinctive high tenor vocal range, but the singer supposedly sounded very different away from the spotlight.

Rumors have long circulated that the high-pitched speaking voice he used in interviews was an act, with a resurfaced video shared to X, formerly Twitter, claiming to showcase his true register.

Posted by History Vids (@historyvids) on Saturday, the footage shows a 38-year-old Jackson performing "In the Closet" at a gig in Munich, Germany.

Filmed in 1997 during the star's HIStory world tour, Jackson's trademark singing voice suddenly drops to a deeper, more intense tone.

"Michael Jackson uses his natural deep voice during a concert in 1997," @historyvids wrote alongside the 22-second clip, which has so received over 24 million views.

Some fans criticized the music icon for not using his "natural voice," with @EmuskPD describing the performance as "creepy."

"So even his voice wasn't real?" asked @Pakistaninpictures.

"It was almost impossible for a grown man to have his type of baby voice. I always knew his voice was way deeper," wrote @Blacksodje.

"His voice was deep, as well as his PEDO tendencies," commented Casey Ryback, referring to the child sexual abuse cases from 1993 and 2005—of which he was aquitted—and more recently, the allegations from Wade Robson and James Safechuck, detailed in the 2019 HBO documentary Leaving Neverland.

"I would take Chris Brown over him," wrote Beasley, while @v411vm compared the voice change to "Darth Vader having his helmet removed."

However, others praised the Grammy winner's impressive vocal range, with Omer Yousuf dubbing Jackson "the Michaelangelo of pop music."

"How can anyone say he's not the most entertaining person ever?" asked Anthony Russo.

"I don't get how people never realized bro just had acute control of his vocal cords," posted Steph Lyon.

"They also clearly never listened to any of his songs and background harmonies," wrote Sandra Kallmeyer.

"Michael Jackson was a man of multiple talents," commented Dumcalio, while Azza posted: "There will never be another quite like him."

Why Did Michael Jackson Talk in a High Voice?

The "Billie Jean" singer's gentle speaking voice was part of his persona, along with bejeweled military jackets, the moonwalk and wearing a glove on only one hand. However, the alleged reasons for his unusual timbre are controversial.

Jackson's former doctor Conrad Murray—who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2011 for administering the lethal dose of propofol that killed the star—said that the pop legend was chemically castrated as a child by his father.

In his 2016 book, This Is It! The Secret Lives of Dr. Conrad Murray and Michael Jackson, the 70-year-old Murray said that Joe Jackson forced his son to get hormone injections at age 12. The injections were supposed to cure the pre-teen's acne, but also to stop his voice from breaking.

However, his close friend Liza Minnelli reportedly caught Jackson using a deeper voice while on the phone to her then-husband, late producer David Gest, with the revelation stunning the Oscar winner.

"Michael, you're busted, I got you now," the actress said during a 2002 episode of Larry King Live. "All these years, you've been talking in that voice."

Minnelli and Gest said that Jackson created the high-pitched voice to safeguard himself against unwanted public attention.

Journalist Diane Dimond, who reported on the 2005 child molestation trial against Jackson, also said that the hitmaker had multiple speaking registers, describing the star as having a "deep, masculine voice."

"Somewhere in there, especially if you bring him bad news or if you make him mad, his voice gets very, very deep," she told Access Hollywood at the time.

"I was there one day when someone asked him about Gloria Allred, the attorney that has sort of dogged him and turned around in one foul swoop and said, 'She can go to hell,' in this big, deep masculine voice."

Oprah Winfrey described Jackson as using a more-normal voice off-camera in 1993, while she was preparing for a televised interview with the artist. As did journalist and TV personality Piers Morgan, who said the singer's voice changed, depending on the topic.

"The weirdest thing about Michael Jackson, which encouraged my suspicions about him as a human being, was that when he talked about charity and children, he had this very soft, high-pitched voice," Morgan told documentarian Louis Theroux in 2019.

"When I changed the subject to business, his voice dropped several octaves and he became a completely different person to talk to. That was weird to me, that showed me that he was a multifaceted different character depending on the subject matter."