Michael adds giraffe Mahali to his private zoo

Michael adds Mahali, an eighteen-foot reticulated python, to his private zoo.

The item belongs to the growing public fascination with Michael’s animals and private life in the mid-1980s. Later coverage of Bubbles and other animals would become part of the media image surrounding him during the Bad era.

This entry should eventually be paired with better sourced notes on Michael’s Encino animals and later Neverland-era animal stories, so readers can separate documented ownership from the exaggerated press treatment that often followed.