Real Michael "Furious" at Fake Michael

Fri., May. 5, 2006 6:20 PM PDT by Joal Ryan

Michael Jackson says "impostor." GQ says "imitator."

The tomato/to-mah-to battle erupted Friday with Jackson's spokeswoman issuing a statement that the entertainer was "furious" with photos in the men's magazine that show the singer slogging through a desert and sitting in a movie theater in the company of children.

Saying it was responding to "numerous inquiries," Jackson's camp branded the pictures "a hoax" and "not authentic."

"Mr. Jackson has neither posed for, or [sic] provided photographs of himself to GQ magazine," the statement from rep Raymone K. Bain said. "The person in these photographs is an impostor."

Actually, responded GQ in its own statement Friday, the person in the photographs is "an imitator."

"It is very clear that the pictures in the story 'Where's Michael?' in the May GQ are satirical," the magazine said.

The article itself is not a goof, but rather one reporter's quest to find out how life's treating Jackson in Bahrain, the Persian Gulf land the onetime pop king has called home since being acquitted last year in California of child-molestation charges.

"One thing the subject [Jackson] has been doing since his arrival: seeing movies," writes Devin Friedman.

According to the article, Jackson, who used to screen films in the privacy of his Neverland Ranch, has been spotted at a Bahrainian mall checking out PG-13 titles such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and King Kong.

"The first time he come here, he's not dressed like woman," the movie theater manager says of Jackson in the article. "He come in like regular person...But people recognize him, ask to make a few pictures. So, then he come with abaya [a head-to-toe garment], like woman!"

The article, with its Jackson-offending pictures, has been on U.S. newsstands since Apr. 25. Perhaps only recently receiving his copy in miles-away Bahrain, Jackson is now "demanding" GQ apologize and pull the issue from circulation.

GQ is standing by its "merely an imitator" statement.

Jackson, meanwhile, may want to turn his attention to Hong Kong, where this week a new Madame Tussauds museum displayed a wax figure of the singer.

Or, if you will, an impostor.