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Clips from the launch of Finding Truth with Michael at Book Soup in West Hollywood, and the interviews that followed. Start with the reading.
From the book launch, Book Soup, April 7, 2026
Writing a song with Michael
Darls reads from the chapter “Llama Linda”: a llama that needed a name, a late-night phone call, and an afternoon in the Jackson family studio. The reading opens with a journal entry from 1974, written when she was fifteen (“I adore Michael. I think I’m growing to love him”), and follows Michael, La Toya and Darls from nutrition break at Cal Prep to the studio, where Michael hums a melody and asks, “Can you feel it, D?” It ends the way the chapter does, with La Toya at the doorway and a rule that would change everything. (3 min)
Why I told the story
“Who am I to claim this relationship with one of the most famous people in the world?” Darls on the journals that made the book possible, the question of writing for an audience or for herself, and what it took for a therapist who is used to being “the quiet one in the back” to be seen and have a voice. (1 min)
Told what to think, not how to think
A trauma therapist on the crack in “the absolute truth”: what happens when the belief system that holds your whole community together turns out not to be true, and what Darls sees in her practice in people who have lived through indoctrination. If this is your story too, the free companion workbook and the resources page are here for you. (1½ min)
Interviews
“Michael was my best friend,” MJFANGIRL TV
Darls’s longest conversation about Michael (53 minutes, May 2026): the Bambi story, the secret book, the friendship the biopic missed.
“Darls Centola Studied The Bible With Michael Jackson,” Robin Jackson
Robin Jackson is a former Jehovah’s Witness who educates and advises on all things cult related. He is also the author of several books about Cults and High Control Religions. A 46-minute conversation, June 4, 2026.
AM Northwest, ABC (KATU Portland)
Darls’s television interview about the book, March 27, 2026.
Deborah Kobylt LIVE
On the memoir, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the work of a trauma therapist.
Spirit of Story with Karin Gutman, “A Reluctant Memoirist”
On deciding to write the book at all. February 24, 2026.
Finding Truth: Deconstruction and Healing
A monthly series Darls co-hosts with Robin Jackson on religious harm, deconstruction and healing. New episodes are added to the playlist as they air.
Episode 1, August 3, 2026: “What Is Religious Harm? Defining the Conversation.” All episodes on YouTube
Podcasts
- Think Twice: Michael Jackson, an Audible Original docuseries (episodes 4 and 6)
- Prolific Pulse Press Podcast (also on YouTube as “Writer Talk with Darls Centola”)
- Getting to Work
- Lights, Camera, Author with Jim Junot
- Spirit of Story (audio)
- Drinks with Tony
- Cover to Cover