Behind the Scenes Of The Tragic Michael Jackson Pepsi Commercial

Rebecca Reddin, the talent coordinator on the commercial, and Naomi Naughton, her then-teenaged daughter who watched from the audience, describe the scene. "We saw Michael enter, we saw something go wrong, and we knew that there was a problem," says Naomi of the disastrous take in which pyrotechnics went off early and the King of Pop's hair caught fire. "The next thing we knew, the very large body guards … threw themselves on Michael. We didn't know why."

Rebecca worked for the commercial's director, Bob Giraldi, and also worked with Michael and Paul McCartney on the "Say Say Say" video. During the commercial, Naomi sat in the fifth row with two of her friends right behind Janet Jackson.

"The fact that it was a Jackson Pepsi commercial was an exciting thing that people were happy to be a part of -- there were fans, and many, many of them -- it really felt like you were at a concert," says Naomi, who added that the Jackson family was also in the audience, as opposed to waiting backstage: "They wanted to be a part of it."

Rebecca was backstage when the accident happened. "A production assistant ran past me going with great speed, ran for ice, said somebody was hurt onstage, ran back to the stage," she says. "I just remember getting a bad feeling and wanting to know what happened."