TIME Honors Michael Jackson

The cover's shot is from Jackson's steamy "In the Closet" music video shoot in 1992. The video was directed by legendary fashion photographer Herb Ritts and features supermodel Naomi Campbell.

For the special commemorative issue, TIME spoke with Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, Nancy Reagan, Lenny Kravitz, Jesse Jackson, Tommy Mottola, Berry Gordy, Spike Lee, Sheryl Crow, Anjelica Huston, Clive Davis, Al Sharpton, Deepak Chopra, Kobe Bryant, Lance Bass, Oscar De La Hoya, Savion Glover, A.R. Rahman, Peter Gabriel, John Mayer and others.

The magazine has also published commemorative editions during its regular schedule for Barack Obama's election and the deaths of Princess Diana, JFK, Jr. and others. The commemorative election issue for President Obama sold 575,000 copies at newsstand, nearly five times a typical issue. The commemorative edition of the magazine that appeared after Princess Diana's death sold more than 1.1 million copies domestically.