"Leave Me Alone" was a response to negative rumors about Jackson that frequently appeared in the
tabloids post-1985 after the success of
Thriller. Beginning in 1986, the tabloids began to publish rumors about Jackson, one of the first being a story claiming that Jackson slept in a
hyperbaric oxygen chamber to slow the aging process. A picture leaked out to the media of him lying down in a hyperbaric chamber at a hospital he visited. When Jackson bought a pet
chimpanzee named
Bubbles, the tabloids viewed it as evidence of Jackson's increasing detachment from reality. It was also reported that Jackson had offered to buy the bones of
Joseph Merrick, the "Elephant Man"; Jackson stated that the story was "a complete lie." These stories inspired the derogatory nickname "Wacko Jacko", which was pinned on Jackson in 1986. He despised the moniker. Another frequent response from the media was about Jackson's
plastic surgery. Jackson's manager said of the media's criticism towards the topic, "So many terrible things have been written. Okay, so he had his nose fixed, and the cleft — big deal. I got news for you, my nose has broken five times. It's been fixed twice. Who gives a shit? Who cares?
Elvis had his nose done.
Marilyn Monroe had her nose done, had her breasts done? Everybody's had it done." The song has been viewed as having a "paranoia theme", a theme that Jackson had frequently used on previous studio albums.
The Atlantic felt that Jackson showed "obvious expressions of distrust" in the song and that the song was one of multiple songs where Jackson's "persistent loneliness in his music" was "prominent". In 2009, J. Edward Keyes, of
Rolling Stone, described "Leave Me Alone" as sounding like "vintage Michael" and the song works because of its music, "a batch of thick chords for Jackson to vamp over". ==Composition==