"Cry" was issued as a single against Jackson's original intentions to release "Unbreakable." (The same situation applied with the release of "You Rock My World" months prior.) Filmed in the weeks after 9/11, Jackson was too nervous to travel to the shoot in northern California. When Jackson saw the rough cut of the video, he and the director, Nick Brandt, agreed that the video was stronger without Jackson in it. Craig Halstead and Chris Cadman, authors of the book "Michael Jackson: The Solo Years", believe that Jackson's absence from the video "did little to promote it."