Ref : http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1908031,00.html?xid=rss-arts
Where Will Michael Jackson Be Buried?
By Alison Stateman Wednesday, Jul. 01, 2009
In death as in life, there is never a dull moment when it comes to Michael Jackson. Police in California's Santa Barbara County met Tuesday to discuss how to deal with an expected mad rush of traffic on the narrow hillside road leading to Jackson's Neverland Ranch for a planned memorial service on Friday. Jackson's body will arrive there a day earlier, in a 30-car motorcade from Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the singer's hometown of Gary, Indiana, is reportedly seeking to have the body shipped there for another memorial service being planned for July 10. Amid all the competition to pay last respects to the King of Pop (including a memorial service attended by thousands at New York City's Apollo Theater on Tuesday), one question still remains unanswered: Where will Michael Jackson be buried?
(See TIME's complete Michael Jackson coverage.)
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The singer's father, Joe Jackson, denied speculation that the Neverland Ranch will be turned into a Graceland-style attraction, with the Gloved One's grave as the central attraction. "That is not true," Joe Jackson told reporters when asked whether his son was to be buried at Neverland, which has been owned by a private-equity firm since Michael defaulted on a loan. Although the family patriarch declined to discuss specifics on the time and place of a funeral, citing the second autopsy as a cause for delay, Jackson hinted of grand, Lady Di-scale plans. "I've never heard of a private funeral like this — like big, like Michael's would be," he told reporters.
Meanwhile, the financier whose company owns Neverland is preparing for unprecedented crowds at Friday's memorial. In an open letter to the Santa Barbara community, Thomas Barrack of Colony Capital on Tuesday referred to the ranch as "Michael's only true home" and added, "The universal curiosity about Neverland and its connection to Michael is an unchangeable fact."
(See TIME's photos: "The Young Michael Jackson at Home.")
"The future of the Neverland property will be addressed in due time through normal process and with appropriate deliberation," he continued in a letter that seemed directed as much to the Jackson family as it was to the residents of Santa Barbara County. "Let us all keep in mind that reputations are earned in decades and lost in moments of haste and bad decisions."
Haste is certainly not characterizing the planning of Jackson's final farewell. Some outside observers questioned the Jacksons' rationale for holding off on burial plans while waiting for autopsy results. Cyril Wecht, a forensic pathologist and attorney who has handled several high-profile cases, including the second autopsy on Anna Nicole Smith's son Daniel, says that in the case of a potential drug overdose, the body of the deceased would not be needed for examination once fluid or tissue samples were obtained. Often, the coroner will keep the brain to conduct neuropathology tests, which can't happen until about two weeks after death when the brain hardens, says Wecht. It's also likely that the coroner is conducting further tests on the superstar's heart, he adds.
(See TIME's top 10 Jackson moments.)
"It's up to the family. They can bury him and then bury the brain and heart later on," he says. "But it's rare for the body to be held back for two weeks."
In a career that took plenty of strange turns, it's perhaps no surprise that Jackson's progress toward a final resting place is beginning to seem just as chaotic. At least one of Michael's close friends, Mark Lester, the godfather to Jackson's three children, says he's in the dark as to the icon's own final wishes.
(Hear TIME's top 10 Jackson songs.)
"It's not the sort of thing you sit around a dinner party and discuss," said Lester, "funeral arrangements for someone so relatively young."
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Michael Jackson asked if I wanted to be Blanket's godfather: Friend Mark Lester gives a touching insight into the tortured singer
Michael Jackson asked if I wanted to be Blanket's godfather: Friend Mark Lester gives a touching insight into the tortured singer
By Elizabeth Sanderson
Last updated at 1:16 AM on 28th June 2009
They were both childhood stars who made weekly transatlantic telephone calls to one another during a close friendship that lasted almost 30 years.
Mark Lester, who played the lead in the Seventies film Oliver!, and Michael Jackson had mutual trust and when they became fathers, they made each other godparent to their respective children
Indeed, Jackson, who spoke to Lester last Sunday, said he was planning to dedicate his opening London show to Mark’s daughter Harriet – and invite her on stage.
Family friends: Mark Lester, his wife Lisa and Michael Jackson at Oliver! with star Rowan Atkinson
And according to Mark, who was often at the singer’s side during his most troubled times, Jackson was in good shape physically and emotionally and was looking forward to his mammoth run of O2 concerts.
Lester, 50, who turned his back on showbusiness when he was 19 and is now an osteopath in the West Country, spoke of his shock at his friend’s sudden death.
In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, he said: ‘Michael was absolutely sharp as a razor, really focused. It’s the best I’ve known him in a long time.
'He said he couldn’t wait to get back on stage and that his kids were going to see him perform – it was one of the main reasons for him doing the shows. That’s why the whole thing is such a shock.’
More...24hr 'sober coach' was hired for Michael Jackson as desperate family brought in controversial 'Doc Hollywood' to save star
I love my babies and I miss them...when Michael Jackson was around they froze: Former nanny's shocking revelations
'No, Daddy, No!' screamed Michael Jackson's children as manager broke news of death
Michael Jackson's drugs cocktail 'was highly unusual and dangerous'
Michael Jackson's drugs cocktail 'was highly unusual and dangerous'
Company that sold Michael Jackson O2 tickets owes more than entire annual turnover
Was Michael Jackson's doctor bankrupt? Questions as second post-mortem takes place on family's request
Lester said he finds it hard to believe reports the singer may have died as a result of using painkilling drugs.
‘I’ve never seen him taking anything or any evidence that he was on something,’ he said.
‘I’m an acupuncturist. One time he got a bad spider bite that wasn’t healing. I offered to treat it but he said, 'No, I hate needles, hate them.' That’s why I find it so bizarre that he was supposed to be having these injections.’
During their final conversation on Sunday, he said Jackson was excited about his comeback shows.
‘We were on the phone for about an hour and all of the kids spoke to him,’ he recalled. ‘We were talking about the show. He said he’d been rehearsing and he’d just done a Pop Idol-type competition with the dancers.
Grief stricken: Mark Lester and his daughter Harriet, 15, Michael Jackson's goddaughter who he was going to invite on stage at his first concert
‘We wanted to sit at the front and he said we could have the whole front row. He was supposed to be coming over next week for rehearsals.
‘People have said he was suffering from stage fright but I don’t think Michael ever had stage fright. Performing was what charged him.
‘He told Harriet he wanted her to come on stage with him when he sang his song Dirty Diana. He was really fired up. I asked him what was in the show but he didn’t want to tell us too much. He said, 'I want it to be a surprise. You’re going to be amazed by it.'
‘He was so excited. His children had never seen him perform and he wanted them to see Daddy at what Daddy did best. That’s what Michael does. He loved the attention. He loved being Michael Jackson. He was driven by it.’
Lester now lives in Cheltenham with his second wife Lisa and his four children, Lucy, 17, Harriet, 15, Olivia, 14, and Felix, ten. He last saw Jackson in March when the singer asked him to accompany him to the O2 for the Press launch of the 50-date residency.
He said: ‘I was with him in the car on the way and he was really relaxed. Afterwards the whole family went to stay with him at The Lanesborough hotel. We went out to see Oliver! at the Theatre Royal and spent the whole weekend with him.
‘He did not look like a person who would drop dead a couple of months later. He wasn’t unfit. He showed no signs of being unwell.’
Lester also refused to accept rumours that Jackson may have taken his own life. He said: ‘There’s no way he would have done that. He was dedicated to his family. That was not even an option.’
Child stars: Mark Lester and Michael Jackson became friends after both being young performers
It was 1982, just as the Thriller album was about to be released, when the pair first met. Jackson was on the brink of becoming, at that time, the most famous person in the world.
Lester was at home in London when Jackson’s manager called and said the singer would like to meet him. ‘I was with my sister at the time and she nearly fell off the chair,’ he recalls.
‘A few days later we went to see him at the Montcalm Hotel in Park Lane. He came over, gave me a hug and said, 'Mark, it’s so nice to meet you.'
‘I was very nervous but we had tea and then ordered up burgers and chatted. We shared a common baseline. He was much more famous than me but we had both been child stars and we were the same age. He said that in the teeny mags in America it would be him on one page, me on another and David Cassidy on another. He always used to say we were like the positive and negative, the black and white.’
Out of this surreal beginning grew an extraordinary bond. Lester became one of Jackson’s closest friends and allies and, in 2002, the singer asked him to be godfather to his youngest son, Prince Michael II – also known as Blanket. He also asked if he could become godfather to Lester’s children.
A ceremony at the Four Seasons Hotel in Las Vegas took place the following year.
‘It wasn’t religious but it was beautiful,’ said Lester. ‘Michael was a very spiritual person and had the room decorated with white roses. Afterwards we went back to the hotel room and ordered pizza.
‘Michael loved junk food. In March 2007 he came back to Cheltenham with us. It was the first time he’d been here. We watched DVDs and the kids played computer games.
‘I think we had pizza from Pizza Hut for lunch and in the evening we had fish and chips from the local shop. Michael loved fish, chips and mushy peas with lotsof ketchup. It was his favourite thing. Wherever we were, whatever restaurant, he’d have to have fish and chips. Everyone imagines he’d have some kind of weird macrobiotic diet, but he wasn’t like that.
‘The thing people never understood about Michael was that he was very clever at illusions. The thing with the veils was just an act. He used to say to me, 'I do it to create an illusion. I’m an illusionist.''
Jackson had traditional views and could be easily offended. Lester said: ‘We saw Billy Elliot and he was quite shocked at the language. He said he wouldn’t have taken the children if he had known. He was very firm with his own children. They weren’t spoilt.’
Beginning of a friendship: Mark Lester and Michael Jackson met in 1982 when Thriller was about to be released
As a long-time friend, Lester was one of the few people allowed to see the real Jackson. ‘He was much more normal than people realised,’ he said.
‘We’d go out for dinner or a coffee and he would notice women walking past and say, 'She’s so cute, she’s got a nice tush,' but then he would be very apologetic. In many ways Michael was asexual, but he had an eye for beauty.’
Jackson turned to his friend for support during many of the most difficult periods of his life. It was Lester who was with him when he first watched the Martin Bashir documentary which led to his 2005 trial for sex abuse. And it was Lester who joined Jackson in Bahrain after he was cleared of all charges.
Michael Jackson performs during the half-time show at the NFL's Super Bowl XXVII in California in January 1993
He said: ‘We were together in Miami when he saw it. Michael was just dumbstruck. He didn’t shout. I never heard him once raise his voice his whole life but he was very upset. Most of all he just seemed confused by it all.’
Lester said he saw nothing in the documentary that shocked him, not even the infamous scene in which the singer appeared holding the hand of 12-year-old cancer patient Gavin Arvizo, who later accused Jackson of abuse.
‘That was Michael. He didn’t see a problem with it. He just loved children. He saw himself as the Pied Piper.
‘At Neverland he had an enormous oil painting covering one wall and it was Michael as the Pied Piper leading hundreds of children of all colours, races, sizes.
‘Some were in wheelchairs. Michael was dancing and these kids were in a huge crocodile line behind him. He always told me he wrote his songs for the age group of ten to 14.
‘He would never do anything to hurt anyone and I don’t believe that anything ever happened with Gavin Arvizo. When I thought about what Michael did for that family, it made me sick to think that they could do that to him. The experience did make him more withdrawn. He took himself away and hid from everyone.’
Michael Jackson at the Festival Palace in Cannes in 1997
In recent years, however, Jackson had picked himself up and was ready to look forward. It is this, according to Lester, that is the real tragedy.
He said: ‘When I saw him in March it was the best I’d seen him in a long time. He was on fighting form. He was always on the phone. Sometimes he’d put on a cockney accent. He’d talk about 'going up the apples and pears'.
‘It’s just so awful. You talk to him one minute and then he’s dead.’
Now Lester’s main concern is for the children, Prince Michael, Paris and Blanket. ‘The really upsetting thing is that the children have lost their whole world, not just their father. Michael was the most wonderful father. I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like for them without him.’
Nor can he imagine quite what his own life will be like without the friend who has meant so much to him.
‘The loss is too great to take in,’ he said, ‘but I’m not the only one. It’s a loss to the whole world.’
By Elizabeth Sanderson
Last updated at 1:16 AM on 28th June 2009
They were both childhood stars who made weekly transatlantic telephone calls to one another during a close friendship that lasted almost 30 years.
Mark Lester, who played the lead in the Seventies film Oliver!, and Michael Jackson had mutual trust and when they became fathers, they made each other godparent to their respective children
Indeed, Jackson, who spoke to Lester last Sunday, said he was planning to dedicate his opening London show to Mark’s daughter Harriet – and invite her on stage.
Family friends: Mark Lester, his wife Lisa and Michael Jackson at Oliver! with star Rowan Atkinson
And according to Mark, who was often at the singer’s side during his most troubled times, Jackson was in good shape physically and emotionally and was looking forward to his mammoth run of O2 concerts.
Lester, 50, who turned his back on showbusiness when he was 19 and is now an osteopath in the West Country, spoke of his shock at his friend’s sudden death.
In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, he said: ‘Michael was absolutely sharp as a razor, really focused. It’s the best I’ve known him in a long time.
'He said he couldn’t wait to get back on stage and that his kids were going to see him perform – it was one of the main reasons for him doing the shows. That’s why the whole thing is such a shock.’
More...24hr 'sober coach' was hired for Michael Jackson as desperate family brought in controversial 'Doc Hollywood' to save star
I love my babies and I miss them...when Michael Jackson was around they froze: Former nanny's shocking revelations
'No, Daddy, No!' screamed Michael Jackson's children as manager broke news of death
Michael Jackson's drugs cocktail 'was highly unusual and dangerous'
Michael Jackson's drugs cocktail 'was highly unusual and dangerous'
Company that sold Michael Jackson O2 tickets owes more than entire annual turnover
Was Michael Jackson's doctor bankrupt? Questions as second post-mortem takes place on family's request
Lester said he finds it hard to believe reports the singer may have died as a result of using painkilling drugs.
‘I’ve never seen him taking anything or any evidence that he was on something,’ he said.
‘I’m an acupuncturist. One time he got a bad spider bite that wasn’t healing. I offered to treat it but he said, 'No, I hate needles, hate them.' That’s why I find it so bizarre that he was supposed to be having these injections.’
During their final conversation on Sunday, he said Jackson was excited about his comeback shows.
‘We were on the phone for about an hour and all of the kids spoke to him,’ he recalled. ‘We were talking about the show. He said he’d been rehearsing and he’d just done a Pop Idol-type competition with the dancers.
Grief stricken: Mark Lester and his daughter Harriet, 15, Michael Jackson's goddaughter who he was going to invite on stage at his first concert
‘We wanted to sit at the front and he said we could have the whole front row. He was supposed to be coming over next week for rehearsals.
‘People have said he was suffering from stage fright but I don’t think Michael ever had stage fright. Performing was what charged him.
‘He told Harriet he wanted her to come on stage with him when he sang his song Dirty Diana. He was really fired up. I asked him what was in the show but he didn’t want to tell us too much. He said, 'I want it to be a surprise. You’re going to be amazed by it.'
‘He was so excited. His children had never seen him perform and he wanted them to see Daddy at what Daddy did best. That’s what Michael does. He loved the attention. He loved being Michael Jackson. He was driven by it.’
Lester now lives in Cheltenham with his second wife Lisa and his four children, Lucy, 17, Harriet, 15, Olivia, 14, and Felix, ten. He last saw Jackson in March when the singer asked him to accompany him to the O2 for the Press launch of the 50-date residency.
He said: ‘I was with him in the car on the way and he was really relaxed. Afterwards the whole family went to stay with him at The Lanesborough hotel. We went out to see Oliver! at the Theatre Royal and spent the whole weekend with him.
‘He did not look like a person who would drop dead a couple of months later. He wasn’t unfit. He showed no signs of being unwell.’
Lester also refused to accept rumours that Jackson may have taken his own life. He said: ‘There’s no way he would have done that. He was dedicated to his family. That was not even an option.’
Child stars: Mark Lester and Michael Jackson became friends after both being young performers
It was 1982, just as the Thriller album was about to be released, when the pair first met. Jackson was on the brink of becoming, at that time, the most famous person in the world.
Lester was at home in London when Jackson’s manager called and said the singer would like to meet him. ‘I was with my sister at the time and she nearly fell off the chair,’ he recalls.
‘A few days later we went to see him at the Montcalm Hotel in Park Lane. He came over, gave me a hug and said, 'Mark, it’s so nice to meet you.'
‘I was very nervous but we had tea and then ordered up burgers and chatted. We shared a common baseline. He was much more famous than me but we had both been child stars and we were the same age. He said that in the teeny mags in America it would be him on one page, me on another and David Cassidy on another. He always used to say we were like the positive and negative, the black and white.’
Out of this surreal beginning grew an extraordinary bond. Lester became one of Jackson’s closest friends and allies and, in 2002, the singer asked him to be godfather to his youngest son, Prince Michael II – also known as Blanket. He also asked if he could become godfather to Lester’s children.
A ceremony at the Four Seasons Hotel in Las Vegas took place the following year.
‘It wasn’t religious but it was beautiful,’ said Lester. ‘Michael was a very spiritual person and had the room decorated with white roses. Afterwards we went back to the hotel room and ordered pizza.
‘Michael loved junk food. In March 2007 he came back to Cheltenham with us. It was the first time he’d been here. We watched DVDs and the kids played computer games.
‘I think we had pizza from Pizza Hut for lunch and in the evening we had fish and chips from the local shop. Michael loved fish, chips and mushy peas with lotsof ketchup. It was his favourite thing. Wherever we were, whatever restaurant, he’d have to have fish and chips. Everyone imagines he’d have some kind of weird macrobiotic diet, but he wasn’t like that.
‘The thing people never understood about Michael was that he was very clever at illusions. The thing with the veils was just an act. He used to say to me, 'I do it to create an illusion. I’m an illusionist.''
Jackson had traditional views and could be easily offended. Lester said: ‘We saw Billy Elliot and he was quite shocked at the language. He said he wouldn’t have taken the children if he had known. He was very firm with his own children. They weren’t spoilt.’
Beginning of a friendship: Mark Lester and Michael Jackson met in 1982 when Thriller was about to be released
As a long-time friend, Lester was one of the few people allowed to see the real Jackson. ‘He was much more normal than people realised,’ he said.
‘We’d go out for dinner or a coffee and he would notice women walking past and say, 'She’s so cute, she’s got a nice tush,' but then he would be very apologetic. In many ways Michael was asexual, but he had an eye for beauty.’
Jackson turned to his friend for support during many of the most difficult periods of his life. It was Lester who was with him when he first watched the Martin Bashir documentary which led to his 2005 trial for sex abuse. And it was Lester who joined Jackson in Bahrain after he was cleared of all charges.
Michael Jackson performs during the half-time show at the NFL's Super Bowl XXVII in California in January 1993
He said: ‘We were together in Miami when he saw it. Michael was just dumbstruck. He didn’t shout. I never heard him once raise his voice his whole life but he was very upset. Most of all he just seemed confused by it all.’
Lester said he saw nothing in the documentary that shocked him, not even the infamous scene in which the singer appeared holding the hand of 12-year-old cancer patient Gavin Arvizo, who later accused Jackson of abuse.
‘That was Michael. He didn’t see a problem with it. He just loved children. He saw himself as the Pied Piper.
‘At Neverland he had an enormous oil painting covering one wall and it was Michael as the Pied Piper leading hundreds of children of all colours, races, sizes.
‘Some were in wheelchairs. Michael was dancing and these kids were in a huge crocodile line behind him. He always told me he wrote his songs for the age group of ten to 14.
‘He would never do anything to hurt anyone and I don’t believe that anything ever happened with Gavin Arvizo. When I thought about what Michael did for that family, it made me sick to think that they could do that to him. The experience did make him more withdrawn. He took himself away and hid from everyone.’
Michael Jackson at the Festival Palace in Cannes in 1997
In recent years, however, Jackson had picked himself up and was ready to look forward. It is this, according to Lester, that is the real tragedy.
He said: ‘When I saw him in March it was the best I’d seen him in a long time. He was on fighting form. He was always on the phone. Sometimes he’d put on a cockney accent. He’d talk about 'going up the apples and pears'.
‘It’s just so awful. You talk to him one minute and then he’s dead.’
Now Lester’s main concern is for the children, Prince Michael, Paris and Blanket. ‘The really upsetting thing is that the children have lost their whole world, not just their father. Michael was the most wonderful father. I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like for them without him.’
Nor can he imagine quite what his own life will be like without the friend who has meant so much to him.
‘The loss is too great to take in,’ he said, ‘but I’m not the only one. It’s a loss to the whole world.’
Jackson/Rowe Not the Biological Parents
http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/30/michael-jackson-debbie-rowe-surrogate-children-in-vitro/
Jackson/Rowe Not the Biological Parents
Posted Jun 30th 2009 12:00PM by TMZ Staff
We've learned Michael Jackson was not the biological father of any of his children. And Debbie Rowe is not the biological mother of the two kids she bore for Michael. All three children were conceived in vitro -- outside the womb.
Multiple sources deeply connected to the births tell us Michael was not the sperm donor for any of his kids. Debbie's eggs were not used. She was merely the surrogate, and paid well for her services in the births of Michael Jr. and Paris.
In the case of Prince Michael II (the youngest), we're told the surrogate was never told of the identity of the "receiving parent" -- Michael Jackson. Three days after Prince was born at Grossmont Hospital in San Diego County, Jackson's lawyer came to the hospital to pick the baby up and deliver him to Michael.
We do not know if Jackson chose the sperm or egg donors or if he even knew who they were.
Although Rowe is not the biological mother, it's not a slam dunk that she would lose a custody battle. This type of case has never been litigated in California courts. Since Rowe was married to Jackson when Michael Jr. and Paris were born, there's a presumption that she's the biological parent. That presumption can be rebutted by other evidence.
We know there are documents outlining the whole arrangement for the birth of all three kids. Nonetheless, it's still an open issue with the courts.
Jackson/Rowe Not the Biological Parents
Posted Jun 30th 2009 12:00PM by TMZ Staff
We've learned Michael Jackson was not the biological father of any of his children. And Debbie Rowe is not the biological mother of the two kids she bore for Michael. All three children were conceived in vitro -- outside the womb.
Multiple sources deeply connected to the births tell us Michael was not the sperm donor for any of his kids. Debbie's eggs were not used. She was merely the surrogate, and paid well for her services in the births of Michael Jr. and Paris.
In the case of Prince Michael II (the youngest), we're told the surrogate was never told of the identity of the "receiving parent" -- Michael Jackson. Three days after Prince was born at Grossmont Hospital in San Diego County, Jackson's lawyer came to the hospital to pick the baby up and deliver him to Michael.
We do not know if Jackson chose the sperm or egg donors or if he even knew who they were.
Although Rowe is not the biological mother, it's not a slam dunk that she would lose a custody battle. This type of case has never been litigated in California courts. Since Rowe was married to Jackson when Michael Jr. and Paris were born, there's a presumption that she's the biological parent. That presumption can be rebutted by other evidence.
We know there are documents outlining the whole arrangement for the birth of all three kids. Nonetheless, it's still an open issue with the courts.
Madonna To Join Jackson's 'This Is It' All-Stars Tribute Tour?
http://www.shewired.com/Article.cfm?Section=1&ID=23180
Madonna To Join Jackson's 'This Is It' All-Stars Tribute Tour?
by Mona Elyafi | Article Date: 06/30/2009 12:01 PM
The King of Pop is dead but his reign is not over and the beat goes on!
Michael Jackson's "This is It" tour will now become a tribute concert gathering the who's who of the music industry, according to Perez.
Rumors are already spreading about gay icon Madonna to possibly be among the A-list performers participating in the tribute concert. Madonna was originally expected to join Jackson on stage during one of his London performances at the O2 Arena.
"Every major celebrity has been reaching out, saying they want to participate in the show," a source working on the show told MSNBC. "Kenny Ortega and Travis Payne have been given authorization to proceed in deciding who will take the stage," the source added, referring to Jackson's director and choreographer.
The news was announced at a June 26 gathering for the late Michael Jackson held by the cast and crew of the original "This is It" tour.
According to a tour organizer, one performance -- a replica of what was planned for the 50-concert sold-out run in London - will now be held in September. Although no decision has been made regarding the location of the tribute concert, all bets are already placed on Los Angeles' Staple Center where This Is It! rehearsals had been taking place.
Madonna To Join Jackson's 'This Is It' All-Stars Tribute Tour?
by Mona Elyafi | Article Date: 06/30/2009 12:01 PM
The King of Pop is dead but his reign is not over and the beat goes on!
Michael Jackson's "This is It" tour will now become a tribute concert gathering the who's who of the music industry, according to Perez.
Rumors are already spreading about gay icon Madonna to possibly be among the A-list performers participating in the tribute concert. Madonna was originally expected to join Jackson on stage during one of his London performances at the O2 Arena.
"Every major celebrity has been reaching out, saying they want to participate in the show," a source working on the show told MSNBC. "Kenny Ortega and Travis Payne have been given authorization to proceed in deciding who will take the stage," the source added, referring to Jackson's director and choreographer.
The news was announced at a June 26 gathering for the late Michael Jackson held by the cast and crew of the original "This is It" tour.
According to a tour organizer, one performance -- a replica of what was planned for the 50-concert sold-out run in London - will now be held in September. Although no decision has been made regarding the location of the tribute concert, all bets are already placed on Los Angeles' Staple Center where This Is It! rehearsals had been taking place.
Michael Jackson and the God Feeling
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/deepak_chopra/2009/06/the_spirituality_of_michael_jackson.html?hpid=talkbox1
Michael Jackson and the God Feeling
In startling ways pop culture mirrors long-standing spiritual arguments. In an age where the stage has replaced the pulpit -- where the line between the two is all but invisible -- morality is played out in the lives of celebrities. This is an unsettling phenomenon. Princess Diana slips into the role of Holy Mother almost equal with Mother Teresa. Michael Jackson's call to "Heal the World" in a pop song spreads to every corner of the planet and probably touches more people than the Pope's annual Christmas message.
With the sudden, sad death of Michael Jackson, whom I knew well for twenty years, a specific point of theology comes to life and haunts us. I'm thinking of Manichaeism, a Gnostic doctrine born in Persia in the third century, whose central idea is "the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness," as the Wikipedia entry puts it. Manichaeism pictured the destiny of the world, and each soul, in terms of black versus white, and so potent is the idea that it has permeated race relations, cultural divides, wars, and the whole tendency to demonize "them," those people who are different from us and therefore exist outside the light.
It's hard not to see Michael Jackson as a pop martyr to this kind of either/or thinking. His hit song, "Black or White," insisted that "it don't matter if you're black or white," something he deeply believed in. His skin changed from black to white because of vitiligo, but the public and press mistinterpreted this as a conscious attempt to change his skin and took it as the mark of someone who didn't know what world he belonged in. But I don't want to trade in symbols. As a real person, Michael struggled between extremes, and his vulnerability to the shadow side of human nature was very poignant. The tabloids consigned him to the dark side via cheap, sensationalized stories that verged on the ghoulish (stories he fed with behavior that flirted far too much with transgressive behavior). But the other aspect of Manichaeism was also there, an evangelical desire to bring light and healing to the whole world. The paradox of how one person could be so innocent and so disturbing at the same time remains a mystery.
I began to ponder Michael's nature after I received an e-mail that pointed to "the transcendent feeling he inspired in so many people with his music and his dancing. There was almost a religious, ritualistic feeling to it. He seemed to be in another zone when he was performing and took others with him." I agree, but the wider phenomenon is the "God feeling" communicated to millions of people through pop culture. Princess Diana played a key part, as Bono and Sting still do, as Live Aid concerts do. A transient mass communion substitutes for the traditional communion offered in church; a global feeling of oneness transcends the unity of small religious communities.
The flaws in this God feeling are obvious. It doesn't last. Strangers are brought together for a moment, usually through mass media, only to return to being strangers once the moment is gone. The message being communicated is far simpler than the doctrines and dogmas of organized faiths. All of which can make the God feeling seem superficial and sentimental. Did Michael Jackson really heal the world in any meaningful sense? Did it help Princess Diana to be elevated to saintly status when in reality her private life contained more than its share of trouble, confusion, and turmoil?
None of us are in a position to say. Communion is an actual phenomenon, however, and without it, we would feel much more alone and divided. In Afghanistan a pop talent show known as "Afghan Star" is watched by half the country's population. On the surface it looks like any other imitation of "American Idol," until you learn that this show is the most important vehicle for warring tribes and divisive religious traditions to view each other in peace. Via TV entertainment, "they" don't look as dark and ominous to "us." One is reminded that pop communion may, in fact, be the only kind that doesn't exclude anybody. The God feeling is important just because it isn't bound by doctrine and dogma. No one is outside the fold. When an audience lights candles and sways to "Heal the World," a space is created where nobody is unholy, no religion can exercise its imaginary exclusive patent on the true God. To the extent that Michael inspired such a feeling, he healed his own demons and ours, if only for an hour.
In some way that merges psychology and faith, Michael Jackson did play out the ancient split between dark and light; he was deliberately Manichean in his dangerous game with the media but also deeply divided. I come away feeling deeply distressed that he was imprisoned by a theological idea that has caused so much damage and distortion over the centuries. There is no cosmic war between dark and light, as I see it. Only one reality exists, and it's the human mind that judges and categorizes. We blow our own manmade suffering into grandiose cosmic schemes, and then we bow down and worship effigies to our own self-judgment. But that's an argument for another day. Today I linger on the rare thing that Michael accomplished. He inspired the God feeling in millions of people, and even amidst the grief at his sad undoing, a remembrance of that feeling comes through.
By Deepak Chopra | June 29, 2009; 7:48 PM ET
Michael Jackson and the God Feeling
In startling ways pop culture mirrors long-standing spiritual arguments. In an age where the stage has replaced the pulpit -- where the line between the two is all but invisible -- morality is played out in the lives of celebrities. This is an unsettling phenomenon. Princess Diana slips into the role of Holy Mother almost equal with Mother Teresa. Michael Jackson's call to "Heal the World" in a pop song spreads to every corner of the planet and probably touches more people than the Pope's annual Christmas message.
With the sudden, sad death of Michael Jackson, whom I knew well for twenty years, a specific point of theology comes to life and haunts us. I'm thinking of Manichaeism, a Gnostic doctrine born in Persia in the third century, whose central idea is "the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness," as the Wikipedia entry puts it. Manichaeism pictured the destiny of the world, and each soul, in terms of black versus white, and so potent is the idea that it has permeated race relations, cultural divides, wars, and the whole tendency to demonize "them," those people who are different from us and therefore exist outside the light.
It's hard not to see Michael Jackson as a pop martyr to this kind of either/or thinking. His hit song, "Black or White," insisted that "it don't matter if you're black or white," something he deeply believed in. His skin changed from black to white because of vitiligo, but the public and press mistinterpreted this as a conscious attempt to change his skin and took it as the mark of someone who didn't know what world he belonged in. But I don't want to trade in symbols. As a real person, Michael struggled between extremes, and his vulnerability to the shadow side of human nature was very poignant. The tabloids consigned him to the dark side via cheap, sensationalized stories that verged on the ghoulish (stories he fed with behavior that flirted far too much with transgressive behavior). But the other aspect of Manichaeism was also there, an evangelical desire to bring light and healing to the whole world. The paradox of how one person could be so innocent and so disturbing at the same time remains a mystery.
I began to ponder Michael's nature after I received an e-mail that pointed to "the transcendent feeling he inspired in so many people with his music and his dancing. There was almost a religious, ritualistic feeling to it. He seemed to be in another zone when he was performing and took others with him." I agree, but the wider phenomenon is the "God feeling" communicated to millions of people through pop culture. Princess Diana played a key part, as Bono and Sting still do, as Live Aid concerts do. A transient mass communion substitutes for the traditional communion offered in church; a global feeling of oneness transcends the unity of small religious communities.
The flaws in this God feeling are obvious. It doesn't last. Strangers are brought together for a moment, usually through mass media, only to return to being strangers once the moment is gone. The message being communicated is far simpler than the doctrines and dogmas of organized faiths. All of which can make the God feeling seem superficial and sentimental. Did Michael Jackson really heal the world in any meaningful sense? Did it help Princess Diana to be elevated to saintly status when in reality her private life contained more than its share of trouble, confusion, and turmoil?
None of us are in a position to say. Communion is an actual phenomenon, however, and without it, we would feel much more alone and divided. In Afghanistan a pop talent show known as "Afghan Star" is watched by half the country's population. On the surface it looks like any other imitation of "American Idol," until you learn that this show is the most important vehicle for warring tribes and divisive religious traditions to view each other in peace. Via TV entertainment, "they" don't look as dark and ominous to "us." One is reminded that pop communion may, in fact, be the only kind that doesn't exclude anybody. The God feeling is important just because it isn't bound by doctrine and dogma. No one is outside the fold. When an audience lights candles and sways to "Heal the World," a space is created where nobody is unholy, no religion can exercise its imaginary exclusive patent on the true God. To the extent that Michael inspired such a feeling, he healed his own demons and ours, if only for an hour.
In some way that merges psychology and faith, Michael Jackson did play out the ancient split between dark and light; he was deliberately Manichean in his dangerous game with the media but also deeply divided. I come away feeling deeply distressed that he was imprisoned by a theological idea that has caused so much damage and distortion over the centuries. There is no cosmic war between dark and light, as I see it. Only one reality exists, and it's the human mind that judges and categorizes. We blow our own manmade suffering into grandiose cosmic schemes, and then we bow down and worship effigies to our own self-judgment. But that's an argument for another day. Today I linger on the rare thing that Michael accomplished. He inspired the God feeling in millions of people, and even amidst the grief at his sad undoing, a remembrance of that feeling comes through.
By Deepak Chopra | June 29, 2009; 7:48 PM ET
Three Michael Jackson Albums Break 100,000 Sales Mark
Three Michael Jackson Albums Break 100,000 Sales Mark
6/30/09, 10:07 am EST
Michael Jackson will likely be the King of Pop Charts this week after three of the singer’s albums sold more than 100,000 copies following news of his sudden death, Billboard.biz reports. Final numbers aren’t due until tomorrow, but Thriller, Number Ones and The Essential Michael Jackson are expected to top six-figures based on sales through Sunday, June 28th. The three releases are more than likely to top the Pop Catalog Charts, with Jackson on pace to potentially fill six to nine (or even all 10) of that chart’s Top 10 with albums like Bad, Off the Wall, greatest hits collections and even some Jackson 5 compilations. Last week, the entire Jackson catalog combined only sold 10,000 copies, according to Billboard.
While the three Jackson albums would also likely top the Top 200 charts — the Black Eyed Peas’ The E.N.D. is on pace for less than 100K sold — because the Jackson albums are considered catalog releases, they are ineligible for the Top 200 charts and will instead feature on the Pop Catalog chart and the Top Comprehensive Albums chart. Catalog releases are albums that were released at least 18 months ago. Last year, Jackson’s Thriller reissue topped the Pop Catalog chart with 166,000 in sales in its first week, Billboard notes.
According to Billboard, the majority of Jackson’s new sales came from digital outlets, as physical stores were unable to keep their shelves stocked to keep with the demand for Jackson — a phenomenon Rolling Stone witnessed first-hand in the hours after Jackson’s death. The Essential Michael Jackson alone was downloaded roughly 70,000 times. As Rolling Stone previously reported, Jackson dominated both the iTunes and the Amazon MP3 charts in the day following news of his death. The album sales mirror Jackson’s meteoric rise on the radio as well, with Jackson’s airplay up 1,735 percent from the previous week per Nielsen.
6/30/09, 10:07 am EST
Michael Jackson will likely be the King of Pop Charts this week after three of the singer’s albums sold more than 100,000 copies following news of his sudden death, Billboard.biz reports. Final numbers aren’t due until tomorrow, but Thriller, Number Ones and The Essential Michael Jackson are expected to top six-figures based on sales through Sunday, June 28th. The three releases are more than likely to top the Pop Catalog Charts, with Jackson on pace to potentially fill six to nine (or even all 10) of that chart’s Top 10 with albums like Bad, Off the Wall, greatest hits collections and even some Jackson 5 compilations. Last week, the entire Jackson catalog combined only sold 10,000 copies, according to Billboard.
While the three Jackson albums would also likely top the Top 200 charts — the Black Eyed Peas’ The E.N.D. is on pace for less than 100K sold — because the Jackson albums are considered catalog releases, they are ineligible for the Top 200 charts and will instead feature on the Pop Catalog chart and the Top Comprehensive Albums chart. Catalog releases are albums that were released at least 18 months ago. Last year, Jackson’s Thriller reissue topped the Pop Catalog chart with 166,000 in sales in its first week, Billboard notes.
According to Billboard, the majority of Jackson’s new sales came from digital outlets, as physical stores were unable to keep their shelves stocked to keep with the demand for Jackson — a phenomenon Rolling Stone witnessed first-hand in the hours after Jackson’s death. The Essential Michael Jackson alone was downloaded roughly 70,000 times. As Rolling Stone previously reported, Jackson dominated both the iTunes and the Amazon MP3 charts in the day following news of his death. The album sales mirror Jackson’s meteoric rise on the radio as well, with Jackson’s airplay up 1,735 percent from the previous week per Nielsen.
Michael Jackson's Nanny Denies Ever Having To Pump The Singer's Stomach
http://omg.yahoo.com/news/michael-jacksons-nanny-denies-ever-having-to-pump-the-singers-stomach/24624
Michael Jackson's Nanny Denies Ever Having To Pump The Singer's Stomach
Access Hollywood - June 30, 2009 2:25 PM PDT
LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Michael Jackson's nanny, Grace Rwaramba, has denied a report claiming she "routinely" pumped the late singer's stomach due to ingesting a dangerous amount of drugs.
"Michael Jackson was an exceptional Human Being. He was gifted, deeply compassionate and brought joy to the lives of so many. He loved his family dearly, and above all, his beautiful children," Rwaramba said in a statement released to Access Hollywood.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Sudden Endings: Stars Who Died Too Soon
"In addition to being my employer over the past 17 years and entrusting the care of his beloved children to me, he was my dear friend. While our friendship had challenges, as do all friendships, he was loyal to the end. I cherish and honor his memory," the statement continued.
Rwaramba said a previous report suggesting she had to pump the star's stomach on several occasions was "patently false."
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Michael Jackson: The King Of Pop
"I am shocked, hurt and deeply saddened by recent statements the press has attributed to me, in particular, the outrageous and patently false claim that I 'routinely pumped his stomach after he had ingested a dangerous combination of drugs.' I don't even know how to pump a stomach!! In addition, I have never spoken to the Times Online, the original source of the story that has now been picked up worldwide. The statements attributed to me confirm the worst in human tendencies to sensationalize tragedy and smear reputations for profit.
"I convey my heartfelt and deepest condolences to Prince, Paris, Blanket and the entire Jackson family. The pain and sorrow I feel over the loss of Michael pales in comparison to what has been taken from them forever," her statement concluded.
Related Content from AccessHollywood.com:
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Michael Jackson &
Michael Jackson's Nanny Denies Ever Having To Pump The Singer's Stomach
Access Hollywood - June 30, 2009 2:25 PM PDT
LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Michael Jackson's nanny, Grace Rwaramba, has denied a report claiming she "routinely" pumped the late singer's stomach due to ingesting a dangerous amount of drugs.
"Michael Jackson was an exceptional Human Being. He was gifted, deeply compassionate and brought joy to the lives of so many. He loved his family dearly, and above all, his beautiful children," Rwaramba said in a statement released to Access Hollywood.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Sudden Endings: Stars Who Died Too Soon
"In addition to being my employer over the past 17 years and entrusting the care of his beloved children to me, he was my dear friend. While our friendship had challenges, as do all friendships, he was loyal to the end. I cherish and honor his memory," the statement continued.
Rwaramba said a previous report suggesting she had to pump the star's stomach on several occasions was "patently false."
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Michael Jackson: The King Of Pop
"I am shocked, hurt and deeply saddened by recent statements the press has attributed to me, in particular, the outrageous and patently false claim that I 'routinely pumped his stomach after he had ingested a dangerous combination of drugs.' I don't even know how to pump a stomach!! In addition, I have never spoken to the Times Online, the original source of the story that has now been picked up worldwide. The statements attributed to me confirm the worst in human tendencies to sensationalize tragedy and smear reputations for profit.
"I convey my heartfelt and deepest condolences to Prince, Paris, Blanket and the entire Jackson family. The pain and sorrow I feel over the loss of Michael pales in comparison to what has been taken from them forever," her statement concluded.
Related Content from AccessHollywood.com:
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Michael Jackson &
Michael Jackson gets more bizarre after death
Ref : http://omg.yahoo.com/news/michael-jackson-gets-more-bizarre-after-death/24628
Michael Jackson gets more bizarre after death
Reuters - 1 hour, 38 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Bizarre in life, Michael Jackson's complex personal affairs are taking even stranger twists in death, with sketchy reports on Tuesday of plans for an elaborate public memorial and questions over the parentage of his children.
After five days of television replays of Jackson's hit songs and glowing tributes to his musical genius, attention has turned to the murkier side of the "Thriller" singer.
Celebrity website TMZ.com, which broke the news of Jackson's death, reported the entertainer was not the biological father of his three children and that his ex-wife, Debye Rowe, was not the genetic mother of the eldest two.
A 2002 will signed by Jackson was reported to have been turned over to his family but its validity was unclear. The attorney said to have the will, John Branca, did not return calls for comment.
In that will, the King of Pop was said to have left the bulk of his multimillion-dollar estate to his three children and his mother Katherine but cut out his father, Joe, who Jackson had accused of beating him as a child.
Several media reports said Jackson's body would be driven to his Neverland Valley Ranch near Santa Barbara in Central California on Thursday ahead of a public viewing this weekend.
One story in Britain's Sun newspaper said Jackson's body would first be driven through Los Angeles in a glass-sided horse-drawn carriage, complete with a matching glass coffin.
None of the reports could be verified with the many managers, lawyers and spokespeople who claimed to speak on behalf of Jackson or his family since his sudden death after cardiac arrest on June 25, at the age of 50.
Several California public safety officials said they had not yet heard from the Jackson family, although they confirmed they were meeting to discuss a possible service at Neverland.
Tom Barrack, chief executive of Colony Capital LLC, the private equity firm that co-owns Neverland, issued an open letter to the people of Santa Barbara County asking them to prepare for "a global drama of epic proportion."
BURIED IN BAD MEMORIES
Yet the theme park-style ranch, a four-hour drive northwest of Los Angeles, was the site of the infamous sleepovers Jackson held with young boys that led to unproven charges of child molestation in 1993 and a 2005 trial. Now shuttered and emptied, Neverland was abandoned by Jackson after the trial.
Despite his charisma on stage, Jackson was largely reclusive off stage. He relied on an ever-changing series of aides to fend off curiosity about his two brief marriages and changing physical appearance -- all of which led the British media to dub him "Wacko Jack" some 15 years ago.
"This is a story that's going to last and develop and get bigger in the next year," TMZ managing editor Harvey Levin said on Tuesday. "You're going to see quite the show here."
Among the extraordinary claims Tuesday, celebrity magazine Us Weekly said the biological father of Michael Jr, 12, and Paris, 11, was Jackson's Beverly Hills dermatologist, Dr Arnold Klein, for whom Rowe once worked. The identity of the surrogate mother of Prince Michael II, 7, has never been known.
Klein's attorney issued a statement neither confirming or denying the report, but Rowe's attorney told entertainment news outlet E! News that her client is definitely the mother.
Jackson's mother Katherine has temporary guardianship of the children and control of his estate until a July 6 hearing.
Elsewhere, Jackson family lawyer Brian Oxman told Life & Style Weekly the singer "feared somebody wanted to kill him."
"He was even concerned people would kill him to somehow try to take control of the Beatles' back catalog," Oxman told the magazine, referring to Jackson's lucrative joint venture.
The cause of Jackson's death has not yet been determined. Results of toxicology tests are not expected for about 4-6 weeks but speculation is rife that Jackson's death will be attributed to his prescription drug use.
(Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Jackie Frank)
Michael Jackson gets more bizarre after death
Reuters - 1 hour, 38 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Bizarre in life, Michael Jackson's complex personal affairs are taking even stranger twists in death, with sketchy reports on Tuesday of plans for an elaborate public memorial and questions over the parentage of his children.
After five days of television replays of Jackson's hit songs and glowing tributes to his musical genius, attention has turned to the murkier side of the "Thriller" singer.
Celebrity website TMZ.com, which broke the news of Jackson's death, reported the entertainer was not the biological father of his three children and that his ex-wife, Debye Rowe, was not the genetic mother of the eldest two.
A 2002 will signed by Jackson was reported to have been turned over to his family but its validity was unclear. The attorney said to have the will, John Branca, did not return calls for comment.
In that will, the King of Pop was said to have left the bulk of his multimillion-dollar estate to his three children and his mother Katherine but cut out his father, Joe, who Jackson had accused of beating him as a child.
Several media reports said Jackson's body would be driven to his Neverland Valley Ranch near Santa Barbara in Central California on Thursday ahead of a public viewing this weekend.
One story in Britain's Sun newspaper said Jackson's body would first be driven through Los Angeles in a glass-sided horse-drawn carriage, complete with a matching glass coffin.
None of the reports could be verified with the many managers, lawyers and spokespeople who claimed to speak on behalf of Jackson or his family since his sudden death after cardiac arrest on June 25, at the age of 50.
Several California public safety officials said they had not yet heard from the Jackson family, although they confirmed they were meeting to discuss a possible service at Neverland.
Tom Barrack, chief executive of Colony Capital LLC, the private equity firm that co-owns Neverland, issued an open letter to the people of Santa Barbara County asking them to prepare for "a global drama of epic proportion."
BURIED IN BAD MEMORIES
Yet the theme park-style ranch, a four-hour drive northwest of Los Angeles, was the site of the infamous sleepovers Jackson held with young boys that led to unproven charges of child molestation in 1993 and a 2005 trial. Now shuttered and emptied, Neverland was abandoned by Jackson after the trial.
Despite his charisma on stage, Jackson was largely reclusive off stage. He relied on an ever-changing series of aides to fend off curiosity about his two brief marriages and changing physical appearance -- all of which led the British media to dub him "Wacko Jack" some 15 years ago.
"This is a story that's going to last and develop and get bigger in the next year," TMZ managing editor Harvey Levin said on Tuesday. "You're going to see quite the show here."
Among the extraordinary claims Tuesday, celebrity magazine Us Weekly said the biological father of Michael Jr, 12, and Paris, 11, was Jackson's Beverly Hills dermatologist, Dr Arnold Klein, for whom Rowe once worked. The identity of the surrogate mother of Prince Michael II, 7, has never been known.
Klein's attorney issued a statement neither confirming or denying the report, but Rowe's attorney told entertainment news outlet E! News that her client is definitely the mother.
Jackson's mother Katherine has temporary guardianship of the children and control of his estate until a July 6 hearing.
Elsewhere, Jackson family lawyer Brian Oxman told Life & Style Weekly the singer "feared somebody wanted to kill him."
"He was even concerned people would kill him to somehow try to take control of the Beatles' back catalog," Oxman told the magazine, referring to Jackson's lucrative joint venture.
The cause of Jackson's death has not yet been determined. Results of toxicology tests are not expected for about 4-6 weeks but speculation is rife that Jackson's death will be attributed to his prescription drug use.
(Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Jackie Frank)
AP Exclusive: Jackson said net worth $236M in 2007
http://omg.yahoo.com/news/ap-exclusive-jackson-said-net-worth-236m-in-2007/24630
AP Exclusive: Jackson said net worth $236M in 2007
Associated Press - 1 hour, 20 minutes ago
NEW YORK - It's one of the biggest mysteries in the Michael Jackson saga: How much was the lavish-spending, massively debt-ridden pop icon really worth?
In the most detailed account yet of the singer's tangled financial empire, documents obtained by The Associated Press show Jackson claimed to have a net worth of $236.6 million as of March 31, 2007. But less than $700,000 of that amount was in cash a relatively paltry sum given his opulent lifestyle, prodigious borrowing and seven-figure shopping sprees.
The dollar amounts, which previously consisted of estimates, are crucial because Jackson's estate is expected to become the focus of a legal battle between the singer's family and creditors.
Since then, however, Jackson's debts and assets have grown substantially he took on more debt in a refinancing transaction later that year, and the Sony/ATV Music Publishing joint venture spent hundreds of millions acquiring new songs.
The revelation came Tuesday as Jackson's family reversed itself and said the singer did in fact have a will complicating a bid by Jackson's mother to take control of her son's finances. The will names his mother Katherine as guardian of his children and puts his assets in a trust, according to a person who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the topic.
Jackson had $567.6 million in assets, including his Neverland Ranch and his share of the Sony/ATV Music Publishing catalog, which includes the rights to songs by the Beatles, according to a statement of financial condition prepared by Washington, D.C.-based accounting firm Thompson, Cobb, Bazilio & Associates.
The report was prepared at a time when Jackson had large sums of debt coming due that had to be refinanced. The financial statement, which is not as thorough as an audit, was based in large part on estimates provided by Jackson's advisers that the accounting firm said it could not verify.
In the documents, the firm also said it omitted the amount Jackson owed in income taxes.
The documents do not show how much money he had coming in that year or how much he was spending, which makes it hard to estimate just how cash-poor he was. Still, the statement paints a picture of Jackson's tangled finances and the mountain of debt he left behind.
The five-page report says Jackson had debts of $331 million. The singer had just $668,215 in cash, according to the report.
The accounting firm did not return calls seeking comment.
The report puts a net value on Jackson's 50 percent stake in the Sony/ATV Music Publishing catalog his most prized asset at $390.6 million. The 750,000-song catalog includes music by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers.
A separate document obtained by the AP details Jackson's dealings with Sony Music Entertainment Inc., which owns the other half of Sony/ATV. Jackson was guaranteed a cash distribution of $11 million a year from the venture through September 2011, according to the May 25, 2007, document that was signed by the pop star.
The document also detailed Sony's ability to buy an unspecified percentage of Jackson's remaining share in Sony/ATV.
It said Sony agreed to guarantee loans made to Jackson through September 2011 and to help him refinance his debts. Sony also agreed to advance Jackson money to help pay the interest to his main creditor at the time, Fortress Investment Group LLC, to avoid defaulting. Barclays Bank PLC took over the Fortress loan, which is now around $315 million, in December 2007.
The documents also show that Jackson gave his approval for Sony/ATV to use up to $400 million to purchase the 125,000-song Famous Music LLC catalog from Viacom Inc., which holds such songs as "Footloose" and "The Real Slim Shady" by Eminem. The deal was announced a week later.
A Sony/ATV spokesman declined to comment.
AP Exclusive: Jackson said net worth $236M in 2007
Associated Press - 1 hour, 20 minutes ago
NEW YORK - It's one of the biggest mysteries in the Michael Jackson saga: How much was the lavish-spending, massively debt-ridden pop icon really worth?
In the most detailed account yet of the singer's tangled financial empire, documents obtained by The Associated Press show Jackson claimed to have a net worth of $236.6 million as of March 31, 2007. But less than $700,000 of that amount was in cash a relatively paltry sum given his opulent lifestyle, prodigious borrowing and seven-figure shopping sprees.
The dollar amounts, which previously consisted of estimates, are crucial because Jackson's estate is expected to become the focus of a legal battle between the singer's family and creditors.
Since then, however, Jackson's debts and assets have grown substantially he took on more debt in a refinancing transaction later that year, and the Sony/ATV Music Publishing joint venture spent hundreds of millions acquiring new songs.
The revelation came Tuesday as Jackson's family reversed itself and said the singer did in fact have a will complicating a bid by Jackson's mother to take control of her son's finances. The will names his mother Katherine as guardian of his children and puts his assets in a trust, according to a person who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the topic.
Jackson had $567.6 million in assets, including his Neverland Ranch and his share of the Sony/ATV Music Publishing catalog, which includes the rights to songs by the Beatles, according to a statement of financial condition prepared by Washington, D.C.-based accounting firm Thompson, Cobb, Bazilio & Associates.
The report was prepared at a time when Jackson had large sums of debt coming due that had to be refinanced. The financial statement, which is not as thorough as an audit, was based in large part on estimates provided by Jackson's advisers that the accounting firm said it could not verify.
In the documents, the firm also said it omitted the amount Jackson owed in income taxes.
The documents do not show how much money he had coming in that year or how much he was spending, which makes it hard to estimate just how cash-poor he was. Still, the statement paints a picture of Jackson's tangled finances and the mountain of debt he left behind.
The five-page report says Jackson had debts of $331 million. The singer had just $668,215 in cash, according to the report.
The accounting firm did not return calls seeking comment.
The report puts a net value on Jackson's 50 percent stake in the Sony/ATV Music Publishing catalog his most prized asset at $390.6 million. The 750,000-song catalog includes music by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers.
A separate document obtained by the AP details Jackson's dealings with Sony Music Entertainment Inc., which owns the other half of Sony/ATV. Jackson was guaranteed a cash distribution of $11 million a year from the venture through September 2011, according to the May 25, 2007, document that was signed by the pop star.
The document also detailed Sony's ability to buy an unspecified percentage of Jackson's remaining share in Sony/ATV.
It said Sony agreed to guarantee loans made to Jackson through September 2011 and to help him refinance his debts. Sony also agreed to advance Jackson money to help pay the interest to his main creditor at the time, Fortress Investment Group LLC, to avoid defaulting. Barclays Bank PLC took over the Fortress loan, which is now around $315 million, in December 2007.
The documents also show that Jackson gave his approval for Sony/ATV to use up to $400 million to purchase the 125,000-song Famous Music LLC catalog from Viacom Inc., which holds such songs as "Footloose" and "The Real Slim Shady" by Eminem. The deal was announced a week later.
A Sony/ATV spokesman declined to comment.
Jackson's funeral plans sketchy
http://omg.yahoo.com/news/jacksons-funeral-plans-sketchy/24605
Jackson's funeral plans sketchy
Reuters - 2 hours, 21 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Details of Michael Jackson's funeral remained sketchy on Tuesday, with media reports surfacing that the family was planning a series of elaborate, head-of-state-style memorials for the King of Pop while California authorities seemed largely in the dark.
The celebrity website TMZ.com reported that Jackson's body would be driven the four hours from Los Angeles to Neverland Valley Ranch on Thursday, accompanied by a 30-car motorcade, where a public viewing would be held over the weekend.
Similar reports came from television news network CNN and Britain's The Sun newspaper, which said the entertainer's body would first be driven through the streets of Los Angeles -- and taken to the funeral service in a glass-sided horse-drawn carriage, complete with a matching glass coffin.
Jackson, the pop music star whose hits include top-selling album "Thriller," died suddenly last Thursday of cardiac arrest in Los Angeles, and since then fans have anxiously awaited details of his funeral or public memorial.
So far, his family has been silent. On Monday, patriarch Joe Jackson said it was too soon to announce funeral plans.
But if arrangements were being made Tuesday for a massive funeral service in less than 48 hours, authorities in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara seemed largely unaware of them.
Santa Barbara County Fire Department spokesman Capt. David Sadecki said his office had not been formally contacted by the Jackson family about a funeral procession. He said police and fire representatives had met about "the Michael Jackson situation" but had no further details.
"The Santa Barbara Fire Department is going to accommodate the Michael Jackson family for any request that they might have," Sadecki said.
Representatives for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff and Los Angeles Police Department said their offices had no information about funeral arrangements
Meanwhile Tom Barrack, chief executive of Colony Capital Llc, the private equity firm that co-owns Neverland, issued an open letter to the people of Santa Barbara County asking them to prepare for "a global drama of epic proportion."
Barrack offered no specifics of a funeral but admonished residents that their treatment of the Jackson family and fans would be under scrutiny.
"Let's adopt an attitude of hospitality, warmth and tolerance and allow the world to pay their respects to this global icon by conducting ourselves with grace and elegance," Barrack said in the letter.
Elsewhere, Lalosa Burns, a spokeswoman for Jackson's hometown of Gary, Indiana, said that city was planning a July 10 memorial at the US Steel Yard baseball stadium.
Burns had no further details of that service and it was not clear if Jackson's body would be taken to Indiana, where the mayor of Gary has reportedly offered to bury him.
(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
Jackson's funeral plans sketchy
Reuters - 2 hours, 21 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Details of Michael Jackson's funeral remained sketchy on Tuesday, with media reports surfacing that the family was planning a series of elaborate, head-of-state-style memorials for the King of Pop while California authorities seemed largely in the dark.
The celebrity website TMZ.com reported that Jackson's body would be driven the four hours from Los Angeles to Neverland Valley Ranch on Thursday, accompanied by a 30-car motorcade, where a public viewing would be held over the weekend.
Similar reports came from television news network CNN and Britain's The Sun newspaper, which said the entertainer's body would first be driven through the streets of Los Angeles -- and taken to the funeral service in a glass-sided horse-drawn carriage, complete with a matching glass coffin.
Jackson, the pop music star whose hits include top-selling album "Thriller," died suddenly last Thursday of cardiac arrest in Los Angeles, and since then fans have anxiously awaited details of his funeral or public memorial.
So far, his family has been silent. On Monday, patriarch Joe Jackson said it was too soon to announce funeral plans.
But if arrangements were being made Tuesday for a massive funeral service in less than 48 hours, authorities in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara seemed largely unaware of them.
Santa Barbara County Fire Department spokesman Capt. David Sadecki said his office had not been formally contacted by the Jackson family about a funeral procession. He said police and fire representatives had met about "the Michael Jackson situation" but had no further details.
"The Santa Barbara Fire Department is going to accommodate the Michael Jackson family for any request that they might have," Sadecki said.
Representatives for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff and Los Angeles Police Department said their offices had no information about funeral arrangements
Meanwhile Tom Barrack, chief executive of Colony Capital Llc, the private equity firm that co-owns Neverland, issued an open letter to the people of Santa Barbara County asking them to prepare for "a global drama of epic proportion."
Barrack offered no specifics of a funeral but admonished residents that their treatment of the Jackson family and fans would be under scrutiny.
"Let's adopt an attitude of hospitality, warmth and tolerance and allow the world to pay their respects to this global icon by conducting ourselves with grace and elegance," Barrack said in the letter.
Elsewhere, Lalosa Burns, a spokeswoman for Jackson's hometown of Gary, Indiana, said that city was planning a July 10 memorial at the US Steel Yard baseball stadium.
Burns had no further details of that service and it was not clear if Jackson's body would be taken to Indiana, where the mayor of Gary has reportedly offered to bury him.
(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
AP Exclusive: Insomniac Jackson begged for drug
Ref : http://omg.yahoo.com/news/ap-exclusive-insomniac-jackson-begged-for-drug/24627
AP Exclusive: Insomniac Jackson begged for drug
Associated Press - 1 hour, 47 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES - Michael Jackson was so distraught over persistent insomnia in recent months that he pleaded for a powerful sedative despite warnings it could be harmful, says a nutritionist who was working with the singer as he prepared his comeback bid.
Cherilyn Lee, a registered nurse whose specialty includes nutritional counseling, said Tuesday that she repeatedly rejected his demands for the drug, Diprivan, which is given intravenously.
But a frantic phone call she received from Jackson four days before his death made her fear that he somehow obtained Diprivan or another drug to induce sleep, Lee said.
While in Florida on June 21, Lee was contacted by a member of Jackson's staff.
"He called and was very frantic and said, 'Michael needs to see you right away.' I said, 'What's wrong?' And I could hear Michael in the background ..., 'One side of my body is hot, it's hot, and one side of my body is cold. It's very cold,'" Lee said.
"I said, 'Tell him he needs to go the hospital. I don't know what's going on, but he needs to go to the hospital ... right away."
"At that point, I knew that somebody had given him something that hit the central nervous system," she said, adding, "He was in trouble Sunday and he was crying out."
Jackson did not go to the hospital. He died June 25 after suffering cardiac arrest, his family said. Autopsies have been conducted, but an official cause of death is not expected for several weeks.
"I don't know what happened there. The only thing I can say is he was adamant about this drug," Lee said.
Following Jackson's death, allegations emerged that the 50-year-old King of Pop had been consuming painkillers, sedatives and antidepressants. But Lee said she encountered a man tortured by sleep deprivation and one who expressed opposition to recreational drug use.
"He wasn't looking to get high or feel good and sedated from drugs," she said. "This was a person who was not on drugs. This was a person who was seeking help, desperately, to get some sleep, to get some rest."
Jackson was rehearsing hard for what would have been his big comeback -- his "This Is It" tour, a series of performances that would have strained his aging dancer's body. Also, pain had been a part of his life since 1984, when his scalp was severely burned during a Pepsi commercial shoot.
Several months ago, Jackson had begun badgering Lee about Diprivan, also known as Propofol, Lee said. It is an intravenous anesthetic drug widely used in operating rooms to induce unconsciousness. It is generally given through an IV needle in the hand.
Patients given Propofol take less time to regain consciousness than those administered certain other drugs, and they report waking up more clear-headed and refreshed, said University of Chicago psychopharmacologist James Zacny.
It has also been implicated in drug abuse, with people using it to "chill out" or to commit suicide, Zacny said. Accidental deaths linked to abuse have been reported. The powerful drug has a very narrow therapeutic window, meaning it doesn't take doses much larger than the medically recommended amount to stop a person's breathing.
An overdose that stops breathing can result in a buildup of carbon dioxide, causing the heart to beat erratically and leading to cardiac arrest, said Dr. John Dombrowski, a member of the board of directors of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
Because it is given intravenously and is not the kind of prescription drug typically available from pharmacists, abuse cases have involved anesthesiologists, nurses and other hospital staffers with easy access to the drug, Zacny said.
In recent months, Lee said, Jackson waved away her warnings about it.
"I had an IV and when it hit my vein, I was sleeping. That's what I want," Lee said Jackson told her.
"I said, 'Michael, the only problem with you taking this medication' -- and I had a chill in my body and tears in my eyes three months ago -- 'the only problem is you're going to take it and you're not going to wake up," she recalled.
According to Lee, Jackson said it had been given to him before but he didn't want to discuss the circumstances or identify the doctor involved.
The singer also drew his own distinctions when it came to drugs versus prescription medicine.
"He said, 'I don't like drugs. I don't want any drugs. My doctor told me this is a safe medicine,'" Lee said. The next day, she said she brought a copy of the Physician's Desk Reference to show him the section on Diprivan.
"He said, 'No, my doctor said it's safe. It works quick and it's safe as long as somebody's here to monitor me and wake me up. It's going be OK,'" Lee said. She said he did not give the doctor's name.
Lee said at one point, she spent the night with Jackson to monitor him while he slept. She said she gave him herbal remedies and stayed in a corner chair in his vast bedroom.
After he settled in bed, Lee told Jackson to turn down the lights and music -- he had classical music playing in the house. "He also had a computer on the bed because he loved Walt Disney," she said. "He was watching Donald Duck and it was ongoing. I said, 'Maybe if we put on softer music,' and he said, 'No, this is how I go to sleep.'"
Three and a half hours later, Jackson jumped up and looked at Lee, eyes wide open, according to Lee. "This is what happens to me," she quoted him as saying. "All I want is to be able to sleep. I want to be able to sleep eight hours. I know I'll feel better the next day."
Lee, 56, is licensed as a registered nurse and nurse practitioner in California, according to the state Board of Registered Nursing's Web site. She attended Los Angeles Southwest College and the Charles Drew University of Medicine and Sciences in Los Angeles.
Comedian Dick Gregory, who knows Lee and her work, said he believes Jackson's insomnia had its roots in the pop star's 2005 trial on child molestation charges. Jackson's health had deteriorated so much that his parents called Gregory, a natural foods proponent, for help.
Gregory said Jackson wasn't eating or drinking at the time and, after he was persuaded by Gregory to undergo testing, ended up hospitalized for severe dehydration.
But Jackson obviously was healthy enough to withstand the level of medical scrutiny needed to insure him for the upcoming high-stakes London concerts, Gregory said. "That you don't trick," he said of the exams.
Lee, who has also worked with Stevie Wonder, Marla Gibbs, Reynaldo Rey and other celebrities, said she was introduced to Jackson by the mother of one of his staff members. Jackson's three children had minor cold symptoms and their pediatrician was out of town.
Lee said she went to the house in January, the first of about 10 visits there through April, and treated the children with vitamins. Michael, intrigued, asked what else she did and took her up on her claim she could boost his energy.
After running blood tests, she devised protein shakes for him and gave him an intravenous vitamin and mineral mixture -- known as a "Myers cocktail," after Dr. John Myers -- which Lee said she uses routinely in her practice.
"It wasn't that he felt sick," she said. "He just wanted more energy."
Lee said she decided to speak out to protect Jackson's reputation from what she considers unfounded allegations of drug abuse or shortcomings as a parent.
"I think it's so wrong for people to say these things about him," she said. "He was a wonderful, loving father who wanted the best for his children."
___
AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner in Chicago and AP Television Writer David Bauder in New York contributed to this report.
AP Exclusive: Insomniac Jackson begged for drug
Associated Press - 1 hour, 47 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES - Michael Jackson was so distraught over persistent insomnia in recent months that he pleaded for a powerful sedative despite warnings it could be harmful, says a nutritionist who was working with the singer as he prepared his comeback bid.
Cherilyn Lee, a registered nurse whose specialty includes nutritional counseling, said Tuesday that she repeatedly rejected his demands for the drug, Diprivan, which is given intravenously.
But a frantic phone call she received from Jackson four days before his death made her fear that he somehow obtained Diprivan or another drug to induce sleep, Lee said.
While in Florida on June 21, Lee was contacted by a member of Jackson's staff.
"He called and was very frantic and said, 'Michael needs to see you right away.' I said, 'What's wrong?' And I could hear Michael in the background ..., 'One side of my body is hot, it's hot, and one side of my body is cold. It's very cold,'" Lee said.
"I said, 'Tell him he needs to go the hospital. I don't know what's going on, but he needs to go to the hospital ... right away."
"At that point, I knew that somebody had given him something that hit the central nervous system," she said, adding, "He was in trouble Sunday and he was crying out."
Jackson did not go to the hospital. He died June 25 after suffering cardiac arrest, his family said. Autopsies have been conducted, but an official cause of death is not expected for several weeks.
"I don't know what happened there. The only thing I can say is he was adamant about this drug," Lee said.
Following Jackson's death, allegations emerged that the 50-year-old King of Pop had been consuming painkillers, sedatives and antidepressants. But Lee said she encountered a man tortured by sleep deprivation and one who expressed opposition to recreational drug use.
"He wasn't looking to get high or feel good and sedated from drugs," she said. "This was a person who was not on drugs. This was a person who was seeking help, desperately, to get some sleep, to get some rest."
Jackson was rehearsing hard for what would have been his big comeback -- his "This Is It" tour, a series of performances that would have strained his aging dancer's body. Also, pain had been a part of his life since 1984, when his scalp was severely burned during a Pepsi commercial shoot.
Several months ago, Jackson had begun badgering Lee about Diprivan, also known as Propofol, Lee said. It is an intravenous anesthetic drug widely used in operating rooms to induce unconsciousness. It is generally given through an IV needle in the hand.
Patients given Propofol take less time to regain consciousness than those administered certain other drugs, and they report waking up more clear-headed and refreshed, said University of Chicago psychopharmacologist James Zacny.
It has also been implicated in drug abuse, with people using it to "chill out" or to commit suicide, Zacny said. Accidental deaths linked to abuse have been reported. The powerful drug has a very narrow therapeutic window, meaning it doesn't take doses much larger than the medically recommended amount to stop a person's breathing.
An overdose that stops breathing can result in a buildup of carbon dioxide, causing the heart to beat erratically and leading to cardiac arrest, said Dr. John Dombrowski, a member of the board of directors of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
Because it is given intravenously and is not the kind of prescription drug typically available from pharmacists, abuse cases have involved anesthesiologists, nurses and other hospital staffers with easy access to the drug, Zacny said.
In recent months, Lee said, Jackson waved away her warnings about it.
"I had an IV and when it hit my vein, I was sleeping. That's what I want," Lee said Jackson told her.
"I said, 'Michael, the only problem with you taking this medication' -- and I had a chill in my body and tears in my eyes three months ago -- 'the only problem is you're going to take it and you're not going to wake up," she recalled.
According to Lee, Jackson said it had been given to him before but he didn't want to discuss the circumstances or identify the doctor involved.
The singer also drew his own distinctions when it came to drugs versus prescription medicine.
"He said, 'I don't like drugs. I don't want any drugs. My doctor told me this is a safe medicine,'" Lee said. The next day, she said she brought a copy of the Physician's Desk Reference to show him the section on Diprivan.
"He said, 'No, my doctor said it's safe. It works quick and it's safe as long as somebody's here to monitor me and wake me up. It's going be OK,'" Lee said. She said he did not give the doctor's name.
Lee said at one point, she spent the night with Jackson to monitor him while he slept. She said she gave him herbal remedies and stayed in a corner chair in his vast bedroom.
After he settled in bed, Lee told Jackson to turn down the lights and music -- he had classical music playing in the house. "He also had a computer on the bed because he loved Walt Disney," she said. "He was watching Donald Duck and it was ongoing. I said, 'Maybe if we put on softer music,' and he said, 'No, this is how I go to sleep.'"
Three and a half hours later, Jackson jumped up and looked at Lee, eyes wide open, according to Lee. "This is what happens to me," she quoted him as saying. "All I want is to be able to sleep. I want to be able to sleep eight hours. I know I'll feel better the next day."
Lee, 56, is licensed as a registered nurse and nurse practitioner in California, according to the state Board of Registered Nursing's Web site. She attended Los Angeles Southwest College and the Charles Drew University of Medicine and Sciences in Los Angeles.
Comedian Dick Gregory, who knows Lee and her work, said he believes Jackson's insomnia had its roots in the pop star's 2005 trial on child molestation charges. Jackson's health had deteriorated so much that his parents called Gregory, a natural foods proponent, for help.
Gregory said Jackson wasn't eating or drinking at the time and, after he was persuaded by Gregory to undergo testing, ended up hospitalized for severe dehydration.
But Jackson obviously was healthy enough to withstand the level of medical scrutiny needed to insure him for the upcoming high-stakes London concerts, Gregory said. "That you don't trick," he said of the exams.
Lee, who has also worked with Stevie Wonder, Marla Gibbs, Reynaldo Rey and other celebrities, said she was introduced to Jackson by the mother of one of his staff members. Jackson's three children had minor cold symptoms and their pediatrician was out of town.
Lee said she went to the house in January, the first of about 10 visits there through April, and treated the children with vitamins. Michael, intrigued, asked what else she did and took her up on her claim she could boost his energy.
After running blood tests, she devised protein shakes for him and gave him an intravenous vitamin and mineral mixture -- known as a "Myers cocktail," after Dr. John Myers -- which Lee said she uses routinely in her practice.
"It wasn't that he felt sick," she said. "He just wanted more energy."
Lee said she decided to speak out to protect Jackson's reputation from what she considers unfounded allegations of drug abuse or shortcomings as a parent.
"I think it's so wrong for people to say these things about him," she said. "He was a wonderful, loving father who wanted the best for his children."
___
AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner in Chicago and AP Television Writer David Bauder in New York contributed to this report.
Andrew Lloyd Webber: 'Michael Jackson wanted to appear in Phantom of the Opera'
Andrew Lloyd Webber: 'Michael Jackson wanted to appear in Phantom of the Opera'
Michael Jackson was interested in starring in a film version of the Phantom stage musical, says Lord Lloyd Webber
Published: 11:29PM BST 27 Jun 2009
The first person to call me to say Michael Jackson had died was my 17-year-old son. I had an awful feeling that one should almost have seen it coming. After the sadness came the disappointment that I was never going to see him again.
I first met Michael when he came to see Phantom of the Opera in New York when we'd just opened in 1988. He was clearly interested in the piece. He saw it several times and used to come backstage, often without the entourage that followed him around in later life.
Michael Jackson has died: fans in Harlem celebrate his life and musicThe story got to him. I think he had a connection with the lonely, tortured musician. He found the idea of somebody working through music and having a girl as a muse very intriguing – and he loved that there was illusion in the show.
Michael became interested in playing The Phantom himself, in a movie version of the show. We talked about it a lot, but we'd only just opened and, at the time, I felt that it was too early for it to become a film. I felt his interest in Phantom was because he was interested in doing something theatrical himself.
He was a highly theatrical animal. I remember him saying to me that he'd seen Cats and how happy he was that dance was making a comeback in the theatre. He certainly talked about theatre a lot, and when he was last in London, he went to see Oliver!. Of course, he was a great showman himself, but he found the whole stagecraft of musicals extraordinary.
Seeing clips of Thriller on the news this week reminded me what an extraordinary dancer he was. He really brought dance and staging into the pop world, through his videos and concerts. Nobody before him had really done anything much like that. He was ahead of his time with all that he did.
I saw him a couple of times in concert. Thriller was probably the best stage event I've ever seen. From my musical-theatre perspective, I could see that he was bringing a completely new vision about dance to the stage. A tremendous amount of what he was doing then you see in musicals now.
Musically, Michael was also different to anyone before him. He was clever at taking pop hooks and using them in original ways, developing them theatrically. It's an influence that is now everywhere today. I remember listening to a Justin Timberlake album and hearing Michael's influence.
Young people still keep coming to his music because so many of his songs are classics. In the history of pop, Thriller will possibly stand out more than Sergeant Pepper because there were even more stand-alone hits on it. It's right up there with the all-time great albums.
Similarly, I would absolutely put him up there with the all-time greatest performers. I've seen most of the top rock acts – I saw Elvis several times – but with Michael's concerts, his showmanship was consummate. Very few rock singers have such quality.
Everybody was so looking forward to seeing what he would do when he came back to London. From what I was hearing, he was going to push the boundaries of what we'd seen in a rock arena much, much further.
The debts, all the court cases, and the trouble he got himself into, it was all so sad. But you can probably say already that his music has transcended all of that. Nothing sticks to him. In the end, the music will always survive.
Michael Jackson was interested in starring in a film version of the Phantom stage musical, says Lord Lloyd Webber
Published: 11:29PM BST 27 Jun 2009
The first person to call me to say Michael Jackson had died was my 17-year-old son. I had an awful feeling that one should almost have seen it coming. After the sadness came the disappointment that I was never going to see him again.
I first met Michael when he came to see Phantom of the Opera in New York when we'd just opened in 1988. He was clearly interested in the piece. He saw it several times and used to come backstage, often without the entourage that followed him around in later life.
Michael Jackson has died: fans in Harlem celebrate his life and musicThe story got to him. I think he had a connection with the lonely, tortured musician. He found the idea of somebody working through music and having a girl as a muse very intriguing – and he loved that there was illusion in the show.
Michael became interested in playing The Phantom himself, in a movie version of the show. We talked about it a lot, but we'd only just opened and, at the time, I felt that it was too early for it to become a film. I felt his interest in Phantom was because he was interested in doing something theatrical himself.
He was a highly theatrical animal. I remember him saying to me that he'd seen Cats and how happy he was that dance was making a comeback in the theatre. He certainly talked about theatre a lot, and when he was last in London, he went to see Oliver!. Of course, he was a great showman himself, but he found the whole stagecraft of musicals extraordinary.
Seeing clips of Thriller on the news this week reminded me what an extraordinary dancer he was. He really brought dance and staging into the pop world, through his videos and concerts. Nobody before him had really done anything much like that. He was ahead of his time with all that he did.
I saw him a couple of times in concert. Thriller was probably the best stage event I've ever seen. From my musical-theatre perspective, I could see that he was bringing a completely new vision about dance to the stage. A tremendous amount of what he was doing then you see in musicals now.
Musically, Michael was also different to anyone before him. He was clever at taking pop hooks and using them in original ways, developing them theatrically. It's an influence that is now everywhere today. I remember listening to a Justin Timberlake album and hearing Michael's influence.
Young people still keep coming to his music because so many of his songs are classics. In the history of pop, Thriller will possibly stand out more than Sergeant Pepper because there were even more stand-alone hits on it. It's right up there with the all-time great albums.
Similarly, I would absolutely put him up there with the all-time greatest performers. I've seen most of the top rock acts – I saw Elvis several times – but with Michael's concerts, his showmanship was consummate. Very few rock singers have such quality.
Everybody was so looking forward to seeing what he would do when he came back to London. From what I was hearing, he was going to push the boundaries of what we'd seen in a rock arena much, much further.
The debts, all the court cases, and the trouble he got himself into, it was all so sad. But you can probably say already that his music has transcended all of that. Nothing sticks to him. In the end, the music will always survive.
Michael Jackson, death by showbusiness
Michael Jackson, death by showbusiness
IN 1992, Michael Jackson published a slim volume of "poems and reflections" entitled Dancing The Dream.
By Mick Brown
Published: 11:53AM BST 27 Jun 2009
It is a curious and, in the light of his death, poignantly revealing collection of writings on the subjects that were apparently close to his heart – music, dancing, God, his mother, the plight of the dolphin and children.
It is the nearest that Michael Jackson – a man who had long since transcended the need or desire for public confession and disclosure, and indeed, did everything within his power to avoid – ever came to autobiography.
Michael Jackson: the best of the tributes"We have to heal our wounded world," Jackson wrote in Children of the World. "The chaos, despair, and senseless destruction we see today are a result of the alienation that people feel from each other and their environment. Often this alienation has it roots in an emotionally deprived childhood. Children have had their childhood stolen from them."
Beneath the sweeping generalisation – all children? – lay a painful personal truth.
There are three figures who will stand as defining icons of popular music in the second half of the 20th century: Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Jackson. And just like the deaths of Elvis and Lennon, so Jackson's passing can be seen as a consequence of the extraordinary demands and vicissitudes of fame, particularly the extraordinary fame that Jackson came to — can we really use the word? — enjoy throughout his life.
If Elvis’s death can be seen as the most extreme consequence of excess, and Lennon’s as the most horrific outcome of the malevolent attention of strangers, Jackson’s can surely be attributed to the imperative that was driven into him from childhood — to perform, to dazzle and to pay the bills.
It was in order to pay off debts estimated at £200 million, as well as to rebuild his tarnished career, that Jackson was persuaded to return to the stage and undertake the residency at the 02 that was due to commence in two weeks.
While it is still unclear exactly what caused Jackson’s heart attack, he was not a well man. The cancellation of the first four shows due to “technical issues”, the rumours of his absence from rehearsals and the strenuous insistence by the show’s promoters that he was a picture of health and unbridled energy all suggested that he was under enormous pressure.
Blame is being laid on the pharmacopia of painkilling and anxiety-abating drugs that Jackson was allegedly being fed by “enablers” in his entourage. The coroner’s report might just as well read “Death by showbusiness”.
There is a theory that applies to any child star, that the age at which you become famous is the age at which some part of you becomes forever, and irreparably, arrested.
Jackson was just 11 years old when he first topped the American charts with the Jackson 5 single I Want You Back. By then he was already a showbusiness veteran. The seventh of nine children, his father Joe was a journeyman musician who projected his own, failed ambition on to his children.
By the age of seven Michael was coming home from school at three in the afternoon to rehearsals that would often last until 10 at night. In later years Jackson would speak of the violence and abuse that he suffered at the hands of the man he was instructed to call “Joseph” — never “Dad”.
In 1993 he told Oprah Winfrey how Joe would beat him before sending him on stage. “He was very strict, very hard and stern. Just a look would terrify me… There were times when he would come to see me and I would feel sick. And I would say, 'Please don’t get mad, Joseph. I am sorry, Joseph.’ ”
Joseph apparently took the phlegmatic view. “When you chastised a youngster back in the early days we called it a whippin’,” he once explained. “Now they call it child abuse.”
Signed to Motown, it quickly became apparent that Michael was the star turn.
He made his first solo albums while still part of the group but it was when he broke from them altogether and released Off The Wall in 1979 that his solo career truly began to blossom.
Soul music — the well from which Jackson’s talent and style sprang — is first and foremost a music of raw emotion and authenticity; yet, paradoxically, Jackson’s greatest skill was to conceal himself beneath layers and layers of artifice.
The expression of romantic feelings might have touched a universal chord in his audience, yet seemed to have nothing to do with his own life; the expressions of sexuality, paranoia and fear seemed to have been learned from films and comic books rather than felt. Slick and sublime, his music was the ultimate construct, which is what Jackson strived to be.
What is clear is that his rapid acceleration from childhood to the hothouse of fame was to have a crippling effect on his development as a rounded human being. His friendships were made exclusively within the hermetically-sealed world of the famous, the odd and the similarly damaged — Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross, Uri Geller, at whose wedding Jackson was improbably best man, and Liza Minelli.
From an early age, touring with the Jackson 5, Michael had been the prime target of the libidinous attentions of teenage girls; yet accounts from that period suggest that he was too shy, or too moral, to exploit his position. The relationships that later surfaced into public view seemed to be more the stuff of the public relations department than the heart – such as dating Tatum O’Neil and his brief marriage to Lisa-Marie Presley.
A second marriage — to his dermatologist’s assistant, Debbie Rowe — was even more unlikely. It produced two children, allegedly by artificial insemination, and lasted barely two years. It would be reasonable to ask whether Jackson had ever enjoyed sexual relations with an adult.
One is left with the inescapable impression that he had little sense of who he actually was; his lifetime was to be spent in relentless pursuit of an identity he could feel happy with, beyond colour and gender – a pursuit that would lead to plastic surgery, skin bleaching, and wreak terrible damage on his appearance.
Fame, as John Updike famously observed, is the mask that eats the face — an observation that was to prove all too true in Jackson’s case.
He revealed almost nothing of himself publicly; such interviews as he gave were exercises in damage limitation.
His silence served only to feed the mythology around him, to the point where it became impossible to discriminate between fact and fiction: the oxygen tanks, the bizarre adoption of hygiene masks — what was that all about?
Keep ’em guessing. It’s the oldest carnival trick in the book, and Jackson was nothing if not a showman.
If in some respects Jackson seemed — clearly was — divorced from reality, he also had a shrewd grasp of his value as an entertainer and how best to exploit it, artistically and commercially.
I remember covering the Jackson Brothers “Victory” tour of America in 1984, when Jackson, who was riding the crest of the success of Thriller, had agreed to perform with his brothers, basically to give them one last payday.
“Forget anything that has ever happened in entertainment before,” the tour publicist entreated me. “This tour is Guatemala, it’s El Salvador.”
He was referring to the 650 journalists — enough to cover several minor wars — who had besieged the tour’s opening date in Kansas City.
But he might as well have been referring to the infighting and intrigue that beset the tour, and from which Jackson emerged as playmaker, locking horns with the most fearsome impresario in American entertainment, Don King, and effectively bumping him as the tour promoter.
“Part of [Michael] may be a 10 year-old, with all the enthusiasm that implies,” John Branca, Jackson’s lawyer told me. “But the other part is a
60-year-old genius. He’s the shrewdest artist I’ve ever come across.”
Frank Dileo, one of the many managers that Jackson hired and fired over the years, put it more colourfully, describing the singer as “a cross between ET and Howard Hughes”.
Yet even this sure-footedness as an artist and a businessman would eventually desert him. The recordings became progressively more lacklustre, suggesting that he had lost touch with his musical gift and the tastes of his audience.
Whatever gains he made from his business acumen were cancelled out by his extravagance — the million-dollar shopping sprees for custom-made SUVS and toys for the Neverland ranch. With its roundabouts, Ferris wheel and petting zoo, Neverland was a creepy testament to the fact that Jackson could find consolation only in his friendships with children and animals.
The cruelest irony of all is that his attempts to reclaim some sort of lost innocence, to find his way back to a childhood he had never known, should have proved his undoing. His poem Children of the World is superficially of saccharine blandness but it contains a sinister foreboding of the events that would engulf Jackson a year after the book’s publication.
“Children of the world, we’ll do it/With song and dance and innocent bliss/The soft caress of a loving kiss/We’ll do it.”
The accompanying illustration showed Jackson at the head of a line of children walking through a wonderland of fluffy clouds and doves of peace. It was a motif that Jackson would employ over and over again, depicting himself less as pied piper, it seemed, than as Jesus — “suffer the little children to come unto me”.
And come unto him they did.
In 1993, the family of a 13-year-old boy named Jordan Chandler laid the first allegation of child abuse. Jackson categorically denied the charge, and for his fans it would have been easy to dismiss it as an exploitation of his generosity — had he not struck an out-of-court settlement with the family for an estimated $20 million.
But it was to be further allegations of abuse that would result in his arrest in 2003 and the subsequent trial two years later that would provide the defining chapter in his life.
Jackson again vehemently denied the allegations, saying that he would “slit my wrists” before hurting a child.
Was he truly a child-abuser? We shall probably never know the truth. He had become so insulated from the world that he was unable even to comprehend that people should have found his intense affection for children, and his habit of sharing a bed with them, both aberrant and deeply suspect.
“Do you know how this looks to a lot of people? I mean, do you understand that?” he was asked by an interviewer for CBS in 2003.
“How does what look?” Jackson replied.
“How the fact that you…”
“Know why?” Jackson interrupted. “People think sex. They’re thinking sex. My mind doesn’t run that way. When I see children, I see the face of God. That’s why I love them so much. That’s what I see.”
The trial ended in acquittal but it proved the truism that for a celebrity an acquittal in a court of law does not guarantee acquittal in the court of public opinion. Where once he had inspired adulation, Jackson was now a figure of revulsion, pity and mockery. His financial empire collapsing around him, he became a refugee, migrating from one air-conditioned bolt-hole to another — Bahrain, Dubai, Las Vegas — to end up in the rented Beverly Hills mansion where he died.
The abiding irony is that Jackson should have died preparing for a series of performances designed to restore both his fortunes and, more importantly, his reputation as the undisputed King of Pop. Superstar, freak, the greatest showman of the 20th century, warm and loving human being, musical genius, alleged child-abuser. The roll call of adjectives and nouns will feed the Jackson myth for years to come.
Dancing The Dream, contains another “reflection”, simply entitled Innocence.
“It’s easy to mistake being innocent for simple-minded or naïve,” he wrote. “We all want to seem sophisticated; we all want to seem street-smart. To be innocent is to be 'out of it’.”
What Michael Jackson wanted most of all, it seemed, was to be free of it all.
IN 1992, Michael Jackson published a slim volume of "poems and reflections" entitled Dancing The Dream.
By Mick Brown
Published: 11:53AM BST 27 Jun 2009
It is a curious and, in the light of his death, poignantly revealing collection of writings on the subjects that were apparently close to his heart – music, dancing, God, his mother, the plight of the dolphin and children.
It is the nearest that Michael Jackson – a man who had long since transcended the need or desire for public confession and disclosure, and indeed, did everything within his power to avoid – ever came to autobiography.
Michael Jackson: the best of the tributes"We have to heal our wounded world," Jackson wrote in Children of the World. "The chaos, despair, and senseless destruction we see today are a result of the alienation that people feel from each other and their environment. Often this alienation has it roots in an emotionally deprived childhood. Children have had their childhood stolen from them."
Beneath the sweeping generalisation – all children? – lay a painful personal truth.
There are three figures who will stand as defining icons of popular music in the second half of the 20th century: Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Jackson. And just like the deaths of Elvis and Lennon, so Jackson's passing can be seen as a consequence of the extraordinary demands and vicissitudes of fame, particularly the extraordinary fame that Jackson came to — can we really use the word? — enjoy throughout his life.
If Elvis’s death can be seen as the most extreme consequence of excess, and Lennon’s as the most horrific outcome of the malevolent attention of strangers, Jackson’s can surely be attributed to the imperative that was driven into him from childhood — to perform, to dazzle and to pay the bills.
It was in order to pay off debts estimated at £200 million, as well as to rebuild his tarnished career, that Jackson was persuaded to return to the stage and undertake the residency at the 02 that was due to commence in two weeks.
While it is still unclear exactly what caused Jackson’s heart attack, he was not a well man. The cancellation of the first four shows due to “technical issues”, the rumours of his absence from rehearsals and the strenuous insistence by the show’s promoters that he was a picture of health and unbridled energy all suggested that he was under enormous pressure.
Blame is being laid on the pharmacopia of painkilling and anxiety-abating drugs that Jackson was allegedly being fed by “enablers” in his entourage. The coroner’s report might just as well read “Death by showbusiness”.
There is a theory that applies to any child star, that the age at which you become famous is the age at which some part of you becomes forever, and irreparably, arrested.
Jackson was just 11 years old when he first topped the American charts with the Jackson 5 single I Want You Back. By then he was already a showbusiness veteran. The seventh of nine children, his father Joe was a journeyman musician who projected his own, failed ambition on to his children.
By the age of seven Michael was coming home from school at three in the afternoon to rehearsals that would often last until 10 at night. In later years Jackson would speak of the violence and abuse that he suffered at the hands of the man he was instructed to call “Joseph” — never “Dad”.
In 1993 he told Oprah Winfrey how Joe would beat him before sending him on stage. “He was very strict, very hard and stern. Just a look would terrify me… There were times when he would come to see me and I would feel sick. And I would say, 'Please don’t get mad, Joseph. I am sorry, Joseph.’ ”
Joseph apparently took the phlegmatic view. “When you chastised a youngster back in the early days we called it a whippin’,” he once explained. “Now they call it child abuse.”
Signed to Motown, it quickly became apparent that Michael was the star turn.
He made his first solo albums while still part of the group but it was when he broke from them altogether and released Off The Wall in 1979 that his solo career truly began to blossom.
Soul music — the well from which Jackson’s talent and style sprang — is first and foremost a music of raw emotion and authenticity; yet, paradoxically, Jackson’s greatest skill was to conceal himself beneath layers and layers of artifice.
The expression of romantic feelings might have touched a universal chord in his audience, yet seemed to have nothing to do with his own life; the expressions of sexuality, paranoia and fear seemed to have been learned from films and comic books rather than felt. Slick and sublime, his music was the ultimate construct, which is what Jackson strived to be.
What is clear is that his rapid acceleration from childhood to the hothouse of fame was to have a crippling effect on his development as a rounded human being. His friendships were made exclusively within the hermetically-sealed world of the famous, the odd and the similarly damaged — Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross, Uri Geller, at whose wedding Jackson was improbably best man, and Liza Minelli.
From an early age, touring with the Jackson 5, Michael had been the prime target of the libidinous attentions of teenage girls; yet accounts from that period suggest that he was too shy, or too moral, to exploit his position. The relationships that later surfaced into public view seemed to be more the stuff of the public relations department than the heart – such as dating Tatum O’Neil and his brief marriage to Lisa-Marie Presley.
A second marriage — to his dermatologist’s assistant, Debbie Rowe — was even more unlikely. It produced two children, allegedly by artificial insemination, and lasted barely two years. It would be reasonable to ask whether Jackson had ever enjoyed sexual relations with an adult.
One is left with the inescapable impression that he had little sense of who he actually was; his lifetime was to be spent in relentless pursuit of an identity he could feel happy with, beyond colour and gender – a pursuit that would lead to plastic surgery, skin bleaching, and wreak terrible damage on his appearance.
Fame, as John Updike famously observed, is the mask that eats the face — an observation that was to prove all too true in Jackson’s case.
He revealed almost nothing of himself publicly; such interviews as he gave were exercises in damage limitation.
His silence served only to feed the mythology around him, to the point where it became impossible to discriminate between fact and fiction: the oxygen tanks, the bizarre adoption of hygiene masks — what was that all about?
Keep ’em guessing. It’s the oldest carnival trick in the book, and Jackson was nothing if not a showman.
If in some respects Jackson seemed — clearly was — divorced from reality, he also had a shrewd grasp of his value as an entertainer and how best to exploit it, artistically and commercially.
I remember covering the Jackson Brothers “Victory” tour of America in 1984, when Jackson, who was riding the crest of the success of Thriller, had agreed to perform with his brothers, basically to give them one last payday.
“Forget anything that has ever happened in entertainment before,” the tour publicist entreated me. “This tour is Guatemala, it’s El Salvador.”
He was referring to the 650 journalists — enough to cover several minor wars — who had besieged the tour’s opening date in Kansas City.
But he might as well have been referring to the infighting and intrigue that beset the tour, and from which Jackson emerged as playmaker, locking horns with the most fearsome impresario in American entertainment, Don King, and effectively bumping him as the tour promoter.
“Part of [Michael] may be a 10 year-old, with all the enthusiasm that implies,” John Branca, Jackson’s lawyer told me. “But the other part is a
60-year-old genius. He’s the shrewdest artist I’ve ever come across.”
Frank Dileo, one of the many managers that Jackson hired and fired over the years, put it more colourfully, describing the singer as “a cross between ET and Howard Hughes”.
Yet even this sure-footedness as an artist and a businessman would eventually desert him. The recordings became progressively more lacklustre, suggesting that he had lost touch with his musical gift and the tastes of his audience.
Whatever gains he made from his business acumen were cancelled out by his extravagance — the million-dollar shopping sprees for custom-made SUVS and toys for the Neverland ranch. With its roundabouts, Ferris wheel and petting zoo, Neverland was a creepy testament to the fact that Jackson could find consolation only in his friendships with children and animals.
The cruelest irony of all is that his attempts to reclaim some sort of lost innocence, to find his way back to a childhood he had never known, should have proved his undoing. His poem Children of the World is superficially of saccharine blandness but it contains a sinister foreboding of the events that would engulf Jackson a year after the book’s publication.
“Children of the world, we’ll do it/With song and dance and innocent bliss/The soft caress of a loving kiss/We’ll do it.”
The accompanying illustration showed Jackson at the head of a line of children walking through a wonderland of fluffy clouds and doves of peace. It was a motif that Jackson would employ over and over again, depicting himself less as pied piper, it seemed, than as Jesus — “suffer the little children to come unto me”.
And come unto him they did.
In 1993, the family of a 13-year-old boy named Jordan Chandler laid the first allegation of child abuse. Jackson categorically denied the charge, and for his fans it would have been easy to dismiss it as an exploitation of his generosity — had he not struck an out-of-court settlement with the family for an estimated $20 million.
But it was to be further allegations of abuse that would result in his arrest in 2003 and the subsequent trial two years later that would provide the defining chapter in his life.
Jackson again vehemently denied the allegations, saying that he would “slit my wrists” before hurting a child.
Was he truly a child-abuser? We shall probably never know the truth. He had become so insulated from the world that he was unable even to comprehend that people should have found his intense affection for children, and his habit of sharing a bed with them, both aberrant and deeply suspect.
“Do you know how this looks to a lot of people? I mean, do you understand that?” he was asked by an interviewer for CBS in 2003.
“How does what look?” Jackson replied.
“How the fact that you…”
“Know why?” Jackson interrupted. “People think sex. They’re thinking sex. My mind doesn’t run that way. When I see children, I see the face of God. That’s why I love them so much. That’s what I see.”
The trial ended in acquittal but it proved the truism that for a celebrity an acquittal in a court of law does not guarantee acquittal in the court of public opinion. Where once he had inspired adulation, Jackson was now a figure of revulsion, pity and mockery. His financial empire collapsing around him, he became a refugee, migrating from one air-conditioned bolt-hole to another — Bahrain, Dubai, Las Vegas — to end up in the rented Beverly Hills mansion where he died.
The abiding irony is that Jackson should have died preparing for a series of performances designed to restore both his fortunes and, more importantly, his reputation as the undisputed King of Pop. Superstar, freak, the greatest showman of the 20th century, warm and loving human being, musical genius, alleged child-abuser. The roll call of adjectives and nouns will feed the Jackson myth for years to come.
Dancing The Dream, contains another “reflection”, simply entitled Innocence.
“It’s easy to mistake being innocent for simple-minded or naïve,” he wrote. “We all want to seem sophisticated; we all want to seem street-smart. To be innocent is to be 'out of it’.”
What Michael Jackson wanted most of all, it seemed, was to be free of it all.
Michael Jackson I'll never forget, by Paul Theroux
Michael Jackson I'll never forget, by Paul Theroux
After the eminent American writer was given a rare tour of Michael Jackson's fabled ranch, the singer telephoned him in the early hours for a chat. Here, Paul Theroux recalls an unguarded conversation that touched on fame, childhood and Biblical betrayal
Paul Theroux
Published: 11:22PM BST 27 Jun 2009
I heard the news today, oh boy, that Michael Jackson had a heart attack – and died of cardiac arrest, at the age of 50, in Los Angeles. I am reminded of a long conversation I had with him at four o'clock one morning, and of my visit to Neverland. The visit came first, the conversation a few weeks later, on the phone.
Neverland, a toytown wilderness of carnival rides and doll houses and zoo animals and pleasure gardens, lay inside a magnificent gateway on a side road in a rural area beyond Santa Barbara. Nosing around, I saw pinned to the wall of the sentry post an array of strange faces, some of them mugshots, all of them undesirables, with names and captions such as "Believes she is married to Mr Jackson" and "Might be armed" and "Has been loitering near gate".
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Jackson never molested me, says Home Alone starA road lined with life-sized bronzed statuary – skipping boys, gamboling animals – led past an artificial lake and a narrow-gauge railway to Michael's house. Neverland occupied an entire 3,000-acre valley, yet very little of it was devoted to human habitation – just the main house with its dark shingles and mullioned windows, and a three-bedroom guesthouse. The rest was given over to a railway terminus, Katharine Station, named after Jackson's mother, a formidable security headquarters, various funhouses, a cinema (with windowed bedrooms instead of balcony seats), and almost indefinable sites, one with teepees like an Indian camp.
And sprawling over many acres, the Jackson zoo of bad-tempered animals. The giraffes were understandably skittish. In another enclosure, rocking on its thick legs, was Gypsy, a moody five-ton elephant, which Elizabeth Taylor had given as a present to Michael. The elephant seemed to be afflicted with the rage of heightened musth. "Don't go anywhere near him," the keeper warned me.
In the reptile house, with its frisbee-shaped frogs and fat pythons, both a cobra and a rattlesnake had smashed their fangs against the glass of their cage trying to bite me. The llamas spat at me, as llamas do, but even in the ape sanctuary, "AJ", a big bristly, shovel-mouthed chimp, had spat in my face, and Patrick the orang-utan had tried to twist my hand. "And don't go anywhere near him, either."
In the wider part of the valley, the empty fairground rides were active – twinkling, musical – but empty: Sea Dragon, the Neverland Dodgem cars, the Neverland carrousel playing Michael's own song, Childhood ("Has anyone seen my childhood?…"). Even the lawns and flower beds were playing music; loudspeakers disguised as big, grey rocks buzzed with showtunes, filling the valley with unstoppable Muzak that drowned the chirping of wild birds. In the middle of it, a Jumbotron, its screen the size of a drive-in movie, showed a cartoon, two crazy-faced creatures quacking miserably at each other – all of this very bright in the cloudless California dusk, not a soul watching.
Later that day, I boarded a helicopter with Elizabeth Taylor – I was at Neverland interviewing her – and flew over the valley. It says something for Miss Taylor's much-criticised voice that I could hear her clearly over the helicopter noise. Girlish, imploring, piercing, the loud yack-yack-yack of the titanium rotor blades, she clutched her dog, a Maltese named Sugar, and screamed: "Paul, tell the pilot to go around in a circle, so we can see the whole ranch!"
Even without my relaying the message – even with his ears muffled by headphones – her voice knifed through to the pilot. He lifted us high enough into the peach-coloured sunset so that Neverland seemed even more toy-like.
"That's the gazebo, where Larry [Fortensky, her seventh husband] and I tied the knot," Elizabeth said, moving her head in an ironising wobble. Sugar blinked through prettily-combed white bangs which somewhat resembled Elizabeth's own white hair. "Isn't the railway station darling? Over there is where Michael and I have picnics," and she indicated a clump of woods on a cliff. "Can we go around one more time?"
Neverland Valley revolved slowly beneath us, the shadows lengthening from the pinky-gold glow slipping from the sky.
Even though no rain had fallen for months, the acres of lawns watered by underground sprinklers were deep green. Here and there, like toy soldiers, uniformed security people patrolled on foot, or on golf carts; some stood sentry duty – for Neverland was also a fortress.
"What's that railway station for?" I asked.
"The sick children."
"And all those rides?"
"The sick children."
"Look at all those tents…" Hidden in the woods, it was my first glimpse at the collection of tall teepees.
"The Indian village. The sick children love that place."
From this height, I could see that this valley of laboriously recaptured childhood pleasure was crammed with more statuary than I'd seen from ground level. Lining the gravel roads and the golf-cart paths were little winsome bronzes of flute players, rows of grateful, grinning kiddies, clusters of hand-holding tots, some with banjos, some with fishing rods; and large bronze statues, too, like the centrepiece of the circular drive in front of Michael's house, a statue of Mercury (god of merchandise and merchants), rising 30 feet, with winged helmet and caduceus, and all balanced on one tippy-toe, the last of the syrupy sunset lingering on his big bronze buttocks, making his bum look like a buttered muffin.
The house at Neverland was filled with images, many of them depicting Michael life-sized, elaborately costumed, in heroic poses with cape, sword, ruffed collar, crown. The rest were an example of a sort of obsessive iconography: images of Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross, Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin – and for that matter of Mickey Mouse and Peter Pan, all of whom, over the years, in what is less a life than a metamorphosis, he had come physically to resemble.
"So you're Wendy and Michael is Peter?" I had asked Elizabeth Taylor afterwards.
"Yeah. Yeah. There's a kind of magic between us."
The friendship started when, out of the blue, Michael offered her tickets for one of his Thriller Tour concerts – indeed, she asked for 14 tickets. But the seats were in a glass-enclosed VIP box, so far from the stage "you might as well have been watching it on TV". Instead of staying, she led her large party home.
Hearing that she'd left the concert early, Michael called the next day in tears apologising for the bad seats. He stayed on the line, they talked for two hours. And then they talked every day. Weeks passed, the calls continued. Months went by. "Really, we got to know each other on the telephone, over three months."
One day Michael suggested that he might drop by. Elizabeth said fine. He said: "May I bring my chimpanzee?" Elizabeth said, "Sure. I love animals." Michael showed up holding hands with the chimp, Bubbles.
"We have been steadfast ever since," Elizabeth said.
"Do you see much of Michael?"
"More of him than people realise – more than I realise," she said. They went in disguise to movies in Los Angeles cinemas, sitting in the back, holding hands. Before I could frame a more particular question, she said: "I love him. There's a vulnerability inside him which makes him the more dear. We have such fun together. Just playing."
Or role-playing – her Wendy to his Peter. In the hallway of her house, a large Michael Jackson portrait was inscribed "To my True Love Elizabeth. I'll love you Forever, Michael".
She gave him a live elephant. Dr Arnie Klein, his dermatologist, showed me a birthday snapshot taken in Las Vegas, Michael looking distinctly chalky as he presented Elizabeth with a birthday present, an elephant-shaped bauble, football-sized, covered in jewels.
What began as a friendship with Michael Jackson developed into a kind of cause in which Elizabeth Taylor became almost his only defender.
"What about his" – and I fished for a word – "eccentricity? Does that bother you?"
"He is magic. And I think all truly magical people have to have that genuine eccentricity." There is not an atom in her consciousness that allows her the slightest negativity on the subject of Jacko. "He is one of the most loving, sweet, true people I have ever loved. He is part of my heart. And we would do anything for each other."
This Wendy with a vengeance, who was a wealthy and world-famous pre-adolescent, supporting her parents from the age of nine, said she easily related to Michael, who was also a child star, and denied a childhood, as well as viciously abused by his father. There was a "Katherine" steam engine, and a "Katherine Street" at Neverland; there was no "Joseph Street", nor anything bearing his father's name.
'He'll talk to you if I ask him to," Elizabeth had told me. And at a prearranged signal, Michael called me, at four one morning. There was no secretarial intervention of "Mr Jackson on the line". The week's supermarket tabloids' headlines were "Jacko on suicide watch" and "Jacko in loony bin", and one with a South Africa dateline, "Wacko Jacko King of Pop Parasails with 13-year-old". In fact, he was in New York City, where he was recording a new album. This was 10 years ago.
My phone rang and I heard: "This is Michael Jackson." The voice was breathy, unbroken, boyish – tentative, yet tremulously eager and helpful, not the voice of a 40-year-old. In contrast to this lilting sound, its substance was denser, like a blind child giving you explicit directions in darkness.
"How would you describe Elizabeth?" I asked.
"She's a warm cuddly blanket that I love to snuggle up to and cover myself with. I can confide in her and trust her. In my business, you can't trust anyone."
"Why is that?"
"Because you don't know who's your friend. Because you're so popular, and there's so many people around you. You're isolated, too. Becoming successful means that you become a prisoner. You can't go out and do normal things. People are always looking at what you're doing."
"Have you had that experience?"
"Oh, lots of times. They try to see what you're reading, and all the things you're buying. They want to know everything. There are always paparazzi downstairs. They invade my privacy. They twist reality. They're my nightmare. Elizabeth is someone who loves me – really loves me."
"I suggested to her that she was Wendy and you're Peter."
"But Elizabeth is also like a mother – and more than that. She's a friend. She's Mother Teresa, Princess Diana, the Queen of England and Wendy. We have great picnics. It's so wonderful to be with her. I can really relax with her, because we've lived the same life and experienced the same thing."
"Which is?"
"The great tragedy of childhood stars. We like the same things. Circuses. Amusement parks. Animals."
And there was their shared fame and isolation.
"It makes people do strange things. A lot of our famous luminaries become intoxicated because of it – they can't handle it. And your adrenaline is at the zenith of the universe after a concert – you can't sleep. It's maybe two in the morning and you're wide awake. After coming off stage, you're floating."
"How do you handle that?"
"I watch cartoons. I love cartoons. I play video games. Sometimes I read."
"You mean you read books?"
"Yeah. I love to read short stories and everything."
"Any in particular?"
"Somerset Maugham," he said quickly, and then, pausing at each name: "Whitman. Hemingway. Twain."
"What about those video games?"
"I love X-Man. Pinball. Jurassic Park. The martial arts ones – Mortal Kombat."
"I played some of the video games at Neverland," I said. "There was an amazing one called Beast Buster."
"Oh, yeah, that's great. I pick each game. That one's maybe too violent, though. I usually take some with me on tour."
"How do you manage that? The video game machines are pretty big, aren't they?"
"Oh, we travel with two cargo planes."
"Have you written any songs with Elizabeth in mind?"
"Childhood."
"Is that the one with the line, 'Has anyone seen my childhood?'"
"Yes. It goes…", and he liltingly recited "Before you judge me, try to…", and then sang the rest.
"Didn't I hear that playing on your merry-go-round at Neverland?"
Delightedly, he said, "Yes! Yes!"
He went on about childhood, how, like Elizabeth, as a child star he used to support his family.
"I was a child supporting my family. My father took the money. Some of the money was put aside for me, but a lot of the money was put back into the entire family. I was just working the whole time."
"So you didn't have a childhood, then – you lost it. If you had it to do again how would you change things?"
"Even though I missed out on a lot, I wouldn't change anything."
"I can hear your little kids in the background." The gurgling had become insistent, like a plug-hole in a flood. "If they wanted to be performers and lead the life you led, what would you say?"
"They can do whatever they want to do. If they want to do that, it's okay."
"How will you raise them differently from the way you were raised?"
"With more fun. More love. Not so isolated."
"Elizabeth says she finds it painful to look back on her life. Do you find it hard to do that?"
"No, not when it's pertaining to an overview of your life rather than any particular moment."
This oblique and somewhat bookish form of expression was a surprise to me – another Michael Jackson surprise. He had made me pause with "intoxicated" and "zenith of the universe", too. I said: "I'm not too sure what you mean by 'overview'."
"Like childhood. I can look at that. The arc of my childhood."
"But there's some moment in childhood when you feel particularly vulnerable. Did you feel that? Elizabeth said that she felt she was owned by the studio."
"Sometimes really late at night we'd have to go out – it might be three in the morning – to do a show. My father forced us. He would get us up. I was seven or eight. Some of these were clubs or private parties at people's houses. We'd have to perform." This was in Chicago, New York, Indiana, Philadelphia, he added – all over the country. "I'd be sleeping and I'd hear my father. 'Get up! There's a show!' "
"But when you were on stage, didn't you get a kind of thrill?"
"Yes. I loved being on stage. I loved doing the shows."
"What about the other side of the business – if someone came up after the show, did you feel awkward?"
"I didn't like it. I've never liked people-contact. Even to this day, after a show, I hate it, meeting people. It makes me shy. I don't know what to say."
"But you did that Oprah interview, right?
"With Oprah it was tough. Because it was on TV – on TV, it's out of my realm. I know that everyone is looking and judging. It's so hard."
"Is this a recent feeling – that you're under scrutiny?"
"No," he said firmly, "I have always felt that way."
"Even when you were seven or eight?"
"I'm not happy doing it."
"Which I suppose is why talking to Elizabeth over a period of two or three months on the phone would be the perfect way to get acquainted. Or doing what we're doing right now."
"Yes."
At some point Michael's use of the phrase "lost childhood" prompted me to quote the line from George William Russell, "In the lost boyhood of Judas / Christ was betrayed", and I heard "Wow" at the other end of the line. He asked me to explain what that meant, and when I did, he urged me to elaborate. What sort of a childhood did Judas have? What had happened to him? Where had he lived? Who had he known?
I told him that Judas had red hair, that he was the treasurer of the Apostles, that he might have been Sicarii – a member of a radical Jewish group, that he might not have died by hanging himself but somehow exploded, all his guts flying.
Twenty more minutes of Biblical apocrypha with Michael Jackson, on the lost childhood of Judas, and then the whisper again.
"Wow."
After the eminent American writer was given a rare tour of Michael Jackson's fabled ranch, the singer telephoned him in the early hours for a chat. Here, Paul Theroux recalls an unguarded conversation that touched on fame, childhood and Biblical betrayal
Paul Theroux
Published: 11:22PM BST 27 Jun 2009
I heard the news today, oh boy, that Michael Jackson had a heart attack – and died of cardiac arrest, at the age of 50, in Los Angeles. I am reminded of a long conversation I had with him at four o'clock one morning, and of my visit to Neverland. The visit came first, the conversation a few weeks later, on the phone.
Neverland, a toytown wilderness of carnival rides and doll houses and zoo animals and pleasure gardens, lay inside a magnificent gateway on a side road in a rural area beyond Santa Barbara. Nosing around, I saw pinned to the wall of the sentry post an array of strange faces, some of them mugshots, all of them undesirables, with names and captions such as "Believes she is married to Mr Jackson" and "Might be armed" and "Has been loitering near gate".
Related Articles
Lloyd Webber: Michael loved the Phantom
Beauty, talent, fame. . . they're just not enough
I have led a messy life
Jackson used phone calls to 'groom boys for his bed'
Jackson's tailors prepare for decision day
Jackson never molested me, says Home Alone starA road lined with life-sized bronzed statuary – skipping boys, gamboling animals – led past an artificial lake and a narrow-gauge railway to Michael's house. Neverland occupied an entire 3,000-acre valley, yet very little of it was devoted to human habitation – just the main house with its dark shingles and mullioned windows, and a three-bedroom guesthouse. The rest was given over to a railway terminus, Katharine Station, named after Jackson's mother, a formidable security headquarters, various funhouses, a cinema (with windowed bedrooms instead of balcony seats), and almost indefinable sites, one with teepees like an Indian camp.
And sprawling over many acres, the Jackson zoo of bad-tempered animals. The giraffes were understandably skittish. In another enclosure, rocking on its thick legs, was Gypsy, a moody five-ton elephant, which Elizabeth Taylor had given as a present to Michael. The elephant seemed to be afflicted with the rage of heightened musth. "Don't go anywhere near him," the keeper warned me.
In the reptile house, with its frisbee-shaped frogs and fat pythons, both a cobra and a rattlesnake had smashed their fangs against the glass of their cage trying to bite me. The llamas spat at me, as llamas do, but even in the ape sanctuary, "AJ", a big bristly, shovel-mouthed chimp, had spat in my face, and Patrick the orang-utan had tried to twist my hand. "And don't go anywhere near him, either."
In the wider part of the valley, the empty fairground rides were active – twinkling, musical – but empty: Sea Dragon, the Neverland Dodgem cars, the Neverland carrousel playing Michael's own song, Childhood ("Has anyone seen my childhood?…"). Even the lawns and flower beds were playing music; loudspeakers disguised as big, grey rocks buzzed with showtunes, filling the valley with unstoppable Muzak that drowned the chirping of wild birds. In the middle of it, a Jumbotron, its screen the size of a drive-in movie, showed a cartoon, two crazy-faced creatures quacking miserably at each other – all of this very bright in the cloudless California dusk, not a soul watching.
Later that day, I boarded a helicopter with Elizabeth Taylor – I was at Neverland interviewing her – and flew over the valley. It says something for Miss Taylor's much-criticised voice that I could hear her clearly over the helicopter noise. Girlish, imploring, piercing, the loud yack-yack-yack of the titanium rotor blades, she clutched her dog, a Maltese named Sugar, and screamed: "Paul, tell the pilot to go around in a circle, so we can see the whole ranch!"
Even without my relaying the message – even with his ears muffled by headphones – her voice knifed through to the pilot. He lifted us high enough into the peach-coloured sunset so that Neverland seemed even more toy-like.
"That's the gazebo, where Larry [Fortensky, her seventh husband] and I tied the knot," Elizabeth said, moving her head in an ironising wobble. Sugar blinked through prettily-combed white bangs which somewhat resembled Elizabeth's own white hair. "Isn't the railway station darling? Over there is where Michael and I have picnics," and she indicated a clump of woods on a cliff. "Can we go around one more time?"
Neverland Valley revolved slowly beneath us, the shadows lengthening from the pinky-gold glow slipping from the sky.
Even though no rain had fallen for months, the acres of lawns watered by underground sprinklers were deep green. Here and there, like toy soldiers, uniformed security people patrolled on foot, or on golf carts; some stood sentry duty – for Neverland was also a fortress.
"What's that railway station for?" I asked.
"The sick children."
"And all those rides?"
"The sick children."
"Look at all those tents…" Hidden in the woods, it was my first glimpse at the collection of tall teepees.
"The Indian village. The sick children love that place."
From this height, I could see that this valley of laboriously recaptured childhood pleasure was crammed with more statuary than I'd seen from ground level. Lining the gravel roads and the golf-cart paths were little winsome bronzes of flute players, rows of grateful, grinning kiddies, clusters of hand-holding tots, some with banjos, some with fishing rods; and large bronze statues, too, like the centrepiece of the circular drive in front of Michael's house, a statue of Mercury (god of merchandise and merchants), rising 30 feet, with winged helmet and caduceus, and all balanced on one tippy-toe, the last of the syrupy sunset lingering on his big bronze buttocks, making his bum look like a buttered muffin.
The house at Neverland was filled with images, many of them depicting Michael life-sized, elaborately costumed, in heroic poses with cape, sword, ruffed collar, crown. The rest were an example of a sort of obsessive iconography: images of Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross, Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin – and for that matter of Mickey Mouse and Peter Pan, all of whom, over the years, in what is less a life than a metamorphosis, he had come physically to resemble.
"So you're Wendy and Michael is Peter?" I had asked Elizabeth Taylor afterwards.
"Yeah. Yeah. There's a kind of magic between us."
The friendship started when, out of the blue, Michael offered her tickets for one of his Thriller Tour concerts – indeed, she asked for 14 tickets. But the seats were in a glass-enclosed VIP box, so far from the stage "you might as well have been watching it on TV". Instead of staying, she led her large party home.
Hearing that she'd left the concert early, Michael called the next day in tears apologising for the bad seats. He stayed on the line, they talked for two hours. And then they talked every day. Weeks passed, the calls continued. Months went by. "Really, we got to know each other on the telephone, over three months."
One day Michael suggested that he might drop by. Elizabeth said fine. He said: "May I bring my chimpanzee?" Elizabeth said, "Sure. I love animals." Michael showed up holding hands with the chimp, Bubbles.
"We have been steadfast ever since," Elizabeth said.
"Do you see much of Michael?"
"More of him than people realise – more than I realise," she said. They went in disguise to movies in Los Angeles cinemas, sitting in the back, holding hands. Before I could frame a more particular question, she said: "I love him. There's a vulnerability inside him which makes him the more dear. We have such fun together. Just playing."
Or role-playing – her Wendy to his Peter. In the hallway of her house, a large Michael Jackson portrait was inscribed "To my True Love Elizabeth. I'll love you Forever, Michael".
She gave him a live elephant. Dr Arnie Klein, his dermatologist, showed me a birthday snapshot taken in Las Vegas, Michael looking distinctly chalky as he presented Elizabeth with a birthday present, an elephant-shaped bauble, football-sized, covered in jewels.
What began as a friendship with Michael Jackson developed into a kind of cause in which Elizabeth Taylor became almost his only defender.
"What about his" – and I fished for a word – "eccentricity? Does that bother you?"
"He is magic. And I think all truly magical people have to have that genuine eccentricity." There is not an atom in her consciousness that allows her the slightest negativity on the subject of Jacko. "He is one of the most loving, sweet, true people I have ever loved. He is part of my heart. And we would do anything for each other."
This Wendy with a vengeance, who was a wealthy and world-famous pre-adolescent, supporting her parents from the age of nine, said she easily related to Michael, who was also a child star, and denied a childhood, as well as viciously abused by his father. There was a "Katherine" steam engine, and a "Katherine Street" at Neverland; there was no "Joseph Street", nor anything bearing his father's name.
'He'll talk to you if I ask him to," Elizabeth had told me. And at a prearranged signal, Michael called me, at four one morning. There was no secretarial intervention of "Mr Jackson on the line". The week's supermarket tabloids' headlines were "Jacko on suicide watch" and "Jacko in loony bin", and one with a South Africa dateline, "Wacko Jacko King of Pop Parasails with 13-year-old". In fact, he was in New York City, where he was recording a new album. This was 10 years ago.
My phone rang and I heard: "This is Michael Jackson." The voice was breathy, unbroken, boyish – tentative, yet tremulously eager and helpful, not the voice of a 40-year-old. In contrast to this lilting sound, its substance was denser, like a blind child giving you explicit directions in darkness.
"How would you describe Elizabeth?" I asked.
"She's a warm cuddly blanket that I love to snuggle up to and cover myself with. I can confide in her and trust her. In my business, you can't trust anyone."
"Why is that?"
"Because you don't know who's your friend. Because you're so popular, and there's so many people around you. You're isolated, too. Becoming successful means that you become a prisoner. You can't go out and do normal things. People are always looking at what you're doing."
"Have you had that experience?"
"Oh, lots of times. They try to see what you're reading, and all the things you're buying. They want to know everything. There are always paparazzi downstairs. They invade my privacy. They twist reality. They're my nightmare. Elizabeth is someone who loves me – really loves me."
"I suggested to her that she was Wendy and you're Peter."
"But Elizabeth is also like a mother – and more than that. She's a friend. She's Mother Teresa, Princess Diana, the Queen of England and Wendy. We have great picnics. It's so wonderful to be with her. I can really relax with her, because we've lived the same life and experienced the same thing."
"Which is?"
"The great tragedy of childhood stars. We like the same things. Circuses. Amusement parks. Animals."
And there was their shared fame and isolation.
"It makes people do strange things. A lot of our famous luminaries become intoxicated because of it – they can't handle it. And your adrenaline is at the zenith of the universe after a concert – you can't sleep. It's maybe two in the morning and you're wide awake. After coming off stage, you're floating."
"How do you handle that?"
"I watch cartoons. I love cartoons. I play video games. Sometimes I read."
"You mean you read books?"
"Yeah. I love to read short stories and everything."
"Any in particular?"
"Somerset Maugham," he said quickly, and then, pausing at each name: "Whitman. Hemingway. Twain."
"What about those video games?"
"I love X-Man. Pinball. Jurassic Park. The martial arts ones – Mortal Kombat."
"I played some of the video games at Neverland," I said. "There was an amazing one called Beast Buster."
"Oh, yeah, that's great. I pick each game. That one's maybe too violent, though. I usually take some with me on tour."
"How do you manage that? The video game machines are pretty big, aren't they?"
"Oh, we travel with two cargo planes."
"Have you written any songs with Elizabeth in mind?"
"Childhood."
"Is that the one with the line, 'Has anyone seen my childhood?'"
"Yes. It goes…", and he liltingly recited "Before you judge me, try to…", and then sang the rest.
"Didn't I hear that playing on your merry-go-round at Neverland?"
Delightedly, he said, "Yes! Yes!"
He went on about childhood, how, like Elizabeth, as a child star he used to support his family.
"I was a child supporting my family. My father took the money. Some of the money was put aside for me, but a lot of the money was put back into the entire family. I was just working the whole time."
"So you didn't have a childhood, then – you lost it. If you had it to do again how would you change things?"
"Even though I missed out on a lot, I wouldn't change anything."
"I can hear your little kids in the background." The gurgling had become insistent, like a plug-hole in a flood. "If they wanted to be performers and lead the life you led, what would you say?"
"They can do whatever they want to do. If they want to do that, it's okay."
"How will you raise them differently from the way you were raised?"
"With more fun. More love. Not so isolated."
"Elizabeth says she finds it painful to look back on her life. Do you find it hard to do that?"
"No, not when it's pertaining to an overview of your life rather than any particular moment."
This oblique and somewhat bookish form of expression was a surprise to me – another Michael Jackson surprise. He had made me pause with "intoxicated" and "zenith of the universe", too. I said: "I'm not too sure what you mean by 'overview'."
"Like childhood. I can look at that. The arc of my childhood."
"But there's some moment in childhood when you feel particularly vulnerable. Did you feel that? Elizabeth said that she felt she was owned by the studio."
"Sometimes really late at night we'd have to go out – it might be three in the morning – to do a show. My father forced us. He would get us up. I was seven or eight. Some of these were clubs or private parties at people's houses. We'd have to perform." This was in Chicago, New York, Indiana, Philadelphia, he added – all over the country. "I'd be sleeping and I'd hear my father. 'Get up! There's a show!' "
"But when you were on stage, didn't you get a kind of thrill?"
"Yes. I loved being on stage. I loved doing the shows."
"What about the other side of the business – if someone came up after the show, did you feel awkward?"
"I didn't like it. I've never liked people-contact. Even to this day, after a show, I hate it, meeting people. It makes me shy. I don't know what to say."
"But you did that Oprah interview, right?
"With Oprah it was tough. Because it was on TV – on TV, it's out of my realm. I know that everyone is looking and judging. It's so hard."
"Is this a recent feeling – that you're under scrutiny?"
"No," he said firmly, "I have always felt that way."
"Even when you were seven or eight?"
"I'm not happy doing it."
"Which I suppose is why talking to Elizabeth over a period of two or three months on the phone would be the perfect way to get acquainted. Or doing what we're doing right now."
"Yes."
At some point Michael's use of the phrase "lost childhood" prompted me to quote the line from George William Russell, "In the lost boyhood of Judas / Christ was betrayed", and I heard "Wow" at the other end of the line. He asked me to explain what that meant, and when I did, he urged me to elaborate. What sort of a childhood did Judas have? What had happened to him? Where had he lived? Who had he known?
I told him that Judas had red hair, that he was the treasurer of the Apostles, that he might have been Sicarii – a member of a radical Jewish group, that he might not have died by hanging himself but somehow exploded, all his guts flying.
Twenty more minutes of Biblical apocrypha with Michael Jackson, on the lost childhood of Judas, and then the whisper again.
"Wow."
Behind the Scenes: Mourning Michael Jackson at the BET Awards
Ref : http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/popvox/archive/2009/06/29/behind-the-scenes-mourning-michael-jackson-at-the-bet-awards.aspx
Behind the Scenes: Mourning Michael Jackson at the BET Awards
Newsweek
by Allison Samuels
In between takes of the BET awards Sunday night in Los Angeles, Jamie Foxx continued a dialogue that he’d begun the night before at a BET pre-party. At both events, Foxx lamented how "they" (white America, presumably) had taken Michael Jackson away from us (African-Americans, definitely), and now we’d have to take him back. His tone and sentiment echoed the feeling of the week for many African-Americans as they began to come to terms with the death of the one of the world’s biggest stars. That included me.
As I sat in the audience at the awards, transfixed by the images of Michael that passed on the screen through the night, I couldn’t help but wipe away tears. When his baby sister, Janet, walked on the stage, her words really hit me like an arrow and put into context what many African-Americans are feeling in the wake of Jackson’s death. Janet Jackson told the audience that her brother was “icon to most—but, he was family to us.’’ And that’s exactly what Michael Jackson was to most African-Americans: family.
Looking at all those pictures of a younger Jackson before the nose jobs and skin-color change was like looking into my own family’s photo album. The hair, the clothes and the closeness of the Jackson family resembled any black family across the country, and the reason so much pride and an immediate connection was felt when the Jackson’s became international superstars.
To mainstream America, it may appear strange that the African-American community has in the last few days so defiantly claimed Jackson as their own in the wake of such ambivalent feelings about the pop star in recent years. But in reality, it makes perfect sense. Families disagree and families fall out and they may even refuse to speak to one another for years on end, but the love never really goes away.
Love was the overall vibe at the pre-awards-show event Saturday night where Foxx led a small group made up of Jill Scott, Macy Gray, Morgan Freeman, and Chaka Khan into an impromptu singalong of Jackson’s classic hit “Rock with You." Some tears were shed while others, like producer Teddy Riley—who arranged and produced Jackson’s hit “Remember the Time”—spoke of the good times he had with the singer to any who'd listen. “I had nothing but love for Michael, and I understood what stardom could do to you," said Riley. “And he was the biggest star of all—so he felt it more than anyone else."
Jackson’s ascent into mass superstardom after the release of Thriller in 1983 was a surprise to many but not for loyal African-Americans who’d followed Jackson from a beautiful child through his awkward teen years and beyond. While he seemed comfortable and accessible in the cocoon of African-American culture during those times, fame appeared to change Jackson at his core. A skin disease was blamed, as were other ailments in defense of his ever-changing appearance, but African-Americans saw it as a blatant attempt to distance himself from his history.
In truth, Jackson’s desire to look different in a world that did not then nor now embrace brown skin, kinky hair, and full lips (unless those lips are on Angelina Jolie’s face) was a painful reminder of our own insecurities as a minority group still searching for validation. His tortured view of himself, even in the light of world adoration, gave little hope that total acceptance could be ours. Interestingly enough, nose jobs are now the No. 1 surgery requested by African-Americans when undergoing plastic surgery. And the numbers of blacks receiving plastic surgery has tripled in the last 10 years.
Jackson’s troubles in recent years involving allegations of molestation also strained the community’s relationship with him. Many believed it was a setup—given that all the accusers were white or non-African-American, not unlike the way they felt about O. J. Simpson. Others just felt embarrassed that Jackson had brought yet another negative image of black men to the forefront.
I most certainly had a complicated relationship with Jackson. Though his album cover Off The Wall remained on my bedroom door through high school, I, too, ignore Jackson after the release of his mega-hit Thriller. He wasn’t the gorgeous little boy I’d fallen in love with as a child and even adored during his teenage bouts of acne and voice changes. I refused to watch his court battles or follow his highly publicized national interviews that were the talk of the town. I couldn’t bear to look at him and what he’d done to himself and chose to remember him easing on down the road with Diana Ross in The Wiz or rocking his Jheri curl in the "Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough" video.
As the days go by and the funeral of Jackson occurs, the outpouring of African-American grief will be on full view: grief over a riff that seemed to grow wider over the years and grief for the loss of a family member that we never had a chance to make peace with. But more than anything else for me, it will be grief based on a heartfelt love that never fully went away.
Behind the Scenes: Mourning Michael Jackson at the BET Awards
Newsweek
by Allison Samuels
In between takes of the BET awards Sunday night in Los Angeles, Jamie Foxx continued a dialogue that he’d begun the night before at a BET pre-party. At both events, Foxx lamented how "they" (white America, presumably) had taken Michael Jackson away from us (African-Americans, definitely), and now we’d have to take him back. His tone and sentiment echoed the feeling of the week for many African-Americans as they began to come to terms with the death of the one of the world’s biggest stars. That included me.
As I sat in the audience at the awards, transfixed by the images of Michael that passed on the screen through the night, I couldn’t help but wipe away tears. When his baby sister, Janet, walked on the stage, her words really hit me like an arrow and put into context what many African-Americans are feeling in the wake of Jackson’s death. Janet Jackson told the audience that her brother was “icon to most—but, he was family to us.’’ And that’s exactly what Michael Jackson was to most African-Americans: family.
Looking at all those pictures of a younger Jackson before the nose jobs and skin-color change was like looking into my own family’s photo album. The hair, the clothes and the closeness of the Jackson family resembled any black family across the country, and the reason so much pride and an immediate connection was felt when the Jackson’s became international superstars.
To mainstream America, it may appear strange that the African-American community has in the last few days so defiantly claimed Jackson as their own in the wake of such ambivalent feelings about the pop star in recent years. But in reality, it makes perfect sense. Families disagree and families fall out and they may even refuse to speak to one another for years on end, but the love never really goes away.
Love was the overall vibe at the pre-awards-show event Saturday night where Foxx led a small group made up of Jill Scott, Macy Gray, Morgan Freeman, and Chaka Khan into an impromptu singalong of Jackson’s classic hit “Rock with You." Some tears were shed while others, like producer Teddy Riley—who arranged and produced Jackson’s hit “Remember the Time”—spoke of the good times he had with the singer to any who'd listen. “I had nothing but love for Michael, and I understood what stardom could do to you," said Riley. “And he was the biggest star of all—so he felt it more than anyone else."
Jackson’s ascent into mass superstardom after the release of Thriller in 1983 was a surprise to many but not for loyal African-Americans who’d followed Jackson from a beautiful child through his awkward teen years and beyond. While he seemed comfortable and accessible in the cocoon of African-American culture during those times, fame appeared to change Jackson at his core. A skin disease was blamed, as were other ailments in defense of his ever-changing appearance, but African-Americans saw it as a blatant attempt to distance himself from his history.
In truth, Jackson’s desire to look different in a world that did not then nor now embrace brown skin, kinky hair, and full lips (unless those lips are on Angelina Jolie’s face) was a painful reminder of our own insecurities as a minority group still searching for validation. His tortured view of himself, even in the light of world adoration, gave little hope that total acceptance could be ours. Interestingly enough, nose jobs are now the No. 1 surgery requested by African-Americans when undergoing plastic surgery. And the numbers of blacks receiving plastic surgery has tripled in the last 10 years.
Jackson’s troubles in recent years involving allegations of molestation also strained the community’s relationship with him. Many believed it was a setup—given that all the accusers were white or non-African-American, not unlike the way they felt about O. J. Simpson. Others just felt embarrassed that Jackson had brought yet another negative image of black men to the forefront.
I most certainly had a complicated relationship with Jackson. Though his album cover Off The Wall remained on my bedroom door through high school, I, too, ignore Jackson after the release of his mega-hit Thriller. He wasn’t the gorgeous little boy I’d fallen in love with as a child and even adored during his teenage bouts of acne and voice changes. I refused to watch his court battles or follow his highly publicized national interviews that were the talk of the town. I couldn’t bear to look at him and what he’d done to himself and chose to remember him easing on down the road with Diana Ross in The Wiz or rocking his Jheri curl in the "Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough" video.
As the days go by and the funeral of Jackson occurs, the outpouring of African-American grief will be on full view: grief over a riff that seemed to grow wider over the years and grief for the loss of a family member that we never had a chance to make peace with. But more than anything else for me, it will be grief based on a heartfelt love that never fully went away.
Will sparks speculation over Jackson custody
Ref : http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/29/michael-jackson-entrepreneur-economics-opinions-columnists-opportunity-success-shakira.html?feed=rss_news
July 1, 2009
Custody war? Debbie Rowe, the mother of Michael Jackson's eldest two children. is considering her options. Photo: Reuters
A 2002 will by Michael Jackson divides his estate between his mother, three children and one or more charities.
According to The Wall Street Journal, his father, Joe Jackson, does not feature in the will, believed to be the singer's last.
A lawyer for Jackson could submit the will to Los Angeles Superior Court as soon as tomorrow. It names lawyer John Branca and music executive John McClain, a friend of Jackson's, as executors, according to the Journal. Mr Branca, who worked for the singer from 1980 to 2006 and was rehired a week before Jackson's death last Thursday, reportedly wrote the will in 2002.
The singer's parents had not seen the will, their lawyer said in an emailed statement.
It is not known what custody provisions the 2002 will sets out for Jackson's three children. A court on Monday gave the singer's mother, Katherine Jackson, 79, temporary custody until a hearing next week.
The size and complexity of Jackson's assets and debts were expected to pose a challenge in unwinding his estate, the Journal said, estimating his debt at $US500 million ($A619.2 million). His assets, including a 50 per cent stake in Sony/ATV Music Publishing, could exceed his debts by as much as $US200 million, it said.
Meanwhile, Debbie Rowe, the mother of Jackson's two eldest children, is considering whether to seek custody or continued visitation rights, according to her lawyer, Eric George. Ms Rowe wanted "what is best" for the children and would respond to a petition by Mrs Jackson for custody within the next few days.
Mrs Jackson has also petitioned to be named administrator of her son's estate, and a hearing on that matter has been set for August.
Ms Rowe initially signed a contract with Jackson giving up her parental rights but later hired Mr George to challenge it.
An appeals court threw out the challenge in 2006. Jackson retained custody, and Ms Rowe, who was briefly married to Jackson, obtained visitation rights.
Legal records show that Ms Rowe is the genetic mother of the two children but do not indicate whether Jackson was their biological father. Ms Rowe, who has been described as devastated by Jackson's death, could not be reached for comment.
In other developments, detectives were trying to identify and interview "multiple doctors" who treated or prescribed medication to Jackson going back years, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Until now, much of the attention around the pop star's death has focused on Conrad Murray, the cardiologist who was with Jackson on Thursday afternoon at the rented estate where Jackson fell into cardiac arrest before being pronounced dead at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Centre.
But on Monday, authorities removed two bags of "medical evidence" from the mansion. They also confirmed they had taken prescription medications from the estate and were widening their investigation to gather a full profile of the king of pop's medical history.
Jackson's father held a disjointed news conference on Monday, touching on plans for his new record company, his grandchildren — whom he said were "happy" — and the private autopsy on his son, which the family ordered after a county autopsy proved inconclusive, pending the results of toxicology tests. Mr Jackson said there would be no funeral until the outcome of the private autopsy.
Of his three grandchildren, Mr Jackson — who allegedly has not lived with his wife for at least a decade — said: "We love those kids. We're going to take care of them and give them the education they're supposed to have."
The singer's eldest children, 12-year-old Michael Joseph Jackson jnr, also known as Prince Michael, and Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, 11, are Ms Rowe's biological children.
The mother of seven-year-old Prince Michael Jackson II, nicknamed Blanket, was a surrogate who has never been identified.
Documents filed by lawyers for Mrs Jackson said: "(The children) have a long-established relationship with (their) paternal grandmother and are comfortable in her care."
LOS ANGELES TIMES, AGENCIES
July 1, 2009
Custody war? Debbie Rowe, the mother of Michael Jackson's eldest two children. is considering her options. Photo: Reuters
A 2002 will by Michael Jackson divides his estate between his mother, three children and one or more charities.
According to The Wall Street Journal, his father, Joe Jackson, does not feature in the will, believed to be the singer's last.
A lawyer for Jackson could submit the will to Los Angeles Superior Court as soon as tomorrow. It names lawyer John Branca and music executive John McClain, a friend of Jackson's, as executors, according to the Journal. Mr Branca, who worked for the singer from 1980 to 2006 and was rehired a week before Jackson's death last Thursday, reportedly wrote the will in 2002.
The singer's parents had not seen the will, their lawyer said in an emailed statement.
It is not known what custody provisions the 2002 will sets out for Jackson's three children. A court on Monday gave the singer's mother, Katherine Jackson, 79, temporary custody until a hearing next week.
The size and complexity of Jackson's assets and debts were expected to pose a challenge in unwinding his estate, the Journal said, estimating his debt at $US500 million ($A619.2 million). His assets, including a 50 per cent stake in Sony/ATV Music Publishing, could exceed his debts by as much as $US200 million, it said.
Meanwhile, Debbie Rowe, the mother of Jackson's two eldest children, is considering whether to seek custody or continued visitation rights, according to her lawyer, Eric George. Ms Rowe wanted "what is best" for the children and would respond to a petition by Mrs Jackson for custody within the next few days.
Mrs Jackson has also petitioned to be named administrator of her son's estate, and a hearing on that matter has been set for August.
Ms Rowe initially signed a contract with Jackson giving up her parental rights but later hired Mr George to challenge it.
An appeals court threw out the challenge in 2006. Jackson retained custody, and Ms Rowe, who was briefly married to Jackson, obtained visitation rights.
Legal records show that Ms Rowe is the genetic mother of the two children but do not indicate whether Jackson was their biological father. Ms Rowe, who has been described as devastated by Jackson's death, could not be reached for comment.
In other developments, detectives were trying to identify and interview "multiple doctors" who treated or prescribed medication to Jackson going back years, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Until now, much of the attention around the pop star's death has focused on Conrad Murray, the cardiologist who was with Jackson on Thursday afternoon at the rented estate where Jackson fell into cardiac arrest before being pronounced dead at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Centre.
But on Monday, authorities removed two bags of "medical evidence" from the mansion. They also confirmed they had taken prescription medications from the estate and were widening their investigation to gather a full profile of the king of pop's medical history.
Jackson's father held a disjointed news conference on Monday, touching on plans for his new record company, his grandchildren — whom he said were "happy" — and the private autopsy on his son, which the family ordered after a county autopsy proved inconclusive, pending the results of toxicology tests. Mr Jackson said there would be no funeral until the outcome of the private autopsy.
Of his three grandchildren, Mr Jackson — who allegedly has not lived with his wife for at least a decade — said: "We love those kids. We're going to take care of them and give them the education they're supposed to have."
The singer's eldest children, 12-year-old Michael Joseph Jackson jnr, also known as Prince Michael, and Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, 11, are Ms Rowe's biological children.
The mother of seven-year-old Prince Michael Jackson II, nicknamed Blanket, was a surrogate who has never been identified.
Documents filed by lawyers for Mrs Jackson said: "(The children) have a long-established relationship with (their) paternal grandmother and are comfortable in her care."
LOS ANGELES TIMES, AGENCIES
Michael Jackson, Entrepreneur
Ref : http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/29/michael-jackson-entrepreneur-economics-opinions-columnists-opportunity-success-shakira.html?feed=rss_news
Brian S. Wesbury and Robert Stein, 06.30.09, 12:01 AM EDT
The culture and politics that made his success possible.
Two economists are walking down the street when one sees a $100 bill on the ground. He points and asks, "Is that a $100 bill?" The other economist says, "No way. It can't be. If it were real somebody else would have already picked it up." Corny joke, right? But it sure helps explain the theory of efficient markets.
More than that, it explains how most economists think of the world. Typically, they think in terms of very impersonal forces that sum up the actions of all people. It's as if the aggregation of all our actions combined--in the form of supply and demand--somehow negates the existence of opportunity and individual achievement.
The good news is that, ultimately, real economic growth is about much more than the components of gross domestic product, such as consumption, home building and business investment. It's about the productive decisions and behaviors of individuals. Really, it's about entrepreneurs.
This comes to mind in light of the recent death of Michael Jackson. Regardless of what one thinks of his music or his life choices, it is easy to recognize how enormously productive Jackson was. He broke all the records for album sales, put MTV on the map and propelled music videos into the mainstream.
He created something out of nothing. He used his talent, hard work, and creativity to please the ears and eyes of consumers around the globe. If Jackson--or any entrepreneur for that matter--had asked a certain kind of economist whether he should pursue this line of work, this innovation, he would have been told it was foolhardy. "If there really was a market for that kind of stuff, someone would have done it already," they would say. But this is a static view of the world.
In reality, the economy is dynamic. And what allows that dynamism, what creates the environment for entrepreneurship, is the institutional framework--property rights, the rule of law and even the level of common trust among citizens. These factors cannot be quantified or easily measured, so they are often overlooked.
And yet without these social attributes great talent goes wasted around the world. The U.S. is blessed in countless ways, but do we really think we are just "lucky" to have so many talented people who live here? Would Michael Jackson have been just as successful if he had been born in France or Ghana? Of course not.
The good news is that singers like Shakira, who is from Columbia, and movies like Slumdog Millionaire, based on a book by an Indian novelist, suggest the environment necessary for success is spreading--even in the developing world.
Economic laws can either enhance or undermine the vibrancy of an economy, helping or hurting individual incentives and the flow of creative ideas. Policymakers everywhere need to keep this in mind. There are $100 bills on sidewalks all across the world. What matters is whether people have the incentive to pick them up.
Raising tax rates, regulating business and redistributing income can all interfere with these incentives. Americans know this, but politicians often listen to economists who don't. With so many big items--like health care, cap-and-trade and large tax hikes--on the table, the decisions of the next few years will help determine whether the U.S. produces more Michael Jacksons, or not.
Brian S. Wesbury is chief economist and Robert Stein senior economist at First Trust Advisors in Wheaton, Ill. They write a weekly column for Forbes.
Brian S. Wesbury and Robert Stein, 06.30.09, 12:01 AM EDT
The culture and politics that made his success possible.
Two economists are walking down the street when one sees a $100 bill on the ground. He points and asks, "Is that a $100 bill?" The other economist says, "No way. It can't be. If it were real somebody else would have already picked it up." Corny joke, right? But it sure helps explain the theory of efficient markets.
More than that, it explains how most economists think of the world. Typically, they think in terms of very impersonal forces that sum up the actions of all people. It's as if the aggregation of all our actions combined--in the form of supply and demand--somehow negates the existence of opportunity and individual achievement.
The good news is that, ultimately, real economic growth is about much more than the components of gross domestic product, such as consumption, home building and business investment. It's about the productive decisions and behaviors of individuals. Really, it's about entrepreneurs.
This comes to mind in light of the recent death of Michael Jackson. Regardless of what one thinks of his music or his life choices, it is easy to recognize how enormously productive Jackson was. He broke all the records for album sales, put MTV on the map and propelled music videos into the mainstream.
He created something out of nothing. He used his talent, hard work, and creativity to please the ears and eyes of consumers around the globe. If Jackson--or any entrepreneur for that matter--had asked a certain kind of economist whether he should pursue this line of work, this innovation, he would have been told it was foolhardy. "If there really was a market for that kind of stuff, someone would have done it already," they would say. But this is a static view of the world.
In reality, the economy is dynamic. And what allows that dynamism, what creates the environment for entrepreneurship, is the institutional framework--property rights, the rule of law and even the level of common trust among citizens. These factors cannot be quantified or easily measured, so they are often overlooked.
And yet without these social attributes great talent goes wasted around the world. The U.S. is blessed in countless ways, but do we really think we are just "lucky" to have so many talented people who live here? Would Michael Jackson have been just as successful if he had been born in France or Ghana? Of course not.
The good news is that singers like Shakira, who is from Columbia, and movies like Slumdog Millionaire, based on a book by an Indian novelist, suggest the environment necessary for success is spreading--even in the developing world.
Economic laws can either enhance or undermine the vibrancy of an economy, helping or hurting individual incentives and the flow of creative ideas. Policymakers everywhere need to keep this in mind. There are $100 bills on sidewalks all across the world. What matters is whether people have the incentive to pick them up.
Raising tax rates, regulating business and redistributing income can all interfere with these incentives. Americans know this, but politicians often listen to economists who don't. With so many big items--like health care, cap-and-trade and large tax hikes--on the table, the decisions of the next few years will help determine whether the U.S. produces more Michael Jacksons, or not.
Brian S. Wesbury is chief economist and Robert Stein senior economist at First Trust Advisors in Wheaton, Ill. They write a weekly column for Forbes.
Wacko Jacko - the game?
Ref : http://www.nzherald.co.nz/michael-jackson-1958-2009/news/article.cfm?c_id=1502833&objectid=10581631
12:02PM Tuesday Jun 30, 2009
By David Crookes
Michael Jackson was looking at releasing his next album as part of a videogame, says Earthworm Jim developer Daivd Perry. Photo / APGames
Infamous game one of the best yet for PS3
Student gets life for PlayStation killing
Michael Jackson 1958-2009
Jackson's death unleashes barrage of online scams
Coroner says 'shocking' Jackson autopsy report a fake
Michael Jackson had been considering releasing his next music album as a videogame, it has emerged.
The singer, who died last Thursday aged 50, discussed the idea with veteran games developer David Perry prior to the announcement of his comeback string of concerts at the 02 Arena in London.
It would have seen a collection of songs Jackson was working on being put out as part of a videogame first before being released as a standalone album.
"This would have introduced many new players to videogames," says Perry, who had visited Jackson's Neverland ranch to discuss the idea before the superstar was forced to sell the property due to mounting debts.
"He was incredibly interested in the idea, and we got quite far down that road, working on the story and mechanics. We were excited about the press potential."
Perry, who is an executive videogame industry consultant and founded Shiny Entertainment, makers of Earthworm Jim in 1993, revealed the plans in a post on his website, dperry.com, following the singer's death.
%3Cbody%3E%3Cdiv%20id%3D%22adDiv%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22advertisment-heading%22%3EAdvertisement%3C/span%3E%3C%21--%20AMG%20Tag%20--%3E%0D%0A%3Cscript%20language%3D%22Javascript%22%3E%0D%0A%20%20amgdgt_p%3D%221974%22%3B%0D%0A%20%20amgdgt_pl%3D%22fdca14a1%22%3B%20%0D%0A%20%20amgdgt_t%20%3D%20%22i%22%3B%0D%0A%3C/script%3E%0D%0A%3Cscript%20type%3D%22text/javascript%22%20src%3D%22http%3A//cdn.amgdgt.com/base/js/v1/amgdgt.js%22%3E%3C/script%3E%0D%0A%0D%0A%3Cnoscript%3E%3Ca%20href%3D%22http%3A//ad.amgdgt.com/ads/%3Ft%3Dc%26c%3DKQPXb0%22%20target%3D%22_blank%22%3E%3Cimg%20src%3D%22http%3A//ad.amgdgt.com/ads/%3Ft%3Di%26f%3Dh%26p%3D1974%26pl%3Dfdca14a1%26c%3DKQPXb0%26rnd%3D10665948325%22%20width%3D300%20height%3D250%20border%3D%220%22%20/%3E%3C/a%3E%3C/noscript%3E%20%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A%3Cspan%20class%3D%22advertisment-heading%22%3EAdvertisement%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E
Advertisement
AdvertisementHe wrote: "Michael Jackson was a gamer, he wanted me to come up to Neverland and talk to him about games."
He added: "I feel lucky to have spent time with him, I think the music industry lost a major part of its history, I know his children will be devastated, and for people like me that spent time with him, that got to see the "real" guy, (outside of his celebrity) the world lost a really great person too."
Jackson's love of videogames was well documented and he had a gaming arcade as part of his multi-million dollar Neverland ranch.
- THE INDEPENDENT
12:02PM Tuesday Jun 30, 2009
By David Crookes
Michael Jackson was looking at releasing his next album as part of a videogame, says Earthworm Jim developer Daivd Perry. Photo / APGames
Infamous game one of the best yet for PS3
Student gets life for PlayStation killing
Michael Jackson 1958-2009
Jackson's death unleashes barrage of online scams
Coroner says 'shocking' Jackson autopsy report a fake
Michael Jackson had been considering releasing his next music album as a videogame, it has emerged.
The singer, who died last Thursday aged 50, discussed the idea with veteran games developer David Perry prior to the announcement of his comeback string of concerts at the 02 Arena in London.
It would have seen a collection of songs Jackson was working on being put out as part of a videogame first before being released as a standalone album.
"This would have introduced many new players to videogames," says Perry, who had visited Jackson's Neverland ranch to discuss the idea before the superstar was forced to sell the property due to mounting debts.
"He was incredibly interested in the idea, and we got quite far down that road, working on the story and mechanics. We were excited about the press potential."
Perry, who is an executive videogame industry consultant and founded Shiny Entertainment, makers of Earthworm Jim in 1993, revealed the plans in a post on his website, dperry.com, following the singer's death.
%3Cbody%3E%3Cdiv%20id%3D%22adDiv%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22advertisment-heading%22%3EAdvertisement%3C/span%3E%3C%21--%20AMG%20Tag%20--%3E%0D%0A%3Cscript%20language%3D%22Javascript%22%3E%0D%0A%20%20amgdgt_p%3D%221974%22%3B%0D%0A%20%20amgdgt_pl%3D%22fdca14a1%22%3B%20%0D%0A%20%20amgdgt_t%20%3D%20%22i%22%3B%0D%0A%3C/script%3E%0D%0A%3Cscript%20type%3D%22text/javascript%22%20src%3D%22http%3A//cdn.amgdgt.com/base/js/v1/amgdgt.js%22%3E%3C/script%3E%0D%0A%0D%0A%3Cnoscript%3E%3Ca%20href%3D%22http%3A//ad.amgdgt.com/ads/%3Ft%3Dc%26c%3DKQPXb0%22%20target%3D%22_blank%22%3E%3Cimg%20src%3D%22http%3A//ad.amgdgt.com/ads/%3Ft%3Di%26f%3Dh%26p%3D1974%26pl%3Dfdca14a1%26c%3DKQPXb0%26rnd%3D10665948325%22%20width%3D300%20height%3D250%20border%3D%220%22%20/%3E%3C/a%3E%3C/noscript%3E%20%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A%3Cspan%20class%3D%22advertisment-heading%22%3EAdvertisement%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E
Advertisement
AdvertisementHe wrote: "Michael Jackson was a gamer, he wanted me to come up to Neverland and talk to him about games."
He added: "I feel lucky to have spent time with him, I think the music industry lost a major part of its history, I know his children will be devastated, and for people like me that spent time with him, that got to see the "real" guy, (outside of his celebrity) the world lost a really great person too."
Jackson's love of videogames was well documented and he had a gaming arcade as part of his multi-million dollar Neverland ranch.
- THE INDEPENDENT
King of Pop Almost Died Same Way Once Before, Joe Jackson Speaks Out
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529401,00.html?mrp
Monday, June 29, 2009
King of Pop Almost Died Same Way Once Before, Joe Jackson Speaks Out at Bet Awards | Source: DCFS Visits Jackson’s Children | Pop Tarts Scene & Herd
King of Pop Almost Died Same Way Once Before, Joe Jackson Speaks Out at Bet Awards
Michael Jackson died last Thursday after suffering a cardiac arrest in his Holmby Hills estate, but Pop Tarts has learned that almost exactly the same scenario almost played out in 2004 in his rented Coldwater Canyon mansion. According to a source very close to the family and the doctor on-the-scene, Jackson’s brother Randy found him unconscious in his home and immediately called a paramedic friend who lived very close by who rushed to the house.
"Thankfully they were able to save him but it was all very frightening. It was a doctor that didn’t normally treat Michael and he was shocked, absolutely shocked by the amount of prescription medications he saw at the house," said our source, adding that Michael wasn’t rattled by the near-death experience.
We’re also told that Jackson’s family started having premonitions of his premature death in 2001 around the time of his New York "30th Anniversary" concert series and were forced to intervene.
"A family meeting was held and basically they begged Michael to seek help," added our insider. "Katherine (his mom) also started asking a lot of questions about how Elvis Presley died. She was worried."
A rep for the Jackson family said that Randy was too distraught to issue a statement in regards to the incident and the exact cause of death remains under investigation.
However just three days after his son's death, father Joe Jackson put on a brave face and walked the red carpet at the BET Awards on Sunday in Los Angeles. Surrounded by quite the posse, Jackson was all smiles as he posed for pics and told when Tarts asked how he was doing, he responded:
"Slowly but surely," Jackson said.
Column ArchiveKing of Pop Almost Died Same Way Once Before, Joe Jackson Speaks Out
Hollywood in Mourning: Stars Pay Tribute to Farrah Fawcett
Hogan Meltdown: Linda Barks Back At Hulk's Hairdresser
Bridget Marquardt Spills Raunchy Details From Kendra's Bachelorette Party
Megan Fox Suffers Anxiety Attacks When Seeing Herself On Screen
Full-page Pop Tarts Archive
Source: DCFS Visits Jackson’s Children
Although Michael Jackson only died on Thursday, we’re told The Case Sensitive Unit at the Los Angeles County Department of Child & Family Services immediately launched their investigation and paid a visit to Jackson’s three children on Friday to see what the planned setup would be.
According to DCFS sources, there are a lot of red flags in the situation and even though Debbie Rowe is reportedly the mother of the two eldest children she will still have to be assessed and prove that she can provide a stable living environment before the case can be closed.
"This is listed as a ‘Caretaker Absence’ situation and we are highly sensitized to such a high-profile case," said an insider. "You can’t just become a parent - how much contact has Rowe had with the kids? Criminal checks, dietary and immunization checks will all be done."
And should Jackson’s parents seek custody of the children, we’re told that the physical and emotional abuse Michael was privy to as a child will once again factor in.
"The grandparents are another red flag," added our source. "And with all that has come out about the prescription medications that were in the house, the investigation will be very extensive."
The children had been living with Jackson in the rented Holmby Hills estate where paramedics were called to Thursday and it is not known if he had prepared a will pertaining details about the care of the children in the event of his death. According to TMZ.com, the family intends to fight to ensure the two eldest Paris and Michael Jr. do not end up in the custody of their mother, Debbie Rowe. The maternity of Michael’s youngest child, Prince Michael Jackson ll, who was born via artificial insemination, remains unknown.
Monday, June 29, 2009
King of Pop Almost Died Same Way Once Before, Joe Jackson Speaks Out at Bet Awards | Source: DCFS Visits Jackson’s Children | Pop Tarts Scene & Herd
King of Pop Almost Died Same Way Once Before, Joe Jackson Speaks Out at Bet Awards
Michael Jackson died last Thursday after suffering a cardiac arrest in his Holmby Hills estate, but Pop Tarts has learned that almost exactly the same scenario almost played out in 2004 in his rented Coldwater Canyon mansion. According to a source very close to the family and the doctor on-the-scene, Jackson’s brother Randy found him unconscious in his home and immediately called a paramedic friend who lived very close by who rushed to the house.
"Thankfully they were able to save him but it was all very frightening. It was a doctor that didn’t normally treat Michael and he was shocked, absolutely shocked by the amount of prescription medications he saw at the house," said our source, adding that Michael wasn’t rattled by the near-death experience.
We’re also told that Jackson’s family started having premonitions of his premature death in 2001 around the time of his New York "30th Anniversary" concert series and were forced to intervene.
"A family meeting was held and basically they begged Michael to seek help," added our insider. "Katherine (his mom) also started asking a lot of questions about how Elvis Presley died. She was worried."
A rep for the Jackson family said that Randy was too distraught to issue a statement in regards to the incident and the exact cause of death remains under investigation.
However just three days after his son's death, father Joe Jackson put on a brave face and walked the red carpet at the BET Awards on Sunday in Los Angeles. Surrounded by quite the posse, Jackson was all smiles as he posed for pics and told when Tarts asked how he was doing, he responded:
"Slowly but surely," Jackson said.
Column ArchiveKing of Pop Almost Died Same Way Once Before, Joe Jackson Speaks Out
Hollywood in Mourning: Stars Pay Tribute to Farrah Fawcett
Hogan Meltdown: Linda Barks Back At Hulk's Hairdresser
Bridget Marquardt Spills Raunchy Details From Kendra's Bachelorette Party
Megan Fox Suffers Anxiety Attacks When Seeing Herself On Screen
Full-page Pop Tarts Archive
Source: DCFS Visits Jackson’s Children
Although Michael Jackson only died on Thursday, we’re told The Case Sensitive Unit at the Los Angeles County Department of Child & Family Services immediately launched their investigation and paid a visit to Jackson’s three children on Friday to see what the planned setup would be.
According to DCFS sources, there are a lot of red flags in the situation and even though Debbie Rowe is reportedly the mother of the two eldest children she will still have to be assessed and prove that she can provide a stable living environment before the case can be closed.
"This is listed as a ‘Caretaker Absence’ situation and we are highly sensitized to such a high-profile case," said an insider. "You can’t just become a parent - how much contact has Rowe had with the kids? Criminal checks, dietary and immunization checks will all be done."
And should Jackson’s parents seek custody of the children, we’re told that the physical and emotional abuse Michael was privy to as a child will once again factor in.
"The grandparents are another red flag," added our source. "And with all that has come out about the prescription medications that were in the house, the investigation will be very extensive."
The children had been living with Jackson in the rented Holmby Hills estate where paramedics were called to Thursday and it is not known if he had prepared a will pertaining details about the care of the children in the event of his death. According to TMZ.com, the family intends to fight to ensure the two eldest Paris and Michael Jr. do not end up in the custody of their mother, Debbie Rowe. The maternity of Michael’s youngest child, Prince Michael Jackson ll, who was born via artificial insemination, remains unknown.
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