Remember the Time: Protecting Michael Jackson in His Final Days

by Bill Whitfield

  New Year’s Eve came around and we were still at the Palms, still waiting for something to happen. That night, Javon took off to be with his family. I went down to the hotel by myself. There were guys posted at his door, but I wanted to be nearby, just in case he called. I figured something might come up. New Year’s Eve at the Palms is crazy. There’s two or three different nightclubs in there, so it’s packed.

  I settled in at one of the restaurants downstairs and had dinner. I sat there most of the evening, wondering if things were going to get better. Because if it kept getting worse, I was going to have to do what I had to do to take care of my family. You talk about soul searching. That’s exactly what it was. Midnight came, and I was walking through the lobby and this huge crowd was all around me, counting down and ringing in the new year. I stood there in the middle of all of those people laughing and drinking and having a good time, and I just wasn’t happy. I was not happy, because I didn’t see the light at the end of this tunnel.

  PART THREE

  THIS IS IT

  15

  January 2008 found Michael Jackson still at the Palms, working around the clock in the hotel’s studio in an effort to deliver his long-overdue tracks for Thriller 25—tracks he had to deliver even though Sony had informed him that he wouldn’t actually be seeing any income from the album’s release. The label would be keeping any royalties it generated to cover Jackson’s half of the administrative costs from the Sony/ATV catalog, which the singer had fallen behind on.

  In addition to the work for the album, Jackson and Londell McMillan had indeed been finalizing a deal to avert the singer’s short-term cash crisis. Barclays bank had purchased and refinanced the $300 million loan Jackson had taken out against the Sony/ATV catalog. HSBC and Plainfield Asset Management, a hedge fund, had lent the singer an additional $70 million against Mijac, the catalog that held the rights to Jackson’s own music. And Sony had guaranteed Jackson’s new debt load in exchange for the first right of refusal to buy him out of the Beatles catalog if he defaulted. However, Fortress Investment Group did hold on to the $23 million note on Neverland; if Jackson failed to save it from foreclosure by March 19, the investment group stood to make millions from dumping the estate at auction.

  Most of this new $370 million influx Jackson would never see. It went to settle old lawsuits and claims and to cover outstanding expenses, like the $300,000 in back pay owed to the staff at Neverland. Jackson received an $11 million living allowance, and the balance of what remained was set aside for the sole purpose of covering the interest payments on the new loans.

  Amazingly, on paper, Michael Jackson was still not broke. The cash value of his assets—the publishing catalogs, his property holdings, his vast collection of cars and antiques—was still greater than his debts. But he remained cash poor. Short of liquidating everything he owned and walking away from the business of being the King of Pop, his only real option, as he had known for some time, was to go back onstage.

  After several years in financial free-fall, Michael Jackson was once again standing on his feet, at least temporarily. But this new state of affairs created as many problems as it solved. When the world believed that the singer was broke and broken, most people were content to just leave him be. Now, word was beginning to circulate that the King of Pop might be coming back to life. Over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, as Bill and Javon had suspected, their employer had dismissed Raymone Bain; in one of the many settlements to come out of the new loan package, she was paid a considerable amount of money to go away. There was now a power vacuum at the center of his organization, and all sorts of people were rushing in to fill it.

  Bill: After a couple weeks at the Palms, I heard that Michael Amir was in Vegas. He was going to be around, helping out. He’d first been introduced to Mr. Jackson by Feldman, back when we were staying at the Monte Cristo house. That’s when his name first came up. Then he was around while we were in Virginia. He started out like an intern. He was cataloging all of Mr. Jackson’s books with a computer program, helping Mr. Jackson with his film projects, doing stuff like that. Whenever he came to town, I had to make arrangements to get him from the airport, so we’d spoken a number of times. We were cordial. We were cool.

  When Michael Amir hit Vegas, he called me and asked if he could use one of the trucks because the boss wanted him to go on a couple of errands. Before, whenever Mr. Jackson sent him to get film equipment at Best Buy or wherever, either me or Javon would drive him. I didn’t give him the keys to the truck. I didn’t know him that well. I wasn’t okay with that. Then at the Palms, he was suddenly asking for the truck and telling me that the boss said it was okay. I checked with Mr. Jackson and he said it was fine, so I didn’t question it too much.

  Pretty soon, though, Michael Amir was communicating with Mr. Jackson every day. Since Grace wasn’t around, he started taking over some of the things that Grace used to do. I started to notice that, when he came up to the Palms, he wouldn’t even have to ask us if Mr. Jackson was in his room or the studio; he already knew, and he’d go straight to wherever Mr. Jackson was. They seemed to be getting closer and closer. On the one hand, I was cool with it because I wouldn’t have to do so much running around. On the other hand, I also wondered what his agenda was.

  At the same time, we were still under a lot of pressure to find a house. We needed to get the hell out of the Palms. The Maloof brothers weren’t putting Mr. Jackson up out of charity. When Peter Lopez made that deal and told George Maloof, “Michael Jackson’s going to come and stay at your hotel,” I’m pretty sure Maloof said yes under the impression that Michael Jackson would be eating in his restaurants, making appearances in his nightclubs—generating press. But Mr. Jackson didn’t do any of that. He just worked in the studio and took the service elevator back upstairs. And once it was clear that he wasn’t leaving his room? That free ride was over. Time to go.

  Around mid-January, Mr. Jackson called me and said he’d found a house and that he was going to be moving. That was news to me, because he’d had me working on all those arrangements during Christmas and New Year’s. Then Mr. Jackson said, “Call Michael Amir. He’ll give you all of the details.”

  Michael Amir?

  There it was. He’d stepped up. It had happened almost overnight. Suddenly he wasn’t just a gofer. He was coming to me and Javon and saying, “Mr. Jackson needs you to do this or do that.” He was in Mr. Jackson’s ear now. He’d taken over the house search without me even knowing about it. That made me nervous. Not because I didn’t like the guy; he and I never had problems. But it was always suspect when people were maneuvering and being secretive around Mr. Jackson. I’d seen how that played out with Grace and Raymone and Feldman before. But I wasn’t there to question what Mr. Jackson wanted. I just called Michael Amir to find out what was going on with the house.

  As soon as he told me about the place, I knew which one he was talking about. I had passed it a few times and seen it was available, but I’d never even considered it because I knew Mr. Jackson wouldn’t have picked it. The house was this Spanish hacienda-type estate on Palomino, right off Rancho, north of where the Monte Cristo place was. I knew the area. It’s not a great neighborhood. The neighbors’ houses were right up on top of it, and Rancho is a real busy street, which meant a lot of traffic, a lot of eyeballs to worry about.

  It was also near a school; there was an elementary school right across the street. I saw that and I was like, Are you kidding me? The flak he’s going to get over that? I know Michael Jackson wasn’t a child molester, but there are still people out there who think otherwise. Parents started complaining almost from the day he moved in, saying that it was dangerous to have Michael Jackson living near a school. It was all over Vegas. It made the local news. Knowing how much he wants his privacy, why would you put him through that by renting that house? Plus, you’re teasing Prince and Paris and Blanket every day. All the other kids playing across the street and they’ve got to hear it? Terrible idea. But nobody as
ked me.

  Javon and I didn’t even help with the move. Michael Amir made the arrangements. He had six or seven guys from the Nation of Islam come out, and they packed everything up at the Palms and brought it over. Once Mr. Jackson was at the house, word came down that these guys from the Nation were going to be handling security at the house, and Javon and I would be working alongside them, handling the logistics of taking Mr. Jackson on details. That surprised me because he got a lot of flak for using Nation of Islam people during his trial. That was the whole reason I’d been brought on in the first place.

  Javon: As far as the Nation moving him into the Palomino house, I didn’t see it as us being pushed aside. I was relieved. I needed the break after being on the road with him all that time. And there was still plenty of things me and Bill were doing. We had the relationships with all the restaurants and theaters he liked to go to, so we still handled the details when he left the house. That didn’t change. Plus, I knew that the Nation was very protective of Mr. Jackson. Those guys are dedicated. They’re soldiers. Nothing was going to happen to him on their watch. And with them watching the house, working for Mr. Jackson became more like a regular nine-to-five type gig again. Show up for work, provide your service, and go home. Which was fine with me.

  Bill: They never set up the security trailer at the new house. The word was always, “He’s not going to be here that long.” Now, was I being told that because he really wasn’t going to be there that long or because they didn’t want us around? Were people trying to push us away? I would call Peter Lopez and ask, “What’s going on? What’s my job now? Do I still have a job?”

  Peter would say, “Don’t worry, Bill. He loves you guys. Everything’s fine. There’s a lot going on right now, a lot of changes happening, but you guys are fine.”

  I took a wait-and-see kind of attitude, but things were definitely different. All the faxes and emails I’d been getting? More and more, those documents weren’t coming at me anymore. A lot of that was now going to Michael Amir. Mr. Jackson and I never had a conversation about it. It was just that one day I was doing all that stuff, then it started to taper off, then all of a sudden I wasn’t doing it at all.

  Michael Amir had become the new Feldman, and I was fine with that. I preferred it that way—I really did. I was cool with not being that dude. We’ve all had bosses that get on our nerves. Michael Jackson was my boss, and some days he got on my nerves. It was all the little things, the tedious stuff. The phone calls. “I want this.” “I need this.” “Find me a Ferris wheel.” I didn’t want to deal with his lawyers and managers anymore, either, all the politics and the backstabbing. If somebody else wanted to step up and do all that? Cool. Take it. Call me when you need me for security. If I got a call from Greg Cross or someone saying they needed to send or fax something, I’d just say, “Hold on. Let me get you Michael Amir’s number.” I wasn’t dealing with any of that anymore.

  The mood wasn’t the same. The fans didn’t come back at this new house, and they’d been such a big part of what kept his spirits up. There were a few that came by from time to time, but not in the same numbers, not the way they did at the Monte Cristo house. This new area, this location, it wasn’t private. There was no strip of property outside the gate for them to camp out on. You also couldn’t have fans hanging out all day in front of an elementary school.

  A lot of the fans didn’t even know where he’d moved. Since Raymone was gone, she wasn’t sending along any of the fan mail. And her address was the only one that a lot of the fans had. I didn’t know where the fan mail was going. There was no office. It was just getting lost, I guess. Some of the fans who knew me would reach out to me. They were hearing things about him doing a show. I didn’t have much information to give them. They’d send me cards and ask me to pass them along. They’d say, “Tell him we miss him. Tell him we love him.”

  I was also getting a lot of questions about the Thriller 25 album. The anniversary of the actual release date had come and gone back at the end of November. All sorts of stuff had been planned, TV specials, appearances. None of it had happened because he wasn’t cool with it. As far as he was concerned, that album was perfect. You don’t go back and add hip-hop beats to Thriller. It’s a classic, and you don’t touch it. But they told him he had to.

  Javon: Sony had told him to get in the studio with some of these younger artists and do these remixes to make himself new and hip again. But he didn’t do it with enthusiasm. You could tell that. That’s why it was so down to the last minute with those sessions at the Palms. He kept putting it off and putting it off, and the remixes kept taking longer and longer to finish. The whole month we were at the Palms, Mr. Jackson basically never left the hotel because he was working with will.i.am in the studio the entire time. Me and Bill spent most of our time in the lobby of the studio with will.i.am’s security, keeping an eye on them while they were in there working.

  Bill: It wasn’t until after the album came out that Javon and I learned that Mr. Jackson had thanked us in the liner notes. He didn’t tell us he was going to do that; we learned about it from friends who bought the album and saw our names. When I got a copy of the disc and saw it, I was like, Wow! That got me excited. It felt good, after everything we’d been through, to be acknowledged like that. It felt like our small contribution was appreciated.

  Javon: When I saw my name in the liner notes? That was one of the most joyful moments of my life. Nobody can take that away from me. That album will never be duplicated. It will outlive my kids’ kids’ kids’ kids. The way the Internet is, no one will ever sell over 100 million copies ever again, and that makes it the number one album in human history. So to have my name be a part of that? It was all worth it.

  Bill: When the album hit, it was a huge success. Went straight to No. 1 in the U.S. and in a lot of other countries. Outside, in the media and in the music press, there was all this hype about the twenty-fifth anniversary of this album, but inside the camp it barely registered. You’d think it might have gotten him excited, been a jolt in the arm or something. But honestly, he didn’t talk about it like it was a big deal. I heard more excitement in his voice talking about going to see Spider-Man 3 than I ever heard when he was talking about Thriller 25.

  It was not a happy time, those months after the Palms. On the surface, it was business as usual, but the mood in the house was kind of gloomy. The Monte Cristo house, as many problems as it had, there was at least an effort to make it a home, building the library and the dance studio, the classroom for the kids. At Palomino? There was no studio built in there, no classroom, no library. It wasn’t a home.

  When the kids’ birthdays came around, there was no more going all out like before. No more clowns and jumpers. The people around him now, they just didn’t have the same vibe. I feel like Javon and I, being dads, we just brought more of a fatherly touch to doing that job. We knew all the things you need to know to raise kids in this town. If he wanted a clown, we went out of our way to find one. Trampolines and decorations and cakes, we did all that. The team that was with him now, most of them didn’t live in Vegas. They were from L.A. If Mr. Jackson said, “We need to find a clown,” they probably wouldn’t have known where to start.

  Javon: The new team hadn’t been around the family enough to know their likes and dislikes, their dos and don’ts. We knew what kind of cereal each of the kids liked, that sort of thing. But we weren’t around the house to help out and go that extra mile for them anymore. We were just handling transportation and protection whenever he left the house. And there weren’t nearly as many outings at that time, either. The nights we used to drive down the Strip and go people-watching? There were no more of those. He stayed in. Taking the kids to Krispy Kreme and Circus Circus? We maybe did that once or twice.

  Bill: His demeanor had changed. He was more quiet, more withdrawn. Three days would go by and I wouldn’t hear from him, and I used to hear from him four or five times a day, every day. So I’d call him and say, “Hi, Mr. Jacks
on. It’s Bill.”

  “Hey, Bill.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “I’m fine. Is there a problem?”

  “No, sir. No problem. Just haven’t heard any communication in a while. Wanted to make sure everything’s okay.”

  “Sure. Thanks for checking in.”

  And that’d be it. I didn’t know what was wrong; I just knew something wasn’t right. You could tell by what was going on with the kids. Whenever he moved to an unfamiliar place or was surrounded by strange faces, he kept the kids closer to him. The freedom he allowed them at Monte Cristo or in Virginia, letting us take them out, going to playgrounds and such, those days were over. The kids were always under his wing now. That meant his guard was up.

  I started to get an uneasy feeling about the direction everything was going. For a year, he didn’t make a move that I didn’t know about. Then one day, around late February, maybe early March, I got a call from Peter Lopez. He said, “Bill, Michael is wondering where you guys are.”

  I said, “What do you mean ‘wondering where we are’?”

  “Why aren’t you guys in L.A.?”

  “He’s in L.A.?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Mr. Lopez, we didn’t even know he was in L.A.”

  The other team had taken him to California without telling us. Peter seemed just as confused as I was. He said, “Bill, what’s going on here?”