Michael Jackson

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  ‘He couldn't have looked any more heartbroken if someone had walked away with his pet chimp,’ wrote Robert Hilburn, the Los Angeles Times pop music critic.

  ‘He went back to the Helmsley Palace, where he was staying, and cried,’ one friend said. ‘He and Frank had made a vow that they would at least win Album of the Year and, of course, they didn't. He thought the whole thing was unfair. It wasn't about the music. It was about the image. Would the Academy give Record of the Year to a guy who sleeps in an oxygen chamber? Not likely.’

  There was little time for Michael to feel sorry for himself, though. The next day he was due to give a conceit at Madison Square Garden. After the show, he and a representative from the Pepsi-Cola Company (which had sponsored the Bad tour) presented a $600,000 cheque, the proceeds from the concert, to the United Negro College Fund. Four years earlier, Michael had endowed a scholarship programme at the UNCF with a portion of his earnings from the ill-fated Victory tour. By 1988, seventy students at UNCF member schools had received Michael Jackson scholarships. (At some of the country's smaller black colleges, that could be an entire graduating class.) Michael maintained a low profile when it came to such donations. Perhaps if his generosity were better known, he would not have been so roundly criticized by many African-Americans for not having a so-called ‘black consciousness’. In truth, he has given many millions of dollars to black charities over the years.

  Most people who accompanied Michael on his Bad tour also recall how generous he was to children who wanted to see him perform. At every concert stop on his Bad tour, he set aside a portion of tickets for underprivileged youngsters who otherwise would have been unable to attend his shows. All of the royalties from his number-one single ‘Man in the Mirror’ were donated to Camp Good Times, a charity for terminally ill patients in Los Angeles.

  Though his good deeds were going unnoticed, his eccentricities were still getting the once-over by the media. While on stage at Madison Square Garden, Michael shared a kiss with model Tatiana Thumbtzen, who appeared in his video ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’. A week later, the photo showed up in the National Enquirer with the headline, ‘Michael Jackson and Model Fall Head-Over-Heels in Love’. The story said that Michael and Tatiana were having an affair (which was not true) now that Michael's romance with makeup artist Karen Faye was over (the two were never romantically involved).

  Later, the National Enquirer would run with the story that Michael saw Jesus Christ materialize from a cloud of smoke while he performed onstage. That same week, Star would print that Michael had fallen in love with Princess Diana and wanted her to star in his next video. When Michael demanded to know where these stories came from, all fingers pointed at Frank Dileo. By this time, though, Frank wasn't doing anything to promote such stories. The media was acting on its own, providing Michael with the image it felt he wanted.

  A favourite story among those in Michael's inner circle also appeared in the Enquirer. It claimed that Prince had used ESP to drive Bubbles the chimp crazy. ‘Prince has gone too far this time,’ a furious Michael was quoted as saying in the article. ‘What kind of sicko would mess with a monkey? This is the final straw. Poor, poor Bubbles.’

  Actually, Michael liked that one. John Branca and Frank Dileo had never seen him laugh so much.

  Buying Neverland

  In March 1988, while he was still on the road, Michael Jackson finalized the purchase of his new home, a twenty-seven-hundred-acre estate in the Santa Ynez Valley then called Sycamore Ranch. He had become enchanted by the ranch when he stayed there during the time he and Paul McCartney filmed the ‘Say, Say, Say’ video in Santa Ynez; Paul had leased the home for the duration of his and his wife Linda's stay.

  At Sycamore Ranch, there would be plenty of room for Michael's menagerie, an important consideration, and the location was far enough from Encino to guarantee space between Michael and his pesky family members. The property was owned by developer William Bone, who had spent many years and a fortune building it to his specifications; the main house is thirteen thousand square feet. The asking price was $35 million furnished, or $32.5 million unfurnished. Michael toured the estate by horse-drawn carriage provided by Bone.

  John Branca had advised Michael that, from a business standpoint, the ranch was not a good investment. Michael intended offering 50% of the asking price, but even so the re-sale opportunities would be limited: there are not many buyers for a twenty-seven- hundred-acre ranch that costs seventeen million dollars. John wrote Michael a letter and told him that if he really wanted to buy the ranch, he shouldn't do so with any ‘future profit motive’. He felt it would be a more sensible idea to purchase the property that was once used as the estate on The Beverly Hillbillies television show. He also suggested that Michael buy the surrounding property, demolish the houses that were there, and then he could have five acres of property to do with what he pleased.

  Michael couldn't understand why he should settle for only five acres when he could have almost three thousand. When he used to visit Paul McCartney, he was always impressed with Paul's sumptuous acres and acres of verdant property. ‘My guests expect something grand,’ Michael told John. ‘It's gotta look like I've made it big, because I have.’

  A difficult and lengthy negotiation with William Bone ensued because John was determined to secure the best possible deal possible for Michael. However, Michael was impatient; he called John three times a day, prodding him on. Finally, Michael decided that John really did not want him to have the property, that his stalling could lose the deal altogether. He became angry. He wanted that estate, and that's all he wanted. He went right off the deep end over it, and reportedly asked another of the attorneys at John's law firm to break into John's office and steal the file on Sycamore Ranch… and then get to work on closing the deal. Of course, the lawyer didn't do it and, in fact, informed John, who was astonished. He telephoned Michael and asked how he could think to do something so terrible.

  ‘Because I think you don't want me to spend too much money,’ Michael said in his own defence. ‘You don't want me to have the ranch.’

  John told him he was right, he didn't think Michael should make the purchase. However, he intended to follow Michael's wishes, anyway. He hoped that Michael would never again pull a stunt like that one. John was genuinely hurt by it, but it also showed him how irrational Michael can be at times – not that he needed further proof of this fact.

  At the last minute, William Bone began having second thoughts about selling the ranch to Michael. He said that he didn't want to lose his emotional connection to the property; he treasured it that much. More than likely, he realized that he was losing a lot of money and was getting ‘cold feet’ about it. John submitted an offer of fifteen million dollars, which was not accepted. After a series of counteroffers, Michael's final offer of seventeen million dollars was accepted, certainly a let-down for Bone, considering his thirty-five-million-dollar asking price. Why William Bone took such a loss is still an open question, except that he may have just wanted out of Sycamore Ranch. Michael also got all of the furnishings and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century antiques as part of the purchase. A fully stocked wine cellar went along with the deal. Because Bone started causing a fuss – and John knew that if he lost this deal, Michael would become a real liability in his life – he came up with a clause in the sales agreement that allowed Bone to spend one week out of every year at the ranch for the next three years, subject to Michael's schedule. Therefore, Bone wouldn't feel that he was losing the property entirely. The sale was concluded, successfully. The press reported that Michael paid twenty-eight million dollars for the estate, which was fine with Michael, for obvious reasons.

  The first thing Michael did was change the name of the ranch to ‘Neverland Valley’, though it is usually called, simply, Neverland. When Michael had to conduct business in Los Angeles, he would stay in a condominium he leased in Westwood, which he called his ‘hide-out’. Otherwise, he would stay at Neverland, and never again at H
ayvenhurst.

  Leaving his parents' home was obviously a big deal for Michael. He was sad to leave his mother, but eager to view Joseph as someone to whom he no longer had any responsibility. Still, he couldn't actually face them with the news. In fact, he didn't tell them anything about his negotiation for Neverland Valley, nor did he tell them when it was purchased. Katherine and Joseph found out that Michael was leaving Hayvenhurst while watching the American television programme Entertainment Tonight. Panicked, Katherine telephoned Marlon to ask him if he knew anything about it. Marlon then called Michael. Michael said it wasn't true.

  Apparently, Michael didn't want anyone to know what he was up to, lest they all gang up on him to talk him out of it – which they definitely would have done. The next day, Michael instructed certain employees of his to go to the Encino home and take from it the possessions he now wanted at Neverland. ‘I was waiting for Michael to come to us and say something,’ Joseph said, sadly. ‘But he never did.’

  A few weeks later, Michael hosted a housewarming party for his relatives, but he did not invite Joseph or Katherine. ‘That hurt us both,’ Joseph recalled. ‘We'd seen a lot from that boy, but this was really something we couldn't figure out. I don't know why he would be so hurtful to us, and especially to Kate. I couldn't understand it,’ he said.

  As it happened, Michael's name was not on the original purchase agreement for the estate. Rather, the agreement was signed by his lawyer, John Branca, and his accountant, Marshall Gelfand, all at Michael's instruction. He had told them that he didn't want anyone to be able to check public records of property ownership and figure out where he lived. Marshall suggested that a trust be set up with himself and John as trustees. Michael owned the trust and could fire both men at any time. The two could do nothing with the property without his permission. To Michael, it was a good idea… but only for a couple of days. He's too insecure, and maybe too paranoid, to allow such a situation to exist very long. It was Bill Bray who had a talk with Michael about the property, stoking the fires. ‘Man, you don't own this place, they do,’ said Bill, being completely unreasonable and naive. ‘You need to check this out, Michael. What's gonna happen if they decide to kick your ass out. What'chu gonna do then, Michael? Huh?’

  The next day, Michael called Marshall and demanded to know why he didn't own his own property.

  ‘But you do own it,’ Marshall explained. ‘It's set up as a trust, Michael. It's what you asked for.’

  ‘Well, I don't like it,’ Michael said, curtly. ‘I think it sounds fishy. Change it. I didn't spend all of this time working on this negotiation to now not own the place. It's my house.’

  ‘Fine, we'll terminate the trust,’ Gelfand responded. ‘It's done. Terminated.’

  On 11 April 1988, John Branca and Marshall Gelfand signed individual grant deeds turning over the property to Michael Jackson, thereby dissolving the trust.

  Michael hoped for a serene lifestyle in his new, palatial estate. He said he needed space, a place to think, time off after the Bad tour. However, his family now felt that he'd distanced himself from them geographically, as well as emotionally. As much as they missed him, they were also worried about their futures without him. What could the Jacksons do without Michael? Not much. Joseph, Katherine and the brothers were thinking about another reunion tour, and it would only be a matter of time before they approached Michael with the idea. As it would happen, the Victory tour fiasco of 1984 would pale in comparison to what they now had in mind. However, this time Michael would not be quite as accommodating.

  PART EIGHT

  Enter the Moonies

  In the spring of 1988, Jerome Howard, the thirty-five-year-old president of business affairs for Joseph and Katherine Jackson's many entertainment corporations, received a telephone call from someone named Kenneth Choi, a Korean businessman who desperately wanted to arrange a meeting with Joseph. Kenneth, who had already been booted out of Michael Jackson's office – as well as the offices of his accountant, Marshall Gelfand, and attorney, John Branca – told Jerome that he was from a wealthy family interested in spending millions to organize and promote a Jackson family concert tour in Korea. Realizing, of course, that just such a reunion was always on Joseph's and Katherine's minds, Jerome arranged a meeting between Kenneth and Joseph.

  ‘Millions of dollars were offered at that meeting,’ Jerome remembered. ‘The guy was talking ten to fifteen million. Whatever it would take to get the Jackson brothers to come together for these concerts, that's what he and his family wanted to spend. Joseph was excited. Choi invited us to go to Korea to check things out. We didn't know what was happening; all we knew was that the guy had a lot of money – and he wanted to give it to us.’

  Joseph, Katherine, Jerome and Kenneth took a four-day trip to Korea, paid for by Kenneth. They were wined and dined and introduced to several wealthy and influential business people, celebrities and politicians. They also met a gentleman who could not speak English, named ‘Mr Lee', who was introduced as Choi's brother. They were told that Lee, who owned a shipping company, would be the primary backer of the proposed Jacksons concerts, along with the Segye Times, a Korean newspaper. Through his interpreter-secretary, Mr Lee said that if the concerts were successfully organized, he would also invest two million dollars in a record company for Joseph. Of course, Joseph was intrigued and eager to move forward with the deal.

  ‘These people knew the strengths and weaknesses of the Jackson family,’ Jerome Howard recalled. ‘They knew that Joseph was interested in getting money for his company, and for himself. They understood that Katherine's interest was for her family. She wanted to make money for her children. They seemed to know everything about the Jacksons, and they knew how to play all the angles.’

  In the course of meetings, Jerome soon discovered that the Segye Times is owned by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church. The so-called Moonies, as it turned out, were actually to be the ones primarily backing the tour.

  Although many people have joked over the years about being hassled for small change by young Moonies in airports, Moon's followers have actually raised a lot of money, which Moon has invested in a number of diversified enterprises, including banks, restaurants, fisheries and the media. However, the Unification Church has been a lightning rod for controversy: Christian fundamentalist groups have charged that the Church is not Christian; liberal groups have accused them of being too right-wing; parents have hired deprogrammers to kidnap their children who are living in Moonie compounds. Although membership has rapidly declined, the Unification Church is still wealthy.

  What Moon craved most for his church was respectability. If he could align himself with Michael Jackson (the biggest-selling and most clean-cut pop artist of all time) and the Jackson family (still perceived by many as being one of the most wholesome families in the United States), Moon would benefit, greatly. The price would be high, but the prestige would be well worth the cost.

  When Jerome told Joseph and Katherine that the Reverend Sun Myung Moon was involved in the proposed Jackson deal, Joseph was fascinated; he had heard that Moon was wealthy. However, Katherine was upset. ‘I don't want to have anything to do with anything religious,’ she said. ‘Business is business, but I don't even want to know anything about the religious ties.’ Katherine did not tell Jerome to stop the negotiations. She just didn't want to know the details.

  From the beginning, Jerome was suspicious of the people working on Moon's behalf. ‘They always spoke Korean behind your back,’ he said. ‘They'd say something in English and then turn to someone and say something in Korean, and who knows what they were saying? I worried that we were missing out on important information. It would be my job to protect the Jacksons as best I could in these sorts of circumstances.’

  It was a job Jerome often performed admirably. At about this time, Katherine and Joseph purchased a six-bedroom house in Las Vegas, Nevada, where they eventually plan to retire. The house was being offered for $570,000. The Jacksons brough
t Jerome Howard to Las Vegas with them to negotiate a deal. Before they went to meet the sellers, Jerome told Katherine and Joseph to strip off all their jewellery – probably a quarter of a million dollars' worth – and put it in the glove compartment of the car. Then, Jerome brought them into the home to meet the owners. Katherine and Joseph acted like ‘everyday folks’, never mentioned their famous history, and must have done a fairly convincing job of acting because, in the end, they bought the house for only $292,000.

  Of the cost of the home, $200,000 came from money that Michael had given Katherine. She then mortgaged the balance.

  A month after their first visit to Korea, Joseph, Katherine, Rebbie and Jerome returned for more meetings. They attended a meeting with a Reverend Dr Chung Hwan Kwak, president of the Segye Times. A large, framed picture of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon hung in his office; Katherine tried to ignore it. Kwak told Jerome to put together a proposal, ‘“and whatever my son wants to do, we'll do it.” He kept saying “my son” throughout the whole meeting, and we were under the impression that Choi was his son [he wasn't],’ Howard recalled. Kwak may of course have meant the reference in a spiritual, rather than strictly familial, way.

  Katherine and Joseph then met privately with Reverend Kwak in their suite. They had a sumptuous breakfast and exchanged gifts; Katherine gave him autographed pictures of her family members. After that meeting, Katherine and Joseph went shopping in Etaewon with a tour guide, all to keep them busy while Jerome started talking ‘real business’.

  Working with Kwak's special assistant David Hose, Jerome Howard began structuring a deal at the Ambassador Hotel. Joseph, Katherine and Jerome agreed that the way to structure it was to make the Moonies the sponsors of the show and Katherine and Joseph the promoters. Katherine and Joseph would establish a company for this purpose, which they would call Jackson Family Concerts International. Reverend Kwak's representatives then took what Jerome had outlined, left the hotel, and brought the papers to their lawyers. They returned three and a half hours later.