The strategy had been to drive Michael directly to Charter Nightingale Clinic. However, that plan had to be changed when it was learned that reporters had begun to stake out the hospital because word had leaked that Michael might be showing up there. Instead, Michael was whisked off to the home of Elton John’s manager, John Reid.
He didn’t even make it inside the house. As he stepped from the van, he crumpled on to the ground. ‘That’s it,’ Elizabeth decided. ‘The press be damned. He has to go straight to the clinic. Now.’
In a matter of hours, Michael was at the Charter, taken in through the laundry entrance in what turned out to be a successful effort to avoid the paparazzi awaiting his arrival in front. He was immediately searched for drugs and, sure enough, eighteen vials of medicine were found in one of his suitcases. Of course, they were confiscated. After a quick induction meeting, Michael was officially enrolled in the centre – albeit in a way befitting the King of Pop: he took over the entire fourth floor of the hospital, at fifty thousand dollars a week, and was expected to remain there for about a month and a half. Michael was immediately put on Valium IV, part of the process of weaning him from painkillers.
The next day, 13 November, Michael announced in a press statement that he was cancelling the remainder of the tour because he was now an addict. He explained that he had begun using painkillers seven months earlier after having undergone reconstructive surgery for a scalp burn suffered during the filming of the Pepsi commercial in 1984. ‘The medications were used sparingly at first,’ Michael said, but increased as the molestation allegations consumed him.
‘As I left on this tour, I had been the target of an extortion attempt and shortly thereafter was accused of horrifying and outrageous conduct. I was humiliated, embarrassed, hurt and suffering great pain in my heart,’ he said in the statement. ‘The pressure resulting from these false allegations coupled with the incredible energy necessary for me to perform caused me so much distress that it left me physically and emotionally exhausted. I became dependent on the painkillers to get through the days of the tour.’ Of Elizabeth Taylor, he said that she’d been ‘a source of strength and counsel as this crisis came about. I shall never forget her unconditional love and encouragement in helping me through this period.’
Many observers felt that the drug addiction was a perfectly timed hoax designed solely to keep Michael away from the United States and, thus, allow him to evade prosecution. Bert Fields addressed the cynicism directly, saying, ‘The last thing in the world he would want would be the humiliation of admitting that he has become an addict. He’s a man who has hated drugs all his life. If we wanted a smoke screen,’ allowed Bert, ‘we would have stayed on tour. That was the perfect one.’ Bert also told reporters that Michael was ‘barely able to function adequately on an intellectual level.’
Others in Jackson’s camp thought it a mistake to portray Michael as being out of control. John Branca would later send a news clipping to Michael quoting Bert as having made such a statement. Michael was angry about it, even if it was true. ‘That pisses me off,’ he told John. ‘Bert’s not thinking about my fans. How does that look to them? And my mother? How must she feel?’ In his own defence, Bert explained, ‘I felt that honesty was important. Larry [Feldman] was trying to make a case that Michael wanted to evade prosecution. I wanted to dispel that notion.’
It was true that Larry Feldman had encouraged the critical press to be sceptical of Michael’s motives in cancelling the tour, particularly because it happened just prior to its Puerto Rico date. It was suspicious. Puerto Rico is a United States territory. Michael could have been arrested there under United States law. All of this was occurring against a backdrop of persistent news reports that Jordie Chandler had described Michael’s genitals in detail, and the authorities were serious about having Michael stripped and photographed so that they could inspect hidden evidence. ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ exclaimed Howard Weitzman when asked about it at a press conference.
Meanwhile, Michael got his first taste of much-needed counselling.
Rehabilitation is never easy, but it’s even more challenging for people who have lived privileged lives. During his first night there, he roamed the halls asking other patients if they knew ‘a secret way to get out of here’. He didn’t want to listen to the authorities. No one told him what to do in his private world, and he expected that it would be the same at Charter. It wasn’t. Soon, he found himself mopping floors, which he hadn’t done since he lived in Gary.
In the days to come, group therapy also proved to be difficult. Michael had never been in any type of therapy programme. How could he now be expected to sit in a room full of strangers and be candid about his personal life?
Led by well-known therapist Beechy Colclough, Michael’s private sessions were more intense and productive than the group ones, during which he hardly spoke for fear that someone there might go to the tabloids. It was during private sessions, according to someone still close to Michael, that he began to finally deal with the root of so many of his problems: his anger at Joseph. It was a fine line, though, between blaming his father for everything that had ever happened in his life and taking responsibility for some of it, himself. In the past, Michael had never been one to own up to his actions, always intent on blaming family members, the press and even his fans for actions that have caused him unhappiness.
‘In therapy, he began to see that he was his own worst enemy,’ said his associate. ‘It was slow-going, though. He was not eager to accept that he could change his life if he would just change his mind about it. Old habits die hard. He was determined to dwell on his lost childhood, on how mean Joseph had been to him, how cruel Evan had been to him. He practically equated them as one and the same.’
After many hours of therapy at Charter, it seemed as if Michael had a sudden rush of clarity. ‘It’s me,’ he told his associate. ‘It’s not Joseph. It’s me. Not Evan. I’m the one who blew it, and I need to start over again. I want another chance.’
‘You can have it, Michael,’ said his associate.
‘I deserve it,’ Michael said, crying. ‘Do you still believe I am innocent?’
‘I do.’
Michael didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then, finally: ‘When I get out of here, I’m starting over. Let’s end this thing with Evan. I want my life back.’ He always referred to the molestation business as a matter having to do with Evan Chandler because, in his mind, Jordie could never have truly been behind what he viewed as a nefarious plot against him.
*
Back in the States on 23 November, Bert Fields made what some thought was another serious blunder when, while standing in front of a judge and arguing the motion to have Michael’s civil case delayed to the year 2000 – the year the criminal statute of limitations would expire – he indicated that a Grand Jury was about to convene in Santa Barbara, and that a criminal indictment against Michael was imminent. Though Bert claimed that he got his information from Howard Weitzman, it was news to everyone in Jackson’s camp that an indictment was ‘imminent’. Bert’s reason for making the statement, as he later explained, was that he felt the civil suit should be delayed so that any impending criminal case could be tried first. He wanted to prevent information obtained for the criminal case from being used against Jackson in the civil suit. He was being a good lawyer. However, the strategy did serve to make Michael look as if he was trying to evade responsibility, at least in the eyes of the suspicious public and cynical media.
Immediately afterwards, Howard Weitzman attempted to deflect Bert Fields’ comments. With a chagrined-looking Bert standing next to him, Howard said that Bert had ‘misspoke himself’. No Grand Jury was convening at that moment; no indictment was ‘imminent’. Who knows what kind of behind-the-scenes battles the two attorneys were having, but there was obviously a communication problem between them, one that served to make Michael look like he was trying to weasel out of the civil trial.
‘I don’t want to start
more trouble,’ John Branca told Michael, according to his memory. ‘But you know that people here think you’re trying to delay the trial for six years?’
‘Six years? What are you talking about, Branca?’ Michael wanted to know. ‘I don’t want to delay the trial, not even a day.’
John explained to Michael what happened in Los Angeles between the other two attorneys. ‘No way, Branca,’ Michael said of Bert’s strategy. ‘That’s not what I want. I’m not guilty. I want this over with.’ He was angry. ‘What’s Bert doing? No wonder everyone thinks I’m running scared.’
Later that same day, Michael came up with a pretty good line when talking to another associate on the telephone: ‘I got a ship of fools representing me, and we’re all going down.’
The issue of postponing Jackson’s trial, as it happened, would be a moot one. The judge denied Bert Fields’ petition, setting a trial date for 21 March.
Then, in a few weeks, a Santa Barbara Grand Jury did begin hearing witnesses, so Bert Fields hadn’t been completely wrong. Furious with Howard Weitzman for making him look foolish, Bert resigned from the case, later calling the change of events ‘an outrage. It was a nightmare and I wanted to get the hell out of it as soon as possible.’
At the same time, Anthony Pellicano, who had tired of the flak he had received for his aggressive tactics, resigned.
When Michael heard about all of the upheaval on his team, he telephoned Elizabeth Taylor to tell her that he was ‘surrounded by people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing.’ He had lost all hope, he said, according to what Elizabeth later recalled to one of Jackson’s attorneys. ‘He’s threatening to kill himself,’ she said, dramatically. ‘And if he does, his blood will be on all of our hands.’
‘Well, we’re doing all we can do,’ said one of Michael’s advisers. ‘What else can we do?’
‘We can pray,’ answered Elizabeth Taylor. ‘At this point, I think that’s about it.’
It was soon suggested that Michael Jackson wasn’t being treated like the other patients at Charter when, after just a few days, he was granted permission to move his rehabilitation to the bucolic home of Elton John’s manager, John Reid. Shortly thereafter, he was seen at Manor Farm, the estate of seventy-year-old British banking mogul Jack Dellal, a friend of Beechy Colclough. Hopefully, he was still getting his fifty thousand dollars a week’s worth of mental health assistance. To a lot of people, including Elizabeth Taylor – who has had hardcore rehabilitation in her lifetime – it appeared that Michael was having some kind of ‘quick fix’. Surely, it would take more than a few days, even a few months, for Michael to deal with so many years of dysfunction. All his friends could do was hope that he was on his way to being able to at least partially understand himself and his choices.
However, the fact that Michael was still doing business during this time was disconcerting. In fact, a big deal was struck while he was supposed to be in rehabilitation. He consulted with John Branca on the biggest music publishing agreement in history: one hundred and fifty million dollars with EMI to administer his ATV catalogue. John faxed the agreement to him at John Reid’s. Upon signing it, seventy million dollars was deposited into Michael’s bank account. ‘The deal was already negotiated,’ John later explained. ‘A couple of phone calls to Michael for some fine-tuning. It wasn’t much of a distraction, believe me, or I wouldn’t have even called him. He was okay with it. It was good for him to know that things were going forward, that his life was far from over.’
Indeed, despite the turmoil in his life, Michael was still making money, and a great deal of it. Dangerous had thus far sold twenty million copies worldwide. In the UK, the record had debuted at the number one position. Propelled by a hit single, ‘Black and White’, and an accompanying controversial video (where Michael takes out his anger on an automobile, seems to pleasure himself with his own gyrating dancing, and then transforms into a panther), it was the fastest-selling number one album of all time in the UK, and remained on the charts for ninety-six weeks, a performance only exceeded in America. ‘His past royalties were huge, especially for Thriller, and his residuals from The Beatles’ catalogue, his stocks and other investments,’ noted one advisor. ‘The kid had plenty of money, millions.’ One point was clear, however: he was determined not to give any of his money to Evan Chandler, despite whatever strategy his legal team had been considering with Johnnie Cochran, and despite his own determination that the matter be settled. An associate who was with him at Dellal’s home recalled having asked him about a possible settlement the morning after the ATV deal was final. ‘I said, “Mike, you can give up twenty million dollars of the new ATV money,”’ he remembered. ‘“It’s found money, anyway. For twenty million dollars, the whole Chandler thing can go away.”
‘“No way,” he told me. “I want it settled, yeah, but with apologies all around, some kind of press release, whatever. I don’t care. All I know is I’m not giving anyone a single dollar. I’m not pissing away my money on this lie. Forget it.”
‘His eyes were blazing. He insisted that he didn’t do anything wrong, and he wasn’t going to pay money to settle it. “I never touched that kid,” he told me, “and that’s the end of it. Believe what you want. See if I care.”
‘I said, “Mike, I believe you, of course.” He looked at me angrily and said, “Yeah, right. Sure you do.”’
Michael Stands Naked
On 10 December 1993, Michael Jackson returned to the United States after having been discharged from Charter clinic. Of course, he didn’t simply hop on a commercial airline to cross the ocean. Rather, he flew back to the States in a private 727 owned by the Sultan of Brunei, said to be the wealthiest man in the world and an admirer of Michael’s.
When Michael disembarked in Santa Barbara, he looked healthier than he had in recent months while wearing a red hat and matching silk shirt, black slacks and… surgical mask. He also had two youngsters with him, Eddie and Frank Cascio, from New Jersey, who had been travelling with him on his tour. Eddie was about ten; Frank fourteen.
Michael had befriended the Cascios about ten years earlier; their father, Dominic was the manager of New York’s Helmsley Palace Hotel. Michael asked to meet the boys after seeing a picture of them on the wall of Dominic’s office; they were just babies at the time.
Dominic accompanied his children on their 1993 travels with Michael; Michael was not alone with them. However, such chaperoning was not the impression given the media since Dominic was nowhere in sight when Michael made well-publicized appearances with the boys. They had even gone to Elizabeth Taylor’s Swiss chalet in Gstaad (in September) and been photographed all over the small village, looking for toy stores, all three wearing large sunglasses, Michael in a big hat with surgical mask.
Eddie and Frank are in their twenties today, and are still good friends of Michael’s. In court papers connected to one of the many suits filed against Michael in recent years, one by a business manager, Myung Ho Lee, states that Michael once loaned Dominic Cascio $600,000 to start a restaurant in New Jersey. However, the restaurant was never opened. Today, Frank Cascio goes by the name Frank Tyson, and is one of Michael’s most trusted assistants.
Some in his camp had serious reservations about Michael continuing to be seen in the company of children at such a critical time in his life. Was he still so out of touch he didn’t realize how inappropriate, not to mention dangerous, such behaviour was? Or, as one adviser put it, ‘I guess the therapy thing didn’t take, did it?’
Michael could not be swayed from continuing his friendships with children publicly. In fact, after being in therapy at Charter, Michael was more emboldened to live his life on his own terms, rather than consider any restrictions.
‘Look, I almost died,’ he told one associate. ‘Do you know how close I was? Now that I am past it, no way am I not going to do what I want to do, when I want to do it and how. It’s plain and simple,’ Michael concluded, ‘and anyone who doesn’t like it can just go to hell.’
Others have argued that Michael’s insistence that he be seen in the company of young boys demonstrates a consciousness of innocence on his part. If he had been guilty of the crime for which he had been accused, would he continue to flaunt his relationships with youngsters?
The bottom line is that Michael has done whatever he has wanted to do for most of his life, living in a world of privilege and entitlement simply because he is who he is. He has never understood the notion of ‘appropriate behaviour’ because, in truth, he’s never had any reason to live appropriately. It’s a strange commentary on celebrity and fame that the public’s perception of Michael as being bizarre has had its advantages. After all, how can he be judged by normal, common-sense standards when he’s ‘Wacko-Jacko’?
Michael Jackson Page 60