For as long as I knew Michael Jackson, the concept of working within a budget to create his art did not exist. Michael spent whatever it took on his projects without a thought or a care. Expensive recording costs for another artist might run a million dollars an album. Michael’s albums could actually cost up to $40 million to record. The industry standard for a video was roughly $200,000 at the time. Michael’s short films—again, he would correct you if you used the word video—would easily run to several million. Dave Glew would put a million-dollar cap on these film expenditures, but it didn’t faze Michael. He’d take out advances on the overages and be on the hook for the money himself. His feeling was, I’ll get it back when the CDs sell.
The ability to maintain a peak over time, whether it’s in art, fashion, sports, or music, is for the most part impossible. So it becomes what those next levels and plateaus are going to be and how you’re going to hold on to them. You can maintain your superstar status, you can certainly be a bigger celebrity, you can continue to work at a high standard of art, but there will always come a drop-off in sales over enough time.
Not only did Michael Jackson refuse to acknowledge that drop-off, but he challenged it in the most audacious way that he could. After the molestation charges were settled, Michael prepared a comeback album that he hoped would sell a hundred million. It was a two-CD set released in the middle of 1995 called HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I.
The costs to produce it were astronomical because he’d rent out entire studios when he recorded, and he’d have producers in six recording studios around the world working simultaneously. We did our best to suggest all the hottest new producers to keep his music current. But when things are that diffused, it’s always hard to keep the core focused.
There was no question that a lot of the music on HIStory reflected the recent turmoil in his life.
His inner voice was speaking. Artists express their inner selves all the time—on pain, love, conflict, life, society—and we were never judgmental about what they were trying to say. We judged the music in two ways: Is that a good song? And will it be commercial?
One of the CDs in the double set contained Michael’s handpicked favorite hits. His loyal followers were sure to be happy with this bonus. But it was the new material on the other CD that would inevitably drive the sales. The new music included a song that he sang with his sister Janet, called “Scream.” Maybe the best window into how Michael was feeling at the time is a look back at the “Scream” video—which cost $7 million to produce. The lyrics “Stop pressurin’ me! Stop pressurin’ me! Stop pressurin’ me!” say it all. Along with images of glass roofs crashing down around Michael.
There was also a rendition of the Charlie Chaplin masterpiece, “Smile,” included on the new material, which was one of the most beautiful vocal performances I’d ever heard in my career. The song, all about pushing through pain with a smile, is touching and emotional, and I’d go as far as to call what Michael did with it perfection. Amid all the chaos within and around him, you couldn’t help but feel for Michael. Especially knowing that underneath everything he went through he was really a good guy.
But he was also one of the most complicated people I ever met, and his need to be adored at this point knew no bounds. The full teaser for the album that ran in movie theaters before films featured what looked like a ten-thousand-man Eastern European military march led by Michael in full regalia with his signature white glove—to the adoring screams of children. It was filmed in Budapest and led to the unveiling of what looked to be a five-hundred-foot statue of Michael. This teaser was wild and spectacular, and must’ve cost another $5 million. But even with all that grandiosity, if the overall music is not there from top to bottom, then the release is going to have problems.
We did everything we could to promote HIStory. We must’ve put ten times the marketing emphasis into it that went into Thriller—something like $30 million. From our view, the album did good numbers and great business—selling 20 million, making it the top double album ever sold. In the end, though, from Michael’s point of view, the numbers were slipping even further away from Thriller. His subsequent HIStory tour did phenomenal business. There were eighty-two concerts around the world that altogether drew between four and five million people. But, again, the show was so over the top with backup singers, special effects, a massive crew, a convoy of trucks, elaborate stages that needed to be shipped from city to city, and huge statues of Michael that popped up all over the world near concert sites that it had to severely cut into Michael’s profits. He was simply addicted to Number One hits and roaring crowds, and he didn’t care what he had to pay to get them. Again, no one would say no.
Six months after the release of HIStory, Mel Ilberman helped bring about what everyone saw as a great deal. Michael had paid $47.5 million in 1985 for the ATV Music catalog that contained most of the Beatles’ music up until the time of the split between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Sony, as I’ve already mentioned, had foolishly sold its own catalog just before I’d arrived. We crafted a deal a few months after HIStory was released in which Sony paid $90 million to Michael to merge our catalog with Michael’s ATV catalog.
It was a great deal for Michael. He basically had given up control of only half the catalog in exchange for twice the money that he’d paid for it. Plus, the way Sony/ATV would market the overall catalog, it would be highly profitable and in Michael’s best interests over the long run. Further, Michael as a partner would participate in Sony’s publishing interests. If Michael had been only a businessman, it would have been a dynamite win-win for everyone.
The only problem was the deal connected Sony and Michael at the hip at a time when Michael the artist was in decline and would spend any amount of money to prove that he wasn’t.
Mariah and I headed to Los Angeles in February 1996 for the Grammy Awards looking forward to a huge night. She had been nominated in six categories based on the success of her Daydream album, which was the most nominations she’d ever received in one year and, of course, you never know how these things will turn out, but we all figured she had a big chance to win at least three, including Album of the Year.
We couldn’t have had a better setup strategy. We arranged with Ken Ehrlich, the producer of the Grammys, to have Mariah and Boyz II Men open the show at Shrine Auditorium with “One Sweet Day.” A poll in Rolling Stone would call their collaboration the best of all time, and it was deeply moving that night, as it always was, because the inspiration, the lyrics, and the “see you in heaven” message were so personal, encapsulating Mariah’s feelings following the loss of one of her producers, David Cole, and also what the death of a road manager meant to Boyz II Men. When you pull off an opening to a show like that, all eyes and ears are on you for the rest of the night. “One Sweet Day” had broken Elvis’s and the Beatles’ records when it remained Number One on the charts for sixteen straight weeks. Of the six nominations, Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals seemed to be a slam dunk.
But when the award came up we didn’t hear Mariah or Boyz II Men called to the podium. The award was given to a traditional Irish band that had been playing for more than three decades, the Chieftains, along with Van Morrison, for “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?”
It was a wonderful song, and let’s face it, there’s no definitive way to say that one beautiful song deserves an award over another beautiful song in the first place. But it’s always kind of a kick in the stomach when you don’t win, especially when you’re that heavily invested. I stayed cool. “Okay, so you didn’t get this one,” I told Mariah. “You’ve got a lot more categories to go.”
Mariah was also invested big-time in “Fantasy.” In her mind it was the song that firmly established what she wanted more than anything—hip-hop credibility—and it was up for an award in the Pop Vocal category. This time we watched Annie Lennox get called to the stage for “No More I Love You’s.”
There are times at the Oscars when a big box-office hit
is beaten out by a small independent film. People love to get behind the underdog. But it seemed to me that there was something else going on here. I began to wonder if this was a clear signal of what the night was going to become—a backlash to Mariah’s success from the same Grammy organization that had lifted her to the podium twice on her first album.
To understand why I felt that way, it’s important to know exactly who votes for the Grammys. Ballots are cast by members of NARAS—the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences—and that certainly sounds impartial. But the fact is, the voters are anything but objective. It’s just the opposite. The voters are artists, producers, songwriters, and A&R execs who are in constant and intense competition with one another. They all want to have their creativity recognized, as well as higher chart positions and bigger sales.
The people who voted for the awards presented that night seemed to be sending a message that said: We can lift you up, but don’t forget, Ms. Pop Princess, when you get too big we also have the power to bring you down. We want some of these opportunities back. We’re not going to give it all to you. You get everything all the time. We’re going to give it to other people now.
Third category: nothing. Fourth category: nothing. Fifth category: nothing. I could feel Mariah bristling beside me. I felt like ducking under my seat each time the winners were announced and the cameras panned on our faces to see our reactions. I was later told that my face looked more concerned with each loss. Deep down I knew that somehow I was going to get blamed for this, even though it had nothing to do with me. How else could Mariah possibly perceive what was happening? In her mind, the result had to be a backlash against the big machine that was propelling her to number one. And who was the face of that big machine? The guy sitting right next to her.
The award for Album of the Year went to Alanis Morissette for Jagged Little Pill. That was certainly a great album and anybody could make a case that it deserved the award. Alanis was the newcomer that year and she stole the show with four Grammys. Her success was the headline of the evening—along with MARIAH CAREY SHUT OUT.
Mariah internalized her humiliation and her anger as we returned to the Beverly Hills Hotel. You could hear the crack between us creaking open a little wider on a night that I was hoping would allow us to look back on all the good times that had brought us this far. Fat chance of that!
Instead, we quietly drove to the Sony Grammy after party where the awkwardness continued. Sony had seven winners in all. Our company was soaring and a big celebration was in order. But simultaneously I quietly asked one of the technical guys to remove the replay of the Grammy TV broadcast on the monitors around the party and replace it with videos of our artists to avoid incensing Mariah. Can you believe this? You can’t make this stuff up. But I really did feel terrible for her.
If she had won four or five Grammys, the night might have put a Band-Aid over the deeper issues in our relationship. But getting shut out created a much different dynamic. Tension was inside both of us and things were not good when we arrived home. Even a simple word that I considered a compliment would set her off into fireworks. A Columbia Records executive had been quoted in the media as calling Mariah a “franchise.” He said it in the most complimentary context—meaning that she was an enormous star who was loved in every part of the world. But that wasn’t the way Mariah took that word. “You guys are not letting me be me,” she said. “You’re trying to make me into a franchise. What do you think I am, McDonald’s?”
She came up with a line that was even better than her Connie Francis crack about the Christmas album and sometimes, when in her circle of friends, she would laugh and call the house in Bedford… Sing Sing. As if the mansion had become a prison, and she’d been forced to sing… sing… sing… sing… in the recording studio that she herself designed and built with everything she wanted in it. She was constantly writing and producing new songs and always loved to record them in that studio. So when I first heard about Sing Sing, I laughed myself. Just as I did when she told me she would be seen like Connie Francis because of the Christmas album.
It was as if all the encouragement and direction that had been given to Mariah by me and everyone around her at Sony and helped create this enormous success made her feel like a bird in a cage. The little girl who was raised with no guidance, direction, or constraints was now feeling totally shackled by the responsibility of her success. Even her assistants took on an attitude. “We’re going on a trip,” one said, “and Sony’s not coming.”
Look, here’s the reality. The people in her entourage began to spin stories that Mariah was locked in with security guards all around her when the truth is that so many nights while I was at home sleeping, preparing for my next twenty-hour day, she was hanging out at clubs and coming back at daybreak. Mistrust, and my anxiety, was mounting. There was no winning. No matter how you choose to see it, no matter how many good intentions I had, it was a lose-lose.
It’s hard enough to deal with a crumbling relationship, but when it reaches the media it shifts to a whole new level. And, of course, just at this time, Vanity Fair magazine requested to do a profile of me. The story was going to be done with or without my cooperation, so I knew going in that it was probably going to be a hatchet job. But there could be no denying the success that Sony Music was having. Six of the top ten singles and albums in the United States came from Sony artists—and I agreed to cooperate and let the writer, Robert Sam Anson, in the door, figuring that no matter how many shots the writer would take at me, at least the truth would resonate in some of my own words. Of course, he twisted everything I said to fit the story he wanted to write.
I was eager to talk about the roll that the company was on, but “Son of Sam” Anson seemed to have a very different agenda. He wanted to dig up dirt about the conflicts Mariah and I were having. And worse, every other question seemed to be filled with ethnic innuendo. My radar realized something was really up when the photographer asked me to pose at my desk with the blinds lowered. He said it would look terrific and have a great contrast. The photographer was well known, accomplished, and had credibility, so I went along with it. But then I called up the magazine’s editor, Graydon Carter, and asked him what exactly was going on. “You’re a Runyonesque character,” he said. “What are you worried about? It’s going to turn out great.”
I should have listened to my instincts, because in the end the photograph was designed to make me look like some sinister don, and the story made it sound like I’d make sure that decapitated horse heads would show up in the bedsheets of anyone who’d ever cross me.
Yes, I once spilled a drink on an asshole’s head. He deserved it. And to this day I’m still embarrassed about it. But if you want to talk about ethnic slurs, this magazine story was the epitome. And I had no Al Sharpton standing next to me to yell character assassination.
Look, I can take a hit. I took plenty of them. But when the writer misrepresented my father, for supposedly associating with “unusual businessmen,” it gave me particular offense. My father was one of the sweetest, kindest family men who ever lived, and all he ever did in his entire life was work to build his business and support that family. The story was pages and pages of flaming dogshit that someone placed on the steps of my front door, just before ringing the doorbell and running away. And I’m not joking when I say “running away,” because years later I saw the writer at a supermarket in Sag Harbor and when he saw my face this pathetic pussy broke an Olympic record heading straight out the door.
But one of the most hurtful parts of this story came afterward when Mariah never really commented on it, and it was obvious that her entourage actually participated in it. I ran through walls for Mariah, especially to protect her in so many situations like this. But, hey, if you’re not happy…
As I reflect now, I can certainly understand how things must’ve felt so overwhelming to her, especially coming into this relationship from a place without rules or regulations and entering a world that planted both ou
r feet all the way down on the gas pedal with the needle pinned to one hundred miles-an-hour day in and day out. Navigating through this hurricane of responsibilities—with experienced people in every part of her life constantly making quick-fire decisions, and everyone around her suggesting and telling her what to do—could’ve been overwhelming and actually made her feel like she’d lost control of her life. If it seemed like I was controlling, let me apologize again. Was I obsessive? Yes. But that was also part of the reason for her success. Her success and my success. If you’re not controlling things when you’re running a company with four hundred artists and fourteen thousand employees, you’re not going to be successful—or on the job very long. The problem was that I was the chairman of Sony and her husband at the same time.
She grew resentful. I was the person there in the morning. I was the person there in the evening. The resentment landed on me. Things got more difficult and tense by the day. One morning, before I left for work, I wrote a little note to her and left it on the night table. It was from the lyrics written by Bernie Taupin for a song by Elton John called “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.”
Butterflies are free to fly…
Fly away…
Weeks later we were separated, and that separation ultimately led to divorce, and the sale of the fairy-tale home. There were so many deep feelings involved on both of our parts. But in the end, the fairy tale ended like no other fairy tale before it. Years after it was sold, the home literally caught fire and burned to the ground.
I tried to never let the difficulties in my personal life affect my work. But it certainly was not an easy time. The newspaper was a daily reminder, the gossip pages filled with reports of Mariah out clubbing till 5 a.m. around town and hanging with some ballplayers. I threw myself into my work more intensely than ever before. I don’t know if it was irony or coincidence, but it was around this time that a song came to my attention that I knew would have a huge impact: “My Heart Will Go On.”
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