Untouchable

by Randall Sullivan

  Katherine Jackson was resisting the idea of a Neverland burial. As it dawned on her that she held all the real power in the Jackson family, Mrs. Jackson seemed to be finding the voice that had been shouted down by Joe for so many years, and her character was shining through. Michael had never gone back to the ranch after leaving it in 2005, his mother pointed out, and associated Santa Barbara County mostly with humiliation and pain. And the suggestion by his brothers that Michael’s body should be driven through the streets in an open coffin, so that mourners could throw flowers, just as they had for Princess Diana, was “ghoulish,” Katherine said. Rebbie and Janet, the next two most influential family members, agreed that Michael’s funeral should not turn into “the Jackson Four’s greatest performance,” as Frank Dileo described the brothers’ plan. The scales tipped further when Michael’s favorite nephew, Tito’s son Taj Jackson, phoned Katherine to say that putting his Uncle Mike at Neverland was the wrong thing to do. All the magic of the place had been destroyed for Michael after the police raid in 2003, Taj said, and Katherine agreed. Michael would be laid to rest somewhere else.

  Even after Neverland was rejected, the family spent another two months deciding how and where to arrange Michael’s burial. As fans and family debated the subject, on the Internet and in the privacy of the Hayvenhurst compound, the subject of Michael’s spirituality percolated into a meandering yet intense undercurrent of the conversation. What was the fitting ceremony for someone who meant so many different things to so many different people? All three of the major monotheistic faiths made claims upon him, but Michael had not only worshiped as a Christian, a Jew, and a Muslim, he had also persistently dabbled in witchcraft, regularly retaining sorcerers and shamans whose rituals were rooted in the polytheistic Yoruba faith that originated in what is today Nigeria. Michael Jackson, his former confidant Uri Geller explained, “believed in it all,” from ghosts and séances to Jungian archetypes and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. His reach across all boundaries of belief had echoed especially loudly in the international response to his death. “For us, this is a very great loss,” a young Russian fan standing outside the U.S. embassy in Moscow had told the state news agency Novosti. “To us, he became a symbol of the spiritual world. It’s hard to convey how great a loss this is.” Some of his countless “spiritual advisors,” Deepak Chopra and Rabbi Boteach among them, saw it as tragic that, above all else, Michael believed in “magic,” and that enduring fame was the greatest proof of who possessed it. During his regular stays at Geller’s London home during the 1990s, Michael had insisted upon taking time each day to pray or meditate in the family room, where one of the main features was a large wooden sculpture of Elvis Presley holding a guitar. “Michael liked to sit near it,” Geller remembered. Perhaps his most enduring memory of Michael, Geller said, had come one day when he paused in the doorway after dimming the lights in the family room, so that he could observe his friend undetected. “I saw Michael lift up his right hand and hold Elvis Presley’s hand, with his head bowed,” Geller recalled. “That was how he prayed.”

  It was Katherine Jackson, of course, who would have the final say about how and where the star was laid to rest, and Mrs. Jackson insisted that her son had remained a Christian. Little more than a week after Michael’s death, Katherine advised the family that Michael’s coffin would join those of the other great stars in the Great Mausoleum of Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Glendale not far north of the “Hollywood” sign. Mrs. Jackson had instructed Michael’s brother Randy to find a place where Michael’s grave would not be disturbed by either overzealous fans or paparazzi ghouls, and Randy had reported back that Forest Lawn was the one graveyard in all of Southern California where the security was sufficient to protect a celebrity corpse of even Michael Jackson’s stature. Keyed entries and armed guards preserved the peace amid the private sanctuaries of Forest Lawn’s three hundred acres.

  Katherine decided her son should be encrypted in the Great Mausoleum, which was designed in the style of Genoa’s Campo Santo and used such similar elements as blind arches on the outer walls and a main entrance crowned by a Gothic tabernacle. Its marble replicas of Michelangelo’s The Pieta and Moses were full-scale and stunningly precise, but not nearly as impressive as the gigantic (thirty-feet-long-by-fifteen-feet-high) rendition of The Last Supper in which da Vinci’s masterpiece had been reproduced as a luminous stained-glass window.

  Employing the Campo Santo’s building-within-a-building design, the Great Mausoleum was divided into various “terraces” where the tombs of the rich and famous were connected by seemingly endless marble corridors lined with burial drawers. Among the stars whose remains were interred within the Great Mausoleum were Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Stewart, Nat King Cole and Sammy Davis Jr. W. C. Fields was there as well, and so was Michael’s old pal Red Skelton, who had befriended him after the Jackson 5 appeared on the comic’s television variety show. Out back, concealed by a hedge, was an exquisite flower bed where the cremated remains of Michael’s hero Walt Disney had been spread. An adjacent plaque read, “Ashes scattered in paradise.”

  Upon John Branca’s consent, Michael’s mother had decided that his coffin should repose in the most impressive of the remaining crypts in the Great Mausoleum, at the end of the main hallway of Holly Terrace, in an area known as the Sanctuary of Ascension. Framed by three tall stained-glass windows that depicted the Ascension of Christ to Heaven and featuring a marvelously detailed free-standing marble sarcophagus, the Sanctuary of Ascension had remained empty for fifty years, due to its extraordinary cost (more than $600,000 for purchase and maintenance), and was said to be the last truly grand burial place in all of Forest Lawn.

  Michael’s coffin would be a near duplicate of the one in which James Brown had been buried: a solid bronze, gold-plated, blue-velvet-lined “Promethean” model from the Batesville Casket Company. That was Katherine’s decision as well.

  The King of Pop’s body would repose in that Batesville casket for more than nine weeks, however, while fans worldwide awaited his funeral and burial. As the Jacksons bickered amongst themselves over the implementation of various competing projects, Michael’s remains lay largely unattended in the Great Mausoleum’s main hall, directly beneath that magnificent stained-glass reproduction of The Last Supper in the main entrance. Visitors were no longer welcome to view the work in a half-hourly unveiling. The tableau that met the eyes of those few who crept in to sneak a peek—mostly Forest Lawn employees—was at least as true to who Michael Jackson had been and to how he had lived as the Staples Center show that had been viewed by a worldwide audience of more than one billion. Michael had been lonely most of his life. Now, he was truly alone.

  Before the end of July, the family’s fortunes seemed to have been secured by an unexpected deal with Debbie Rowe that gave Katherine permanent custody of Prince, Paris, and Blanket. After word spread that Debbie had hired Eric George, the son of California Supreme Court Justice Ronald George, as her attorney, the debate in the media was entirely between those who believed Rowe would attempt to gain custody of the kids through the courts and those who insisted she would wring an eight-figure settlement from the Jackson Family Trust with the threat of such legal action. Debbie did neither.

  Marc Schaffel served as the “intermediary,” as he described it, in working out the agreement between Katherine Jackson and Debbie that settled the custody question. Convinced that John Branca still bore him enmity over the attorney’s firing in 2003, Schaffel recognized that he would need the Jackson family’s cooperation if he was going to salvage—and profit from—the projects he and Michael had developed together over the years, in particular the “What More Can I Give?” recordings. Demonstrating how effective he could be as a middleman was a way to win a seat at the table, Schaffel hoped. Beyond that, though, Marc was genuinely fond of Katherine Jackson and surprisingly protective of Debbie, given the things she had said about him during Michael’s criminal trial.

  Schaffel’s relationsh
ip with Rowe had been renewed after Michael Jackson’s death by a TMZ report that included confidential footage from his 2003 interview with Debbie for the “rebuttal documentary” broadcast. The portions that had been held back from Fox included materials subject to a joint consent agreement between Schaffel and Rowe. This footage had been seized when the Santa Barbara County sheriff’s office executed a search warrant on Schaffel’s home in Calabasas. All of that material was returned after Michael Jackson’s criminal trial acquittal but somehow TMZ obtained copies and used the portion of the tapes in which Rowe spoke about using sedatives herself. In the interview, Debbie had stated that she used drugs to deal with stage fright, but the TMZ broadcast had tied her remarks to Michael’s apparent death by drug overdose.

  Schaffel and Rowe joined in a demand that the confidential outtakes be removed from TMZ’s report. According to Howard King, TMZ at first replied that it had obtained the footage from a British TV station, then admitted that it had come from the Santa Barbara sheriff’s department, and finally rescinded both claims, insisting its source was confidential and that the inclusion of the Rowe interview in its report fell under “fair use” provisions of the law. Schaffel, joined by Rowe, filed a lawsuit against TMZ that claimed the outtakes had “an estimated value of potentially millions of dollars, the exact amount of which shall be proved at trial,” as King’s moving papers put it.

  Having secured his relationship with Rowe, Schaffel set about persuading Debbie and Katherine Jackson to meet privately without first informing their attorneys. The two got together for a preliminary conversation on July 10, and several other meetings followed. “Debbie’s lawyer found out afterward and he was really cool with it,” Schaffel recalled. “Katherine’s lawyer, though, wasn’t too happy.” The upshot of the meetings had been an agreement that included no financial payments to Rowe and regular visits with the children. Debbie’s only absolute condition was that Joe Jackson be allowed very little contact with the children, none of it unsupervised. Joe had already made a number of unnerving public comments about the potential show business careers of Michael’s children. “I keep watching Paris. She . . . wants to do something,” Joe told ABC News, then added, “And as far as I can see, well, they say Blanket, he can really dance.” Debbie’s custody agreement with Katherine mandated Joe to sign a separate document promising that he would stay away from the kids except during family gatherings. “It keeps him completely out of the picture,” Schaffel said.

  The custody agreement between Debbie and Katherine had also solidified Grace Rwaramba’s position in the Hayvenhurst household. “Debbie has no problem with the kids living there with Katherine and Grace,” Schaffel explained. “But if Grace left, things might change.” The complications of the situation’s shifting dynamics were rapidly apparent. In mid-July 2009, La Toya Jackson told reporters that she had “a lot of questions about Grace” and in fact was “highly suspicious” of the ex-nanny’s motives. Soon after this, the National Enquirer reported that Rebbie Jackson and Rwaramba had actually come to blows during a dispute that resulted from Grace’s criticisms of Katherine’s parenting style. “Not exactly accurate,” Schaffel said. “I mean, it was mostly Rebbie. Even Katherine pushed Rebbie back a little. Katherine and Grace are fine with each other. I think Grace knows that Katherine is really a great person. But she’s up there in age, and trying to make sure everybody is taken care of has really taken a toll on her. She needs to be in a situation where she can take it a little bit easier. The kids do, too.”

  Rebbie had so far been Katherine Jackson’s main support in rearing the three children, actually sleeping on a cot next to Blanket’s bed for the first few nights after the boy arrived at the Hayvenhurst estate and said he was scared to sleep alone. Some did not see the oldest Jackson sister’s motives as entirely pure. “Rebbie tried to jump in at the beginning, because she thought she was gonna take the kids,” said one family advisor. “Rebbie’s got this deadbeat husband, and one of her first comments, right after Michael died, was, ‘Well, the kids should move with me to Vegas and the estate should buy me a mansion to raise them in.’” What alienated Prince and Paris, the advisor said, was that Rebbie had been so insistent about indoctrinating the children with her religious beliefs. “Rebbie’s like a born-again Jehovah’s Witness,” he said. “I mean, really off the edge. And she was trying to push this on the kids. And the kids just said, ‘We don’t want this.’ So at one point Katherine had to say, ‘I appreciate your help, Rebbie, but I’ll handle it.’”

  The three children were coping with life at Hayvenhurst in very different ways. Prince had withdrawn into a private world, rarely speaking except to answer questions, and then only in monosyllables. He was losing himself for hours on end playing video games on his PlayStation, something he had never been permitted to do while his father was alive. “No one could really tell what was going on with him,” said the advisor. Paris appeared to make a much smoother transition. She was a sociable girl who didn’t mind being alone when she was pursuing her favorite activities: reading and painting. Paris had turned her bedroom into an homage to “Daddy,” rejecting Katherine’s suggestion that she decorate with pictures of flowers and ballerinas and instead covering the walls with photographs and drawings of her father. “I always want to be able to see him,” Katherine quoted the girl as saying. Blanket continued to cry at night and to wander about during the day wearing a lost expression for the first week or so after arriving at the Hayvenhurst compound, but seemed to slowly relax as he drew closer to his grandmother.

  When the Jacksons invited Grace to join the children at the Hayvenhurst estate, some reasonably appraised it as a calculated move on at least two fronts. First, ensconcing Grace in the Hayvenhurst compound would further cement the family’s claim that they offered the most stable and familiar environment for the three children. Secondly, all the Jacksons knew that there were tabloids that would be happy to hand over a small fortune for a tell-all about Michael and his family and that no one had more to tell than Grace. Keeping her close to them was clearly in the family’s best interest.

  Schaffel, who had helped negotiate the rapprochement between Grace and Katherine, insisted that Michael’s mother’s motives were pure. “All Katherine wants is what’s best for those kids,” he said. “And that’s the reason she brought Grace back, to provide them with a sense of continuity. Say whatever you want about Katherine and Grace, but they both love Michael’s children.”

  Soon after settling in at the family compound, though, Grace discovered what Katherine Jackson already knew: The biggest obstacle to creating a healthy environment for Michael’s children was Hayvenhurst itself. As many as twenty people at a time were sleeping under the roof of the mansion, and even the home’s 11,000 square feet weren’t enough to comfortably contain them all. In addition to Prince, Paris, and Blanket, Jermaine’s two youngest children, thirteen-year-old Jaafar and nine-year-old Jermajesty, were in residence, along with their two older half-siblings (fathered by Randy Jackson) Genevieve, twenty, and Randy Jr., eighteen. The mother of all four children was Alejandra Oaziaza, a forty-year-old Colombian woman who had been married to and divorced from both Randy and Jermaine, giving birth along the way to two children by each Jackson brother. That Alejandra’s kids referred to Jermaine, the second Jackson brother she married, as “Uncle Daddy” had been a source of great amusement for Michael Jackson.

  Also living in the estate’s main house was seventeen-year-old Donte Jackson, whose parentage was unclear. The original explanation for Donte’s presence was that he was Alejandra’s son by Randy. This was dismissed by people who pointed out that the child had been born less than eight months after Alejandra gave birth to Randy Jr. and that no one had ever heard Donte address Randy as his father. There had also been rumors for years that Donte’s biological father was actually Joe Jackson. Joe had in fact fathered at least four and perhaps as many as six children out of wedlock, according to Jackson family insiders. “When I was traveling with Mich
ael, there were always these strangers coming up to him and acting like they were related,” Schaffel recalled. “And Michael would say, ‘Oh, that’s my half-brother’ that Joe had fathered with some other woman. I remember there was this Thai or Filipina maid Joe had gotten pregnant, and a bunch of other women.” The Sun reported that Donte was the product of a “brief fling” between Michael Jackson and a “mystery woman” who might be Alejandra. Schaffel was certain this was not the case. “Michael used to joke that Alejandra had slept with all of the brothers except him,” Schaffel recalled. “He said she was trying to work her way up to him.”

  The twenty-five-year-old “Norwegian rapper” Omer Bhatti, who was known as “Monkey” among the Jackson family, also called Hayvenhurst home, though how exactly he had been included in the household wasn’t clear even to those, like Schaffel, who had ready access. “Omer sort of tried to go along with this tabloid story that Michael was his father, but nobody bought it, so he eventually gave up,” Schaffel said. “But Katherine let him stick around. I don’t know why.” Katherine was genuinely fond of the young man, one of her advisors said, and determined to look out for him.

  Even after Grace Rwaramba moved onto the estate, a Nation of Islam woman named “Sister Rose,” the nanny Michael hired while living in the Carolwood chateau, also remained in the house. Michael’s brothers Jermaine and Randy spent nights at the Hayvenhurst estate, as did La Toya, while other Jackson siblings visited from time to time and often left their children there. Besides Grace and Sister Rose, there was a number of live-in staff.

  What just about everyone who knew the inside story agreed upon was that Alejandra Oaziaza had been the epicenter of turmoil within the Hayvenhurst estate for years. The South American beauty had been bewitching various Jackson men since first becoming involved with Randy when she was sixteen. After more than twenty years in residence at Hayvenhurst, the woman Prince, Paris, and Blanket called their aunt seemed to specialize in serving as a disruptive force.