by Wendy Walker
Mark said he would check it out. Five minutes later he called me back. “I’ve been told he’s dead,” Mark said, “but they’re not confirming it yet.”
What should we do about the show? It was a tough call, but my gut told me this was more than a rumor, partly because I knew that Geragos had reliable sources inside the LAPD. It was after 2 p.m. when my staff and I started booking an alternative show, just in case the rumors were true, which was looking more and more likely. Show number three would feature the deaths of both Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. It’s hard to book a show when you don’t know if someone is alive or dead. Imagine the sensitivity required in asking someone to come on the show “if and when” their loved one dies. Or if he has already died. And still, we had to do it.
My anxiety was at a high pitch when we had four hours left and we weren’t even sure what we were going to do that night. I could lose my composure, which would waste precious time, or I could follow my gut, which told me that a tragedy of some sort was occurring around Michael Jackson. I had come to trust my intuition after so many years of depending upon it, and besides, I reminded myself, if it was a rumor, why would it still be circulating this many hours later? I felt the immensity of the situation. If Michael was really dead, similar to the deaths of Elvis and Marilyn, it would touch everyone on an international level. But we had to find out the truth quickly so we could put together the right show.
At 2:50 p.m., we got another e-mail from the TMZ Web site:
We’ve just learned that Michael Jackson has died. He was 50. Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon and paramedics were unable to revive him. We’re told when paramedics arrived, Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back.
Since it was TMZ, a celebrity and gossip entertainment site, it was still considered a rumor, but it was getting much too real to ignore. Should I continue to book guests for Farrah as well as Michael? There was no one to ask, so I made a quick decision. While the buzz about Michael’s death continued to escalate, I sent out the following e-mail to my staff:
3:08 p.m., PST. Assuming the news is true, we will be going live at 9 and possibly at midnight. Concentrate on Michael Jackson… it is a bigger story because it is a shock. Do not book any more guests for Farrah unless they know Michael. It is about Michael.
Show number four was in the works, and the first order of business was to confirm that the rumors of Michael’s death were true. Each of us made calls depending on whom we knew best. I called back Mark Geragos, who was getting the news from his sources. All of my producers and I were working in tandem with the network since they needed to get a production truck to the hospital and Jackson’s home as we contacted every friend, colleague, and business associate of Michael’s, putting out an APB on the guests we were trying to book at the last minute.
The hour was late and we were working on booking a long list of people when I pushed back from my desk, feeling light-headed. When was the last time I ate? I hadn’t been this immersed in a story since Scott Peterson was convicted of killing his wife and his unborn child. I walked into the living room to find my daughter sitting on the couch, reading a magazine. Walker was on the floor beside her. “I’m pretty sure Michael Jackson is dead,” I told them. “This is a moment you’ll never forget.”
I remembered exactly where I was when John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe, President Kennedy, and Princess Diana had died. I knew that if Michael really was gone, this was the same kind of monumental loss that would send the entire world into collective shock. But I had a show to book. I returned to my office and got back on the phone, so far removed from where I’d been when I woke up that morning, it was hard to believe it was the same day.
In the next half hour, the Los Angeles Times reported:
Pop star Michael Jackson was pronounced dead by doctors this afternoon after arriving at the hospital in a deep coma, city and law enforcement sources told the Times.
It wasn’t long after this bulletin that I was e-mailed a photograph of Michael’s head, presumably dead. The photographer wanted money for it. He was wasting his time. Soon after, CNN made the announcement that Michael had died. Now it was official.
I dove headfirst into the business of finding out who knew Michael best and who we could get on the show in just a few hours. Show number four was in full production mode, and still, I had to do my regular job when a crisis arose about something else altogether. An executive producer wears a lot of hats, and it seemed that Billy Ray Cyrus had been on the show June 12 and had concerns about his segments. It was a rare occurrence when a guest was less than satisfied—I couldn’t even remember the last time—so I wrote Billy Ray an e-mail to the effect that I was a little busy with the current breaking news but I wanted to apologize. I followed that with a short explanation of what had occurred and why. In essence, I took the blame, fell on my sword, and sent the e-mail.
It’s a good idea to avoid blaming the other guy. If you made a mistake, just admit it. It might feel uncomfortable at the time, but owning your mistake will make you look a far sight better than coming up with a lame excuse that nobody believes anyway. For this very intense moment in time, it worked with Billy Ray. I got an e-mail straight back from him, saying he couldn’t believe that on a day that two icons had died, I was still concerned about him. He thought that was amazing and he wrote, “We’ll always have this moment of sharing the tragedy of the death of Michael Jackson. He was so important to me and I am so sorry.”
I exhaled. Back to the work at hand. My staff had the tough and highly delicate job of letting the Farrah people know that we were preempting her for the death of a more famous and celebrated star than the woman they loved so well. Then an e-mail arrived from Lisa Ling. One would expect her to be completely wrapped up in advocating for her sister, but she was caring enough to have moved outside of her own tragedy and thought of me:
I don’t know if you know this, but Deepak was very close to Michael.
This was news to me. I shot out a thank-you e-mail to Lisa and got Deepak Chopra on the phone. I knew Deepak well, I respected him and his opinions, and he agreed to appear on the show the very next day. During that call, he stated to me in no uncertain terms, by the way, that he believed that drugs administered by licensed medical doctors had killed Michael. I scribbled down some of his comments as he told me that Michael had been taking a drug called Diprivan that was so powerful, it was only used in operating rooms. It created an effect that was about as close to dying as a person could get, and when someone was on the drug, they needed to be closely monitored in case they needed to be brought back from the throes of death. Deepak was furious at the doctors who he said he believed had administered such dangerous medications to Michael in his home without proper monitoring. He told me that Michael liked getting dangerously close to death and then brought back.
In a few minutes, Jonathan Klein, president of CNN, called me to confirm tonight’s show and ask if we could run for a straight two hours with reruns at midnight and at 3 a.m. We agreed. This was a rare evening when I did not have dinner with my children. I stayed in my office and when Larry was ready to go on the air, we had booked enough star-studded guests, all stunned and upset by the death, to fill the show.
We started with Dr. Prediman K. Shah, Director of Cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Then we went on to singer-musicians Smokey Robinson, Céline Dion, Cher, Aaron Neville, Donna Summer, and J. C. Chasez. We had Tommy Mottola, former Sony music executive, Suzanne de Passe from Motown who had discovered the Jackson Five, and Shelly Berger, former manager of the Jackson Five. Larry also interviewed Kara Finnstrom, Ted Rowlands, and Richard Roth, all CNN correspondents, and Carlos Diaz, correspondent for Extra. Everyone had something to say.
We also had Thea Andrews from Entertainment Tonight.
KING: At the UCLA Medical Center, which is, by the way, a two-billion-dollar edifice, much of it named in honor of the late Ronald Reagan, Thea Andrews stands by. She’s an Entertainment Tonight c
orrespondent. Still crowds there?
ANDREWS: Many crowds, Larry. There are thousands of people here on all sides of the medical center. As you said, it’s a huge facility. It takes up more than a whole city block. Getting here, trying to find your cameras was hard, because there are so many news people out here, thousands of crowds, helicopters buzzing overhead, and, of course, many supporters of Michael Jackson, many people devastated by this loss.
KING: What has the hospital said?
ANDREWS: The hospital has been mum. They haven’t released a statement yet. What I can tell you is that ET has exclusively obtained the last photos of Michael Jackson, as he was being removed by paramedics from his home. As you heard earlier, it’s very close to here, about six minutes away.
He was in full cardiac arrest. Paramedics attempted to revive him during transport here to the hospital, and they continued to attempt to revive him inside the emergency room. Obviously, they were not successful. But as you see the photo—I don’t know if you have the photo up there, Larry. They’re attempting to revive Michael. His eyes are closed.
KING: How did you get that photograph?
ANDREWS: I don’t know, Larry. You’ll have to ask my executive producer.
KING: That’s a heck of a job of reporting. We’ll be checking back with you.
Also that night, Larry interviewed Randy Jackson from American Idol, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, and actor Corey Feldman. Two Jackson fans named Cheryl and Melvin came on the air, and musicians Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Sheryl Crow, and Kenny Rogers called in. It was an impressive lineup as we checked in with people from all over the country and the world who were devastated and shocked by the sudden death of the self-declared King of Pop.
Cher called in and said, “You know, I was just sitting here listening to you talk. And I’m having a million different reactions. Things that I didn’t expect I would feel. When I think of him, I think of this young boy, that teenager that I first met. This adorable boy that I met who, you know, loved to look at my beaded socks. Yes, he was a great singer. You know, it’s like God gives you certain gifts. And some people he gives different gifts, and some people he gives more gifts. And this child was just an extraordinary child, touched by this ability to have people feel him and feel people. And he just had that sense that you get, and you don’t get it from a living person. You get it from someplace else. He had it.”
Céline told Larry on the phone, “I am shocked like the rest of the world. It doesn’t sink in right now. I’m overwhelmed by this tragedy. I have to say that Michael Jackson’s been an idol for me all my life. I remember being in my house when I was very, very young and having his posters above my bed. He’s been my idol all my life, I looked up to him, and my goal was to be maybe doing the same show business world as him.”
And Liza Minnelli called in and said, “Oh, Larry, I couldn’t believe it, honey. I got a call at two o’clock in the morning from a lawyer telling me that he’s gone into cardiac arrest. They said he had been complaining of chest pains, you know? He changed show business. He hit with a force that was spectacular as he started to grow up. And then he grew and grew and grew. All the time. He grew all the time.”
Talk about flying by the seat of our pants, we were actually booking guests while the show was on the air. Larry would say, “We just got this person on the phone,” and he would launch into an interview with no preparation whatsoever. Michael’s death finally felt real to me when I saw the live picture of the helicopter that was transporting his body to the morgue. And the news just kept on coming.
As the story unfolded, I noticed a rhythm that is often present when we are dealing with breaking news. It actually takes on a whole different feel than a prepared show has when you know exactly what you are covering and with whom. With breaking news, you are constantly getting new information and an energy takes over as the story unfolds in a natural way. That was the case with the Michael Jackson story as we began to let the incoming news items guide us.
Somewhere in the midst of all of this, I went to tuck my kids into bed. Then it was back to my office, but now I was using my large office in another portion of the house that had been converted into a state-of-the-art newsroom with a dozen screens that allowed me to check breaking news on all the cable and broadcast networks, national and international. The news about Michael was spreading fast all over the world, and global reactions were pouring in about the shocking and untimely death of this musical icon.
By 2 a.m. it was all over—at least for the day. This was a story that would not end with a single day of coverage or even a week. I knew it would go on and on as accusations of drug overdoses and finger-pointing at so-called unscrupulous doctors began to dominate the conversations, along with relentless reports of Michael’s bizarre and unhealthy lifestyle. And then there were rumors about Debbie Rowe, one of Michael’s ex-wives, the mother of his two oldest children.
I dropped into bed exhausted and amazed that, once again, I had made it through a day that dealt me so many dips and turns I should have gotten seasick. After all, I had awakened with one show in mind and had booked three more before Larry went on the air. I’d answered thousands of e-mails, much more than my usual number, I had taken care of my kids, and we had all done our jobs. And the show had gone on.
The next night Deepak was among our guests. Here is a segment of his interview, staggering in its directness and in Deepak’s commitment to be the first person who dared to speak about this.
CHOPRA: In 1988, he [Michael] called me out of the blue and asked me to teach him meditation. I went to Neverland and we had a weekend together and became friends since that.
KING: What was he like?
CHOPRA: Magical. First time I met him, he was magic. He had a jukebox in his studio, with the traditional coins. So, we threw in a few coins and he said, choose the music. And I chose “Saturday Night Fever” and he started to dance…
KING: You complained, though, today about people around him. You’ve been very open and been critical of what?
CHOPRA: Well, in 2005, after the trial, Michael came and spent a week with me. And out of the blue he asked me for a prescription, knowing that I’m a doctor and I have a license, too. It was a prescription for a narcotic. I said, wait, why would you want a prescription for a narcotic? It suddenly dawned on me that he was getting a lot of prescriptions from a lot of people.
KING: Was he an addict?
CHOPRA: Yes, he was.
KING: Did people around him encourage that addiction?
CHOPRA: Yes, more so his doctors.
KING: Didn’t he have migraine headaches, though? Wasn’t he in a lot of pain?
CHOPRA: He was in pain. But there are many ways to manage pain. Even if you’re on narcotics, there’s a way to manage narcotics.
KING: Did he take a lot of pills and stuff?
CHOPRA: I know for a fact that he did. I saw bottles of OxyContin. I knew he was getting shots. I knew his doctors were enablers. What can I say? I confronted him many times with it. When I did, he would stop returning my calls until we changed the topic.
KING: Lisa Marie Presley, his ex-wife, writes on her MySpace blog that Michael once told her he was afraid he would end up lik her father. Did he talk about that?
CHOPRA: He did… I’m discussing the problems in the medical profession which enables this kind of addiction. It’s become a tradition in Hollywood.
KING: You’re blaming the medical profession.
CHOPRA: Of course. There’s a coterie of doctors right here in Hollywood that like to hang around celebrities. They perpetuate their habit. They make them drug addicts. We’ve got to really investigate this.
Deepak was the first to tell it like he believed it to be. When he went on the air and said what he did about the medical profession, people were enraged at him and they wanted to kill the messenger. But it came out later that Michael had had countless interventions that clearly did no good at all. And in the end, when Dr. Conrad Murray, Michae
l’s primary doctor, was arrested for involuntary manslaughter, everyone had to admit that Deepak’s suspicions may not have been unfounded.
Over the next few weeks, while we continued to cover this monumental death, it seemed as if a never-ending flurry of celebrities were dying. The list includes: David Carradine, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Walter Cronkite, Ed McMahon, Robert Novak, Ted Kennedy, Dominick Dunne, DJ AM, and Patrick Swayze. We covered these deaths as best we could on Larry King Live, making sure we were honoring most of the people on this long list. In fact, the viewing audience tuned in to our show for that very reason. With so many deaths occurring and so much public grieving, they needed a place where they knew their favorite personalities would be given their due. That was how people looked at our show.
And yet, a piece appeared in Vanity Fair magazine, in September 2009, written by James Wolcott, criticizing Larry. In a snarky, critical tone, this writer called the show “the funeral parlor for the gods.” He called Larry “America’s chief mourner and grief counselor,” and criticized him for “assuming the indispensable role of designated mourner to the stars, tollbooth collector at the last stop before the Hereafter, pallbearer beyond compare.”
By the end, the author conceded that we needed Larry to help us get through these things. I suppose it was a backhanded compliment to have an entire article devoted to us in Vanity Fair, but the nature of the article was so negative, it implied we were doing it incorrectly. And then, this writer only referred to the deaths of Farrah, Michael, David Carradine, and Ed McMahon. What if he had waited until all ten celebrities were gone? What would he have said then? While we honored the rest of the people who had passed, should we have left out Teddy Kennedy? Or what about Walter Cronkite?
The truth is that millions of viewers have their eyes and ears trained on our show every single evening. When someone of importance in this country dies, the public assumes that Larry will have something to say about it. I take it as a compliment and a responsibility. These deaths were very important to the general public.