Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (65 page)

In the beginning Geffen not only wanted to make Michael "the biggest of
movie stars," but he wanted to sign him for Geffen Records. Regrettably for
the promoter, Michael was locked into a firm contract with CBS Records.
Geffen learned that the price of freeing Michael from CBS would have been
costlier "than the gross national product of Uganda."

As head of CBS Records, Walter Yetnikoff stood in Geffen's way.

Geffen was producing the new Tom Cruise movie, which would be
released in 1990. It was called Days of Thunder, and Geffen wanted Michael
to supply a song for the soundtrack. Michael agreed but called Yetnikoff and
told him that he wasn't going to allow Geffen to have the song.

Yetnikoff nixed the deal on Days of Thunder "at Michael Jackson's whining insistence," Yetnikoff claimed. In his memoirs the intensely competitive
and sometimes abrasive Yetnikoff admitted that he taunted Geffen over his
"sexual bent-I'd chase after him into gay clubs and demand his hand in marriage."

When Yetnikoff sent word that he'd like Geffen to give his new girlfriend
lessons in how to give a blow-job, Geffen exploded. A new feud between
Yetnikoff and Geffen was born.

Geffen wanted revenge, and he began to undermine Yetnikoff to Michael,
hoping to get him out of his contract so that he could sign with Geffen
Records. Michael owed CBS four more albums.

But unknown to either Michael or Geffen, Yetnikoff's reign at CBS was
already drawing to a close. Within months he'd be out the door. By September
4, 1990, Yetnikoff was ousted as CEO of CBS Records. One of the reasons for
his demise was his deteriorating relationship with the label's mega-seller,
Michael himself.

"What the hell!" Yetnikoff said on the way out the door. "Sex, booze,
power, prestige, money, glory. I tasted it all!"

When Michael was informed of Yetnikoff's departure, he said, "You're talking history. Yetnikoff is yesterday. I'm here today. What about me? What
does this mean for my career?"

When Geffen heard of Yetnikoff's demise, he said, "Ding dong, the witch
is dead!"

With Frank DiLeo, John Branca, and Walter Yetnikoff out of Michael's
life, he needed a new manager. Geffen had a best friend, Sandy Gallin: Enter
Gallin into Michael's life.

During the period he remained friends with Michael, Geffen helped him
set up both a new legal staff and a managerial team to replace Yetnikoff,
Branca, and DiLeo, who had guided Michael through his great triumphs,
including Thriller. Under a new team, Michael would never achieve the
worldwide sales he'd done in the past, although his notoriety would grow.
Instead of millions flowing in, millions would flow out.

Previously, Gallin had worked with, among others, Dolly Parton and Neil
Diamond. As a producer, Gallin had been a personal manager or agent to
stars, including Cher and Whoopi Goldberg. He also went on to produce feature films such as Father of the Bride and the Oscar-winning documentary,
Quilt.

When trouble loomed in Michael's future over child molestation charges,
Gallin rose to his defense. He said, "Michael's innocent, open, child-like relationships with children may appear bizarre and strange to adults in our society who cannot conceive of any relationship without sexual connotations. This
is not a reflection of Michael's character; rather it is a symptom of the sexual
phobias of our society."

For his trouble, the movie editor of the Los Angeles Times, Claudia Eller,
"outed" Gallin as a homosexual in a major cover story.

Michael also hired Bert Fields and Lee Phillips, who were attorneys for
Geffen, and later, Allen Gruman. As his management team fell into place,
Michael paraded through Neverland in "Windsor red robes, imitating a king.
He even wore a gold crown," his housekeeper, Blanca
Francia, would later claim. That was not all Francia
would claim in the years ahead, based on her having
introduced Michael to her son, Jason. But before that
happened, she witnessed the arrival of young Wade
Robson at Neverland where he became one of
Michael's all-time special friends. This eight-year-old
Australian from Brisbane, with his platinum blond
crew-cut, was exceedingly handsome with a certain
macho air about him. Wade had been born in 1982,
Michael in 1958, but they quickly became "great
pals" in spite of the age difference.

Sandy Gallin

Wade later claimed that, like Michael, he'd shown an affinity for dancing
"even before I was out of diapers." Michael had met him in 1987 when he was
only five years old. Wade had recently won a dance contest. At one of his
Australian concerts, Michael had invited him up on the stage. Later, Michael
said that "Wade showed off moves dancers ten years his senior couldn't have
pulled off." The young boy had learned to dance by watching Michael's music
videos, especially "Thriller."

Michael invited the Robsons and their son to California. After a short stay,
Wade's father seemed none too happy with the arrangement and returned to
Australia. But Wade's mother, Joy, found Neverland "the happiest place on
earth." She was soon on Michael's payroll and given a shiny new RollsRoyce.

Joy roomed in the guest cottage, and Wade was invited for nightly sleepovers in Michael's bedroom. Soon Michael had nicknamed him "The Little
One," and was very affectionate with the boy.

Michael and Wade often danced together, and Michael became so
impressed with Wade that he cast him in such videos as "Black or White,"
"Jam," and "Heal the World." Some of Michael's casting demands stirred up
a lot of unfavorable press. Michael strong-armed Pepsi into hiring Wade for a
commercial, even though the role should have gone to an African Americannot a blond-haired white boy.

In the commercial, Michael sat at a piano, singing "I'll Be There." Tenyear-old Wade played a young Michael, his blond crew-cut concealed by an
Afro wig and his porcelain white skin darkened by computerized colorization.
Having a white child play young Michael was soundly condemned by
African-American publications.

As Wade grew older and Michael moved on to other special friends, Wade
became successful on his own, directing stage shows and videos for such stars
as Usher and Britney Spears. He would later spearhead the Wade Robson
Project on MTV, a dance version of American Idol.

In 2005 when Michael went on trial on charges of child molestation, both
Wade and his mother, Joy, came back into
Michael's life. Prosecutors wanted to know
exactly what happened between Wade and
Michael during his sleepovers at Neverland in
the early 90s.

Bert Fields

On the witness stand, Wade admitted to
sleeping in the same bed with Michael but
claimed that nothing sexual ever took place.
"We slept in the same bed, but we both were
fully dressed in pajamas. It's a huge bed. He sleeps on one side, and I sleep on the other."

Under severe cross-examination by prosecutor Ron Zonen, Wade admitted to other sleepovers, not only at Neverland, but at his mother's
apartment in Hollywood, at Michael's secret
condo hideaway at Century City, and even in a
hotel suite in Las Vegas.

Wade Robson

Wade refuted another eyewitness, Blanca
Francia, Michael's maid. In front of the world,
she claimed that she once found Michael and
Wade in bed together-"and they were naked from the waist up." Whether
true or not, she also claimed that she walked into Michael's bathroom, finding
Wade and Michael laughing and showering together. On the tiled floor she
spotted Michael's white BVDs and the boy's "neon green Spiderman briefs,"
which she often laundered. On the stand, she claimed she slipped out of the
bathroom without either Michael or Wade noticing her.

When asked to confirm or deny the maid's testimony, Wade said, "It simply never happened."

The prosecutor zeroed in on Wade. "If you knew that the person, the thirty-five-year-old man who was sleeping with an eight-year-old boy, possessed
a great quantity of sexually explicit material, would that cause you concern
about that person's motivations while he was in bed with a boy?"

Wade looked uncomfortable and paused a long time before answering.
"Yes," he said in what amounted to a whisper.

Zonen forced Wade to look at a book seized at Neverland. Called Boys
Will Be Boys, it featured naked pictures of young boys aged 10 to 13. His face
growing stern, his shoulders drooping, Wade was also forced to look at another book, A Sexual Study of Man, in which masturbation, oral sex, and sodomy
were depicted.

"Would you be concerned about a person who possesses that book crawling into bed with a ten-year-old boy?" Zonen asked.

"Yes, I guess so," Wade said in a soft voice.

It is believed that Wade's testimony about his long-ago sleepovers at
Neverland went a long way in helping Michael retain his freedom.

As charismatic as Wade was, an even more charismatic blond-haired boy
entered Michael's life after Michael saw the box office hit, Home Alone:
Macaulay Culkin.

At Neverland, Michael watched the film repeatedly. One day he saw it
three times. His staff felt that he had become obsessed with Macaulay, at least
with what he saw on the screen. He hastily invited the beautiful young boy to
Neverland, and Macaulay called with his acceptance. The first time he spoke with the Home Alone child, Michael must have
stayed on the phone for at least three hours.

He seemed mesmerized by the sound of
Macaulay's voice and eagerly awaited his arrival
at Neverland. "I never knew him to show so much
excitement in his life," a security guard claimed.

Michael immediately ordered posters from the
movie, depicting Macaulay with his hands on his
face screaming. The concept was based on the
famous painting, The Scream, by Edvard Munch.

Wade all grown up

Macaulay Culkin, the most famous and the
richest child star of his time, was born in New
York on August 26, 1980. By 2005 he would play
himself in archival footage appropriately titled
"Michael Jackson's Boys" for TV.

"Mack," as he's known to his intimates, broke
into show business at the age of four, appearing in a bevy of off-Broadway
shows.