Michael Jackson (114 page)

The news cycle was fast moving and difficult to reconcile, especially when it became clear that, probably, Michael’s cardiac
arrest was the result of a drug overdose. Numerous vials of the dangerous anesthesia Diprivan (propofol) were found in his
rented Holmby Hills estate shortly after a nurse named Cherilyn Lee went on the record as saying that Jackson had asked her
to seek it out for him. It is taken intravenously and should never be administered outside a hospital. Many doctors went on
the record saying that while they have heard of the drug being abused by health care professionals, who have ready access
to it, they had not heard of it being used as a sleep aid medication. ‘Propofol induces coma, it does not induce sleep,’ Dr
Zeev Kain, the chair of the anesthesiology department at the University of California Irvine, said. ‘I can put you in a coma
for as many days as you want. And, in fact, in intensive care units who have patients who are on a ventilator, that’s one
of the drugs they use.’ Dr Rakesh Marwah, of the anesthesiology department at the Stanford University School of Medicine,
added that the drug can definitely lead to cardiac arrest without proper monitoring. ‘Propofol slows down the heart rate and
slows down the respiratory rate and slows down the vital functions of the body,’ he explained. Not enough carbon dioxide exits
the body; not enough oxygen enters. And the situation can cause the heart to abruptly stop. ‘[It is] as dangerous as it comes,’
Kain said. ‘You will die if you will give yourself, or if somebody will give you, propofol and you’re not in the proper medical
hands.’

‘I want it to hit my vein and I want to be asleep,’ Michael had told his nurse of the drug he so wanted, which she refused
to find for him. ‘I don’t even want to wait a second for it to get into my system. I want to be knocked out, asleep.’

It made sense, even if it was chilling. Michael probably would have paid a million dollars for a good night’s sleep. He’d
suffered from insomnia for many years, but that was the least of his problems. He also had lupus, the chronic autoimmune disease
that plagued him for years. Of course, he had vitiligo, even if there was some dispute as to whether it was genetic or a form
brought on as a consequence of skin bleaching agents he’d used over the years. There were other physical ailments as well
having to do with his back, his knees and other problems associated with a dancer’s body as it ages. Also, much of the plastic
surgery he’d had over the years began to affect him as he aged. He was deeply ashamed of the way he looked as a result of
the plastic surgery – much of which he regretted – and the ravages of lupus, so he would therefore dress in strange outfits to
hide his body, with standard-issue surgical masks and hats and sunglasses. The stranger he looked, the more attention he attracted;
and the more attention he generated, the greater his unhappiness. It was a vicious cycle, and not one with which he was unfamiliar.
On top of everything else, he suffered from severe bouts of depression. It’s no wonder he was given so many different kinds
of prescriptions.

The big question, of course, is whether or not Michael was addicted. For anyone privy to his real world, this question merely
stated the obvious: Of course he was, and everyone knew it. ‘If he could get his hands on some Demerol, you can be sure he’d
do it,’ said one person close to him. ‘I can’t count the number of times people close to him tried interventions. There was
no reaching him, though. You can’t help a person who doesn’t want it.’ Sources close to Jackson told CNN’s Dr Sanjay Gupta
that the singer actually traveled with an anesthesiologist who would ‘take him down’ at night and ‘bring him back up’ during
a world tour in the mid-90s.

It’s true that Michael was used to getting what he wanted in his life, and if it was a certain drug to ease his emotional
or physical pain he expected to be able to get his hands on it, no questions asked. However, he was not a man who just wanted
to get high for kicks. He wasn’t scoring his drugs from some roadie behind a tour bus. He was getting them from licensed doctors
who were answering his cries for help. Should some of those doctors have known better than to just give Michael what he wanted
rather than find some better way to treat him? Obviously. But one put it best to me when he said, ‘When you were sitting there
in the room with him, and he’s crying and he’s in pain and he hasn’t slept in a week... and he begs and begs you for help,
you had to help. You
had
to. People on the outside find it easy to judge and point fingers. You have to be there to understand his level of physical
and emotional pain.’ It’s telling that the drug he most seemed to crave was a kind of anesthesia. He wanted to be numb, not
only to his pain, but to the world. It was as if he’d had enough and he wanted out.

Michael’s finances were always the subject of great interest, and the most common question at his death was: How broke was
he? There’s no simple answer to that query, and anyone on the outside of Michael’s circle who tries to assemble bits and pieces
of financial information in order to get a clear understanding of what’s going on is a person who doesn’t know what he’s talking
about. I spent many hours with Michael’s brilliant attorney John Branca, who structured Michael’s finances. (Michael was best
man at John’s wedding in 1987, that’s how close they were.)

As much as I know about his wealth, I still don’t fully understand the details and, when reporting the story, have never tried
to act as if I do. I know this much, though: As long as there was a million dollars somewhere that Michael could get his hands
on – even if some of it was hidden in a pillow case by his kids’ nanny, Grace – he was fine. (And, yes, apparently that would
happen!) Gone was the shrewd businessman of the 1980s who stayed on top of every one of his bank accounts and demanded full
disclosure of detail from Branca – who worked for Michael from 1980 until 2006 and then returned shortly before his death.

Though Branca came back to a messy quagmire of debt and asset leverage that would probably baffle even the most expert financier,
Michael was, for the most part, not that concerned about any of it. Again, the molestation trial in Santa Maria can be pointed
to as the primary reason Michael lost interest in his wealth. Nothing much mattered to him after the trial. He told people
close to him that the reason he had signed on to do the London concerts was not because of the hundreds of millions of dollars
that could be generated. It was, as he put it: ‘Because my kids are old enough to appreciate what I do, and I’m young enough
to still do it. I don’t care if people don’t show up,’ he said, maybe a little disingenuously. Of course, the tickets sold
out unbelievably quickly – the public still wanted Michael, that much was clear.

Judging from the way he performed on the brief clip of ‘They Don’t Care About Us,’ released after his death by AEG Live, the
concert’s promoters, Michael was in fine form. He seemed to really want to make a point with this show – that he was back and
still The King, and he looked, at least from this particular clip, as if he could have pulled it off. Amazingly, despite his
lack of self-confidence and his broken down body, the man still had what it took and he looked damn good. That said, it would
be foolhardy to think that the coming dates would have gone off without a hitch. After all, nothing in Michael’s life and
career in recent times was ever easy. There were probably plenty of canceled concerts on the horizon due to ‘illness’, ‘exhaustion’,
‘dehydration’ and all of the other common maladies of performers under duress. Still, the shows he would have gotten through
would have been memorable. For any diehard fan, it seemed Michael Jackson was really ready to deliver. Moreover, the fact
that he had brought back the great duo of the 1980s who helped mastermind his biggest successes – his former lawyer John Branca,
and former manager Frank DiLeo – suggested that maybe he had his eye on the future, and maybe, just maybe, he actually cared
about it.

The last time I saw Michael Jackson face to face was on verdict day in Santa Maria when I congratulated him on his victory
but he seemed to not understand what was happening. The haunted look in his eyes that day disturbed me for many months after
the trial. I spoke to him on the phone only twice in the intervening four years, both very brief conversations for magazine
stories about career plans that didn’t materialize. When I sent him a copy of my Elizabeth Taylor biography, he called to
tell me he enjoyed it. He sounded good, but how could anyone know for sure? Ten minutes after he hung up, I received another
telephone call, this one from one of his flacks. ‘Don’t you dare use Michael’s compliment as an endorsement of your book,’
I was told. How annoying. ‘Please,’ I told the caller, ‘I’ve been around a long time. I know better. Give me a break.’ The
handler sighed into the phone. ‘We’ve all been around a long time,’ she said, now seeming exhausted. ‘Maybe too long, huh?’
I agreed. ‘Yeah... maybe a little.’

I was at CBS News getting ready to tape a segment about Michael’s family when the will was filed. As I stood among my colleagues
and pored over the contents, the mention of Diana Ross caught my eye. It was his wish that she – not Debbie Rowe – care for his
children in the event that Katherine not be able to do so. It seemed absolutely appropriate to me.

Michael lived with Diana for a short time when he first moved to Los Angeles at the age of eleven. He idolised her and she
doted upon him, even though she had a busy life and was about to leave The Supremes for a solo career. Then she went on to
have five children of her own, not one of whom has ever been in any kind of public scandal. She and Michael hadn’t been close
recently, but that’s only because Michael wasn’t close to many people in the last four years of his life. What a tribute to
their enduring friendship that he would trust her with what meant the most to him – his children. ‘You are going to be a great,
great star,’ she’d once told him over breakfast when he was eleven, according to what he once told me. Then, with maternal
purpose, she added, ‘Now eat your cereal.’

It was as if Michael considered Diana’s prediction to be a mandate because, certainly, there was never a bigger star than
Michael Jackson. Whether it was the beautiful melodies of his music, the harmony as it poured out of his voice, or the staccato-like
dance moves that reached a penultimate crescendo with his gravity defying moonwalk, Michael Jackson had a unique ability to
inspire, to give hope to, to unite. Where others have tried – and often in vain – to use their talents and skills in a way that
honors God and the inherent goodness of his nature, Michael Jackson was able to unite millions of people, regardless of race,
creed, religion, age, gender, sexuality or nationality, behind messages of service and sacrifice, peace and love, hope and
change and the freedom of expression. Whether through songs like ‘Heal the World’, ‘We Are the World’ or ‘Man in the Mirror’,
he brought the plight of the world’s suffering to the attention of all as only he could. In many respects he gave a voice
to the voiceless, a face to the faceless and hope to the hopeless. If a little African-American boy from Gary, Indiana, could
make it to the 2,600-acre Neverland Valley Ranch in Santa Barbara, California, then maybe it was possible for anyone to make
it. With hard work and determination, maybe we could all reach for our dreams. Michael Jackson certainly did just that, didn’t
he?

I cannot imagine a world without Michael Jackson in it.

For the past forty years we have all been witness to Michael’s heroic rise and tragic fall. We cheered as he made history
with record after record, album after album. We watched in awe as he broke barriers and made impossibilities become realities.
We appreciated his iconic sense of style – one sequined white glove, white socks, black leather shoes, red leather jackets,
and a black fedora – and longed to do the moonwalk with perfect precision. We watched in shock as he transformed his image time
and time again. We felt outrage at the allegations of child molestation, not knowing who or what to believe. And we watched
in sadness as the world’s longest-running reality show reached its tragic and somewhat surreal conclusion on 25 June 2009.

After his death, I went back to Neverland to conduct a tour of the estate as part of my coverage of Michael’s death for CBS
News. The first time I set foot on the property was before Michael had even purchased it. As it happened, in the spring of
1983 Michael’s publicist, Bob Jones, invited a few select members of the press to the Santa Ynez Valley to watch as Michael
and Paul McCartney made the video for ‘Say, Say, Say’. Something happened – we never did find out what – and Michael didn’t show
up for the taping. So Paul invited the contingent of reporters to the home he was renting during the production – Sycamore Valley
Ranch, which, of course, became Neverland. Once we got to the ranch, we in the press corp never even saw Paul again. However,
he made sure we were well fed and then sent us on our way. I wasn’t invited into the house but from the spacious grounds – acre
after bucolic acre – I knew it was a special place. When I found out six years later that Michael had purchased the home, I
thought he was certainly moving up in the world.