Michael Jackson (51 page)

‘But why, Mike?’ Frank wanted to know. ‘They're gonna fuck it up.’

‘Because if anything goes wrong I don't want to hear about it,’ Michael explained. ‘I don't want to hear about it from my
mother, my father or my brothers. Let them do it their way and I'm out of it. Maybe the money they make from this will set
them up comfortably. Then, I'm out of it.’

When the plan was made public, fans from coast to coast were outraged. The
Los Angeles Herald Examiner
ran a telephone poll with the question: Are Michael Jackson's fans being taken advantage of? Of the 2,795 people who responded,
90 per cent said yes.

The newspaper published an editorial chastising the Jacksons: ‘It's hard not to conclude that the Jacksons' promoters, if
not the young stars themselves, are taking advantage of their fans. It's been said that all the Jackson brothers, including
Michael, helped plan the tour. If so, they should have shown a little more consideration for the fans who have made them so
rich and famous.’

Other newspapers across the country followed suit, lambasting the Jacksons and, because he was the most famous one, Michael,
in particular. ‘The Jackson tour has not been about music. It's been about greed and arrogance,’ wrote the Washington columnists
Maxwell Glen and Cody Shearer. ‘What good does a drug-free, liquor-free, I-brake-for-animals image do when the overriding
message is “Give Me Your Piggy Bank.”’

As a youthful role model, the press was terrible publicity for Michael. ‘I didn't even want to do this tour,’ he complained,
exasperated. ‘Now look what's happened.’

Despite the furor, when the first coupons were printed in the
Kansas City Times,
scores of fans waited in the dark for the early morning papers to hit the streets. The
Times
published an extra 20,000 copies to meet the demand. Postal employees were ready with 140,000 money order forms for the expected
avalanche. The tickets sold out rapidly.

Still, it looked bad for Michael. Frank Dileo advised him that if he didn't take a position against the brothers' and the
promoters' apparent greediness, his reputation could be damaged. ‘They don't care about your future,’ Frank told him. ‘Their
only concern is their present, to make as much as they can, while they can. You have a career that's gonna be longer than
this tour. They probably don't.’

Michael wasn't sure how to handle the matter. ‘What I really want is for all of it to just go away,’ he said, which wasn't
much of a problem-solving strategy. Finally, an open letter appeared in the
Dallas Morning News
that impacted Michael. Eleven-year-old Ladonna Jones wrote that she'd been saving her pennies to see The Jacksons but that
she couldn't possibly save enough to buy four tickets. She very pointedly asked Michael, ‘How could you, of all people, be
so selfish?’

When an aide showed Michael the letter, he was upset by it. Greed and selfishness really had been at the heart of the tour
plans; he knew it. But hadn't his family already made more money than most people would ever make in their lifetimes? Of course
they had. It took a child's sadness, however, to force him into action.

Though he hadn't wanted to make any major decisions about the tour in order to be distanced from the drama of it, he now realized
he had to take action. He called a meeting with Joseph, Don King and Chuck Sullivan. ‘Change the ticket policy,’ he told them.
‘It's a rip-off. You know it. I know it. Now, change it. Or I won't tour.’

‘But, Mike,’

Michael wouldn't discuss the matter. If the situation wasn't changed, he said, the brothers would have to tour without him.

The next day, plans were made to change the system.

Michael, who had dropped to 105 pounds from his normal weight of 125 pounds – the skinniest he had ever been – looked as if he
was under a great deal of stress when he and his brothers arrived at the Hyatt Hotel in Birmingham, Alabama, on 26 June for
a week of meetings about the tour. As Michael checked in, he had become so dizzy he had to lean on one of his bodyguards for
support. When a hotel cook approached to say hello to him, the guard released his grip and the star nearly crumpled to the
floor. It seemed to some observers that Michael barely had the strength to walk. How was he going to perform?

Perhaps the problem with fatigue had to do with Michael's eating habits. At Michael's orders, his Sikh cook, Mani Singh Khalsa,
fed him a diet of cashews, pecans, seeds, herbs and spices. ‘He's a health nut,’ said his cousin Tim Whitehead, a roadie on
the tour. ‘People don't know that the reason he's a vegetarian is not so much because of what meat does to a person, but because
he can't stand the idea of having an animal killed so he can have dinner. I've often wondered how he gets by on the little
food he does eat.’

‘If I didn't have to eat to live, I'd never eat at all,’ Michael once told his mother.

Later that day, a difficult meeting with the brothers, attorneys and managers on telephone conference calls took place. By
the time it was over, Michael was fed up. When he got into the freight elevator (he always travels in freight elevators rather
than public ones), he leaned back against the wall and just slowly slipped down until he was sitting on the floor. Someone
tried to help him to his feet, but he was too exhausted to stand. ‘Just leave me alone. Let me rest here for a second,’ he
said as he went up to the sixteenth floor. Witnesses to these kinds of scenes began whispering that Michael was suffering
from anorexia nervosa, which wasn't true but certainly seemed plausible from the way he looked and acted.

It was time to announce the new ticket-buying arrangement. Michael held a midday press conference on 5 July, the day before
the first concert was to take place. He wore a white sequined jacket and a red-and-white striped sash. Marlon, Randy and Tito
accompanied him. To counteract the charge that he was greedy and doing the show only for profit, Michael announced that he
intended to donate all of the money he made from this controversial tour to a favourite charity. Moreover, close to two thousand
tickets in each city would be donated to disadvantaged youths who would not otherwise be able to attend the concerts.

Michael added, ‘We've worked a long time to make this show the best it can be. But we know a lot of kids are having trouble
getting tickets. The other day I got a letter from a girl in Texas named Ladonna Jones. She'd been saving her money from odd
jobs to buy a ticket, but with the current tour system she'd have to buy four tickets and she couldn't afford that. So I've
asked our promoter to work out a new way of distributing tickets – a way that no longer requests a one-hundred-twenty-dollar
money order. There has been a lot of talk about the promoter holding money for tickets that didn't sell. I've asked our promoter
to end the mail-order ticket system as soon as possible so that no one will pay money unless they get a ticket.’ Michael said
that details of the new over-the-counter system for buying tickets would be announced shortly. (It was implemented by the
tour's third stop in Jacksonville.)

Michael took no questions. Suddenly he and his brothers were surrounded by security men. And then they were gone.

‘Why did he decide to donate all his money to charity?’ one reporter asked Frank Dileo, who stayed behind.

‘Because he's a nice guy,’ Frank said.

Michael's estimated worth at the time came to seventy-five million dollars, so donating to charity the approximately three
to five million dollars he would make on the tour would be a generous gesture but not one that would cause him to change his
lifestyle. His brothers, however, couldn't possibly have afforded such a gift. Also, Michael did not – perhaps could not – address
any of the other problem issues. According to Cliff Wallace, who managed the Louisiana Superdome, Joseph and Katherine Jackson,
Don King, Chuck Sullivan and The Jacksons had asked for free stadium rent; a waiver of city, state, and federal taxes; a share
in the profits of the food, beverage and parking concessions; and free advertising to boot. Meeting their demands would have
cost city taxpayers $300,000. And gross five million dollars for the Jacksons.

Michael arranged for Ladonna Jones to receive a set of four complimentary tickets to the show, to which she would be chauffeured
by limousine. Michael met with her after the show. ‘He asked me if I had good seats,’ she recalled. ‘They didn't turn out
to be very good, but it was fun anyway.’

At this time, CBS released the
Victory
album. Not counting 1981's live album, it was the first Jacksons album in four years, so it was widely anticipated. The album
featured Michael's duet with Mick Jagger on ‘State of Shock’, which wasn't so much a song as it was a glorified Rolling Stones
riff. The best cut on the album was written by Jackie and entitled ‘Torture’, a high-tech rocker of a song on which Michael
wails up a storm. The album featured songs written by all of the brothers – and leads were split among them as well – so it was
the kind of group effort that was the perfect vinyl kick-off for the tour.

The long-anticipated and controversial Victory tour finally began on Friday 6 July 1984, in Kansas City, Missouri. ‘Anybody
who sees this show will be a better person for years to come,’ Don King told the press that day. ‘Michael Jackson has transcended
all earthly bounds. Every race, colour, and creed is waiting for this tour. The way he shall lift the despairing and the despondent
enthralls me. Only in America could this happen, only in America. Oh, I am so
thankful
to be an American…’

‘Can't someone shut that man up?’ Michael asked one of his associates. ‘Isn't there enough pressure?’ To complicate matters,
Jackie injured his leg and would not be able to join his brothers until a later date; Jermaine, Marlon, Randy, Tito and Michael
would have to appear without him.

On the day of the first show, fans began to assemble outside Arrowhead Stadium hours before sunrise. Inside the auditorium,
a five-hundred person security force and one thousand other stage workers geared up for the mass event. Two giant tapestries
of a forest scene bordered each side of the stage, and a wooden barrier was erected fifteen feet in front of it to keep fans
from rushing the Jackson brothers.

‘Arise, all the world, and behold the kingdom,’ a voice boomed as the show began for the 43,000 fans. Elaborate George Lucas-style
computerized stage and lighting systems were the hallmark of the concert, including a hidden hydraulic stage that presented
the group – Michael in zebra-print, vertical-striped pants; spangled shirt; white socks; 1950s-type penny loafers; and the white
glove – as if they were appearing from under the earth on a waffle grid of two hundred blinding lights. Seen in silhouette,
the brothers marched slowly down a staircase, approached the microphones, removed their sunglasses, and broke into the first
song, Michael's ‘Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'’. There were red and green lasers, crimson strobe lights and purple smoke bombs – magic,
illusion and fireworks. Eighteen songs boomed from a hundred outdoor speakers. Everything from ‘I Want You Back’ to ‘Shake
Your Body (Down to the Ground)’. (Oddly, the brothers performed no numbers from their new
Victory
album. It was later explained by Marlon that Michael refused to rehearse them or perform them before a live audience.)

Jermaine performed three of his own songs. Michael's solo hits ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘Beat It’ were saved for the end of the concert.
He was in excellent voice, more of a real
singer
now than ever before. By the time the group finished their performance, the audience had been whipped into a frenzy even
though most of the audience members had to settle for the distorted images of the brothers that appeared on huge overhanging
television screens throughout the gargantuan football stadium. It was clear, though, they had paid the high ticket prices
to see only one person, Michael Jackson.

Thanks to his music – not to mention the advent of the video age – Michael's stardom had reached such mythic proportions by this
time, no one could share a stage with him. As Jim Miller wrote for
Newsweek,
‘He dances with the breathtaking verve of his predecessor James Brown, the beguiling wispiness of Diana Ross, the ungainly
pathos of Charlie Chaplin, the edgy joy of a man startled to be alive. The crowd gasps and screams…’