Michael Jackson (81 page)

Later, when Jordie was interviewed by the police department, he relayed the same anecdotes of sexual encounters and also gave
officers what he said was a detailed description of Michael’s genitalia.

With such stunning disclosures of a sexual nature involving a star as world-famous, as controversial and as seemingly androgynous
as Michael Jackson, there was no way the story would not emerge with some of the most sensational headlines in show-business
history… It was just a matter of time.

The next day, 18 August 1993, Bert Fields and Anthony Pellicano gave Michael Jackson the stomach-churning news that the Los
Angeles Police Department’s Sexually Exploited Child Unit had begun a criminal investigation of him. ‘Oh, my God,’ Michael
asked, ‘is my life over?’

‘No,’ Bert answered. ‘We’ll defend it, Michael. And the odds are that we’ll win.’

‘And you know how it goes with you and the odds,’ Anthony added, optimistically.

‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ said Michael, miserably.

Anthony embraced Michael. ‘Man, you never lose,’ he said, according to his later recollection. ‘Look at your life, Michael.
Look at who you are. You’re not gonna start losing now.’

Michael began to sob. ‘I have worked so hard,’ he said. ‘All of my life, I’ve been working so hard. I can’t lose it all now,
Anthony. I just can’t lose it all.’

‘You won’t,’ Bert injected. ‘I swear to you, you won’t.’

That same day, June and Dave Schwartz were interviewed by the police. They weren’t so sure, they maintained, that Michael
was guilty of abusing Jordie. They both felt that the youngster was so controlled by Evan, they didn’t know what to believe,
they said. ‘I think I believe, maybe, half of it,’ she said, reluctantly. Now, June would lose custody of Jordie, at least
for the time being. She was heartbroken by this decision made by Child Protection Services, even if it was said to be temporary,
however there was nothing she could do about it. Anyway, Jordie had told the authorities he wanted to be with his father,
which was persuasive.

Later that day, Michael met with another one of his associates, a publicist who had to determine a course of action to take
if the allegations were made it into the press. ‘I met him at the Los Angeles hide-out,’ recalled the representative. ‘He
looked absolutely terrible, as if he hadn’t slept in days. He wasn’t wearing his makeup, so his face seemed broken out, splotchy.
He looked thin and sickly. He had on his pyjamas. “What am I going to do now?” he asked. “I can’t believe this is happening
to
me
, Michael Jackson. Do you think the police will ask me questions about me and Jordie?”’

The publicist told Michael that there was little doubt he would be questioned by the authorities, and soon. Michael began
to cry. ‘But I can’t answer questions,’ he said through his tears. ‘I can’t talk about Jordie. Don’t you get it? He’s my soul
mate. I won’t know what to say.’

‘Just tell the truth, Mike,’ suggested the publicist as he patted Michael on the shoulder.

‘But no one will believe me,’ Michael said, sounding defeated. ‘It’s my word against Evan’s. Poor Jordie,’ Michael added,
wiping his eyes with the backs of his hands. ‘I can’t believe his father would do this. We were so close. Evan is so jealous
of me, so, so jealous of me.’

The publicist then asked how Michael wanted to handle the media when the allegations became news. ‘Oh, screw the media,’ Michael
said, going from sadness to fury in a nanosecond. ‘I don’t care what they say about me. They’re gonna make stuff up, anyway.
Screw them. Screw them all. It’s because of
them
that I’m in this trouble, anyway.’

The publicist recalled being confused by Michael statement. ‘How is the media responsible?’ he asked.

Michael began jabbing his finger at his associate as he spoke. ‘It’s because of
you
allowing the media to write these things about me that people think I would do this thing,’ he said, furiously. ‘It’s
your
fault. No. It’s
their
fault.’ Michael collapsed in a chair, looking bereft. ‘I have been trying to stop the rumours and for years and years and
they’ve just been going on and on and on,’ he said. ‘The oxygen chamber. The Elephant Man. The plastic surgery. Now, this.’

On 20 August 1993, Michael left for Bangkok on the second leg of his Dangerous tour. How ironic for him to start again in
a city known as the sex capital of the world.

Michael was swamped with feelings about leaving Los Angeles. He could not fathom that Jordie would not be with him on the
road. He had planned an exciting time for the two of them on continents all over the world, and the only reason to even go,
in his view, would have been to be with his ‘soul mate’. Now, he would be going alone. Of course, he would be with about 250
people, all integral to the massive, multimillion-dollar production, from musicians and stage hands and dancers to bodyguards,
secretaries and assistants. However, as far as Michael was concerned, he was alone if he was to be without Jordie.

Also, he didn’t want to leave home because he simply wasn’t sure what would occur in America during his absence. Yet, he also
couldn’t wait to go, just to get out of town and not have to deal with whatever terrible thing was about to happen. He felt
he needed to escape from his life, if at all possible. As it would happen, Michael Jackson left town just in time because,
the next day, all hell would break lose.

On Saturday 21 August 1993 a search warrant was issued for the police to gain access to Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch
at 5225 Figueroa Mountain Road in Los Olivos, Santa Barbara. The authorities hired a locksmith in order to gain access to
all of the many rooms on the estate, including Michael’s private quarters. Moreover, the search warrant permitted the authorities
to search Michael’s ‘hideout’ at 1101 Galaxy Way, #2247 in Century City, California, for evidence. Of course, anyone who thought
the authorities would find anything incriminating during such searches would have been naive. Obviously, because of the chain
of events that had led up to the day, Michael’s camp expected that a search warrant would be issued.

Adrian McManus, Michael’s personal maid and the only employee with access to his Neverland bedroom, recalled, ‘People were
running all about the place, employees taking things off the property in boxes and crates, as if they couldn’t get the stuff
out fast enough. They took sheets, pillows, bedspreads, towels and wash clothes. They took boxes of makeup and eyeliner and
lipstick and creams and gels. They took stacks of magazines. They took pictures. I remember that one person who worked for
Michael held up a photograph and everyone else gathered around to ask, “Who is that? Who is that?” “Is that Macaulay Culkin
in his underwear? It is!” Then, they would take the picture and put it in a box with a lot of other pictures of children in
their underwear. I heard them mumbling things like, “This guy is nuts, isn’t he?” as they went through his things. “How many
pictures of Elizabeth Taylor does one person need?” I felt badly about the whole thing.

‘My job was to hide all of Michael’s women’s perfumes, of which he had many bottles. He only used female fragrances, no male,
and I guess they thought that might look bad.

‘The next day, when the police came they looked around and one of them said, “Hmmm. Slim pickings, I see.” They knew. Of course,
they knew.’

When the authorities found a large, walk-in, black safe the size of a closet, they could not contain themselves. Imagine what
might be found in such a thing owned by the enigmatic, secretive Michael Jackson. The officers ordered the locksmith to figure
out the combination. For hours, he worked on the safe. Finally,
voilà
. It was opened. It was also empty, except for one small black briefcase. ‘Open it. Open it,’ the officers exclaimed. Inside
was a single slip of paper. On it was written the combination to the safe. Someone in the Jackson camp had quite a sense of
humour.

Despite the earlier clean-sweep, the police did manage to seize books, videos, pictures, scrapbooks and anything else they
could find that they thought might be evidentiary. A year later when I conducted a telephone interview with Michael, he told
me of the search: ‘Imagine having someone going through all of your stuff while you’re a million miles away. They took all
kinds of things, stupid things like videotapes of me at Disneyland, pictures of my friends, boxes and boxes of personal things.
And diaries! Imagine having some stranger reading your most private thoughts, his filthy hands turning all of those private
pages, thoughts about [my] Mother and the way I feel about God. It was vicious. And we still haven’t gotten back a lot of
that stuff. It makes me cry when I think about it. But in all of my private stuff, there wasn’t one piece of evidence to prove
I had done anything wrong.’

The authorities took photographs of the rooms at Neverland in order to be able to compare them to Jordie’s descriptions, as
evidence that he had complete access. They seized Michael’s telephone and address journals and would use them to later question
more than thirty children and their families. (Those interviewed included Emmanuel Lewis, Jimmy Safechuck and Jonathan Spence;
all three insisted that Michael had never acted in any improper way toward them.)

On 23 August, a Los Angeles television station reported the startling news that a police raid had occurred at Neverland. Michael
Jackson was suspected of committing a crime, the police confirmed. However, the officers would not be more specific. Even
with the lack of details, the story became the focus of more than seventy news broadcasts and Special Bulletins in the Los
Angeles area alone over the course of the next day. Within hours, the investigation was the subject of international headlines.
The
New York Post
ran with a dreadful photo of Michael looking his worst, and the blazing headline: ‘Peter Pan or Pervert?’ One thing was clear:
nothing would ever be the same for Michael Jackson.

Though the television reports about Michael did not mention the subject of child molestation, rumours about it were strong
enough for the Jackson camp to decide to just come out and deny them. It fell upon Anthony Pellicano to make the statement
that, indeed, Michael was being accused of sexually abusing a minor, that he was innocent of any wrong-doing. Anthony’s comments
were the first the public had to confirm that it was, indeed, a matter of molestation about which Michael was being investigated.
The police department then held a press conference to reveal more details. They had reason to believe, they said, that Michael
had molested a thirteen-year-old boy. This was a shock. The pop star who was regularly seen in the company of youngsters,
and who was known for his interest in children and in charities devoted to them, might actually be a paedophile? In a matter
of hours, Los Angeles was descended upon by reporters from foreign countries doing their own independent investigations into
what Michael had done, and to whom. He had always been so secretive, so strange. Now, it was assumed, the questions about
him had been answered. Anyone who knew Michael feared that his career, and maybe even his life, was now ruined. ‘I thought
he would kill himself,’ said one of his staff members at the time.

The next day, Anthony Pellicano explained to the media that Michael had been the ‘victim of an extortion attempt gone awry’,
and one which his camp had been investigating for the last four months. ‘A demand for twenty million dollars was made,’ he
told the Associated Press. ‘It was flatly and consistently refused. The refusals have, in our opinion, caused what has transpired
in the last few days.’ He didn’t mention the fact that the Jackson camp had entered into negotiations that involved proposals
and counter-proposals.

Michael’s camp hired high-powered criminal defence attorney Howard Weitzman to represent him; he read a statement prepared
by his client: ‘I am confident the department will conduct a fair and thorough investigation and that its results will demonstrate
that there was no wrong-doing on my part. I intend to continue with my world tour.’