The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals (61 page)

Added to that, Jackson’s reputation took a nosedive once again when he insisted that his children went out in public wearing elaborate masks and veils to hide their faces; they were home-schooled, apparently to avoid them socializing with other children their age. Bizarre rumours also began to appear that suggested the children had to throw away their toys every night for fear that they would catch germs from their “used” play things. Since their father had long since been rumoured to sleep in an oxygen tent and was often seen wearing a surgical mask in public, the idea of his germ phobia did not seem too far-fetched, though a look through home movies, which were later released, seems to show this particular rumour to be false. In one revealing snippet, the small children can quite clearly be seen sitting on a wooden floor and playing with a jigsaw that has certainly seen better days, with the box collapsing with age – it certainly had not just been opened that day.

Of the masks and home-schooling, both Debbie Rowe and Michael Jackson said that it was for the children’s safety and to protect their identity from the masses. That was fair enough, but given that other huge stars such as Madonna and Whitney Houston were raising their children without the aid of veils in public, this seemed a rather moot point. Further confusion was added when he told
At Large with Geraldo Rivera
that he would soon bring his children on stage with him, which would surely rule out any possibility of keeping them incognito for security’s sake. It would seem that by this time, whether he liked it or not, Michael’s “Wacko Jacko” persona seemed very much set in stone as far as the media were concerned.

From 2002 to 2003 Michael Jackson made the ill-fated decision to allow the filming of an in-depth television special with investigative journalist Martin Bashir. During the featurelength presentation, the singer was seen travelling around the world with his veil-covered children; going on huge shopping sprees to buy elaborate vases; and shaking wildly when trying to bottle-feed his youngest son. Unfortunately it did not stop there, and towards the end of the programme Jackson was seen holding hands with a teenage boy who he said had been very ill and had stayed at his Neverland ranch on several occasions. The singer explained that they had sleepovers at his home, and given the child molestation claims of just a few years before, this statement caused a riot in the newspapers.

Of course, the claims of having children stay overnight was not only of interest to the media and public, but to the authorities too. After an investigation into the matter, Jackson was arrested in November 2003 and charged with a number of offences, including child molestation and giving alcohol to a minor. Jackson, of course, denied the charges and called his ex-wife Lisa Marie, and as she had never seen any wrongdoing during their marriage, she encouraged her former husband to stay strong.

The trial of Michael Jackson began on 31 January 2005 in Santa Maria, California. It was extremely long-winded – as one might expect – and seemed to involve interviews with almost everyone who had known Michael Jackson over the years. The child at the centre of the case was called to testify, along with his brother and interviewer Martin Bashir. Then Macaulay Culkin, the former child star of the
Home Alone
films spoke of his friendship with the star but denied being molested himself and described the allegations as “absolutely ridiculous”.

Every day Jackson would appear at the courthouse with his family, looking weaker and weaker as time went on. He would shuffle into the building shielded by umbrellas, but in spite of the unconventional surroundings, would always find time to wave to his ever-present fans. Then one day photographs of the star were beamed around the world when he arrived at court straight from a stint in hospital, still wearing pyjama bottoms and a pair of slippers. It is fair to say that this incident did nothing for the man’s image and many media outlets used the photographs to “prove” that he was losing his sanity and finally going off the rails.

The trial rumbled on until finally, on 13 June 2005, Jackson was acquitted on all counts, and fans outside the courtroom cheered, wept and freed white doves in his honour. The visibly broken singer then made the painful decision to move from his beloved Neverland ranch in California in a bid to regain his life. For many years he had created a life behind the gates of the mansion where he would never have to leave. If he wanted to see a movie, he had a theatre in his home; if he wanted to visit a zoo there was one of those in the grounds. A theme park?Yes, that was there too. So to leave Neverland behind was a genuinely painful experience for the singer, but after the trauma and expense of the court case, it was unfortunately one that was deemed absolutely necessary.

From that moment on, the Jackson family led something of a nomadic existence and travelled the world to various places including Ireland and the Persian Gulf. Finally, they arrived back in the United States and settled into a leased, rambling mansion at 100 North Carolwood Drive, Los Angeles, which – by coincidence or not – was just steps away from the former California home of Elvis Presley, Jackson’s idol and father of his ex-wife Lisa Marie. There he hoped to live a quiet life with his family, but it was not to be.

Suffering from various health problems, including an addiction to prescription pills, the singer was short of money and needed to earn some fast. To that end he was persuaded to do a series of shows in London, which were designed to get his life and his finances back on track once again. Initially, Michael Jackson agreed to do just a handful of shows, but by early 2009 this had grown into a staggering fifty concerts, which were due to kick off in July of that year and continue until March 2010.

To announce the concerts, which were to be called the “This Is It” tour, a huge event took place at the O2 arena in London, which saw Michael Jackson himself take to the stage to speak to his fans. The crowd were kept waiting quite some time but when Jackson eventually walked on, none of that seemed to matter. Grown men and women were seen jumping up and down in the crowd, screaming and crying as the singer walked around the stage, wearing a black and silver shirt and dark glasses.

Finally, after giving the cheering crowd a peace sign, he stopped at the podium to speak, telling the audience that he planned to do a series of concerts at the O2 arena, and described the events as the “final curtain call”. “I’ll see you in July,” he cried, before leaving the stage.

The fans were beside themselves with excitement but unfortunately, as it turned out, the press conference given that day was the real “final curtain call” and he never did make it to London or anywhere else in July. On 25 June 2009 the world heard the shocking news that Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, had passed away, and a new mystery was about to begin . . .

The evening before his death, Jackson was feeling poorly but managed to do a late-night rehearsal at the Staples Center in Los Angeles for the forthcoming O2 concerts. He finished after midnight and then headed home to bed where he was unable to sleep and asked his doctor, Conrad Murray, to administer a drug called Propofol, which is an anaesthetic used in hospitals while performing surgery. To an outsider this would seem to be an absurd thing to administer, but in the world of Michael Jackson it appeared that this was just a regular occurrence. Certainly on 25 June, when Jackson was unable to sleep, Propofol was apparently administered; the singer fell into a deep sleep and he never woke up again.

That afternoon Murray is said to have found Michael Jackson in bed, not breathing and unresponsive. The doctor panicked and tried to revive him without success, before finally calling for members of the singer’s security team to come and help. Strangely, it would seem that in order to try and provoke breathing, the doctor was not performing CPR on the floor, which is standard practice, and instead was attempting the procedure on the soft bed, making it extremely difficult to administer. Michael Jackson’s bedroom was in total uproar by this time, with personal belongings and all manner of paraphernalia all over the room.

Added to the chaos came the distressing realization that Jackson’s young daughter Paris had appeared at the door and was in total sight of the distressing events that were unfolding all around her. She was quickly taken away by staff members, though the sights already seen by the child that day were likely to stay in her mind for a great many years to come. Once she had been taken away from the room, work continued on Jackson, but by the time paramedics arrived at the property, things were not looking good at all. While they hoped to find Michael Jackson responding to treatment, they instead found that the singer was not breathing at all. They took over from the doctor and continued efforts to revive him for a full forty-two minutes before taking him by ambulance to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. There, Jackson was worked on for over an hour before finally being pronounced dead at 2.26 p.m.

The news of Michael Jackson being rushed to hospital spread around the world to such an extent that many search engines and social media outlets crashed under the pressure of the worldwide public trying to find out what was going on. At first it looked as though the star had suffered a heart attack but was still alive; eventually an official statement was released by the family which confirmed what people were dreading – the King of Pop had died. However, until an autopsy was performed, it could not be determined exactly why or how it had happened.

While police were investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of the world’s most famous pop singer, a memorial for Michael Jackson was held and included a mix of tributes, songs and stories from friends and colleagues. The emotional climax came when the family surprised everyone by taking to the stage themselves, along with the Jackson children minus the veils and masks they had always worn in the past. While Prince and Blanket stayed in the background, Paris, supported by Michael’s brothers and sisters, expressed her love and gratitude for the man who had raised her. Through her tears and despair, she made it clear that Michael Jackson had been a close, loving and very real father to her.

The children then went to live with their grandmother, where as of March 2013 they still remain – living a somewhat less guarded life, going to school, and attending clubs and activities like other children their age. Still, even this move into “normal” life has encountered some difficulties that have piqued media interest, including the time in summer 2012 when their grandmother apparently briefly went missing from the family home. The children took to Twitter to ask where she had gone, but it was soon revealed that she had merely been taken to a spa by several members of the Jackson family who were concerned that she was becoming too stressed over the legalities of running the Michael Jackson estate and caring for his children.

Back in 2009 the investigation into the circumstances surrounding Michael Jackson’s death continued with searches of his home and the offices of his doctor, Conrad Murray. Many rumours about Jackson’s private life flooded the newspapers, mainly regarding his children, questioning their paternity and whether or not they would be returned to their natural mothers. Several men stepped up to claim that they – not Michael Jackson – were the biological father but in the end no proof was ever forthcoming.

More than two years later, on 27 September 2011, the trial of Conrad Murray for the involuntary manslaughter of the singer began in earnest. The trial brought up all kinds of startling information, including photographs of Jackson’s dead body; pictures of his dishevelled bedroom full of medical equipment; and the revelation that the insomniac would often beg his doctor to administer drugs powerful enough to bring on sleep.

It was revealed that when other powerful sedatives did not work, the singer would often be given Propofol and it was this, in conjunction with the other drugs in his system, that had finally pushed Jackson’s body over the edge, inducing his untimely death. The trial ran until November 2011 when the jury eventually found Murray guilty of involuntary manslaughter and he was sentenced to four years in prison.

In the end, away from the tales of drugs and the trials and tribulations over what went on during that fateful day in June 2009, Michael Jackson’s death was shockingly tragic, a conclusion to a life that could hardly have been stranger. During his almost fifty-two years on earth, he dazzled audiences around the world with his songs, his dance and his energy, but finally he seemed to become a shadow of the person he had once been, apparently surrounded by a team of hangers-on and yes-men. Perhaps it can be said that if more people had dared to say no to him, then the singer might still be alive today.

But while Jackson may have gone, he has left behind not only a body of work unlike anything that anyone had ever seen and heard before, but also three children who seem determined to do their father proud and carry on his legacy. The eldest, Prince Michael, has started work as a correspondent for
Entertainment Tonight
, while Paris has seemingly always wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps as a performer. In a family video shot when she was very young, she was asked what she would like to be when she grew up. “Just like you, Daddy” was her reply. Now a teenager, she has already appeared in one movie and has plans to make many more in the years to come.

Finally, while they may no longer have their father around them, it is abundantly clear that in shielding the children from the paparazzi and giving them the early childhood that he himself never received, Jackson has enabled his daughter and sons to develop their own personas and be comfortable in their own skin. If only he had been given the same privilege – surely everything would have been very different for Michael Jackson, the King of Pop.

In October 2010, the successful
Real Housewives
television franchise was expanded with the release of
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
. The show catapulted six women to worldwide fame, and while only two of them were actually successful actresses, it did not matter, as the scandal provided by the women was more than enough to fill the pages of any Hollywood gossip magazine.