Remember the Time: Protecting Michael Jackson in His Final Days

by Bill Whitfield

  I turned around and said, “Mr. Jackson, did you hear that?”

  “No, what?”

  “On the radio. They’re saying that you died.”

  He just laughed. He said, “Yeah, I get that all the time.”

  18

  On March 5, 2009, Michael Jackson stepped onstage at the O2 Arena in London. Dressed in black and standing at a podium before a striking red backdrop, he waved to the four hundred journalists and seven thousand screaming fans assembled to hear him, and announced the multimedia stage show spectacular he called This Is It.

  “And This Is It,” Jackson said, “really means this is it. This will be the final curtain call. I love you. I love you all.”

  To the casual observer, Jackson looked to be mounting the comeback of all comebacks. Three months before, in early December, AEG had agreed to move him out of the Hotel Bel-Air and into a new home at 100 North Carolwood Drive in the exclusive neighborhood of Holmby Hills. The seventeen-thousand-square-foot mansion cost $100,000 a month, an expense the promoter was holding against Jackson’s earnings from the O2 concerts. Shortly after New Year’s, Tom Barrack and Colony Capital had deployed a small army of contractors to rehabilitate Neverland, spending millions on the landscaping and repairs needed to return the estate to its former glory.

  By the end of January, Jackson and AEG had agreed on the terms for This Is It. Jackson was given an advance of $6.2 million, which he guaranteed with a commitment to perform ten shows in London that summer. What Jackson didn’t know at the time was that AEG was already forecasting that the demand for tickets would far outstrip the seating capacity of just ten shows. And Tohme Tohme, having seen Jackson’s finances up close, knew that ten performances alone would never be sufficient to wipe out the singer’s debt. Tohme and AEG had already explored raising the number of performances if consumer demand called for it.

  Immediately following Jackson’s March 5 announcement, fans were told they could register online for a pre-sale drawing of tickets. Over a million people registered in just the first twenty-four hours. Tohme and AEG immediately began to talk about increasing the number of shows, first to twenty, then to thirty-one, and finally to a total of fifty live shows. Jackson reluctantly agreed to the increase on certain conditions. AEG had to rent him an estate outside London for the extended residency. And, to ensure that he remained in proper health, AEG had to hire a personal trainer, a personal chef, and a personal physician. For this last position, Jackson insisted they hire Dr. Conrad Murray, his private physician from Las Vegas. When tickets for This Is It went on sale the following week, all fifty shows sold out in a matter of hours, and seats were soon being auctioned off on eBay for as much as fifteen thousand dollars apiece.

  Back in Los Angeles, preparations for the concert’s July 8 launch date were already underway. Kenny Ortega, who had served as Jackson’s choreographer for the Dangerous and HIStory tours, was hired to helm the massive production. Hundreds of dancers were flown to L.A. from all over the world for auditions. The final show would include more than twenty production numbers, each one set against its own individually designed set piece, all at a cost that was rapidly approaching $30 million.

  As the production geared up for launch, the maneuvering that had been going on behind the scenes ramped up as well, reaching new heights of absurdity. When Frank DiLeo failed to secure a deal for AllGood Entertainment to stage a family reunion show with Michael Jackson, Joe Jackson partnered instead with a longtime acquaintance named Leonard Rowe. Rowe, a concert promoter, was an ex-convict who’d been imprisoned for wire fraud in the early 1990s.

  At Joe’s behest, Rowe went to Patrick Allocco of AllGood Entertainment, claiming that he, not Frank DiLeo and not Tohme Tohme, was Michael Jackson’s manager. Allocco paid Rowe a fifteen-thousand-dollar retainer on the promise that he could set up a meeting with Katherine Jackson—the only person in the family whom Michael actually spoke to—in the hopes that she could convince her son that joining the family for a reunion would be the better deal. Leonard Rowe prevailed upon Katherine to intervene. Fearing that fifty shows in London would jeopardize his health, she agreed that the reunion was best and started lobbying her son. Meanwhile, Frank DiLeo was busy forging an alliance with Jackson’s personal assistant, Michael Amir Williams, who by this point controlled virtually all access to the singer. Williams, who had never liked or trusted Tohme Tohme, saw DiLeo as a better ally to have inside the camp. And so the personal assistant opened the door for the former manager to get back in Michael Jackson’s ear.

  By the end of March, Tohme Tohme, Frank DiLeo, and Leonard Rowe were all moving independently about Los Angeles, each claiming to be Michael Jackson’s manager. Underlining the confusion, on April 2, an industry news site published an article entitled, “Will Michael Jackson’s Real Manager Please Stand Up?” By that point, many in Jackson’s camp were actively working to counter the influence of Tohme Tohme, telling Michael that Tohme had served him poorly by backing him into the fifty shows in London.

  On April 14, Jackson agreed to meet with his father and Leonard Rowe to hear out their proposal for the reunion concert. By the end of the meeting, Jackson had signed two letters, one naming Leonard Rowe as his manager and another stripping Tohme Tohme of any and all authority to represent him. Around the same time, Frank DiLeo started to take meetings while brandishing a letter, allegedly written and signed by Michael Jackson, naming DiLeo as his manager and representative. With Tohme Tohme out of the picture, and Michael’s world in complete disarray, DiLeo convinced AEG that he could control the family and their access to Michael and keep everything running smoothly until London. By mid-May, DiLeo was working out of an office at AEG. The promoter also kept up cordial relations with Tohme Tohme, who was intimately involved with the London deal whether Jackson wanted him to be or not. AEG was covering all its bases.

  On May 25, Jackson sent a letter to Leonard Rowe renouncing any business relationship the two had ever had, finally closing the door on the idea of a Jackson family reunion, a deal that had never actually existed but had somehow consumed a great deal of attention for close to six months. Two weeks later, its efforts stymied, AllGood Entertainment sued Jackson for $40 million, claiming that the singer and his manager Frank DiLeo—who, after being hired by AEG, appeared to be Jackson’s manager—had agreed to perform at a Jackson family reunion. Therefore the deal to perform at the O2 Arena was a breach of the “contract” with AllGood. As a compromise, AllGood said it would settle for a percentage of the profits from the London shows.

  The “vultures” Michael Jackson had worried about were arriving right on cue, and the stress began taking its toll. Jackson was regularly missing rehearsals, showing up late, and exhibiting erratic behavior. He was losing weight, plummeting to a dangerously low 130 pounds, and his insomnia was worsening. On June 19, Kenny Ortega would later recount, Jackson showed up for rehearsal in an alarming state, too weak to run through the show. The director sent Jackson home and then, later that night, sat down and emailed AEG’s Randy Phillips, expressing his concerns. “He appeared quite weak and fatigued this evening,” Ortega wrote of his star performer. “He had a terrible case of the chills, was trembling, rambling, and obsessing. Everything in me says he should be psychologically evaluated. If we have any chance at all to get him back in the light, it’s going to take a strong therapist to help him through this as well as immediate physical nurturing.”

  “I believe that he really wants this,” the email concluded. “It would shatter him, break his heart if we pulled the plug. He’s terribly frightened it’s all going to go away. He asked me repeatedly tonight if I was going to leave him. He was practically begging for my confidence. It broke my heart. He was like a lost boy. There may still be a chance he can rise to the occasion if we get him the help he needs.”

  Bill: I watched the London press conference on TV. When I saw him at the podium, announcing the concerts, that was the first time I thought, Wow, this is really happening. Up until that poin
t, I’d really paid no attention to it.

  What struck me about the press conference was when he said, “This is it. This is the final curtain call.” I don’t think people knew exactly what he meant when he said that. He meant this is it. Over. Done. I’m not doing this no more. It wasn’t going to be like the Eagles or Frank Sinatra, these people who retire, come back, retire again, then go back on tour one more time. No. Michael Jackson was out.

  As reluctant as he was to perform again, I believe he’d genuinely worked himself up to be excited about doing those initial ten shows. The King of Pop had taken over. He was excited because what was being asked of him was doable. When they upped it to fifty shows, he was livid. I remember there was talk of fifty shows back at the Palms. It was fifty before it was ten. Fifty was the original number, because that was how many shows he really needed to do to make this big money they were waving in his face.

  Back when all these concert discussions were in the beginning stages, he’d talk to us about it in the car. He’d say, “They want me to do fifty shows. I can’t do fifty shows.” He didn’t say it like he was refusing to do it. He said it like it was ridiculous they were even asking him to do it, like they were asking him to jump off a fifteen-story building and survive. Like, Can you believe they really expect this? He’d talk about his age, all the wear and tear of doing those world tours, how he’d messed up his back, his knee. It was the same way he spoke about not committing to five nights a week in Vegas. “I can’t do that many shows. I just can’t.”

  It seemed like a bait and switch. It was originally fifty shows, then it was lowered to ten to entice him to do it, then they raised it back to fifty again. I heard they got Mr. Jackson to commit to it by saying he’d break the record for the number of shows sold out by Prince, because Mr. Jackson was always competitive about being compared to Prince. That was one story that was going around. But the reality was that Mr. Jackson was already in debt to AEG for so much money. He’d taken this multimillion-dollar advance on the shows, plus AEG was paying for that mansion in L.A. So when they told him it was fifty shows, it wasn’t like he could pay back what he’d already taken. He was boxed in. He didn’t have a whole lot of options.

  Javon: I never believed he was going to do fifty shows. After spending all that time with him? No way. Never. He was always so frail, so skinny. He could have gained ten pounds and he’d still be too skinny.

  And it wasn’t just the physical aspect. It was his demeanor. Some days he was upbeat, other days he was down. Like with Elizabeth Taylor’s birthday. He could be up, totally in a good mood, ready to go, but if one little thing threw off his day, that was it. He’d shut down. There’s no way he was going to be able to get through months and months of performances without some drama in his world shutting him down.

  I wanted to believe it would happen. I wanted to root for this big comeback. But he was so unpredictable. Even with that press conference, I still didn’t believe that this concert was actually going to happen. I wasn’t going to believe it until he was onstage with a mic in his hand, singing.

  Bill: Shortly after the press conference, things on our end started to move again. I was getting calls from Peter Lopez. Mr. Jackson was going to be renting an estate outside London. He wanted us to handle security. Javon and I were in touch with a company over there, telling them what equipment we would need. We were getting pictures of the house, floor plans, that sort of thing. Once the shows started, we were going to handle security at the estate and escort Mr. Jackson to and from the arena, where AEG’s people would handle everything. Again, I had the feeling that Mr. Jackson was trying to keep that barrier between his personal life and his professional life. So we were going to London. That was definite.

  Pretty much everything with the house was set up through Peter Lopez. I’d been looking to reestablish that personal connection with Mr. Jackson we felt we’d lost, and for me, Peter Lopez was the anchor. He made us continue to feel like part of the team. He’d say, “Listen guys, Michael trusts you. All this other stuff is going on, but don’t worry about it. I spoke to Michael. He wants you guys in London.” I felt good about that. I also had several conversations with Brad Buxer, Mr. Jackson’s musician friend who spent all those nights with him in the studio on Monte Cristo. Brad would say, “Bill, you gotta go. You have to be part of this. Just sit back, and it’ll be cool when we get to London.”

  Talking to Peter and Brad, hearing their enthusiasm, that made me feel a lot better. They were the guys who were there for Mr. Jackson even when there was no money to be made, so they were the only people I felt I could really trust. Once it was confirmed we were going to London, I drew up a proposal, a new contract to include provisions for our traveling and working overseas, and I sent it to Peter Lopez. That was passed on to the new management, but I never heard back from them.

  There was a big management shuffle going on. Once the London announcement was made, and once the fifty shows were sold out, it was like blood in the water to all these sharks. You thought it was bad before? Now everybody was coming out, trying to grab onto this thing. Since the Palomino days, everything had been going through Tohme Tohme. Then, in April, right in the middle of the run-up to London, all of a sudden he was out. Mr. Jackson fired him. Whoever wanted Tohme out, they’d gotten in Mr. Jackson’s ear and convinced him that this guy couldn’t be trusted.

  Joe Jackson had been trying to put together a Jackson reunion show at the Superdome. He was always trying to pull that one, trying to get the brothers back together. We knew Mr. Jackson didn’t want to do it. Whenever the subject came up, the boss would just shrug and roll his eyes and say, “That’s all Joseph.” Mr. Jackson did make the statement once that he would love for his kids to see him perform with his brothers. But he also didn’t want anything to do with his father’s business plans, and doing anything with his brothers would involve his father. But Joe was leaning on Katherine to get Mr. Jackson to do it. The family didn’t trust Tohme Tohme, so they were taking sides with whoever was trying to push him out.

  Even after Tohme Tohme was fired, he was still going around, claiming to be Michael Jackson’s manager. Somehow this Frank DiLeo character had leveraged his way in and gotten himself hired by AEG in some capacity, and now he was claiming to represent Mr. Jackson too. It was chaos. Total confusion. These people were all out signing deals, saying they were Michael Jackson’s manager. And because Mr. Jackson would sign whatever was put in front of him, there were all these conflicting contracts and letters of agreement going around, and everybody was threatening to sue everybody else for violating this deal or that deal.

  I was a step removed from all that, but I saw everything that was going on in the industry around the show. There weren’t many people who had Michael Amir’s direct number, and not everyone knew that he was the new gatekeeper. My number was the last point of contact a lot of people in the business had for Mr. Jackson, and I was getting calls all the time. It was insane. All these producers and other types who’d worked on his older albums, they were calling me up and saying, “If Michael plays such-and-such song in the show, he’s going to owe royalties to so-and-so. He needs to call my attorney.” I was getting calls like that every day. Did anybody call just to say, “Hey, tell Mike ‘Good luck’?” No. There was nothing like that. It was a feeding frenzy. Everybody was calling to say why they should be involved and what they should get out of it. I just passed all the messages up the chain to Michael Amir.

  Javon: Even Ms. Raymone came back around, trying to get another cut. Back when we were living on Monte Cristo, she’d set up a dinner with Mr. Jackson and someone from AEG. It didn’t go anywhere at the time. She couldn’t put the deal together, but now that AEG had come back to Mr. Jackson to try again, she said she was owed something on that. Even though Mr. Jackson had paid her hundreds of thousands of dollars to cut her loose, she came back after the London announcement and sued him for $44 million. When we first heard that, we were like, What? After all that damn money you got
paid? You clown. You snake. You’ve been eating off this guy forever, and now you want $44 million off a deal you couldn’t make happen? What a joke.

  We could tell he wasn’t being looked after properly, because all of a sudden, he was all over the news. The paparazzi had him everywhere. Seemed like pictures of him were popping up on TMZ.com practically every day. When I saw all those pictures of him in L.A., all I could think was, “What the hell is going on?” The paparazzi had him staked out, and the people handling his security were taking him in and out the front doors of places in broad daylight. We couldn’t believe he was out like that. We never took Michael Jackson through the front door of anywhere if we could help it. Here they had him parading around in front of the cameras nonstop.

  Part of it was just him being in L.A. and having all this new excitement around the show, but even in L.A., if you want to avoid the paparazzi, you can do it. It’s more difficult. It requires more planning and more effort, but celebrities do it all the time. Famous people who don’t want to be seen are not seen. But the people handling Mr. Jackson didn’t seem to care about his privacy. They cared more about putting him out there to generate buzz for this tour. Shame on anybody and everybody who allowed him to go out like that.

  Bill: Meantime, this whole massive production was gearing up, like a huge jet engine getting ready for takeoff. But the stories I was hearing about Mr. Jackson were pretty much what I expected. I knew some of the people working on the show just from being around the music business, and we knew a couple guys on the security team. I’d hear from them. They’d say, “He wasn’t himself today.” This wasn’t that new to us. I heard there were a few rehearsals that he missed because he was tired. I’d had a few calls now and then from Grace. She’d say, “The boss is tired working on them shows.”