Charles met with Frank Dileo and asked for details. ‘He didn't want to discuss it, told me to get lost,’ Charles said. ‘I got some information on the phone from Steven Hoefflin, but not much. Without cooperation, the story had to be put on hold.’
Not for long, though…
When Michael heard that the Enquirer was asking questions about him, his wheels started turning. Earlier in the year he had given Frank Dileo and John Branca a copy of a book about P. T. Barnum, his theories and philosophies. ‘This is going to be my Bible and I want it to be yours,’ he told them. ‘I want my whole career to be the greatest show on earth.’
Michael's idea was to promote the story that he was sleeping in the hyperbaric chamber in order to prolong his life to the age of 150. He would add that he planned to take the machine on the road with him on his next tour. He wasn't certain that the public would believe such a fantastic story – at this time, such wacky stories were not as associated to Michael as they are today – but he was eager to see how much of a buzz he could start. John Branca thought the idea was odd, but it seemed harmless enough as far as publicity stunts go.
It fell upon Frank Dileo to find a way to disseminate the fabricated story. He called Charles Montgomery and gave him the information he had sought earlier and, to make the story even more irresistible, he promised a photograph of Michael actually in the chamber – as long as Charles could guarantee the weekly's cover. He also made Charles promise not to reveal his source for the information.
‘I honestly didn't know if the story was true or not,’ Charles Montgomery said. ‘But Michael Jackson said it was true, his manager said it was true, and his doctor verified it. How many more sources do you need? Then, there was a picture. It turned out to be a great shot, the guy laying there in the chamber. We knew what they were after in giving it to us, though. They said they wanted us to use words like ‘wacky’ and ‘bizarre'. We knew the Captain EO thing was coming up, and figured he was probably trying to promote some kind of sci-fi image. Still, it was a good story.’
With the Enquirer in place, Frank wanted to strategize a way to distribute the story to the mainstream press, but without anyone knowing he was involved with it. Planting it in the Enquirer did not risk his credibility since he could easily deny having had anything to do with it. Certainly, no one would take a National Enquirer reporter's word over Frank Dileo's. However, other more legitimate press might be tougher to crack. Since the media knew that veteran publicist Norman Winter worked for Michael Jackson, Norman could not be the one to promote the bizarre story to the press. Frank would have to hire an outside publicist for the job.
As it happened, Frank's Sunset Strip office was next door to that of leading show-business publicist Michael Levine. Frank invited Michael to his home in Encino and told him about his idea, but with a few embellishments. Frank took Michael's idea a step further. He wanted the press to believe not only that Michael was sleeping in the chamber, but also that he and Michael were locked in a strong disagreement about its safety, and that Frank did not want him to take the machine on the road with him during his next tour. Michael Levine was told that if he wanted to represent the story to the media, he would have to do so without having any contact with Michael Jackson – and without informing the media that he (Levine) was involved in any way. In other words, Michael Levine's task was to publicize one of the most ridiculous stories ever concocted without anyone knowing he was doing it.
The next day an envelope was delivered to Michael Levine's office. The messenger had strict instructions that only Levine be privy to its contents. He opened the envelope to find a single colour transparency of Michael Jackson lying in the hyperbaric chamber in his street clothes, but without shoes. There was no covering letter or return address.
It was time for Michael Levine to go to work. He brought a well-known Hollywood photographer to Brotman to take pictures of the empty hyperbaric chamber for any publication that might need additional photos.
One reporter recalled, ‘Levine telephoned me and said, “Look, I don't represent Michael Jackson. I don't even know Michael Jackson. But I was up at Frank Dileo's house, and I overheard that there's this wild feud going on.’ Then he told me this story about Michael sleeping in an oxygen chamber and the fact that he and Dileo were feuding about it. In about three days, I was hearing this damn story all over town.’
About a week later, the pieces of the puzzle came together. The picture of Michael lying in the chamber made the front page of the National Enquirer on 16 September 1986, as planned. Most people had never heard of a hyperbaric chamber, so it was difficult to know if the picture was a set-up. In truth, patients and medical personnel who enter such a chamber must wear fire-retardant clothes due to the high concentration of oxygen, not street clothes as Michael had on in the photograph. And why take off his shoes?
With Michael Levine's assistance, word of Michael Jackson's exploit quickly spread around the globe, a perfectly orchestrated public relations coup. If his goal was to appear ‘wacky’… he certainly achieved it. The hyperbaric chamber story was carried by the Associated Press and the United Press International. It appeared in Time, Newsweek and practically every major newspaper in the country. Television and radio news covered it. Suddenly, the words ‘hyperbaric chamber’ were on the lips of many people as they gossiped about crazy Michael's plan to live to 150 and how he and his manager were fighting about it.
When contacted by the Associated Press, Frank Dileo confirmed the report. ‘I told Michael, “That damn machine is too dangerous. What if something goes wrong with the oxygen?” But Michael won't listen. He and I are in disagreement about this. He really believes this chamber purifies his body – and that it will help him accomplish his goal of living to be a hundred and fifty.’
And to Rolling Stone: ‘ Michael knows if I tell him something, it's the truth. I don't have to agree with things if I don't want to. In other words, because I know this is eventually going to come up in this interview anyway, the hyperbaric chamber. I'm one hundred per cent against that. I don't want it around. I've spoken about it publicly. Some managers couldn't have that conversation with their artist. They'd be too afraid. He respects my opinion. He doesn't always listen.’
He added to Time, ‘ I can't figure him out sometimes.’
Even Michael's plastic surgeon, Steven Hoefflin, got in on the act and said he tried to talk Michael out of ‘this wacky idea'. However, Michael ignored everyone's fears and made room for the chamber in his bedroom.
When Joseph Jackson heard the story on the TV news, he ran up to Michael's bedroom to see if Michael had a hyperbaric chamber in there. ‘But I didn't find anything,’ he recalled. ‘So I figured, well, either the story is untrue… or the chamber is on its way.’
‘I don't think I allowed Michael to have that thing in the house,’ Katherine added.
Michael's family was obviously not let in on the joke. ‘Joseph always stood behind Michael when it came to these kinds of rumours,’ said his friend of twenty-five years, Jack Richardson. ‘He'd say, “Michael's not sleeping in no chamber. Don't believe what you hear about my son.”’
‘I never asked him about that chamber thing,’ Janet said. ‘I have no idea what that was about. It's not in the house, or I would know it. But knowing Michael, if he is doing something like that, it probably has to do with his voice.’
‘I realized then that Michael Jackson liked to see himself portrayed in an absurd, bizarre way,’ Charles Montgomery said. ‘In the years to come, I would do the biggest number of stories on Michael in the Enquirer. Before I ran anything, I would always check its accuracy with people close to Michael. I almost always had full cooperation from his camp. Michael is one of the smartest entertainers in the business. He knows how to get his name out there. He knows about PR. He knows how to control his career. I think he's brilliant.’
Michael was astonished by the way his fiction made headlines. Many untrue stories had been written about him in the past, and he had
been angry about them. Now, he was exacting his revenge against the media. ‘I can't believe that people bought it,’ he said of the hyperbaric chamber idea. ‘It's like I can tell the press anything about me and they'll buy it,’ he added, as if recognizing the full potential of his communications power. ‘We can actually control the press,’ he concluded. ‘I think this is an important breakthrough for us.’
Once, Frank Dileo was asked about the wisdom of doing whatever he could do to make Michael seem as incredible as possible or, as he put it, ‘to keep him as popular and in demand as anyone can be.’ ‘Might all this hoopla damage the singer's already fragile psyche?’ asked reporters Michael Goldberg and David Handleman for Rolling Stone.
‘It's too late anyway,’ Dileo responded. ‘He won't have a normal life even if I stop.’
The Elephant Man's Bones
Another publicity gimmick sprang forth from Michael Jackson's imagination in May 1987, one that was just as fantastic and – as it would happen – as damaging to his image as the hyperbaric chamber scam.
For years, Michael had been fascinated by the 1980 film about John Merrick, The Elephant Man, starring John Hurt. When he screened it in his private theatre, he sobbed his way through the entire film, he was that moved by it. John Merrick, the hideously deformed, Victorian sideshow-freak, was an outsider in a seemingly endless search for love and acceptance – just like, in his own view, Michael. In researching Merrick's life, Michael heard that his remains were kept in a glass case at the London Hospital Medical College. He wanted to see the ninety-seven-year-old skeleton, of course, and during a trip to England he obtained special permission to inspect the exhibit. (Because it attracted droves of tourists to the hospital, it had been removed from public view after the movie was released.) Michael was awe-struck by the exhibit and, as he examined the skeleton, said to Frank Dileo, ‘I sure would like to have these bones at Hayvenhurst house. Wouldn't it be cool to own them?’
‘Yeah, well forget it,’ Frank said.
‘But… hmmmm.’ Michael looked as if he had an idea.
‘Uh-oh,’ Frank said.
Remembering the hyperbaric chamber hoax, Michael came up with the idea that he should make an offer to the hospital to buy the John Merrick exhibit just to see what kind of press it would generate. ‘Man, that is crazy,’ Frank told him.
‘I know,’ Michael said, excited. ‘That's why we have to do it.’
In truth, Frank was all for it; he liked a good show as much as anyone else, and certainly as much as Michael. Therefore, claiming that Michael's absorbing interest in the remains of John Merrick was based on his awareness of ‘the ethical, medical and historical significance of the Elephant Man’, Frank told members of the press that he had offered a half-million dollars to the hospital for the bones. The offer was not publicized in the complex, cloak-and-dagger manner by which the hyperbaric chamber hoax made news. Rather, Frank called a couple of writers himself and gave them the scoop; the rules for such madness had, it seemed, become somewhat more flexible.
‘What's he gonna do with the skeleton, Frank?’ a reporter wanted to know.
‘I don't know,’ Dileo said, ‘except that he'll probably put it in the room while I'm trying to have a meeting with him.’
As expected, the media was interested in the story. The pop star who sleeps in a hyperbaric chamber wanted to buy the Elephant Man's bones. How could that not cause a stir? The wire services – Associated Press and United Press International – both picked up the story. By June, much of the public interested in such things was talking about Michael's latest eccentricity. The British media began referring to him as Wacko-Jacko.
Michael and Frank failed to realize, however, that the media might check with the London Hospital Medical College to verify that an offer had been received by them. In fact, when contacted by the press, officials at the College said they had received no such offer, that they had only heard about Michael's interest in Merrick's remains by reading about it in one of the British tabloids. Even if they did get an offer, the spokesman said, ‘We would not sell the Elephant Man. It's as simple as that.’
‘Oh, man, why didn't we think to cover our bases,’ Michael said to Frank. ‘Now we gotta make a real offer. And, anyway,’ he added, ‘of course they'll sell it if the money is right. Every man has his price.’
‘You serious now,’ Dileo asked. ‘You really want them, now?’
‘Yeah, I do,’ Michael said. ‘Let's get 'em.’
Now, Michael actually wanted the skeleton, but not because of any devotion to John Merrick but rather because he was told he couldn't have them.
Frank telephoned the hospital and made an offer of a million dollars for the Elephant Man's bones. The hospital officials said they were insulted. A spokeswoman told the press, ‘Indeed, he offered to buy it, but it would be for publicity and I find it very unlikely that the medical college would be willing to sell it for cheap publicity reasons.’
Back in America, Katherine Jackson figured out that the story was bogus. However, she thought it had been Frank's idea; she never dreamed that it was Michael's. She called Frank and said that she was upset; ‘you're making Michael look like an idiot.’ Frank told her that all he was doing was trying to make Michael appear to be more interesting. Katherine didn't like his explanation, though, and made her feelings clear. However, when Frank asked Michael what he thought about his mother's concern, Michael said, ‘Kate doesn't understand show business. So, don't worry about it.’
At this same time, the Jehovah's Witnesses' elders in Woodland Hills, California, began pressuring Michael again. They felt strongly that the recent publicity was doing him great damage, and that it reflected poorly on the Witnesses, because Michael was so representative of the faith. Michael was becoming disenchanted with the church's elders by this time, mostly because he didn't want to be told what to do. What's more he couldn't reconcile his lifestyle and career to the religion's strict tenets. In truth, it's almost impossible to be a Jehovah's Witness and be an entertainer. Therefore, in the spring of 1987, Michael withdrew from the Jehovah's Witnesses. A letter from the Jehovah's Witnesses headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, sent out as a press release, stated that the organization ‘no longer considers Michael Jackson to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses.’ Gary Botting, coauthor of The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses and a Witness himself, said that leaving the religion ‘is worse than being disfellow-shipped, or kicked out.’ He observed, ‘If you wilfully reject God's only organization on earth, that's the unforgivable sin… the sin against the Holy Spirit.’
Michael's decision to leave the church puzzled his mother, Katherine, and caused her great despair. Katherine wasn't sure she knew her own son any longer. However, there was no discussing the spiritual matter with him – literally. As it is strictly prohibited for a Witness to discuss matters of faith with ex-members, even if they are family, Katherine says that she has never asked Michael what happened, and she says that she never intends to ask such questions. ‘I was not required to “shun” my son,’ she claimed, referring to rumours of that nature. ‘But we can't talk about matters of faith any longer, which is a shame.’
Katherine maintained that her relationship with Michael continued to be warm. ‘Michael still asks my advice,’ she said. ‘And he helps me choose my clothes. He tells me to put on lipstick when company's coming. He has encouraged me to lose weight. He said, “Elizabeth [Taylor] lost all that weight. If she has, you can. And if you don't like it, you can always have plastic surgery.” But I wouldn't do that,’ Katherine hastened to add.
Michael soon lost interest in the Elephant Man's bones. As expected. It had certainly generated a great deal of press for Michael, though none of it favourable. Playboy magazine facetiously reported, ‘Rumour has it that the descendants of the Elephant Man have offered $10,000 for the remains of Michael Jackson's nose.’ In time, the controversy blew over. Gone, but not forgotten. Ever.
Michael's phony quest for John Merrick's bones created a
domino effect in the tabloids, one from which his image would never truly recover. After the Elephant Man's Bones story, unscrupulous journalists began creating their own fictions about Michael, and they did so with a vengeance. After all, if Michael wanted the kind of publicity he had been diligently courting, why not accommodate him? Crazy-Michael stories sold millions of magazines.
In a short time, according to the tabloid press, Michael had asked Elizabeth Taylor to marry him and said, ‘I could be more special than Mike Todd. I could be more attentive and generous than Richard Burton, but she turned me down.’ He also apparently tried to convince Elizabeth to sleep in his hyperbaric chamber; was convinced that the world would end in 1998; refused to bathe in anything but Evian water; and had seen John Lennon's ghost (who convinced him to use The Beatles song ‘Revolution’ in a Nike ad). And the stories about Bubbles the Chimp seemed to never end. None of the stories was true, though, and Michael went on to complain bitterly about them, never admitting (and maybe not even understanding) that he was the one who had thrown the first punch. Since Michael refused to do any interviews in an effort to maintain his inscrutability, the stories just spread without contradiction or explanation.
CBS Records executive Bobby Colomby recalled, ‘Michael kept asking why so many bad things were being said about him. He didn't understand it. He said it really hurt to read all that stuff. I tried to tell him that the problem was his. I explained to him that he'd never seen Bruce Springsteen on the cover of the National Enquirer in a hyperbaric chamber. Even if that picture came in, they wouldn't believe. I said, “But you, Michael, spend so much time working on your mystique, on being reclusive and unusual, that people will buy anything with your name on it.” He said he understood… kind of.’
To this day, the stories continue. Some true, some false, all mad.
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