Untouchable

by Randall Sullivan

  What was most startling about Michael Jackson’s postlife success was how completely death seemed to have rehabilitated his public image. “His sainthood began the moment that he died,” David Reeder, a vice president at GreenLight, the licensing agency that handled the estates of Johnny Cash and Steve McQueen, among others, observed to the New York Times. “That’s been beneficial for the estate. They haven’t had to overcome a lot of obstacles that might have made him less desirable commercially.” John Branca wanted to make sure that he and John McClain received credit for how redeemed Michael was in the eyes of the American people. “We felt we needed to restore Michael’s image,” Branca told the Times, “and the first building block of that was the movie. People came away from that movie with a completely different view of Michael. Rather than being this out-of-control eccentric, they saw him as the ultimate artist, the ultimate perfectionist, but at the same time respectful of other people.” The estate’s executors were praised in the New York Times for having made maximum use of both the passion and the fascination that people felt for the entertainer. “What they’ve done brilliantly is that they’ve taken advantage of the emotion surrounding the tragic and unexpected passing of Michael Jackson,” said the Elvis Presley estate’s Robert F. X. Sillerman, “and [they’ve] done it in a way that’s tasteful yet profitable, and that’s challenging.”

  Not everyone was impressed. “What they’ve done, anyone could have done,” scoffed Tohme Tohme. “They’re selling Michael Jackson to a world that wants Michael Jackson. It’s not difficult.”

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  Descriptions of life inside the Hayvenhurst compound varied considerably from visitor to visitor. “Camp Jackson,” Paris Hilton’s mother Kathy described it to People magazine, which quoted another “insider” who painted a picture of three happy children whose devoted grandmother had helped them settle into a life that was “simple and sweet.” “On a typical day the kids get up early and romp around the grounds with their dogs, Jackson and Kenya, before drifting over to the pool,” People told its readers. “Indoors, they watch movies, play Pictionary and horse around with Grandma.” Arnold Klein saw things rather differently: “The Sodom and Gomorrah show in Hayvenhurst,” he called the Jackson family home. He was so disgusted with them all, Klein told TMZ, that he had lost interest in anything beyond the “the welfare of the children.”

  Amid the dueling characterizations, there was at least some agreement about how the three kids were dealing with life after Michael. Prince was still withdrawn, but visitors to the Hayvenhurst compound also sensed a resolute composure in the boy, an iteration of the poise Natalie Maines had remarked upon one year earlier. He didn’t want to talk much about his father, or anything else for that matter, and continued to spend silent hours at a stretch playing video games, but what little he did say suggested that Prince had been paying close attention to what was going on around him. A couple of his uncles were quite uncomfortable with some of the questions the boy was asking about his inheritance. Paris summoned up memories of her father far more frequently than both of her brothers combined. She seemed to find comfort in recalling the day Daddy had introduced their puppy Kenya into the family, or that evening when he took them all to the tower of the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, where they stood eating Snickers bars and looking out on the phantasmagoria of colored lights. She was becoming interested in fashion and developing a sense of personal style; when she needed new eyeglasses, she posed in more than a hundred different frames before choosing the one that suited her. Blanket still seemed to be suffering, but not so intensely. Only seven when his father died, the youngest child continued to cry out for Daddy during the night for weeks after his arrival at the Hayvenhurst house. He wanted to be held often. Katherine Jackson’s fundamentally loving nature was a blessing to the boy, most visitors to the family compound said, and he was increasingly devoted to her.

  Michael’s siblings, though, squabbled regularly and often loudly over the disposition of Michael’s estate, and in particular about what it had cost to make peace with John Branca. All of Katherine Jackson’s children, but Randy most aggressively, were complaining that she had accepted a deal with Branca that cut them out of the estate entirely. Katherine herself was increasingly unhappy with the stingy allowance she received. While John Branca and cocounsels were responding generously to any request that directly benefited Michael’s three children (by its accounting, the estate had shelled out $115,000 for a “family vacation” during the second half of June and the first part of July in 2010), they were providing Katherine Jackson with a monthly cash allowance of just $3,000, and the entire family were up in arms about it. Almost nothing was left over for Katherine’s children, and that was as intended, according to Branca, who said that Michael Jackson had made it very clear that he did not intend to provide for his siblings. Even when Branca upped Mrs. Jackson’s monthly stipend to $8,000, several of her surviving children continued to complain vociferously, demanding that Katherine mount a genuine challenge to the estate’s administration.

  The clamor for action grew deafening after the estate trustees submitted to Judge Beckloff’s court their preliminary accounting of “disbursements” during the sixteen months between Michael’s death and October 31, 2010. The three-page document showed that nearly $29 million had been paid out to people working for the estate. John Branca’s first two hires were being well taken care of: More than $600,000 had been paid to Sitrick and Company, which was still only about a third of the nearly $1.8 million that had been collected by Howard Weitzman’s law firm. All told, nearly $6 million had been paid to attorneys working for the estate. Greenberg Traurig had recieved more than $2.1 million, while Hoffman, Sabban & Watenmaker had collected just about $1.6 million. Branca’s own firm had received only a little more than $100,000 for its services, but Branca himself had done far better than that, as had John McClain. Under the heading “Co-executive and Creative Director Compensation,” nearly $18 million in payments were listed between February 2, 2010, and October 8, 2010, indicating that Branca and McClain had each pocketed nearly $9 million in a period of eight months. Even if those payments were for the full sixteen months of work, it meant that Branca and McLain were averaging nearly $600,000 per month in compensation. And meanwhile Branca wants you to thank him for raising your allowance to $8,000 a month, Joe and Randy Jackson told Katherine.

  The anger among Michael’s siblings, nieces, and nephews was increasingly matched by a mood of apprehension as they came to understand that Katherine Jackson would be able to collect even this pittance from the Jackson Family Trust only for as long as the eighty-year-old woman remained healthy enough to serve as the three children’s guardian. Rebbie and Janet were the only two Jacksons considered fit to replace their mother in the event of serious illness or death, but Janet had no real interest in the kids beyond “arranging photo opportunities with them,” as one of Katherine’s advisors put it, while Prince and Paris were outspoken about rejecting Rebbie’s extreme religiosity, and did not want to live with her. The brothers and La Toya were certain to be shut out if Katherine passed, a fact that only intensified the fractious nature of the family’s relations. And of course there was still the question of Joe, constantly circling the compound, sneaking in at every opportunity to look for whatever levers he thought might turn things his way.

  The inclusion of Grace Rwaramba in the household was intended to provide a stabilizing effect, but it seemed to have quite the opposite effect. La Toya now appeared to have recognized Grace as a serious threat to the Jacksons’ hegemony. “The family has mixed feelings about her,” La Toya told a British reporter. “Mother says she wants to be with the kids, but I warned her to be careful. It’s not like the children like or dislike her. They like everyone. Mother is gullible and feels sorry for her.” La Toya seemed to believe that it was Grace herself who had spread the story that she was Michael’s girlfriend and was quick to dispute it. “I have a lot of questions about Grace,” La Toya had told a British tabl
oid not long after Rwaramba landed at Hayvenhurst. “She was instrumental in keeping the family away. All of a sudden she is back, listening and watching the family. I think her behavior is odd.”

  Learning what Grace had said to Daphne Barak was what cooled the affections of Prince and Paris, according to some reports from the compound. Others said the real problem was that Grace persisted in overplaying her hand. The nanny knew that her presence at Hayvenhurst had been a determining factor in Debbie Rowe’s decision to yield custody to Katherine, these sources explained. And over time, several family members had interpreted various remarks she made as implicit threats to tell the world what she knew about the Jacksons, Michael included.

  In late August word emerged from the Hayvenhurst estate that Michael’s three children would be enrolling in the fall at the exclusive Buckley School. Prince, who was pushing to explore the world outside the Hayvenhurst compound, wanted to attend class with other kids. All three of Tito’s children had attended Buckley, whose recent alumni included Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, and Kim Kardashian. When September came, though, Katherine decided to continue homeschooling the kids. It was what they were used to, she said. The estate administrators approved funds to convert the theater into a classroom and to create an actual schoolyard within the family compound, complete with a volleyball court, so that their curriculum could include PE class. The kids would take field trips and have a regular lunch, as well.

  Things turned ugly a couple of months into 2010. On the first day of March, a team of officials from the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services arrived at the Hayvenhurst compound, having been called to investigate a report that Jaafar Jackson had purchased a stun gun online and was experimenting with it on his young cousin Blanket. ABC News posted an online story that Jaafar had ordered at least one, and perhaps two stun guns off the Internet, then shared the 3,000-volt weapon with the other children in the house for three days before they were caught chasing Blanket around the house with it. After receiving a phone call from an alleged witness, DCFS had dispatched a team of investigators, who arrived at the Hayvenhurst estate shortly before 11 p.m.

  Adam Streisand was on the scene the next morning to refute the ABC story, acknowledging that Jaafar Jackson had ordered a stun gun (Streisand incorrectly described it as “a Taser”) online, and had “opened it in his bathroom and tested it on a piece of paper.” Katherine Jackson and a security guard at the house heard the sound, followed it to Jaafar’s bathroom, and promptly confiscated the weapon, Streisand said: “Blanket Jackson never saw or heard the Taser. Neither did Paris Jackson. Prince saw the Taser in possession of security.” DCFS officials had taken possession of the gun and removed it from the house, said Streisand, who quickly added that he saw no reason why the incident should be brought before Judge Beckloff.

  The Jackson family was less concerned about what the judge might think of the stun gun story than with how Debbie Rowe might react to it. The cordial relations that appeared to have resulted from Rowe’s agreement not to contest Katherine Jackson’s custody of the children had chilled considerably in August when Katherine’s attorneys opposed Debbie’s petition to have the Michael Jackson estate pay the nearly $200,000 in legal fees she owed to Eric George, calling the amount “unreasonable.” The Jacksons had reportedly complied with their agreement to inform Prince and Paris that Debbie was their biological mother, and to retain a child psychologist who would structure and monitor her visits with the two older children. People who purported to speak for Rowe, however, suggested that the Jacksons were making it difficult to arrange those visits by repeatedly claiming conflicts with other scheduled events. Debbie did not believe the Jackson family welcomed her, these sources said. Tito Jackson insisted this was not the case: “She can definitely have rights to visit, hang out, and be part of the family,” he said. “After all is said and done, they are her kids. I would like to see her be part of the Jackson family. There is enough love for everybody.”

  The stun gun incident, however, ratcheted up concerns among the Jacksons about whether Rowe and her attorney might bring her concerns before Judge Beckloff. DCFS wasn’t doing much to ease the family’s anxiety, sending investigators to the Hayvenhurst estate repeatedly during the next two days to question each of the fourteen people who had been living in the house at the time, as well as all security guards and other employees. Within twenty-four hours, TMZ began raising questions about Adam Streisand’s description of what had taken place. Apparently, there was a “conflict” between the accounts offered by the Jackson family and those that came from employees at the Hayvenhurst compound, TMZ reported: “We know some members of the staff will tell DCFS that the stun gun was there for several days before a member of security went upstairs and allegedly found Jaafar and other kids playing with the gun and pointing it at Michael’s son Blanket.”

  Tensions inside the compound spiked again in early May 2010, when Radar Online, a Web site affiliated with the National Enquirer, posted “WORLD EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Shocking Violence Inside Jackson Home.” What the video showed was Jermajesty speaking into a camera for a moment, then Jaafar stepping into the frame with a furious scowl and cursing his younger brother as a thief, then slapping Jermajesty across the face with enough force to send the boy sprawling to the ground. At least that’s what the editors at Radar Online saw. A perhaps more persuasive interpretation was that a couple of goofy kids had staged what they hoped might be a massive YouTube hit before some opportunistic adult got hold of it. Radar Online, though, found a clinical psychiatrist to analyze this “brutal” scene. “It shows a cycle of violence, knowing about family history,” opined Dr. Joseph Haraszti. “When he hits his brother so hard that he falls flat out, it looks like he knocks him out. There may have been violence towards him to make him behave that way.” As for the stun gun incident, Dr. Haraszti went on, “it shows lack of supervision. It seems that the children are out of control. Which begs the question, where are the adults? Who is in charge?”

  Debbie Rowe was asking the same question, Radar Online reported, after catching Debbie outside a Barnes and Noble at a shopping mall in Calabasas that very evening. “Of course I’m concerned about Blanket,” an emotional Rowe replied to a question about the stun gun imbroglio. “I’m concerned about my children. Who wouldn’t be?” Debbie also took the opportunity to tell the world that, despite the Jacksons’ supposed suggestion that she could be a member of the family, she still had yet to set foot on the Hayvenhurst property. “I have never been to the house,” she said, blinking back tears.

  Within the gates of the family compound, the questions that Katherine and the other Jacksons asked were: Who snitched us out to the DCFS? And who gave that video to Radar Online? The paparazzi agency X17 was reporting that Grace Rwaramba had done both. Grace’s call to DCFS had been the result of an ongoing “feud” between the children’s nanny and their grandmother over who was really raising Prince, Paris, and Blanket, according to X17. Even though Katherine knew that Grace was responsible for both calling DCFS and selling the video to Radar Online, X17 reported, the Jackson family “is afraid to get rid of Rwaramba because she has been threatening to write a tell-all book.”

  In fact, Grace would leave the Hayvenhurst compound before May 1. It wasn’t the Jacksons who compelled her departure, though, but rather Alejandra Oaziaza. “That whole mess, with the stun gun and all of it, was really about just one person,” Marc Schaffel said. “Alejandra’s the one Katherine wanted out of the house.” Mrs. Jackson tried to persuade Alejandra to depart with her two youngest children during the last months of 2009. “What Katherine did originally was tell Alejandra she was going to remodel Hayvenhurst—which it definitely needed,” Schaffel recalled. “There were toilets that didn’t work and doors falling off hinges. And Alejandra almost went, but then she said, ‘Well, how do I know you’re gonna let us come back?’” After the stun gun incident, though, DCFS had made a “strong recommendation” that Michael’s children needed to be se
parated from their cousins, especially Jaafar and Jermajesty. This time, Katherine tried to entice Alejandra into vacating the Hayvenhurst compound with an offer that she and her children could live, all expenses paid, in the Encino condominium that Michael had transferred to his mother years earlier. “It’s a beautiful condo,” Schaffel explained. “Katherine had it completely remodeled and it was like brand-new. But Alejandra wasn’t happy. She wanted to know who was going to cook and clean for them. So Katherine, being the woman that she is, said, ‘Well, I’ll send some of the staff members over there a couple of days a week.’ And get this, Alejandra says, ‘Why would I want that when I already have full-time help here?’”

  On TMZ, it was claimed that Alejandra was responsible for both the call to DCFS and the appearance of the slapping video on Radar Online, each move made as a way of letting the Jacksons know she would not leave Hayvenhurst quietly. Family members blamed Alejandra for the story that Grace had decamped from Hayvenhurst because she and Paris were fighting constantly, forcing Katherine to ask the nanny to pack her bags and go. “The only reason Grace left was because she couldn’t take the abuse that Alejandra and her kids were putting her through,” Schaffel said.