Untouchable

by Randall Sullivan

  DOCUMENTS

  “Michael Jackson’s Home Movies” raw interview footage provided by Marc Schaffel.

  LONDON 1988/BAD TOUR

  Cole, Paul. “Michael Jackson: The Day Our Man Came Face-to-Face with King of Pop.” Sunday Mercury, June 26, 2009.

  Frith, Simon. “Wack Attack.” Village Voice, August 16, 1988.

  Pareles, Jon. “Michael Jackson Opens Tour.” New York Times, February 24, 1988.

  BOYS/CHILDLIKE BEHAVIOR

  Bashir, Martin. “The Secret Life of Michael Jackson.” ABC, March 7, 2005 (RT).

  Cole, Rob. “FBI Probed Jackson ‘Sex Call’ to Brit Teen.” Sky News Online, December 22, 2009 (RT) (hereafter cited as Cole, “Brit Teen”).

  Hill, Desiree. “Jimmy Safechuck Findings.” desireespeakssolisten.blogspot.com, November, 2011 (I).

  “Interview: Terry George About His Friendship with Michael Jackson.” Skynews, July 29, 2009 (RT) (hereafter cited as “Terry George”).

  King, Larry. “Corey Feldman Interview: ‘Nothing Inappropriate Happened.’” CNN, November 21, 2003 (RT).

  Lewis, Emmanuel, interviewed by Howard Stern. The Howard Stern Show, January 9, 2003 (RT).

  “Michael Jackson and Emmanuel Lewis.” In Touch, March 2005.

  Owens, Nick. “First Target of Michael Jackson’s Obsession with Boys Says: ‘What He Did Was Wrong . . . but I Forgive Him.’” Daily Mirror, June 28, 2009 (hereafter cited as Owens, “First Target”).

  Smyth, Sam. “Jacko and Jimmy at Jury’s Hotel, 1988.” Belfast Telegraph, June 27, 2009.

  “Terry George (40) Will Appear at Jackson’s Trial.” (British TV) Channel 4, January 24, 2005 (RT).

  “When Jacko and ‘Best Pal’ Jimmy (10) Came to Cork.” (Irish) Independent, June 18, 2005.

  BROOKE SHIELDS

  “Rivers—Brooke Shields Exploited Jacko’s Death.” TMZ, August 4, 2009.

  ELIZABETH TAYLOR

  Marikar, Sheila. “Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson: Hollywood’s Odd Couple, Now Gone.” ABC, March 25, 2011 (RT).

  Park, Jeannie. “He Does, She Does—They Do!” People, October 21, 1991.

  Posner, Gerald. “The Jackson-Liz Drug Link.” Daily Beast, July 6, 2009 (I) (hereafter cited as Posner, “Drug Link”).

  Walls, Jeannette. “The King of Kabbalah?” msnbc.com, June 23, 2005 (I).

  CHAPTER 11

  Jarvis Cocker/Brit Awards: dangerousminds.com’s retrospective of coverage of MJ’s 2006 return to London; video of the performance and Cocker’s interruption (dailymotion.com). HIStory promotional campaign and backfire/MJ reduced status: Willman/LA Times, Nisid/Entertainment Weekly, Hillburn poll/LA Times, Pareles/NY Times review. The most complete and balanced account of both the promotional campaign and the release of the album itself, though, is the one found on pophistorydig.com.

  Response to Diane Sawyer’s MJ–Lisa Marie Presley interview, negative: Orth/Vanity Fair; positive: Jet; middle America: Bark/St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Cocker recalling Brit Awards thirteen years later: Cocker to British Press Association. “Diva demands”/2006 World Music Awards: msnbc.com cataloging British press; demands and performance fiasco: “Michael Jackson booed . . .”/NME. “Truly macabre figure,” “so prone to panic attacks,” “germaphobe”: Alison Boshoff/Daily Mail. Bain containing damage: November 16 and 17 press releases and statement. Pop Revenge reporter quote: “Michael Jackson Booed at World Music Awards”/artistdirect.com, a good general description of the events and immediate aftermath. Postponement of Japan trip: AS1, Bain press release December 4, 2006; reaction in Tokyo: Adamu/mutantfrog.com. MJ restlessness and discomfort on return to Grouse Lodge: AS1. Departure from Grouse Lodge (incl. gifts, signing of slice of tree, “you are the only ones . . .”): AS1, Dunning interviews.

  HISTORY/ABC INTERVIEW

  Bark, Ed. “Michael Jackson Interview Raises Questions, Answers.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 26, 1995.

  Hajarl, Nisid. “The King of Pap.” Entertainment Weekly, September 20, 1996.

  Hillburn, Robert. “King of Pop Is Now a Commoner, Poll Says.” Los Angeles Times, October 22, 1995.

  “Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley Reveal Intimate Side as Lovers, Parents and Best Friends.” Jet, July 3, 1995.

  Orth, Maureen. “The Jackson Five.” Vanity Fair, September 1995.

  Willman, Chris. “Michael Jackson Takes Off the Glove and Rails at Attackers with New Songs That Take the King of Pop from ‘Bad’ to Sad—Very Sad.” Los Angeles Times, June 18, 1995.

  LONDON 1996/JARVIS COCKER

  “Brit Awards 1996: Jarvis Cocker vs. Michael Jackson.” dailymotion.com, September 25, 2009 (I).

  “Jarvis Cocker Breaks His Silence over Michael Jackson’s Death.” Press Association, July 3, 2009.

  “When Jarvis Cocker Met Michael Jackson.” dangerousminds.com, January 21, 2011 (I).

  LONDON 2006/WMA APPEARANCE

  Bain, Raymone. “Michael: Performing ‘Rumour’ Was ‘Misunderstanding.’” November 16, 2006.

  ———. “World Music Awards Appearance Had Sound Off—Head of Public Relations Baffled.” November 17, 2006.

  Boshoff, Alison. “Is This Jacko’s New Wife?” Daily Mail, November 10, 2006.

  “Michael Jackson Booed at World Music Awards.” artistdirect.com, November 16, 2006 (I).

  “Michael Jackson Booed During London Live Comeback.” NME, November 16, 2006.

  “Michael Jackson’s Diva Demands @ World Music Awards.” msnbc.com, November 16, 2006 (I).

  WMA AFTERMATH

  Adamu. “ZAKZAK on Why Michael Jackson cancelled His Xmas Party in Japan.” mutantfrog.com, December 20, 2006.

  “Raymone Bain Releases Statement—Michael to Attend Christmas Celebration in Tokyo.” November 21, 2006.

  “Raymone Bain Releases Statement Refuting Neverland Sale Claims.” December 21, 2006.

  CHAPTER 12

  Arrival in Las Vegas, including MJ’s travel disguise: AS1, unnamed inside source to US Weekly. Property address: documents shown to me by CS2; $1 million in advance for rent: widely reported, confirmed to me by three separate sources. Everyone aware of what MJ paid was outraged by the inflated figure. Christmas tree and presents, Celine Dion–like Las Vegas act: Wishna to Us magazine. Wishna and MJ opening a hotel together, slot machines and statue: Wishna (two interviews) to Norm Clarke/Las Vegas Review-Journal. Statue details: Wishna to E!online. James Brown’s funeral: AS1. Brown’s death, remains at Apollo, transport of body: Associated Press, Vogel/Columbia Spectator. MJ at C.A. Reid Funeral Home: Daly/“. . . grim fascination . . .”/New York Daily News, Tune/WRDW, original research into mortuary. Brown’s casket: press reports, KJ’s statement that her son was laid to rest in the very same model. Description of MJ at funeral: video of funeral, Reid/mtv.com. Early conversations with Steve Wynn: AS1, Review-Journal, Leach. MJ/Wynn background and Milken: former prosecutor Miller/“Inside Vegas.” Beacher: Beacher to Us. Fuller meetings with MJ (and Ortega): Leach/Luxe Life blog. MJ avoiding his father: a half-dozen sources, Wishna to Access Hollywood. I know that Joe Jackson has been living mainly in Las Vegas since the 1990s from an assortment of people who have been involved with the Jackson family then and now, and that Joe’s infidelities, and his relationship with his illegitimate daughter Joh’Vonnie in particular, were the main reason for that. I believe Rabbi Boteach’s imprint is heavy on the part of the Oxford speech that involved MJ’s determination to forgive Joe.

  That MJ avoided his family as completely as possible has been attested to by numerous employees, associates, managers, and attorneys, from Bob Jones, who was working for him when MJ moved to Neverland, to Tohme Tohme, who was MJ’s manager until two months before his death. Except during his criminal trial, MJ spent very little time with his family during the last twenty-five years of his life. Schaffel and Wiesner both told me that MJ instructed his security staff at Neverland not to let his father or his siblings onto the property; Schaffel recalled that MJ specifically barred his sister Janet from his home.r />
  Jackson “soap opera” material Orth/“CSI Neverland,” (Jackie/Enid/Abdul, Jermaine/Maldonado, Hazel allegations, Eliza allegations): court files of brothers’ divorce actions, Taraborrelli, Bob Jones. Jackson brothers all alike except MJ: Eliza Jackson to Taraborrelli. Problem La Toya posed for her family: Schaffel, Taraborrelli, off-record sources. Jack Gordon, Growing Up in the Jackson Family: multiple accounts, including Jet, People. KJ/more sadness than anger about La Toya’s accusations: KJ to Jet and confidential sources, who have expressed amazement at how willing Katherine has been to forgive her daughter. The two of them are actually pretty close these days, and La Toya spends more time in her mother’s home than any of the children, except Jackie. 1993 Tel Aviv press conference in which La Toya promised to “prove” Michael’s guilt: video via YouTube, Washington Post, Houston Chronicle. La Toya recanting accusations against MJ/her family, blaming Jack Gordon: Larry King 2003, 2008 interviews with a Danish television network and, of course, her most recent book, Starting Over, in which she paints herself even more graphically as Gordon’s victim.

  It should be noted that all of La Toya’s more lurid accusations against Gordon have been made since his death in 2005. Before he died, Gordon denied La Toya’s claims that he battered her into posing nude, dancing topless, and defaming her family. Gordon insisted that La Toya told him that everything she wrote in her first book was true and said also that the only violent encounter between the two of them took place when she came after him with a broken bottle and he held her off with a chair.

  MJ’s dislike of his family: Bob Jones (“made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want his family around,” “ordered his staff to stay away from them and keep them at arm’s length,” and “had more than an active dislike for the Jacksons; he acted as if he despised his family”). This accords with what I heard from virtually everyone I spoke to who was close to MJ during the last two decades of his life, his love for his mother being the exception.

  Jermaine wasn’t publicly outed for his attempt to sell his brother out until the spring of 2006, when Michelle Caruso of the New York Daily News got hold of the proposal for “Legacy” that MJ’s brother had been shopping back in 2006. Jermaine went on Larry King’s show immediately after Caruso’s story ran to insist he never tried to sell a book that disparaged his brother, and blamed the entire controversy on Stacy Brown, Bob Jones’s coauthor, who had contracted to do the actual writing of Jermaine’s book. He was going to sue Brown, Jermaine said. Brown responded by going to Caruso to tell her about the tape recordings he had made of his conversations with Jermaine, he said he had turned them over to an attorney and was considering suing Jermaine for slander. Neither ever filed a suit against the other, and Jermaine has done all he can to pretend the entire episode never took place. But CNBC show host Donny Deutsch also obtained a copy of the “Legacy” book proposal and all but called Jermaine a liar on the air. Shortly after MJ’s death in 2009, Roger Friedman found his own copy of the “Legacy” proposal and wrote that it described MJ in even harsher terms than had been previously reported. Jermaine kept his mouth closed. In a 2011 interview with muzikfactorytwo.blogspot.com, Stacy Brown confirmed again that all of the terrible things said about MJ in the book proposal came from Jermaine’s mouth. In fact, Brown said he had written the proposal for a “positive” book, which didn’t sell, and Jermaine himself changed it to emphasize all those terrible things he had said about MJ. Brown also revealed that the publisher Judith Regan had given MJ a copy of the proposal, leading to a confrontation between the brothers, and that the rest of the family agreed MJ had “sabotaged the book because of his disdain for Jermaine.” Randy Jackson and Rebbie’s husband Nate both called Brown, fearing that he would release the tapes he had made of his conversations with Jermaine, and Brown promised not to “as long as Jermaine stopped lying.”

  Leo Terrell’s comments: Terrell. Terrell knows more about the Jacksons than he can say, and told me more than I can print; most of his insight derives from work for Johnnie Cochran sorting out assorted legal peccadilloes involving the Jacksons. Grace Rwaramba/Jacksons using ATM card: Rwaramba’s High Court testimony, Rwaramba to Barak (from which quote is taken; see Chapter 1 notes). Jackson brothers’ financial distress/reduced professional status: bankruptcy court files, sources with authoritative knowledge of the family’s finances, Brown/Fanelli/New York Post, Ditzian/mtv.com. Gary Berwin judgment against Joe: Jacksons’ bankruptcy file, Taraborrelli. Segye Times lawsuit, “Michael Jackson’s Secret Vault”/Henry Vaccaro: Joe/KJ bankruptcy file. MJ legal claim against Vaccaro, dismissal: Mariant/Associated Press. I know a great deal more about both the Segye Times lawsuit and Vaccaro’s dealings with the Jackson family than I wrote into the text, having observed the process by which Perry Sanders settled the Moonies’ claim against Katherine Jackson on the one hand, and having been provided with the truly arcane details of Vaccaro’s pursuit and acquisition of the “Secret Vault” (through the same storage unit paper trail described in Chapter 12) by Howard Mann, who eventually took possession of those assets from Vaccaro.

  The Jacksons’s 2006 holiday gathering (incl. MJ’s dark glasses): AS1. A couple of the Jacksons have spoken about that get-together themselves in interviews, but I’m reluctant to put much stock in their accounts, so this is a rare occasion in which AS1’s account is the primary source.

  I know that the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s office was running a drug investigation against MJ after his acquittal at the criminal trial from a confidential source who did not want to be quoted; it is in the public record as well. Tom Sneddon’s office actually filed documents alleging that a large stash of prescription drugs had been seized when police raided Jackson’s Neverland ranch in 2003, including bottles of Vicodin, OxyContin, Versed, Promethazime, Xanax, and Valium. Some of that information is detailed in Lorenzo Benet’s People article. The DA’s office in Santa Barbara continued the drug investigation for some months after MJ left the United States, but for reasons unknown to me never filed charges and eventually let the entire matter lapse. No one involved in the investigation will comment on it. Mesereau on MJ drug use: People v. Jackson court transcript. Drug procurement by MJ’s security staff: reports and files in People v. Jackson, Posner/“Jackson’s Shady Inner Circle” (see Chapter 6 notes) “Jackson and the ‘Pill Mills,’” Waxman/TheWrap.

  Farschian material: court file documents as above, investigative documents that have been produced since MJ’s death, Schaffel, Wiesner. Carter and LaPerruque quotes: statements in criminal investigation. The handwritten note referencing Buprenex and “D” surfaced during the more recent investigation into doctors who enabled MJ’s drug addiction. I believe the first journalist to obtain it was Kyle Munzenrieder of the Miami New Times, whose article included a photocopy of the note.

  Allan Metzger: investigative files (most generated in connection to the Conrad Murray criminal case), media reports, Wiesner. Wiesner told me Metzger was with MJ during the entire HIStory tour. Lisa Marie Presley also identified Metzger as being with MJ on the HIStory tour: her interview for criminal investigation. She named as well a second doctor, New York anesthesiologist Dr. Neil Ratner, as being part of the tour. I simply don’t have enough information about Dr. Ratner’s role to do more than note his presence. Maureen Orth reported that Myung Ho Lee had claimed that he had paid Ratner to put MJ through a detox program in Seoul in 1999. When I mentioned Ratner’s name to Dieter Wiesner, Dieter gave a slight gasp and said, “Ah, so you know about him.” Unfortunately, I really don’t. A number of articles have reported that Metzger was reprimanded (but retained his license) for prescribing drugs to Janet Jackson under an alias, and Metzger has acknowledged that he treated MJ in the 1990s. Metzger videotaping MJ/Debbie Rowe wedding: “Friendly Docs”/TMZ.

  MJ staff attempting to use a doctor visit to procure drugs: Clarke/“Doctor . . . Jackson’s suite.” Elie Wiesel’s doctor: Boteach. Sinnreich quotes: Sinnreich via vitals.com. Relationship between pain, addiction, and percepti
on: my research; in particular, Nutting/“Understanding Addiction Cycles,” opioids911.org. “If I stop using drugs I’ll die”: Taraborrelli/Daily Mail. Ammar quote: Boshoff/“Michael Jackson was so high . . .”Daily Mail. Claims of injury or pain: Boteach in his book, Deepak Chopra in interviews.

  Klein-MJ relationship: innumerable articles, investigative reports, and court filings; Schaffel, who was generally quite sympathetic to Dr. Klein; and AS1, CS1, and CS2, none of whom spoke favorably of Klein. Because these last three chose to be anonymous sources, I’ve given their recollections less weight than Schaffel’s. Dieter Wiesner also spoke about Klein, though more obliquely, simply lumping him in with “the doctors” who had prescribed drugs to MJ over the years. Klein background/University of Pennsylvania: Posner/“Jackson’s Doc’s Drug Dealing Past,” Seal/Vanity Fair. Founding and expansion of practice: Klein via drarnoldklein.com. How and why Klein became so popular in Beverly Hills: Schaffel, stories I’ve heard about Klein going back decades. Taylor book inscription to Klein: Seal. Taylor telling doctors in rehab Klein had prescribed her Dilaudid and Ativan: Posner/“ Jackson-Liz Drug Link” (see Chapter 10 notes), off-record sources. That said, Schaffel is not the only one who has insisted that Klein was not a “drug-dealing doctor”; Carrie Fisher (who knows a lot about drug dealing doctors) has said so as well. Amount of drugs Taylor consumed, Taylor and MJ sharing drugs: Posner (see Chapter 10 notes), Heymann/Liz (which reported that Taylor had received more than three hundred prescriptions for thirty separate drugs in 1981 alone, and that she received a prescription for six hundred pills on the occasion of MJ’s birthday party a few years later. Klein hiding medical files involving MJ, admitting to police prescribing Dilaudid and Ativan to MJ and Taylor, Sneddon listing him as one of doctors prescribing Demerol to MJ (as Ferdinand Diaz): deputy’s report, other docs in court file of People v. Jackson, “Jacko Doc Hid Medical Records . . .”/ TMZ.