Imagine yourself in a big hall full of people where you can see only one person. Where are you?

You are at a show where someone is placed in the spotlight and all the others are in the dark – both the spectators and the production team all the more so. The show organizers are actually behind the curtain or elsewhere and there is little chance that you will ever see them at all.

Illusion

This picture is what sex-abuse allegations against one person familiar to us are all about. The organizers forced him into the limelight – all the time staying behind the scenes – and the audience is watching the show from the semi-darkness they are in. The show has been on since it started in 1993 if not earlier.

All the time while this man was kept in this torturous spotlight he was examined on a daily basis and was scrutinized from every possible side by the media and every law enforcement body existing in the country, including the FBI. This went on for at least sixteen years until his death and is still going on until today, for more than two decades now.

During this time the public heard nothing but he-said-she-said stories from various con artists, all of which crashed with a big bang during the 2005 trial when the jury looked into everything the prosecution had collected against him for the previous years but still acquitted him on all counts.

Now another pair of con artists made their appearance, one of whom is not even shy to call himself ‘a master of deception’. Twelve years ago, when being under oath to tell the truth and nothing but the truth he told his innocent story with an easy and unaffected smile, and now with the same easy smile he is shrugging his shoulders and proclaiming the opposite – and we are still sitting in the semi-darkness and are still watching the show.

QUESTIONS

Who do you think this man is? Jimmy Savile? Jerry Sandusky? Someone from Hollywood?

Certainly not. We are sure of it because even if we have no idea which of these people are guilty or innocent the fate of this man is absolutely different from the enjoyable and carefree way these guys lived their lives. His every action was in constant limelight, while the deeds of these people were in complete shade leaving them free to do whatever they liked for many, many years.

So though the allegations against this man and the others may look the same, the media and law enforcement approach to them was dramatically different, and this is why there is no point in even trying to compare the incomparable.  

The man we are talking about is Michael Jackson of course, and while he was publicly scrutinized and forced to explain his every move, those other people kept abusing minors with no one even looking in their direction and with zero reaction to their victims’ complaints. When something bad about them surfaced all of it was hushed up and instead of investigations both guys were bestowed various honors – Jimmy Savile, for example, was even made “Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire” and was later knighted.

And all the time while they enjoyed impunity Michael Jackson was trashed for alleged wrongdoing in full view of everyone and was relentlessly persecuted in the media and court.

So even without any further look into the matter of guilt or innocence you cannot put Michael Jackson on a par with these people.  He received maximal negativism and the harshest treatment possible and even the tiniest of allegations about him was investigated up to the sheriffs and FBI going to other continents to interview the ‘witnesses’ and search for some ‘victims’.

This is Michael Jackson’s big difference from everyone else and this is the first thing the public should admit and realize.

Another question now. We know that some Hollywood guys suspected of abusing teenagers are occasionally sued by their alleged victims, but their cases are quickly dropped and their stories are almost immediately hushed up. The complainants get minimal attention from the press, are often counter-sued and are always vilified in the media by the defendants’ lawyers as a result of which even the most stubborn of them get nowhere and are simply forced to withdraw their cases. Is the same typical of Michael Jackson’s situation?

Absolutely not. It is even incredible how dramatically different his situation is. Every bastard who arbitrarily accuses Michael Jackson of anything he likes enjoys the best of treatment and ample media attention. His complaint is followed by a thorough investigation lasting for many years, he is given utmost respect by the judge and is guaranteed full observance of his sacred right to accuse Michael Jackson.

Illusion and Deception

And this happens even in the case when the complainant, Wade Robson for example, is an obvious liar whichever way you look at him – because what he says now is in a clear contradiction with what he said before, when he was in his sound mind and speaking under oath.

And though he himself now admits that he is ‘a master of deception’ even this admission does not raise any red flags or is not a source of visible public or media confusion.

Imagine Michael Egan (the accuser of Bryan Singer and three other Hollywood executives) making a complaint against them and saying that the previous time he lied and calling himself ‘a master of deception’ at that – and check your impression of it. You and the judge will think him crazy, not to mention the impossibility of his case going to court and dragging for three years there.

But when it is an allegation against Jackson it is okay. So speaking objectively the continuance of Robson’s case is the result of a huge distortion of public perception as regards Michael Jackson, which in its turn became possible only because of the many years of his bashing and all those allegations becoming familiar.

In psychology this process is called Desensitization, which in this particular case means that the more often a lie is repeated the more familiar it is, and the more familiar it is the easier it is accepted as ‘truth’ – by the public and even the legal system.

So the longer the judge keeps stroking Robson on the head, the more familiar his lies get and the more they turn in people’s minds into some kind of quasi truth. And since this craziness was not done away with the moment it appeared (as it should have) he is even inspired to tell us more of it. His memory is still ‘evolving’, you see, as he is telling us with that little smile on his face.

Here is an excerpt from Robson’s deposition on December 12, 2016:

A. <>You know, this reprocessing of my entire life for me through this healing process, you know, has been and will continue to be, I imagine so, for the rest of my life, meaning, you know, me perspective on things, my understanding of things, is constantly evolving as I remove the clutter from it all, remove the, the emotional and perspective repression of it all that I had compartmentalized for 22 years. So all that to say that, you know, this process evolves as far as what I, what I remember, what comes clear and my perspective on things.

Q. So, have your memories changed as you’ve gone through that process?

A. They’ve evolved.

Q. What do you mean by “evolved?”

A. Yeah, I mean, not changed in a sort of black-and-white sense. Like, I thought it was this thing – well, I mean, they have as far as prior to the healing process, right. Prior to disclosing. But post disclosing the abuse in 2012 and beginning that healing journey, they’ve evolved as far as I remember more details about scenarios. As it goes along, you know, it evolves, details get added to.

How very nice. So Robson is still in the process of remembering ‘more details about scenarios’ and we can expect more of them added, not to mention new turns in the scenario as a whole – with the word scenario being the key to the whole problem.

His method is clear and the way his tales are turning into quasi-truth is clear too – all this nonsense has been going on for too long and is acquiring the superficial veracity only due to its constant media repetition and the ensuing familiarity. And though the above is indeed clear like a clear blue sky, what remains unclear is why things like that happen only when it concerns Jackson?

Indeed, why everything that occasionally surfaces about Hollywood abusers is immediately hushed up, and instead we have to constantly listen to he-said-she-said stories about Jackson which are regularly supplemented by fake sensations like ‘secret FBI files’? And this has been going on for almost 25 years!

Is there a method behind it or is it just the way ‘things happen’?

Deception and Illusion

To me it is absolutely clear that this is a man-made process and an intentional displacement of the public focus. To be able to realize it all you need to do is watch the public gazing at Robson weave his wholly fictional web and see the same public not notice the real abuse of children taking place in the real world around them.

The process is as blatant as seeing the organizers of the show cry wolf – I mean cry “Michael Jackson” – and watching the crowd rush in his direction again, forgetting everything they have just heard about real abusers.

But if this is a show who are its organizers then?

And what do you think?

To me it is again obvious that the people most interested in the distortion of public perception are those who are guilty of these crimes themselves. They are the direct beneficiaries of the game while all others (the media, public, police and even judges) are just involuntary or sometimes voluntary participants in the process.

Whatever the reason for this public naivety, it is hardly forgivable as besides vilifying the innocent Jackson all this time people have been ignoring and overlooking real crimes committed by others and right under their very nose.

And in this connection I need to remind you of the story of Michael Egan who accused several Hollywood guys of abusing him, but in the end had to withdraw his case.

MICHAEL EGAN

Each time the judge allows Robson to amend his complaint (currently it is his fourth version) there is only one question in my mind – why does this case keep dragging for three years while the case of Michael Egan was stopped almost the moment it started?

Many people will reply that Egan’s case did not go further because his allegations were ‘false’.

However Egan is a real victim of abuse. It was proven during the civil trial in 2000 when Egan and two other victims filed a lawsuit against the company DEN sponsored by some well-known Hollywood personalities – Singer, Geffen, Huffington and others.

The company’s boss Marc Collins-Rector and its two other younger managers Shackley and Pierce were found guilty of sexually abusing Egan and the other complainants and still owe them $4,5 million in the court judgment which the boys never received.

So Michael Egan has already proven himself a victim of Hollywood abusers, while Robson is a proven liar (either before or now), so dismissing Michael Egan and giving the benefit of the doubt to Robson would be a very big fallacy indeed.

Egan’s case has its own drawbacks but the fact that he was abused when he was 15 is undeniable. For details you can read this article or at least a short piece from it quoting Egan’s first lawyer Daniel Cherin:

What Happens When You Accuse a Major Hollywood Director of Rape?

By Robert Kolker

… Daniel Cherin, along with law enforcement encouraged the boys to collect more evidence. “So we went back and copied everything in the file cabinet,” Egan says. “We had photos of the drug bags and child pornography in different cabinets, and video of the gun closet they locked me in.”

In early 2000, Egan was still sending emails to DEN’s executives, asking for money and even looking to hang out. The lawyers for Singer and the other defendants call this evidence of a shakedown; Egan says now it was part of the effort to collect evidence.

Egan’s great escape proved anticlimactic. The police and the FBI never charged anyone—Egan and his mother still aren’t sure why. “My mom heard from them once or twice, but that’s it.”

The three boys filed a civil lawsuit in 2000 for sexual abuse against Collins-Rector, Shackley, and Pierce. They did not name Singer, Ancier, Neuman, or Goddard.

Egan’s lawyer, Cherin, told them he didn’t have enough evidence to connect the others to the abuse—at least not like he had on the three men who actually lived at the house. <> He believed the high-profile targets had the resources to bury them in motions and counter-investigations. “I’m not a daredevil. I don’t get paid to take chances.”

http://www.vulture.com/2014/09/michael-egan-bryan-singer-lawsuit.html

So when you dig into Egan’s and Robson’s stories you find that one was indeed a victim and the other is just a self-admitted ‘master of deception’. But this is not the only discovery you make – the thing that takes you aback most is the big difference in the way they are treated.

Look at the method by which Egan’s lawsuit was halted, for example. You think that the judge dismissed his case as frivolous? Nothing of the kind. The problem is that his lawyer Jeff Herman was sued by two of the defendants for ‘malicious prosecution’ and had to pay them a million dollars in addition to making an apology as part of their settlement agreement (wow, the attorney had to pay the other side just for representing his client!)

As a result Michael Egan was left without an attorney and had to withdraw his case until he found a new lawyer. The judge dismissed it “without prejudice” which means that he can reopen it any time again. I bet you didn’t know it and had a totally different impression from the way the media reported Egan’s lawsuit. (see this article for details)

But though Egan has the right to sue again I doubt that any lawyer will agree to represent him. Firstly, a year after he’d made his complaint he was sent to prison for 2 years for collecting money for a holiday-theme attraction – which he indeed had with his brother – but spending the major part on paying his bills.

And secondly, it is indeed frightening for a defense attorney to be sued just for representing his client, and this is what those Hollywood guys actually did (Ancier and Newman, but not Goddard and Singer).

Remember all those con artists who sued Michael at a mere whim and the fact that none of them, not to mention their lawyers, ever had to answer for their false allegations, and you will see the difference. For some reason people know that it is safe to sue Jackson and his Estate, while the Hollywood guys are really dangerous stuff which no one tries to disturb.

So as a very minimum please don’t you ever repeat those laughable stories about ‘fear’ in connection with Michael Jackson, because in this respect you are definitely looking in the wrong direction.

Another striking difference between Egan and our ‘master of deception’ is that Robson is repeatedly allowed to tell one thing and then another and then contradict himself once again and no one still cares, while Egan was severely scolded for just one inaccurate answer which actually shows that he is no good at lying.

He said that he made his pleading without legal help though the pleading was written on a paper with a law firm logo on it. As a result he received a scolding tirade from an angry judge all of which was immediately spilled to the media of course.

This historic dialogue stunned me by its harshness, especially considering that the complainant is indeed a sexual abuse survivor and even in the worst of cases required a more gentle approach. Here is a reminder of the way it was:

Judge Scolds Hollywood Sex Accuser for Lying in Court

9:15 AM PDT 10/21/2014 by Jonathan Handel

According to a transcript of the hearing obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, when the judge asked Egan what help the firm was providing, Egan answered, “Nothing in this case.” That didn’t sit well with Seabright, who responded sharply, “Well, that’s not true. I mean, facially that’s not true.” He pointed out that the documents had been emailed from the firm, and added, “Don’t say ‘nothing,’ Mr. Egan, okay? … You understand this is a court of law.… You understand if you lie to me you’d get in trouble.”

Egan acknowledged the judge’s statements and apologized, but the exchange continued.

“So be truthful,” said the judge. “I am,” responded Egan.

“Well, no,” interjected Seabright. “You weren’t. Because you said ‘nothing,’ they’re doing nothing. That’s not true.”

Egan then replied that he didn’t know how to file pleadings, so the law firm had helped him with that. This seems to have further angered the judge, who interrupted Egan and said, “You don’t know how to get a stamp and put it on an envelope and write your return address on it and then mail it? You don’t know how to do that?”

Egan conceded that he did, but said, “I’m just at a loss, I’m not an attorney.” Seabright responded, “I’m not buying this.… I’m a smart guy, I get it, and don’t underestimate me.”

Egan finally acknowledged that he’d had substantive help as well, saying that a law clerk had researched and drafted the language in the documents. The law clerk, identified as Trejur Bordenave, was described by the firm’s Vince Finaldi as a law student who no longer works there. A LinkedIn page for Bordenave lists him as a 2014 law graduate who is still at the firm.

The judge allowed Egan’s responsive document — his answer to the suit — to stand, denying Ancier’s motion that it be struck, but said that going forward, Finaldi’s firm would have to either fully represent Egan in the case or not at all and could not engage in any more ghostwriting of pleadings. Finaldi responded, “We will be providing [Egan] no more assistance, because I just can’t incur that kind of liability for the firm.”

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/judge-scolds-hollywood-sex-accuser-742505

Isn’t it amazing how quickly Vince Finaldi realized which side his bread was buttered on and even before starting to represent Egan he already dropped him? Now he represents Robson and knows that over here he has nothing to fear.

As to the big story about Egan ‘lying in court’ let us compare it with how Robson is lying in court and what happens to him after that (nothing happens) and how the media reports it (it doesn’t).

WADE ROBSON LIES

In their December 27, 2016 Motion the MJ Estate lawyers outlined some of Robson’s blatant lies and brought them to the attention of the judge. Here are some excerpts.

Lie 1: Three years ago Robson was asked to produce all the evidence, but he said he had only one email. However recently it turned out he had a treasure trove of them, and it was discovered only by accident, after his mother mentioned them during her deposition. When the Defendants requested him to cure this deficiency please he continued fooling them with false promises which he never fulfilled.

“When Robson was asked to produce all written communications relating to his allegations of abuse in this case, Robson stated under oath that only a single responsive document existed. Documents obtained by third parties, however, showed that these sworn statements by Robson were utterly false. Robson was then forced to change his response entirely, finally admitting that many communications existed and agreeing to produce them. Eventually, Robson would produce several bankers’ boxes full of communications (that he had previously claimed did not exist at all).

During this process, on three separate occasions, Robson stated that he had completed his production and had produced all responsive communications. Each time that representation was made, however, Defendants found clear evidence that Robson had not produced all the communications. Robson was then forced to “supplement” his productions three separate times, and each time he falsely represented that his latest production was “now” complete.

Lie 2: When the news of these emails was finally uncovered he did produce some, but redacted 70 of them, out of which 50 emails were between himself and his mother. The text was deleted under the pretext that they were covered by the client-attorney privilege.

We are of course aware that a mother is an attorney provided to a child by nature, but calling those emails “the attorney’s work product” is indeed taking it too far.

“To this day, Robson has still failed to produce numerous communications with third parties and has never explained why. Moreover, Robson has also redacted the entire content of numerous emails for no plausible reason. For example, he completely redacted over fifty emails between himself and his mother alone, based on the absurd claim that his discussions with his (non-lawyer) mother about the supposed “facts” underlying his allegations are somehow his attorneys’ “work product.”

… many of Robson’s email exchanged with his family remain absent from his production. This simply leads to two obvious questions: (1) What else is Robson withholding” and (2) If Robson does not have these emails anymore, that other documents has Robson deleted?

In the November 2 letter, Defendants provided two examples of such emails. The first is a February 15, 2016 email exchange between Robson and his mother, under the subject line “Security testimony.” In this exchange, Robson describes a purported statement by a former security guard at Neverland implying inappropriate conduct by Defendants, and asks his mother what she things. Eight minutes later, Ms.Robson responded: “Wow. None of that is true…” The remainder of Ms. Robson’s response is (conveniently) obscured in the version produced by her, and Ms. Robson now (conveniently) claims she no longer has access to this email, making its production by Robson himself critical.

The second example is an October 2012 email exchange with the subject line “Questions for Mom – 2.0.” Robson initiated this exchange on October 4, 2012, by asking his mother numerous questions about, among other things, his visits to the United States when he was a child, his interactions with Michael Jackson, and the allegations of abuse. Documents produced by Ms. Robson demonstrate that she and Robson exchanged numerous emails under this subject-line. However, none of those emails have been produced by Robson. ”

Lie 3: Besides the emails kept from the Defendants it also turned out that Robson had written a book and even shopped it to publishers – all the time saying to the judge that he had nothing else to produce.

“In addition, documents in one of Robson’s “supplemental” productions this Fall revealed for the first time that Robson began writing a book prior to filing suit in May 2013, about the allegations in this case, which he unsuccessfully shopped to publishers prior to filing suit. Yet, Robson inexplicably failed to produce a single draft of his book in either this case or in the related probate proceedings years ago.

When Defendants pressed Robson as to why the book had not been produced long ago, Robson first claimed that he was unable to find the book. Four days later, Robson changed his story, claiming that he had actually withheld the book as “privileged” (but never logged it). He then “waived privilege,” and produced one “recently created” PDF version of the book. But numerous documents about the book (including other possible drafts of it) are missing or redacted, and Robson refuses to produce original electronic files with metadata. He also claims – preposterously – that his communications with publishers about the book are privileged.”

https://www.scribd.com/document/335685460/MJ-Estate-Motion-to-Compel-Robson

Robson’s answers strike me by their flippant and even disrespectful manner in which he treats the court – first he fooled everyone for three years and then gave a lame explanation, then he changed his story, then withheld the book, then promised it, then provided it but not in the original variant, and so on and so forth with no end to it.

In fact Robson behaves like a spoiled child who knows in advance that whether mischief or not everything will be still okay with him.

We can only imagine the reaction of the judge who presided over Egan’s case had he encountered similar lies in Egan’s lawsuit – after the very first occurrence the complainant would have been shred into pieces and heavily fined for contempt of court and that would be it.

Judge Beckloff is not that harsh and is characterized by everyone as a nice man who tends to be a moderator, so it is probably due to his personal traits that Robson will be required only to produce the non-redacted emails and the original version of the book (if he finds them of course), and be a good boy in the future and behave himself. He has not been fined and his computer will not be forensically examined as the other side requested it.

As regards the media turning the fact that Robson lied for three years into any news – what media? What news? Where have you seen it?

CHARLIE MICHAELS

One of the lies in Robson’s lawsuit deserves a more detailed discussion. It is a story told by a certain security guard from Neverland named Charlie Michaels.

Her old statement dated 1993 was mentioned by Robson in his email to Mom on February 15^th 2016, and though she answered him that none of it was true this false statement happily made its way into Robson’s third amended version filed several days later and is still there in its current fourth variant.

Here is his Mom’s message with the rest of the text deleted by Robson:

“Wow. None of that is true. Micha…. ”

She sent it in reply to his question:

Security testimony (2)

Wade Robson to Mom Robson

February 15 at 8:55 PM  

There is testimony from a security guard that states the mother’s day incident was in 1990. What do you think?

“In a witness statement taken by the SBSD (Santa Barbara Sheriff Department) on April 15, 1994 in connection with the Chandler Investigation, Charli T. Michaels (a security guard at Neverland from March 21, 1990 through March 6, 1992) stated that she encountered Wade and his mother during their visit to Neverland in May 1990, and witnessed an incident involving Jackson and Wade. Ms. Michaels stated that on Mother’s Day 1990, she found Joy Robson crying and upset. When Ms. Michaels attempted to console her, Joy told Ms. Michaels that she was upset because she had been restricted from seeing Wade by Staikos While he was in the company of Jackson. Stakos had told Joy that Jackson and Wade were rehearsing a dance routine in the theatre at Neverland, and that she (Wade’s mother) was not allowed to go in or disturb them. Staikos had also prohibited Joy from sleeping in the main house at Neverland while Wade was staying in Jackson’s room. Ms. Michaels also stated that on the same day she had this encounter with Wade’s mother in violation of the rule regarding treatment of guests at Neverland, Ms. Michaels heard that Mr. and Mrs. Quindoy had been similarly reprimanded by Stakios for speaking to Joy on this occasion. Ms. Michaels was also subsequently informed by Joy that she had gotten in “lots of trouble” with Staikos for speaking with Ms. Michaels, and that Staikos had told her not to talk to any employees at Neverland (A copy of Ms. Michael’s witness statement has already been provided to Requesting Party.)

 Ms. Michaels also stated that later that same day (Mother’s day 1990) she was < > “

Aloha, Wade

See why Joy Robson said “Wow. None of it is true”? Because indeed none of it is.

• There was no rehearsal in a dance studio on Mother’s day, at least at the time described by Ms. Michaels. By all accounts Robson was sleeping very late that day and this is why his mother was upset. Ms. Michaels simply invented this story together with the idea that Robson’s mother was not allowed into the dancing studio.
• Another of her inventions is that Joy was prohibited from sleeping in the main house. Joy Robson always stayed in the Rose bedroom of the main house, and it was only when Michael’s children were born that this room was turned into the children’s bedroom. However at the time Ms. Michaels was not working there already and none of it matters anyway – Robson and his mother were in Neverland only on 4 occasions together with MJ, so who cares where she slept?
• Joy certainly never got into trouble with Norma Staikos for speaking to this small liar. All guests on the ranch were given the best service possible and there could never be a rule there to reprimand them for speaking to the employees.

A different variant was possible though. For a time being there was a rule at Neverland which dissuaded the employees from speaking to the boss (MJ). We know about it from Kiki Fournier-Chambers who worked on and off in Neverland for 12 years and once mentioned it in her interview. The funniest part of Kiki’s story is that Michael didn’t know about the rule and on one occasion even asked her “Why no one talks to me?” which is when she realized that he had nothing to do with it. But as to the rule for the guests to never speak to the employees, this is another of Ms. Michaels’s inventions.

Any conclusions from the above information?

Firstly, his Mom’s emphatic answer about none of it being true did not prevent Robson from using this false statement in his lawsuit. He knows that it is false but it doesn’t matter. This gravely diminishes Robson’s chances of being a victim of false memories as a result of some ‘insight-oriented therapy’ and strengthens our perception of him as a cold and cynical liar he evidently is.

Secondly, the appearance of Ms. Michaels’ statement in his third amended complaint shows the method by which Robson’s memory ‘evolves’. As soon as he receives some papers from Michael’s haters he turns them into his story. Charlie Michaels’ declaration could come from Ron Zonen who was rumored to provide him with old prosecution files and this also means that the prosecution vendetta against Jackson is still going strong.

Thirdly, this and other people’s declarations from 1993 were already incorporated into the so-called Prior Bad Acts prosecution motion in 2005 and were thoroughly discussed at that time. Now, even if untrue, they are being revived again to give at least some support to Robson’s tales.

If you compare Robson’s fourth version with the initial one you will see that these old declarations come as a replacement for what was Robson’s really big complaint against Jackson – the fact that prophesied him to become a great film director, but the dream didn’t come true and Jackson is of course to blame for it. Even for Finaldi this claim was too much, so he got rid of it and replaced it with some stuff from Charlie Michaels and other similar characters.

In short if it goes on like that by some 5th or 6th version of his complaint Robson will have a more or less presentable case cleaned of its wildest craziness, based on his still ‘evolving’ memories and supported by old and familiar lies from people like Charlie Michaels.

To say that all of it is a bad vaudeville is to say nothing at all. Compare it with the way the case of a real child abuse survivor Michael Egan was dealt with and the contrast will make your head spin.

WHY MS. MICHAELS IS SO PRECIOUS 

Now what’s so precious about Ms. Michaels’s story that Robson still wants to use it even despite his own mother saying that it is untrue?

The value of Ms. Michael is in another of her statements – in the same declaration she claimed that later that day she saw Michael Jackson groping Robson in the dancing studio in a separate building of a movie theater. Below is her description of it as it is related in the prosecution #1108 Prior Bad Acts Motion for the 2005 trial (bold type is mine):

“Ms. Michaels then was called to the main house to pick up lunch for Michael Jackson and Wade Robson and take it to them at the dance studio in the theatre. Around 2:00 to 2:30 p.m., while waiting in the main house to pick up the lunch, she saw Wade and Michael at the rear of the house. She lost sight of Jackson and Wade Robson before the lunches were ready, so she took the lunches and drove to the theatre. As Ms. Michaels entered the theatre, she put the lunches on the snack bar in the theatre lobby. She then heard music coming from the dance studio, which was located just to the left of the lobby, but she assumed that Michael Jackson and Wade were still at the house. She approached the studio to open the studio’s door and turn off the music.

As Ms. Michaels opened the studio door, she saw the reflections of Michael Jackson and Wade Robson in the huge mirror on the wall of the dance studio. She was standing approximately five to seven feet away from the mirror. Wade was standing in front of Michael with his back to Michael’s front. They were so close to each other that Michael’s front was actually touching Wade’s back. Both Michael and Wade had their hands on Wade’s genital area and they were doing fast step-dancing and Michael Jackson was doing his ‘euoghy, euogh” scream. Both were screaming as Michael clutched Wade’s genitals. Michael was much taller than Wade. He was bent over Wade from behind him and had both his arms draped around Wade’s shoulders, with his hands on Wade’s crotch. Ms. Michaels could not exactly see where Wade’s hands were, however they were well below his waist and in the area of his crotch. Both Jackson and Robson were wearing similar all-black outfits.

Ms. Michaels immediately left the theatre to avoid detection by either Jackson or Robson. She realized that Jackson’s acts were inappropriate and that Jackson could have shown Wade this particular dance move without standing over him and placing his hands on Wade’s genital area. However, she was concerned that she would lose her job if she shared her observation with anyone in authority.”

Please remove that disturbed expression off your face and enjoy the ridiculous instead:

• Robson slept that whole day but was nevertheless seen dancing in the studio at around 2 pm
• They asked for their lunch at the theater, but at the same time were seen in the rear of the main house where they could have their lunch without asking anyone to carry it for a mile or at least take it to that studio themselves
• The security guard walked into Michael Jackson’s studio because she wanted to turn off the music there (too loud for her?)
• She stood five to seven feet (1,5-2 meters) away from the mirror, but no one saw her or her reflection in it
• She heard some ‘euoghy’ screams despite the music blasting
• And the alleged groping scene allegedly took place right at the time when Michael Jackson was expecting someone to enter the dance hall and bring his lunch there.

The question that will forever haunt me is why Michael allegedly did all those things right at the time when he expected the door to open? Why do all these ‘witnesses’ have one and the same story to tell – that they were asked by Michael to come and this is when they ‘suddenly’ saw it?

Just a short reminder: “He yelled for security and I saw it from where I was standing” (Ralph Chacon), “He asked for French fries and I saw it when I brought them to the arcade” (Phillip Lemarque) and “He asked for his lunch to the dance studio and I saw it when I opened the door” (Charlie Michaels).

Let us see what this little liar could actually see if she opened the door. Thanks to that splendid new real estate brochure we have a picture of the dancing studio in the theater building and right from the place where Ms. Michaels was supposedly standing.

She said she was five to seven feet away from the mirror, so this is where I initially placed the two figures:

But then I recalled her saying that she saw their reflection in the mirror, and this correction required moving the images to a much further point. Like this one, for example:

Now please tell me  – can you see anything from this or even the earlier point? No, you cannot.

And will you be able to distinguish any “euoghy, euogh screams” at a distance like that and if the music is blasting? You won’t either.

And Charlie Michaels says that she did, though seeing anything from that spot is what only her perverse imagination could suggest her.

And how could she see Robson there at all if he was not even in that studio that day?

Quite by chance I found this  video of Michael rehearsing in his dance studio and showing him from the opposite side. From that point the studio hall didn’t look that long, so if Ms. Michaels crossed the door step and went inside the studio, she could see them – and they could see her.

But the funniest thing about Michael rehearsal there is that at some point during his moonwalk his hands indeed move forward and are placed on his thighs. Like in this screenshot from that video:

So even if we believe Ms. Michaels ridiculous version the move she could observe was just one of the necessary elements of the dance and not what her dirty imagination suggested her.

And this is all they have against Jackson after decades of prosecuting him?

And they call it ‘evidence’?

And we’ve had to listen to this nonsense since 1993 and even today are still discussing it?

Well, guys, this is not even funny. All of it is simply impossible. Tragic, maddening, ridiculous and utterly impossible.

SERIOUS STUFF

Now if you want to see some really serious evidence, I will provide it to you, only it won’t be about Jackson but about the Hollywood guys of whom you rarely hear, if ever.

These documents are connected with the abuse of Michael Egan and other teenagers who were invited to work with the DEN company and who attended the pool parties of Bryan Singer and other Hollywood players.

The first picture is a screenshot from the documentary by an Oscar-nominee Amy Berg about the strange things going on in Hollywood. The film is called “An Open Secret” and, as if justifying its title, most distributors indeed refused to promote it.

In this piece of the documentary Marc Collins-Rector, a convicted sex offender who was one of those who abused Michael Egan, says that a young actor Brock Pierce who later became Rector’s partner was introduced to him by his friend Bryan Singer.

So as a very minimum we learn here that Bryan Singer was not only an investor in DEN company, but was friends with Marc Collins-Rector who right at the time was abusing teenagers and was introducing young people to him.

Next comes another screenshot from the same documentary, this time featuring a certain Michael Harrah.  Mr. Harrah isn’t just a mere nobody – he used to be a manager of child actors and a longtime member of the actors union SAG Young Performers Committee. He himself co-founded this committee in 1975 and even chaired it in 2001-2003.

He remained its member until 2014, when he gave his interview for the “Open Secret” documentary, after which he abruptly resigned. The guild leaders and their lawyers tried to prevent Amy Berg from mentioning the name of their union in connection with this person and threatened to sue her, however she stood her ground and this is how we learn about Mr. Harrah.

But why so much fuss about him?

The reason is provided by Mr. Harrah himself – in his interview for the documentary he admitted that during his 40 years of work with child actors he had underage actors sleep with him in his home and that he abused at least one of them. We are talking of only one because he actually recorded his conversation with Harrah where the latter admitted that “he shouldn’t have done it” (excerpt):

SAG-AFTRA Threatened To Sue Director Amy Berg Over ‘An Open Secret’

by David Robb

June 5, 2015

Joey Coleman, a former child actor who was once Harrah’s client, presents evidence in the film – a taped telephone conversation in which Harrah acknowledges that he’d made “unwanted” advances towards him when Coleman was a kid.

Joey Coleman as a child actor

“I didn’t like when you tried to have me sleep in your bed and touch me and everything,” Coleman told Harrah on the phone. “I hated that.”

 “Yeah, and that was something unwanted I shouldn’t have done,” Harrah replied, unaware that he was being taped. “And there’s no way you can undo that. But it certainly is something I shouldn’t have done.”

In the film, Harrah says that he had been molested when he was a child actor, but was vague about the details. “I suppose somebody did, but I would be hard-pressed to remember anything specific,” he said. “But it was not uncommon, let’s put it that way.”

Harrah told Deadline that there are currently young people “in their 20s” living with him. Asked if 11-year-old kids had ever lived with him, he said: “There have been kids that come and go.”

One of Harrah’s other former clients, a former child actor who is identified in the film only as James G., recounts how Harrah had invited him to come live at his home while trying to break into show business.

“You know,” he says in the film, “being up sometimes really early to go to these auditions and stuff, that’s when Michael Harrah approached me and said, ‘Well, you can come stay at my house with the other guys that are there.’ He had three other guys stayin’ in the house that were his clients.” The kids’ ages, he said, were “from 10-11, to 16-17, but I still thought it was rather odd, you know, that someone would let their 10-year-old son move in with, at the time I think, a mid-50s-year-old man.”

http://deadline.com/2015/06/sag-aftra-threatening-sue-an-open-secret-director-amy-berg-1201438339/

Mr. Harrah: “It wasn’t uncommon.  Look, this is not a terrible thing unless you think it is”

“But he also repeatedly downplays the severity of child sexual abuse in Hollywood. On the phone with Joey C. in the documentary, Harrah says, “When I’ve had the opportunity to talk to somebody about it, I’ve said, ‘Look, this is not a terrible thing unless you think it is. It’s just something that happens to you in your life.’”

https://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/an-open-secret-hollywood-underage-sex-abuse-documentary?utm_term=.clBzMkDAR#.db4PnYMl6

Well, well, well… My congratulations to MJ haters and the general public. Every time they will denounce Michael over his carefree sleepovers with young friends and exclaim in horror “what other adult would do it?” we will tell them what other adult did it – it was the one-time chairman of the young actors’ committee and the very person who was supposed to defend the rights of these children in Hollywood.

And in contrast to Michael who after the Chandler scandal never agreed to stay alone with a youngster in one room (see Frank Cascio’s book for that) and only talked about it, Mr. Harrah never ceased his practice without saying a word about it to outsiders.

In MJ’s case there was never any proof of any wrongdoing, while Mr. Harrah himself admits molestation, only he thinks nothing of it as in his opinion “it is not a terrible thing unless you think it is”. Over there in Hollywood, “it is not uncommon”, you see, and Mr. Harrah does know what he is talking about as he worked in that place for over 40 years.

Apparently, this practice is so common that initially the child-sex abuse survivor Corey Feldman didn’t even understand what was going on – as pedophiles were all around him – and he said he regained his sanity and innocence only when he was with the poor harassed Michael Jackson.

And the best part of the news about Mr. Harrah is that you never heard it. The “Open Secret” documentary was practically suppressed from public view and made its way only to 20 theaters and this was only after a ‘maddeningly difficult road’ to get there, according to its producers. The guild-leaders threatened to sue Amy Berg for those episodes, but she refused to be intimidated (she is an Oscar nominee for a film about abuse within the Catholic church), and seeing the resistance they grudgingly backtracked.

However now everything is fine with the Hollywood people – their fright is over, things have gone quiet, everyone continues defaming Jackson and the spectators keep watching the show.

The final picture comes from the infamous Ronald Emmerich/Bryan Singer pool parties regularly organized by them after the gay-pride parades. The parties start in the daytime, go well into the night and regularly host 600-700 young ‘twinks’ as they call them.

Here is a quote from Daily Beast about these events:

Singer’s pool parties have been a topic of discussion in gay entertainment circles for years. Some parties, co-hosted with fellow out director Roland Emmerich, have featured more than a thousand celebrants. Emmerich told The Advocate, “when [Singer] makes a New Year’s party, there’s like 600, 700 twinks running around and he’s hiding in his room. That’s quite typical.” Emmerich estimates that the last party they hosted, in 2009, drew 1,200 guests.

… “I don’t recall anyone bringing a bathing suit,” says Dottley. “It was a healthy mixture of underwear and no underwear.” He pauses. “Mostly no underwear, to be honest.”

Well, the fact that ‘it is mostly no underwear’ can be very well seen in this picture [the source]: 

You see that it is the daytime, and what goes on there at night?

The night scene below is the only one photo available to us from Singer’s parties and probably the only picture ever made there at all.

So what do we see here?

We see a serious document. You don’t need to be an expert to notice that there are wrong things taking place here – there are at least three youngsters among this naked (or half-naked) crowd which is also probably half-drunk. And among the three youngsters there are two very young children – and we know it because their heads are much smaller than the heads of all the others.

In fact any forensic expert will determine that this is indeed the case. I’ve blown up the respective fragments and put them over the photo (blurred, but this is the most I could do) just in case you didn’t notice.

It is none of my business to criticize Hollywood morals and if the public likes it that way, I can’t help it.

But the question that really bothers me is why everyone is preoccupied with Jackson though there isn’t a single shred of evidence against him, and no one pays attention to this documentary proof of minors partying with drunk and naked adults in these Hollywood pools? And why is there no attention to Mr. Harrah?

And why do we have to constantly return to the little fantasies of certain Ms. Michaels while the real elephant in the room is child abuse in Hollywood and why is no one, including the media and law enforcement talking about it?

What amazes me most is the contrast in the approach to Michael Jackson and all these Hollywood guys.

The problem is that the focus of public attention cannot be so gravely displaced and put on Jackson only all by itself, in a natural way. This can happen only as a result of someone’s deliberate effort to distort public perception and direct all flash lights at just one person simultaneously dimming the light in the gray area all around him.

I know that it is no use waiting for an explanation of this phenomenon from the media and the organizers of this one-sided circus – it is their agenda, their goal and the very effect they are pursuing.

But my question is addressed to ordinary people – don’t you understand that you are being manipulated?

And isn’t it time to understand that since they selected Michael Jackson for this torturous show it is actually him who is the INNOCENT one in this crowd.

*   *   *

As the 8^th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death lies ahead of us, we can expect another round of fake news to be spread in tabloids, as is usual on this kind of Michael Jackson key dates. One of them was already announced some weeks ago in an article on the Daily Mail Online site about Michael Jacobshagen who apparently was interviewed by Daphne Barak for an Australian TV show.

The article told that the interview would be aired around Michael Jackson’s death anniversary this year, which is June 25.

For those who don’t know these two names, let me tell you that Daphne Barak calls herself an “international interviewer” and has a long history of harassing Michael Jackson and trying to interview him. Michael even once fled from her in a Las Vegas hotel when his father reportedly had promised Barak an interview with Michael which he didn’t want to do.

Michael Jacobshagen is a German young man who once met Michael as a boy, spent at most a few weeks with him during the History Tour and now claims to have been a friend of Michael Jackson over two decades and tries to make money with interviews about Jackson, most of them peppered with untruths or stories he cannot know.

“THE MEDDLING TABLOID VULTURE”

Let’s first have a short look at Daphne Barak and remember some information we already gathered on her. What kind of “interviewer” she is was told in this post of Helena.

Daphne Barak – here with Tom Barrack who belonged to Donald Trump’s campaign team and was chairman of his Inaugural Committee.

It is clear Michael Jackson didn’t like her because she harassed him, was only interested in sensations and turned everything she heard about him into lies.

In another post about an interview she did with Aaron Carter Helena already told in 2011:

“Daphne Barak had an interview with Aaron Carter in 2011,  on the eve of the 2^nd anniversary of Michael’s death.

All the circumstances came in extremely handy – Carter was straight from a rehab and was working on a new album (which naturally needed promotion). This was very convenient a pretext for a conversation which could cover up for the real goal of the conversation – to extract from him as much as possible about Michael Jackson and create a smear story right for the time of the anniversary.

Besides all the harm she previously did to Michael Jackson Daphne Barak has been consistently pursuing this goal for the last three years. She marked every May or June since Michael’s death with a regular story about him being “a lost soul” in terms of narcotics.”

In the first of the three years Helena talked about, in 2009, Daphne Barak spread the lie of the so-called “regular pumping of Michael’s stomach for drugs” and attributed the story to nanny Grace Rwaramba.
In 2010 she was the source for the dubious tapes where someone sounding like Michael Jackson under the effect of drugs talked to the answering machine of an unnamed “friend”.
And in 2011 she spread the ugly story of Aaron Carter’s “interview” hinting at Jackson’s drug addiction and “inappropriate behavior” with youngsters.

(Please read the rest of the post to educate yourself about this woman!)

…and here we are again with new lies from her to “celebrate” Michael’s death anniversary.

This article confirms our findings. Daphne Barak is called there “a meddling tabloid vulture masquerading as a journalist” – obviously a very suitable description.

The above mentioned Daily Mail article of May 7, 2017, on the interview with Jacobshagen probably remained unnoticed by most MJ fans and readers, as apart from the British Daily Mail it spread only in a series of third-class online tabloids, though on an international basis. And we were thinking about whether we should give attention to this “news” at all, because Jacobshagen is not an important figure in Michael Jackson’s life story and loves the attention of tabloids. But there are so blatant lies in it that we cannot ignore it as MJ bloggers fighting for the truth, the more so as the article announced a TV broadcasting in “Australia, the US and other markets” in June.

THE FALSE FRIEND

Before we go into some of the details of the article let’s have a short look at Jacobshagen and how he presents himself.

Michael Jacobshagen showing a photo of Michael Jackson and himself as a boy in the hotel suite at “Bayerischer Hof” in Munich where he once stayed with Jackson

According to his own earlier statements he met Michael only in his childhood: First once in 1995 in Paris at Disneyland, then during the History Tour in Germany in 1997 and again in 1998 for two weeks in Munich. Not all of it is proven and we don’t know exactly at which times they met, but altogether they spent at most a few weeks together between 1995 and 1998.

That’s what he told himself very vaguely after Michael Jackson’s death when he started to give interviews for tabloids and presented his self-published book “Will you be my friend”.

He also told several tabloids that Prince and Paris are not Michael’s biological children and talked about Michael’s drug addiction, as if he had any first-hand information on that, claiming he was a close confidant of the Jackson family.

He is also the one who became well-known among the fanbase for letting a German tabloid reporter into Michael’s mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale in 2014, when somebody gave him the code word to get inside.

Some time later he began to “extend” his relationship with Michael and now tells regularly he was his close friend for decades. Meanwhile his website where he promoted his book is down, so we cannot see anymore what he told there earlier.

But an article of 2013 in the German tabloid “Bild” based on an interview at the time told that the last phone call between Jackson and Jacobshagen was in 2001 and there was no more contact afterwards.

“After a last phone call in 2001 he and the superstar had no more contact.”

THE FALSE STORY

All the more disturbing is what he apparently told now Daphne Barak in the above mentioned interview of May 2017. So let’s look at the details and ask a couple of questions.

The article says:

“Michael Jackson predicted he would be murdered in handwritten notes he gave to a friend weeks before his death of a drug overdose in 2009.” […]

“Jacobshagen tells Barak how a fearful Jackson called him from a Las Vegas hideaway. The star was preparing for a tour at London’s O2 but begged his friend to fly from Germany to the US to be with him.” […]

“After he flew out and spent three days with the troubled star, Jackson handed Jacobshagen the notes. Jacobshagen said that the notes kept telling him ‘they’ were trying to murder Jackson.”

Okay, according to this article Jacobshagen told Barak that he was called by Jackson “weeks before his death” to tell him that he feared he would be murdered, and that Jacobshagen then flew to the US and spent 3 days with Jackson.

How is this possible when nobody ever talked about it before? The weeks before Jackson’s death were dissected during the Murray and AEG trials. Somebody would have known that this German young man met Michael, at least his children. They never talked about having seen Michael Jacobshagen.

Michael had a very tight schedule during his final months in Los Angeles. There was no time for a 3 day timeout to meet secretly with Jacobshagen (without his children?). And MJ would never have turned confidentially with his problems to someone he once met as a boy in the 90ies for a few weeks and who played no further part in his life. This is a big fat lie! There was no meeting of the two weeks before Jackson died. And there was no contact between them in the last years of his life.

Moreover, Michael was not in a “Las Vegas hideaway” in his last weeks. He had left Las Vegas at the end of 2008 and was in Los Angeles to prepare for the London tour. In addition, it was documented in the trials that Murray “treated” Michael on a daily basis in his LA mansion beginning in April 2009 until his death. And what about the bodyguards who were around him permanently? So when would Jacobshagen have had the opportunity to be alone with Michael for 3 days, away from his children? What a nonsense!

“The letters will bolster the belief of many, including Jackson’s daughter Paris and sister LaToya, that the King of Pop was unlawfully killed.

In the 13 messages he declared: ‘They are trying to murder me’ and ‘I’m scared about my life’.

Their existence has been revealed for the first time by German businessman Michael Jacobshagen, 34 – who maintained a two-decade-long friendship with the star – in an interview with broadcaster Daphne Barak for Australian TV show Sunday Night.”

The proof for the existence of these “13 messages” has so far not been presented by Jacobshagen. It remains to be seen if they are shown in the TV show. But it won’t still be a proof that they were handed to him by Michael personally. In an earlier interview of February this year (also in German) Jacobshagen told that he received the notes from Michael’s mother:

“Jacobshagen states that Michael’s mother gave him the notes in mid-2015 so that he could ‘bring the truth to light.'”

Michael always wrote notes, some already have become public, so whether Katherine Jackson gave Jacobshagen some notes or whether he made them completely up we don’t know exactly, but he certainly didn’t receive them from Michael personally in 2009.

If true, also the question arises why Jacobshagen didn’t hand the notes over to the police or the prosecutors when Michael died and a trial against Murray was scheduled? Why didn’t he immediately talk about it when Michael’s death became reality after his alleged cries for help to his so-called friend? Why only now after 8 years? The answer is clear: Because he didn’t have them.

Why do all these people, who after Michael’s death suddenly claim to have knowledge of explosive information, only go to the media now instead of acting in time to inform someone in charge? Is all this “information” only worth the money they can get for it? Or is it still profitable to make up stories after all these years?

And by the way, Michael Jackson was “unlawfully killed” – that’s nothing new, because somebody was convicted for that. The authors of this “news” apparently regard Murray’s conviction as something without significance.

“The singer never clarified who ‘they’ were but some notes refer to concert promoters AEG, which was organizing concerts in London that he was shortly due to perform.”

Why should Michael give Jacobshagen these notes at all when he could talk to him personally? Doesn’t make sense! When I can talk to somebody in person to tell him my fears (for 3 days!) I don’t need to give him some cryptic notes which Jacobshagen obviously even has to interpret himself. Why didn’t he ask Jackson who “they” were if he had the opportunity to talk to him so extensively without being disturbed by Michael’s kids?

And why then didn’t he help his “friend” in a way Michael would have expected him to? Wouldn’t he have talked to him and confided in him for a reason – if true?

“He says he has gone public with the notes now to support Jackson’s daughter Paris, 19, who recently claimed her father was murdered.”

I would like to ask the young man if he really thinks he can support Paris with a lie?

Paris doesn’t know him, she was born in the year Jacobshagen claims to have been together with Michael for two weeks in Munich (1998). She definitely doesn’t need this kind of dubious support.

Jacobshagen always defended Jackson against the molestation allegations, but if he tells egregious lies at the same time, how can he be a trustworthy source?

Given that Jacobshagen only speaks very poor English, I first thought there is a possibility that parts of this story were made up by Daphne Barak or the media reporting it (wouldn’t be a surprise). But this Facebook post of Jacobshagen (screenshot) proves that it is his own story he is trying to spread (even some MJ fans fall for him):

Apart from his terrible English to me his post also shows signs of narcissism, overconfidence and presumptuousness and a lost touch with reality.

And it is interesting that even Daphne Barak seemed to have this impression at first. On April 11 she posted spontaneously together with a link to a stupid article about Blanket Jackson on Twitter:

“AND ..We had a nutty person, claiming to have “Never Seen Letters from Michael ..” Can you believe it? A nut case with zero morals. SAD.

Who else could she mean than Michael Jacobshagen? She first called him “a nutty person” and “a nut case with zero morals”, and then a couple of days later she obviously changed her mind and took him seriously? What a great team!

Our post is meant to clarify for our readers that this story is bogus. Since we have to expect that these lies will spread on TV on the anniversary of Michael’s death we want to put things straight before it happens. We devoted ourselves to the truth and will always expose the lies that are told in connection with Michael Jackson.

Yes, Michael Jackson was killed – first of all by Conrad Murray who literally took his life. And he was killed as well by all those who put pressure on him, above all AEG Live in his final weeks, but also those who brought him in a situation of accepting another concert series – DA Sneddon, the accusers, the media, self-serving advisors and business men, etc. – like for example Colony Capital (now Colony NorthStar) with boss Tom Barrack, with whom Daphne Barak is obviously friends, ignoring that he was part of those putting pressure on Jackson.

But we still haven’t seen any proof, including Jacobshagen, that there was a conspiracy by certain powers with the intention to murder him. Now Jacobshagen wants to bolster this idea with false evidence. This doesn’t work!

He should learn that lies never work to defend the truth!

He should learn that lies destroy trust.

He will never be a trustworthy person to defend Michael Jackson because he already has told too many lies.

What a shame how some “friends” sell Michael’s trust for money!

And what a shame they cooperate with media people who already told enough lies about Michael!

The time between June and August this year was not without excitement in the MJ world, and the fact that we didn’t address here everything that happened doesn’t mean we are not interested or don’t regard it as significant. However, since we are not in the position to write extensively about all developments in our current lives, we decided to make a summary post on a few interesting developments and otherwise refer you to our fellow MJ bloggers who addressed the latest events in more detail.

***

In early summer a TV movie titled “Michael Jackson: Searching for Neverland”, based on the book “Remember the Time” of two of Jackson’s bodyguards, aired in the US.

I would like to refer you to Raven’s review on Allforlove blog, which expresses largely my opinion: “It is a satisfying recount of one particular chapter in his life”. It’s important to emphasize that the book as well as the film is focused on the last 1½ years in MJ’s life and does not reflect his whole life and career. But altogether the film is respectful and shows understanding for the situation Michael was in during that time.

The full movie can be watched here (in minor quality).

***

In a recent US TV series called “The Jury Speaks” one episode was about the 2005 Michael Jackson trial. It can be watched on YouTube meanwhile.

Paulina Coccoz

I personally doubt that this episode helped a lot to vindicate Michael, and I don’t like at all how the Jackson episode was promoted by the Oxygen channel, though it provided a few important details the public may not have known before. The good thing that came from it was the interview Paulina Coccoz, one of the jurors, gave to Fox News in this context, where she pointed out why she would again vote “not guilty”:

“It was pretty obvious that there was no molestation done,” she said. “It was pretty obvious that there were ulterior motives on behalf of the family. And the mother, she orchestrated the whole thing…that’s my opinion. But there wasn’t a shred of evidence that was able to show us or give us any doubt in voting guilty. It was pretty obvious there was no other way to vote other than not guilty.”

Thanks to sanemjfan for the information! More information can also be found on AFLB.

***

However, the most important and also anticipated development for us is the dismissal of the Safechuck case which nurtures the hope that the Robson case will be dismissed as well. The Jane Doe case had already been dismissed in May this year. And indeed, it’s about time that the judge makes an end to this farce. The information together with court documents for both cases became available from the dailymichael website, and we are glad that they provided the documents for all of us, although some of them (especially Joy Robson’s deposition) are not complete and we have only excerpts.

Among the excerpts is also part of the deposition of Jolie Levine who was Michael Jackson’s assistant between 1987 and 1988 and who was included in Jimmy Safechuck’s claim as somebody he wanted to hold responsible for his alleged abuse. Helena wrote a post on her some time ago and how she was used by Michael’s haters for their agenda. If you read the post again you will see that Helena already had assumed she was misinterpreted by MJ haters, by the media and by an author who wrote a book full of lies in 1994.

Now her deposition of January 11, 2017, confirmed Helena’s assumptions. She clearly says:

“I never believed that he was a pedophile and I still do not believe that Michael was – is a – was a pedophile.”

From the Jolie Levine deposition:

Jolie Levine clearly defended Michael Jackson against the accusations and was of no help to Safechuck’s lawyers. She also told in the deposition that she always packed and unpacked Michael’s hotel rooms during the BAD Tour and never saw any pornography or nude photos of children.

***

The excerpts of Joy Robson’s deposition of September 30, 2016, are quite interesting and raise several questions. Some have already made the rounds on MJ forums, so I think meanwhile we are not telling you anything new when we present her assessment of her own son as being so convincing in his denial of abuse that he deserves an Oscar for it. In her deposition she repeated 4 times that Wade was so convincing in 1993 as well as in 2005 that she never had any reason to doubt what he said.

Many pages of her deposition are missing, but I wonder if she was asked whether these very convincing lies aren’t more likely to happen now in this current case, when Wade is an angry adult man and not a boy anymore, whose alleged coaching would have been a huge element of uncertainty for Michael. Now that Michael Jackson is dead, lying is much easier than at the time when Wade had to withstand the tough questioning of prosecutors in a much publicized, high profile criminal trial. In any case, his mother admitted that he can be a very convincing Oscar-worthy liar.

It also becomes strikingly clear from the excerpts how disappointed the Robsons often had been with Michael “not fulfilling his promises”, after they moved to the US. It becomes obvious that there is a motivation for jealousy and anger, perhaps even revenge, because according to Joy Robson Michael not only didn’t keep promises regarding Wade’s career, but also was working or spending time with other boys he included in his short films, and didn’t prefer Wade as they had wished.

Joy Robson’s statements:

Joy Robson told that they came to the Unites States in the first place because Michael Jackson “made promises”.

Then they realized Michael didn’t fulfill his promises as they expected. It was not enough for them that they were employed by Michael and that he worked a lot with Wade, paid for dance classes and helped him buy recording equipment. No, they wanted to receive a meal ticket for life and they wanted to be the only ones – and found out that there were other families Michael cared about, too.

Well, how does this statement of Joy Robson fit in Robson’s accusations: “And when we came here, he [MJ] was more interested in Macaulay Culkin from the get-go.”?  – So he wasn’t very interested in Wade Robson even from the start, when they moved to the US?

How does this explain the alleged abuse? And how does Michael not keeping his promises and not returning their calls explain the grooming allegation and the claim of the accusers that he flattered, supported and sponsored the boys and their families in return for abuse? According to Joy Robson this “compensation” obviously didn’t happen!

She even told that Michael “forgot to call Wade”! So how does this explain the alleged regular coaching and grooming on the phone when Michael constantly forgot to call Wade? And when should the alleged regular abuse have occurred at all when the access to Michael was so difficult? From Joy’s deposition we have to assume that there was a huge lack of interest and time on Michael’s side towards Wade, which is not in accordance with Wade’s allegations.

Joy Robson tells that she had to call again and again until she finally received an answer from Norma Staikos in the last minute that they could come to Chicago to participate in the “Jam” video. – And to their disappointment “once again Brett Barnes was there”! So it seems Brett Barnes repeatedly was there first and was preferred, too? What does this tell us? This sounds like it created a huge amount of jealousy and frustration.

Could it be that Wade Robson wouldn’t even appear in the “Jam” video, if Joy hadn’t kept calling to remind Michael of him?

To me it now looks like the Robsons also expected a life-long subsistance from a cooperation of Michael and Wade in the entertainment industry – like the Chandlers and the Arvizos did -, which didn’t come true. And now Wade also wanted his share of the cake, after he didn’t get the job at Cirque du Soleil. This must have been a huge humiliation for him after supporting Michael so many years and in the 2005 trial. I believe we even can’t imagine how disappointed he must have been and what this caused him to come up with. Wade felt immensely neglected by Michael through all these years and now by his Estate, and the rejection in the CdS show must have come as a surprise for him and was the last straw to break the camel’s back.

John Branca says in his June 15 declaration for the court that he understands the nature of Wade Robson’s allegations in this case. His statement makes clear what he thinks Wade is driven by, and I think he is perfectly right:

“I understand the nature of Wade Robson’s allegations in this case. I knew Michael Jackson for roughly thirty years. I am not interested in dignifying Robson’s allegations by discussing them, except to say that I am fully convinced that they are absolutely false. Before Robson came forward with his current allegations against Michael Jackson, I met personally with Robson in 2011 in my office in Century City. Robson met with me in order to discuss the interest in being hired to help choreograph a Michael Jackson themed Cirque du Soleil show. At no time in our meeting did Robson ever intimate that he had any negative feelings towards Michael Jackson whatsoever. On the contrary: he was very excited about the possibility of being hired to help choreograph a Michael Jackson themed show. Ultimately, he was not hired to work on the show.”

For further information on the Robson and Safechuck cases please check the dailymichael website.

There is certainly much more to say regarding these documents, and we hope to be able to set things straight on a lot of the allegations included in the Robson and Safechuck claims, at least when the Robson case is also dismissed, but for the moment we leave it at that.

Hopefully to be continued…

Today Michael Jackson would have turned 59. It is more than eight years since his untimely death and yet the saga of his character assassination is far from being over.

Michael Jackson’s Estate has a very clear case against Robson and Safechuck and their slow but sure battle against these liars will one day put a stop to the profitable business of various rogues trying to make millions just by making false allegations against Michael.

This will be a welcome change as it will at least prevent the future fortune seekers from trying to make their living by accusing Michael Jackson of anything they want.

PROBLEMS

However even if the Estate’s legal battle is a success, the main problem will still remain there – Michael’s name will still be tarnished and the public will still be undecided as to who is right here.

Haters will claim that Robson’s and Safechuck’s case is legitimate and that they lost it due to a mere technicality – MJ’s companies had no control over their boss and cannot be found liable for the acts he might or might not have committed.

And as regards this latter point haters will be correct– the fact of non-responsibility has been perfectly clear from the start of it and one can only wonder why it is taking so long to prove so obvious a point.

Another point that makes you wonder is who is paying the liars’ attorneys for so prolonged a battle. Safechuck’s lawsuit, for example, has already been dismissed, but now he has filed an appeal and hired a special appeal lawyer to handle it. The appeal is costly business as I hear and this makes me suspect that there is someone behind the scenes who is paying the lawyers to keep the circus going.

In fact all the twists and turns to the case suggest that it is being intentionally prolonged and that the endlessness of the project is a separate goal in and of itself. The simple-minded actors went for the plan hoping for a quick settlement, while those who masterminded the project could have far-reaching plans and certainly don’t mind if the case lasts forever – because the longer it is, the longer Michael’s name is trashed and the more seeds of doubt are sown.

And this has been going on for 35 years now – generations come and go, and it is only Michael Jackson’s “case” that is still there.

So let us ask ourselves a simple question – is there a way to prove once and for all that Michael was not what his haters try to portray him to be?

I think there is a way to prove it, and in order to do that we need to turn to Anne Salter and listen to what she has to say on the subject – no, not about Michael Jackson, but about real sex predators.

ANNE SALTER

Who is Anne Salter?

Dr. Anne Salter is the favorite source of Michael Jackson’s detractors. Her official bio says that she is a licensed clinical psychologist who received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and Public Practice from Harvard University.

She is also the author of the best-selling book, Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders, Who They Are, How They Operate, and How We Can Protect Ourselves and Our Children about which she gave an interview to Sott Radio Network in 2013.

Dr. Salter’s biography says that she also provides expert testimony in high-profile criminal trials in the US, has addressed major conference groups throughout the world and has been the recipient of numerous grants for research on sexual offenders. In 1997, Dr. Salter was honored by The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) with their Significant Lifetime Achievement Award.

In short Dr. Anne Salter is one of the most qualified experts to approach if we want to know what real child abusers are like and how they operate.

Now why do Michael Jackson’s detractors like quoting Dr. Anne Salter?

The reason is because some of her statements formally look applicable to MJ and his behavior.

Then what is the detractors’ problem with Dr. Salter?

Their problem is that they can quote her only selectively and cannot mention her main argument which makes it clear that any superficial semblance of Michael Jackson to those “others” is invalid if her main argument, testifying to his innocence, is completely ignored. In fact her main conclusion regarding real child abusers is in direct contradiction with everything Michael Jackson ever did and said.

And what is her main conclusion?

The very short of it is that all sex offenders look so ‘normal’ that there is no way to tell them from really normal people. There is no universal pattern and no universal rule to apply to them that will make them easily recognizable from the usual crowd.

Dr. Salter says:

I had a neighbour come over and say “I don’t worry about this Anna, I can spot a paedophile”. And I said “Really? Because I can’t”. And she said “Oh sure you can. You’ve been working in this field for years, you write these books, you write academic books, you write mysteries about them. Sure you can spot them”. And I said “You know what my 30 years has brought? I know I can’t and you think you can”. And I truly believe that, I can’t spot them anymore than anybody else can. Anymore a doctor can spot which patient walking in his or her office has AIDS. The doctors know that and we seem to find it hard to believe.

Dr. Salter explains that all child abusers are successful in projecting an image of fine, upstanding citizens. All of them are trusted by those around them and nearly all are praised for their fine Christian testimony.

Predators keep up an appearance of kindness and likability. < > Likability is such a potent weapon that it protects predators for long periods of time and through almost incomprehensible numbers of victims. Mr. Saylor, an athletic director in an elementary school, operated undisturbed for almost twenty years. He tells me there is almost no limit to the number of molestations that one can get away with. (Salter, p. 26)

We expect child molesters to be monsters. It seems to be contrary to human nature to think that people who project “niceness” and normality could harbor such dark secrets. “But it is a misconception that child molesters are somehow different from the rest of us, outside their proclivities to molest. They can be loyal friends, good employees, and responsible members of the community in other ways” (Salter, p. 47).”

But Dr. Salter’s main observation is that though child molesters may be indistinguishable from the normal crowd all of them possess one common trait which is totally indispensable to their trade. The feature common to them is that all of them are exceptional liars who never do or say anything that may reveal their true nature and put them at the risk of being exposed.

They masquerade their evil intentions so skillfully that it makes them the last people to suspect and it is exactly their seeming normality and socially accepted behavior which is the reason why they manage to get away with their crimes for so long.

The problem is that child molesters take special care to never give themselves away by a single move or word. When asked about any patterns or rules in their behavior found as a result of her 30 years of research Dr. Salter said:

“The only rule for deception in sex offenders I have ever found is this: If it is in the offender’s best interests to lie, and if he can do it and not get caught, he will lie. “

Okay, but this idea is well-known to everyone, so what’s so new about it?

What’s new about it and why it is fully exonerating Michael Jackson dawned on me only when I was listening to Charles Thomson’s interview with Ryan Michaels on his show “Reason Bound” recorded on June 13th this summer.

The interview was called “Episode 058 – Vindication Day Special (Pirates in Neverland: The Michael Jackson Allegations)” and here is the full podcast to listen to (please don’t miss the comments section as the discussion was continued there too).

THE HOTTEST ISSUE

The subject of that particular episode was the child abuse allegations leveled at Michael Jackson throughout his life.

Ryan Michaels, the host of the show and his guest, a well-known journalist Charles Thomson discussed the allegations following the show’s usual parameters which are “looking at what people believe, why they believe it, and the importance of being able to recognise good and bad arguments.”

The two journalists discussed the most vulnerable points of Michael Jackson’s case, testing the theories and arguments that bother both Michael’s fans and his detractors.

Naturally, the hottest point of the discussion was the “bed-sharing” issue which Michael never kept a secret of and even insisted that it was the most loving thing to do towards others, children in particular.

Michael Jackson’s fans know that he used this term meaning to say that he was always ready to give his bed to others while he would sleep on the floor or  a couch nearby (as was indeed often the case).

But most people understand Michael’s statements as sleeping in one bed with a child, and it is in this (actually wrong) context that the two journalists discussed it and heavily criticized Michael.

Here are a couple of quotes from their dialog:

RYAN MICHAELS at about 12:35: “Why would you as a grown adult think it’s a good idea to sleep with kids in bed? It looks bad. It looks really, really bad.  It’s a hard thing to relate to…”

CHARLES THOMSON: “I’m not here to defend the idea in principle. Clearly it is a very irrational and stupid thing to do. The arguments of MJ fans are as irrational as those of his detractors – “He grew up in one house with nine kids in one bedroom, bla-bla-bla…”. But by the time this happened he lived in Neverland. Perhaps it may be excused as naivety and having never lived in the real world the first time round, but to go and do it again after 1993 was insane.”

(Note: According to Frank Cascio MJ never did it again and if he did, it was always in the presence of other adults as a precautionary measure meant for his own safety. In fact Frank Cascio was in the same room when Gavin Arvizo slept in Michael’s bed which was on one occasion only if I remember it right)

RYAN MICHAELS at about 19:55: “ During the 60 minutes during the trial Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer prior had said in an interview with Lisa Marie Presley – both of them had said that this is a sticking point for a lot of people. “Are you going to keep doing it or are you going to stop? Are you going to continue sleeping in bed with kids?” And Michael’s attitude was: “You are the sick one. I am not doing anything wrong.” [laughter]

Ryan Michaels recalled seeing MJ on TV in the 1990s and him always being followed by a parade of children. This also made him wonder:

RYAN MICHAELS at about 25:15: “Every time I saw him he was with a parade of children. I remember thinking – what exactly is going on here?”

The two journalists diligently explored various theories why Michael had always been seen in the company of children and regularly talked about “sharing his bed” with others, as well as the arguments of MJ’s fans and his detractors, and what Michael himself said to defend his lifestyle.

Their conclusion was that while initially Michael’s behavior could be attributed to his naivety, his later insistence on it was insane and destructive for his own self, and in justifying his behavior his fans act as irrationally as his detractors do.

In the comments on the show the fans explained that they were not justifying anything, but simply understood where Michael was coming from, and though I completely agree with the fans (and partially with the journalists), it was at this point that I realized that all of us are looking in the wrong direction.

The main thing to discuss is not why Michael did this or that, but the fact that he kept talking about it.

And it is not that important whether his explanations were naïve or his actions looked strange to the outside world. The main thing is that he talked about it, and this is all there is to it.

The real offenders lie, pretend and feign disinterest in children, turning their vice into a closely guarded secret – and he talked, talked and talked about sharing a bed with a child (!) trying to make his point clear to everyone with whatever unconventional, naive and probably even silly arguments he had to make.

If he had been as lying and manipulative as Dr. Salter says all predators are, he would have never given a single clue to anyone that he was even interested in children. If he had really been like “them”, he would have chosen a profession that gives easy access to children, and would have pretended to be “kind” and “caring” towards them. However all of it would have been strictly within the socially acceptable limits and would have never raised the slightest suspicion, because it is exactly their ability to look normal that makes them so difficult to catch.

And Michael’s views on children were like an open book. What was written in that book was surprising and even shocking to some, but his fundamental difference from all those “others” is that his book was wide open for everyone to read.

People can argue about Michael’s views and can criticize, ridicule, get annoyed and even hate him for breaking the acceptable social norms, but they cannot deny that he never hid his attitude towards children and his love for them from public view.

And this is the only thing that matters here, guys.

“They” seek sex, but pretend that they are not interested.

And he sought and shared love and never thought it necessary to pretend that he didn’t.

In fact, the strangest thing of all is that if Michael had pretended the same way as real offenders do, people would have understood it. This is because a criminal pattern of behavior is understandable to us even if we talk about it in theory only. And according to this pattern if someone has criminal intentions he simply must keep it a secret, and if he doesn’t and even openly parades some unusual behavior, people will look at him as a totally immoral gangster, or someone mad, or …. an innocent guy who simply never learned the social rules of behavior and doesn’t know how to behave himself in public.

For various reasons neither of those variants (an utterly lost soul, madness and complete innocence) quite fit the image of Michael Jackson created for the public by the media and prosecution, and it was actually the mystery that Michael Jackson presented that was so terribly overwhelming for the majority of people.

And this means that people hated Michael most because they couldn’t understand him.

And they couldn’t understand him because he was indeed a different kind and it is his difference that they found disturbing and baffling, and this is what they hated and ridiculed most.

And why, oh why doesn’t this reason sound to me as nothing novel at all?

Now that I’ve done some research in and around Darlene Craviotto’s book let me warn those who are ready to repeat this journey together with me: the search for answers to questions arising from this book will be like travelling into a black hole in space. Its gravity force will draw you deeper and deeper inside until you find yourself in a totally different reality – dark and incredible, and totally unknown to those who stay outside and never look in.

A turn at its every corner will open up vast new fields to explore and every new door will have a revelation behind it. The doors and corners will be many, so let us be patient and not surprised if the journey takes us to the vistas and people we have never even imagined to explore.

The subject we are looking into is the movie projects that were supposed to involve Michael Jackson in the 1990s. The question to always keep in mind while looking is whether these projects were real or fictional and meant to only create the impression that something was being done for Michael Jackson in terms of movie projects, following his agreements with various people to the effect.

This somewhat unexpected turn in our research started with Darlene Craviotto’s book who in 2011 claimed that in the year 1990 she wrote a movie script for the top-secret “Project M” – a plan to make a Peter Pan movie with Michael Jackson in the title role.

The first probe into that book has already told us more than the author intended to reveal – her goal to smear Michael Jackson’s name based on her fantasies alone, the fact that she has an unknown sponsor who permitted her to disclose this “top-secret” Project M no one ever heard of, her intention to put the blame for dumping the project on Steven Spielberg, a fake site to support her claims to agoraphobia condition which she probably doesn’t have, a non-existent publisher who nevertheless published her book, and lots of other inconsistencies that make us realize that something is absolutely not right about this book.

Just to remind you of the main storyline: Ms. Craviotto claims that in 1990 a new Peter Pan movie was planned for Michael Jackson by the Disney studio, its head Jeffrey Katzenberg and director Steven Spielberg. She was hired to write a movie script in close cooperation with Michael Jackson, but when the script was ready Spielberg decided in favor of a different project, which eventually turned into his “Hook” movie starring Robin Williams.

This sudden turnabout from Spielberg delivered a very hard blow to Michael Jackson and he was said to have a falling out with Spielberg since then – which indeed seems to be the case as we read in some sources.

Michael Jackson and Steven Spielberg

So the fact that Michael wanted the role but it was not given to him is not a matter in dispute here. What we really don’t know is whether all of it happened the way Craviotto describes it.

And her story is a black and white one – the good project was ruined by a bad guy (inconsistent, unreliable, moody, you name it) Steven Spielberg who was first enthusiastic about the movie but then betrayed everyone’s best hopes.

Michael Jackson was crushed, the screenwriter was upset and sobbing, and her Disney bosses were shocked by their partner who so unexpectedly let them down.

Our goal is to learn the truth behind this tale of good guys vs. bad guy in a project involving an even worse guy Michael Jackson (a “molester” according to Craviotto’s fantasies) and to do so we will have to look at all people involved in this project.

BUZ KOHAN

Craviotto’s book contains a few bits here and there that make you suspect that those who designed this project for Michael Jackson didn’t really mean it. One of these tips is Craviotto’s strange unwillingness to mention the true identity of a person who goes in her story by the name of Buddy.

This person is made out to be some obscure character who suddenly popped up at the final reading of her script, together with an unidentified boy, and is described by the author in so ironic and even demeaning way that it never occurs to the reader to check up the identity of this person.

Here is a sample of the author’s interaction with this Buddy.

“Very good,” Buddy finally says.
“It’s wonderful, Darlene,” Michael adds softly.
There words should be enough, but of course they’re not. Buddy begins to ask questions, and Michael simply sits back and says nothing. Everything we’ve worked on together, talked about, and considered is now under Buddy’s microscope. He picks away at a character trait here, a story point here, grabbing at threads and pulling apart what has taken months to weave together. If he were Michael, I’d be taking notes. If he were Steven, I’d be listening. I would make changes; I’d shape the story in the direction they wanted to go. But he’s not Michael or Steven, and so I pretend to take notes, and I nod conciliatorily, just to keep the peace. Pulling inside of myself emotionally, I simply retreat. When an appropriate amount of time has passed, and I’ve fielded as many of Buddy’s questions that I can tolerate, I bring the meeting to an abrupt halt.
“Disney wants to read this,” I say.
“Michael thinks he’d like to read it one more time before you turn it in.”
I look over at Michael, not wanting to hear how he feels, or what he thinks as answers from Buddy, but from Michael himself. He has trouble looking at me, and that says more to me than words.

I’ve done everything in my power to keep Michael 100% happy. I’ve been the perfect little screenwriter: I have nurtured, encouraged, coaxed and enticed. We’ve been playmates together, sucking Jolly Roger candies and giggling over nonsense. But that’s over now. We’ve stopped being kids. Well, I’ve stopped at least. Michael seems content staying just the way he is. He likes having people speak for him. Running his life. Handling his affairs. Ordering his pizzas and making excuses for him. If not Stella, then Buddy…

Stella is the name given by the author to Michael’s secretary. Our perfect little screenwriter manages to find fault even with this woman whose only guilt is that she was properly running Michael Jackson’s business schedule.

And this is in addition to Craviotto’s total disregard for Buddy and his views on her script.

However when we find out Buddy’s real name we are stunned to learn that the person portrayed by the author as a sheer nobody is actually a writer and producer with a great reputation in the entertainment industry who has a sensational number of TV movie scripts (more than 200) and awards (13 Primetime Emmy awards, 3 other wins and 21 nominations) to his credit.

Michael Jackson and Buz Kohan

His name is Buz Kohan and in the year 1990 alone, which is the time of Craviotto’s story, Kohan got two Primetime Emmy awards and was nominated for a third one for the lyrics in Michael Jackson’s song.

This song was accidentally mentioned by Craviotto in the context of Sammy Davis Jr. Tribute she saw on TV and this is actually how we learn who Buddy is.

… Later that night, I settle in to watch the previously taped Sammy Davis Jr. Tribute on television, waiting to watch Michael’s performance in it. He sings a song that he wrote just for Sammy, a ballad honoring him as an entertainer. When the credits roll, I’m surprised to see that Buddy also wrote one of the songs performed on the show.”

And here is the list of PrimeTime Emmy awards for 1990 which says that the ballad dedicated to Sammy Davis was “You Were There” and its lyricist was Buz Kohan.

1990

• Won Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special
  Sammy Davis, Jr. 60th Anniversary Celebration (1990)
• Won Outstanding Music and Lyrics
  From the Heart… The First International Very Special Arts Festival (1989)
  Shared with: Larry Grossman (composer)
• Nominated Outstanding Music and Lyrics
  Sammy Davis, Jr. 60th Anniversary Celebration (1990)
  Shared with: Michael Jackson (composer/lyricist) For the song “You Were There”.

For those of us who are not familiar with the name of Buz Kohan, here is just a small fraction of his scripts for the five years prior to the events described in Craviotto’s book.

1990 The 16th Annual People’s Choice Awards (TV Special)
1990 Christmas at Home (TV Movie documentary) (written by)
1990 Sinatra 75: The Best Is Yet to Come (TV Special documentary) (writer)
1990 Grammy Legends (TV Special)
1990 The 42nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards (TV Special)
1989 All-Star Tribute to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (TV Movie)
1989 From the Heart… The First International Very Special Arts Festival (TV Movie)
1989 The 15th Annual People’s Choice Awards (TV Special)
1989 5th Annual TV Academy Hall of Fame (TV Special)
1988 America’s Tribute to Bob Hope (TV Movie documentary)
1987 Dolly (TV Series) (written by – 1 episode)
– A Tennessee Mountain Thanksgiving (1987) … (written by)
1987 We the People 200: The Constitutional Gala (TV Movie)
1987 Andy Williams and the NBC Kids: Easter in Rome (TV Movie)
1986 Liberty Weekend (TV Special documentary)
1986 The 3rd Annual Television Academy Hall of Fame Awards (TV Special)
1986 Living Seas (TV Movie)
1985 Andy Williams and the NBC Kids Search for Santa (TV Special)
1985 The Patti LaBelle Show (TV Special)
1985 Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton: Together (TV Movie)
1985 Motown Returns to the Apollo (TV Special) (writing supervisor)
1985 50th Presidential Inaugural Gala (TV Special)
1985 The Shirley MacLaine Show (TV Movie) (writer)

All of it means that when Buz Kohan came to Michael’s place twice to listen to Craviotto’s final script and make suggestions on how to improve it, he was a much more famous, experienced and obviously better writer than she was and ever will be.

And this is one of the reasons why Craviotto didn’t want her readers to know his true identity – because if the readers did know the scene at the end of the book would acquire a totally different meaning and would betray the real reason why she felt so nervous. Despite the maximal comfort Michael Jackson and Buz Kohan created for her during that final reading, she was still totally overwhelmed by Kohan’s presence and all her feigned worry about the “boy” who was also listening to the script, or her alleged agoraphobia is just a smoke screen to cover up for this plain fact.

Another question readers would ask if they knew Buddy’s real name would be: If all that time Michael Jackson had so renowned a writer at his disposal why did they call Darlene Craviotto instead?

The only possible answer to that is that the script Craviotto was hired and paid for was meant for the wastepaper basket and from the start of it too.

With Craviotto it was a very easy thing to drop the project, but with a heavy-weight writer like Buz Kohan it would have been a much bigger problem.

Even if not filmed, Kohan’s script or at least the plan to make a new Peter Pan movie starring Michael Jackson would have been surely mentioned in his biography and would not have been a secret. In this or that way the news of it would have surfaced and since Spielberg was named the villain who ruined the project he would have had to explain and comment – and all this publicity is exactly what the designers of the project intended to avoid.

So, just as the author is telling us, the whole idea of Project M must have been keeping Michael Jackson “happy” and only create the impression that something was being done for him in terms of his movie projects.

The additional bonus for the manipulators was that the blame for this failure was squarely placed on Spielberg’s shoulders and this resulted in a rift between him and MJ which was probably not mended until Michael’s final day.

At the moment the above is only a working theory, and to really see what part in the whole mess was played by Steven Spielberg we will have to look into his Hook project and how it came about.

SPIELBERG AND HOOK

No matter how hard I tried to find any comment from Spielberg about the alleged secret plan on which he allegedly worked with Michael Jackson in 1990, there is absolutely none.

Frank Sanello, the author of Spielberg’s biography “Spielberg: The Man, the Movies, the Mythology” published in 1996 says that the story about Spielberg’s collaboration with Michael Jackson on an update of Peter Pan is an “urban legend” (p. 293)

The dictionary explains that an “urban legend” is a lurid and widely circulated story that is based on hearsay, but which is not actually true.

We cannot know for sure which project Frank Sanello refers to as an “urban legend”, because five years prior to the 1990 events described by Craviotto, Spielberg indeed had a plan to make a Peter Pan movie and he probably considered Michael Jackson for the title role in it.

But the 1985 project was abandoned by Spielberg, and when he returned to it five years later, the plot of the story had already been changed – now it was about a grown-up Peter Pan who forgot that he had once been a boy, and it is for this role that Robin Williams entered the movie which was released in 1991 under the title of “Hook”.

In his March 1992 interview with Cinema Papers # 87 Spielberg provided some details of how the whole thing happened (excerpt):Finally, in late 1990, it was announced that Hook, a modern-day retelling of James Barrie’s Peter Pan myth, was firmly under way with Spielberg at the helm, Dustin Hoffman in the title character, and Robin Williams – a natural Pan, if ever there were one.

– Peter Pan stayed with you throughout your career. There are many references to it in E.T.:The Extra-terrestrial, for instance. In a way, it is surprising that you didn’t do this movie earlier.

– I was going to do it as early as 1985. I had been pursuing the rights and in 1985 I finally acquired them from the London Children’s Hospital. I was going to make a Peter Pan movie based on the novel, a live-action version like the 1924 Peter Pan silent movie. But then something happened: my son (Max) was born and I lost my appetite for the project.

-Why?

– Because suddenly I couldn’t be Peter Pan any more. I had to be his father. That’s literally the reason I didn’t do the movie back then. And I had everything ready and Elliott Scott hired to do the sets in London.

– What made you pick up this specific project, Hook, after all these years not tackling Peter Pan?

– I decided to do it when I read the Jim Hart script. It was a great idea, even though my first reaction was “This isn’t exactly what I want to do, but this is a great idea for a movie.”

But then I took the idea and I rewrote the script with Jim and another writer [Malia Scotch Marmo] and, based on the rewrite, I went ahead and made the movie.

– What was it about it that attracted you so much?

– I guess I related to the main character, Peter Banning, the way Jim wrote him – a “type A” personality. I think a lot of people today are losing their imagination because they are work-driven. They are so self-involved with work and success and arriving at the next plateau that children and family almost become incidental. I have seen this happen to friends of mine. I have even experienced it myself when I have been on a very tough shoot and I’ve not seen my kids except on weekends. They ask for my time and I can’t give it to them because I’m working. And I’ve been both guilty and wanting to do something about it.

So, when Jim Hart wrote that script, and wrote a “type A” personality in Peter Banning, I related to it. I said, “Gee, that’s quite a character arc for this character. Could this person ever have been Peter Pan? Wow, what an interesting challenge!”

– Could it also be that you were interested in returning to youth-oriented pictures after a couple of adult projects?

– It’s not conscious…When Hook came by I was actually planning to direct Schindler’s Ark, which is very much an adult film, and which I’m finally going to direct early in ’92.

https://issuu.com/libuow/docs/cinemapaper1992marno087

So Spielberg initially wanted to make a movie following the original tale, the way it was written by James Barrie. He even bought the rights to Barrie’s writings in 1985 from the London Children’s hospital which had received those rights from the author who donated them to the hospital in 1929 as a way to financially support it.

The movie production was to take place in London and when pre-production was about to start Spielberg’s son Max was born (June 12, 1985) and he suddenly “lost his appetite for it”. Now he was no longer inspired by the idea of an eternally young boy and was more impressed by the role of a father – which is an understandable change in any person’s mindset when they have their firstborn.

More detail is provided in Spielberg’s biography written by Joseph McBride:

Steven Spielberg: A Biography, 2^nd edition

During the early 1980s, Spielberg developed a live-action adaptation of Peter Pan for Disney and, later, Paramount. He considered Michael Jackson for the title role (as a singing and dancing Pan) and Dustin Hoffman for Captain James Hook. “I decided not to make Peter Pan really when Max was born,” the director explained in 1990, “and I guess it was just bad timing. Peter Pan came at a time when I had my first child and I didn’t want to go to London and have seven kids on wires in front of blue screens swinging around. I wanted to be home as a dad, not a surrogate dad.” (page 409)

~

December 13, 2016

In Steven Spielberg: A Biography, author Joseph McBride writes the filmmaker recalled his mother reading J.M. Barrie’s classic story to him as “one of the happiest memories I have from my childhood.” The tale of the titular boy who never grew up, transported three children to the magical world of Neverland, and stood up against the villainous pirate Captain Hook held meaning for the director even into his adulthood: As he once said, “I still feel like Peter Pan. It has been very hard for me to grow up.”

So it wasn’t all that surprising Spielberg began to consider filming his own version of the tale not long after the smash success of his family film E.T. in 1982. Newspaper reports at the time suggested that Spielberg wanted pop legend Michael Jackson (who was similarly fascinated with the Peter Pan story) to star. By 1985, the director was close to diving into a musical version, with Dustin Hoffman set to play Captain Hook.

Spielberg’s longtime composer John Williams had written a number of songs, and set construction was under way in London when Spielberg had second thoughts. According to McBride’s book, Spielberg, who’d just had his first child, balked at moving to London for the shoot, and seemed to have set his sights on more “mature” material. By 1987, when he released Empire Of The Sun, Spielberg told the New York Times: “I was also attracted to the idea that this was a death of innocence, not an attenuation of childhood… this was the opposite of Peter Pan.”

Even without Spielberg, Paramount Pictures continued on with the Pan project. Nick Castle, who’d played Michael Myers in Halloween before directing ’80s kids fave The Last Starfighter, was now on board to direct. He and writer James V. Hart hit upon a new approach to the story, which saw Peter Pan grown up and working as a lawyer in America, his time in Neverland forgotten, until Captain Hook returns and kidnaps Peter’s own children.

The new spin on the story reignited Spielberg’s interest, and he returned to the project, by that point set up at Sony. Michael Jackson exited: As Spielberg would later tell Entertainment Weekly, “I called Michael and I said, ‘This is about a lawyer that is brought back to save his kids and discovers that he was once, when he was younger, Peter Pan.’ So Michael understood at that point it wasn’t the same Peter Pan he wanted to make.” (Though some reports suggested the singer might have been less understanding: Vanity Fair later alleged that Jackson hired a witch doctor to put a curse on Spielberg.)

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/hook-at-25-how-steven-spielbergs-peter-pan-found-its-magic-with-the-kids-who-grew-up-with-it-203250596.html

A witch doctor putting a curse on Spielberg is another of those urban legends which everyone still promotes despite its total absurdity. However in general the above piece makes things a little clearer.

Now we know that the initial project was handled by Disney, but when Spielberg backed out of it, it was passed over to another studio – Paramount pictures and acquired a new director, Nick Castle. The screenwriter James Hart remained on the project but changed the plot of the story, and this is when Steven Spielberg returned to it.

He called Michael Jackson and told him about the change in the movie concept, but Michael was not interested. On the other hand no word is said about any proposals from Spielberg, so this call could just be Spielberg’s polite gesture towards Michael Jackson, rather than an offer of a role.

We also find that the initial 1985 project was supposed to be a musical, and this is confirmed by Spielberg’s long time collaborator, composer John Williams who had managed to write nine songs for the movie and all its musical themes by the time the project was scrapped. Later on some of those songs made their way in the Hook version of the film.

February, 2000

In 1985, Steven Spielberg took it upon himself to produce a stage musical based on J.M. Barrie’s timeless classic “Peter Pan.” Naturally, it would be John Williams, Spielberg’s longtime collaborator of Jaws and Indiana Jones fame, who supplied the songs and the musical underscore. With his own frequent collaborator Leslie Bricusse (Home Alone, Superman) supplying the lyrics, Williams composed nine songs and all of the themes before the production was ultimately scrapped. It is unknown whether or not any recordings still exist from this time, or how many themes were specifically composed.

Fortunately, Williams was given the opportunity to revisit and expand his musical ideas on a whole new scale in 1991, when Spielberg’s fantasies about the ultimate “Peter Pan” turned into the film Hook. https://www.jwfan.com/?p=3433

The book devoted to various Peter Pan projects and named “Peter Pan on Stage and Screen, 1904-2010” drops a sensation and says that despite all rumors Michael Jackson was never considered by Spielberg for the role of Peter Pan, even in its 1985 version.

The book claims that Spielberg said he would never give Michael this role though they were very close friends.

For several years in the eighties it was rumoured that rock star Michael Jackson was going to star in a Steven Spielberg film, but the producer-director denied this in 1984, telling Variety that while Michael was a very close friend he never was and never would be Peter Pan. The director hoped to have the film ready for a 1986 Easter release, however, plans fell through, and by 1989 he was stating that he would never film the play.  (page 312)

So if we are to believe the above source Michael Jackson’s participation in a Peter Pan movie was just his dream that never came true, and the reports that he would play the title role in the 1985 version of the film were another of those “urban myths”, not to mention a later version of it that was released in 1991.

ECONOMY FLIGHT

The continuation of that story is even more intricate and winding than its beginning.

By the time Spielberg dropped out of the 1985 project and it was passed over from Disney studio to Paramount Pictures, Spielberg’s rights to James Barrie’s writings had expired.

Those rights were acquired by …. Dodi Al Fayed.  Yes, the one who later befriended Princess Diana and died in a car accident with her. And when Al Fayed bought those rights (either partially or fully) he flatly refused Michael Jackson any chance to take part in the project.

But in 1986, the Jackson-Spielberg project was declared dead amid reports that Spielberg had lost the rights to author J.M. Barrie’s writings (according to the piece, the rights had been won by Dodi Fayed, the London playboy who would die in the 1997 car crash that also killed Princess Diana). Fayed said he didn’t want or need a prominent director, and claimed that Jackson had priced himself out of the picture with a demand for $10 million.

The link provided in the above piece is taking us an old newspaper article dated December 29, 1986 which says that Al Fayed’s  project was going to be an economy one and that Jackson’s asking price was too high:

“Peter Pan”: Economy flight

Plans are being made for Peter Pan to soar before the cameras late next year – without Steven Spielberg at the helm or Michael Jackson as star. Spielberg allowed his rights to the classic Sir James Barrie work to lapse several months ago; they’ve been picked up by Disney Studios and international entrepreneur Dodi Fayed, who says, “It’s not my posture to spend a lot of money on a director.” It’s also hot the posture of Fayed, who is co-financing and co-producing the feature with Disney, to spend a fortune on a Peter Pan star. He reveals that Jackson’s asking price was more than $10 million and that “the entire budget of the picture is only $20 million.” Fayed expects unknown juveniles to be cast as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, and a major name as the menacing Captain Hook.

Now that the movie was at another studio, made by a different director and produced by Al Fayed the project underwent serious changes.

The genre of the movie was turned from a musical into an action-live feature film and its screenwriter James Hart, who wrote the original script for the movie,  suggested changing its plot. A new idea gripped his mind when he was playing with his son a “what if” game and he asked him what would happen if Peter Pan grew up.

This triggered off a totally new off-shoot from the original story – now Peter Pan will become a hard-nosed lawyer who forgot that he was Peter Pan once and the whole point of the movie will be to make him recapture the spirit of his youth and remember what it is like to be a child and be able to fly. This is when the Peter Pan story turned into its Hook variant.

The “Peter Pan on Stage and Screen, 1904-2010” anthology says about it:

Hook must not be considered a sequel to Peter Pan, for Barrie made it clear that Peter would not grow up. Screenwriter Jim Hart derived the idea from a dinner game with his son, a series of what ifs such as “What if Peter Pan grew up?” Together with Hart and screenwriter Malia Scotch Marmo, Spielberg envisioned a fantasy film with very important message to the materialistic “yuppie” generation: don’t forget your priority – the family! (page 313).

The copyright to Peter Pan/Hook screenplay went on an adventure of its own. First Spielberg lost his rights in 1985 and they were sold to Al Fayed, and now – three years later, in 1989 – Al Fayed sold these rights to TriStar film studio.

The Peter Pan anthology says about it:

In 1989, TriStar bought the rights to an original screenplay entitled Hook. Developed by screenwriter Jim Hart, it was initially presented as a package by producers Gary Adelson and Craig Baumgaren. The script was shown to Steven Speilberg, who became very excited over the prospect only to find out that Nick Castle was included as part of the package as director.

At this point, TriStar chairman Mike Medavoy decided that such an expensive venture could only succeed under Spielberg’s direction. Castle was disappointed, but he was promised another TriStar film and a handsome settlement for his contribution to the story. Finally, Steven Spielberg was going to work on the film that he seemed destined to create.

Now that we are in the year 1989 it is important to remember that:

1) by now the copyright to the screenplay has already gone to TriStar studio and

2) it changed hands at approximately the same time when Ms. Craviotto was writing her script for the Disney secret Peter Pan project with Michael Jackson’s participation in it.

No wonder that their project was so secret – the copyright to the story was held by a different company and Disney studio most probably had no rights to make that movie at all.

Despite selling his rights to TriStar Dodi Al Fayed’s agreement with them had a point that he would stay the executive producer of the Hook movie, and considering his sceptical attitude towards Michael Jackson’s participation in this project, a role for MJ there was most probably not even a subject for discussion.

The Al Fayed family had their connections with Peter Pan project even in 2003 when one more version of the movie was made and it was dedicated to the memory of Dodi Al Fayed. The article below is dated 2003 and it again repeats that Al Fayeds held the film rights including the agreement that a certain percentage of every new adaptation would go to support the London hospital for children.

IN THE DAYS BEFORE the big romance with Princess Diana, Dodi Al Fayed and I talked of his plans to feature film “Peter Pan.” He and his father Mohamed Al Fayed had bought the film rights — including the agreement, per J.M. Barrie’s will, that a certain percentage go to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. And the proviso for all filmmakers was that the amount of the hospital contribution and all ensuing profits be kept secret. (It was in effect as well with the making of “Hook”).

After last week’s preem of the current “Pan” (exec produced by Mohamed Al Fayed) in London, the entire cast paid a visit to the children in the Ormond Street Hospital, producers Lucy Fisher and Douglas Wick reported to me following Sunday’s preem at Hollywood’s Chinese Theater. http://variety.com/2003/film/columns/clooney-to-support-dad-in-congressional-run-1117897193/

Considering that Al Fayed seemed to be always part of Peter Pan projects, in 1985 and forever after, and considering that MJ didn’t fit his idea of the film, the chances that he would get the role of Peter Pan after Al Fayed had acquired those rights were minimal, if any.

From this point of view the change in the plot of the story was only for the better. It was a plausible pretext for not inviting Michael Jackson which saved him from the humiliation of finding that he was simply not wanted. The news delivered to him by Spielberg was a blow of course, but if he had known the full story the blow would have been a much harder one.

Spielberg explains why Michael Jackson quit Hook

04/12/2011

Michael Jackson pulled out of playing Peter Pan in Steven Spielberg’s 1991 movie Hook because the director’s vision for the film didn’t match his own.

Spielberg admits Jackson was keen to take on the lead role in the film but baulked at the idea of playing a lawyer who forgot he was the boy who never grew up.

The director tells Entertainment Weekly magazine, “Michael had always wanted to play Peter Pan, but I called Michael and I said, ‘This is about a lawyer that is brought back to save his kids and discovers that he was once, when he was younger, Peter Pan.’

“Michael understood at that point it wasn’t the same Peter Pan he wanted to make.”

The role eventually went to funnyman Robin Williams.

http://www.newshub.co.nz/entertainment/spielberg-explains-why-michael-jackson-quit-hook-2011120510

Now if you think that our adventures with the Peter Pan project are over, you are mistaken. There is one more side to this story which needs to be explored.

SONY STEPS IN

The “Peter Pan on Stage and Screen, 1904-2010” anthology adds some new, seemingly purely technical details to the Hook project and these details open to us amazing new horizons if placed against the background of Craviotto’s story.

Hook was being developed by Hart and director Nick Castle at TriStar when the Japanese electronics giant Sony bought Columbia-TriStar in 1989.

The following year, Sony hired Mike Medavoy to run TriStar. Medavoy, who had been Spielberg’s first agent, sent Hart’s script to Spielberg, who quickly committed to direct it.

Castle, who had worked with Spielberg on “Amazing Stories”, was taken off Hook and given a $500,000 settlement, as well as a story credit with Hart.  Spielberg received unfavourable publicity for what some took to be an arrogant power play against a less prominent director, but Medavoy says, “He didn’t want anything to do with taking another director off a picture. I said, “I’ve already done it.” Because Dustin and Robin weren’t going to work with Castle.” (p.410)

Vanity Fair confirms that at first Al Fayed had “some rights” to James Barrie’s story, but then he sold them to producer Weintraub who later resold them to Sony for $1.35 million. According to their agreement Al Fayed received an executive producer’s credit, though he had virtually no role in making the film.

“With the assistance of his father, a benefactor of the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in London, Dodi had acquired the film rights to Peter Pan, whose author, Sir James M. Barrie, had bequeathed his copyright to the hospital. Dodi had been trying to develop a Peter Pan movie since 1985 (rather appropriate, given his own character). Finally, toward the late 80s, veteran producer Jerry Weintraub bought the rights from Dodi and sold them for $1.35 million to Sony, which had its own Peter Pan project with Steven Spielberg. Weintraub declined to attach himself to the movie, because it was a Spielberg production. Dodi, however, received an executive producer’s credit, though he had virtually no role in making the film. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/1997/12/dodi-fayed-199712

Since no one understands how come Sony suddenly stepped into the Hook project, let me explain.

On September 29, 1989 Tristar and Columbia pictures, previously owned by Coca-Cola were bought by Sony. Together with the TriStar studio Sony also inherited their Hook project.

The Columbia Pictures empire was sold on September 28, 1989 to electronics giant Sony for the amount of $3.4 billion, one of several Japanese firms then buying American properties. The sale netted Coca-Cola a handsome profit from its investment in the studio.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Pictures

At the beginning of 1990 Sony hired Mike Medavoy to head their TriStar Pictures division and entrusted him with the Hook project.

The book “Hit and Run”, which is extremely critical of Medavoy and other managers hired by Sony for running their Columbia/TriStar film business, gives us the exact time when Medavoy took up the job – it was early March 1990.

With much fanfare they appointed Mike Medavory as TriStar’s boss in early March. The job was a godsend for Medavory, who was being edged out of his position as head of production at the financially trouble Orion Pictures Corporation. (“Hit and Run”, page 266)

Before putting the movie into production Mike Medavoy had to settle the matter of Peter Pan copyright with Al Fayed and Jerry Weintraub (who temporarily had those rights before selling them to Sony).

Mike Medavoy says about it in his book:

“Arrangements also had to be made with Jerry Weintraub and Dodi Fayed, who had acquired certain rights to the Peter Pan story when it fell into the public domain, and with the Children’s Hospital in London, which controlled the right held by the J.M.Barrie estate.”

Your head must be spinning with all these details same as mine is, so let us go over it once again, in a slow motion this time.

• In 1985 the rights to James Barrie’s writings belonged to Spielberg. When he lost them, the rights were bought by Disney studios (?) and Dodi Al Fayed.
• After Spielberg left the Peter Pan project, it was passed over from Disney to Paramount Pictures where Al Fayed continued with the project. They got a new director, Nick Castle, but retained the same screenwriter, James Hart.
• In 1986 James Hard thought of changing the story into Hook and started rewriting the script.
• Sometime in “the late 80s” Al Fayed sold his rights to producer Jerry Weintrab.
• In September 1989 Sony bought Columbia pictures and TriStar.
• At the beginning of March 1990 Sony hired Mike Medavoy to run the TriStar division of their newly acquired Columbia/TriStar studios.
• Mike Medavoy approached Jerry Weintrab for the rights to the Peter Pan/Hook screenplay and Sony bought them for $1.35 million. The road to make the movie was now clear.
• Medavoy was Spielberg’s first agent, so upon taking his new post he sent him the Hook script with a suggestion to direct it.
• Spielberg got interested and “quickly committed himself” to direct the movie.

And while all that mess was taking place Darlene Craviotto is telling us that all was smooth and fine with their secret Disney/Spielberg “Project M” on making a Peter Pan movie with Michael Jackson in the title role.

FRAUD

The way Craviotto describes it, in 1990 top Disney executives – its president Jeffrey Katzenberg and Howard Fein (“Vice-president-of-something” as Craviotto calls him), Michael Jackson and herself got together with Steven Spielberg to discuss the movie after which she was signed on the job.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, President of Disney Films <> appeared almost on cue as we took a short cut through the interior courtyard.

“Are we doing this?!” he asked, with just a touch of impatience.

“Right now,” Howard tells him, quickly introducing me as we move a little faster back into the building and down a hallway to Steven’s private dining room.

… We arrived at Steven’s private dining room, and the thick ornately-carved wooden doors opened almost like magic. We stepped inside, the three of us, and there sat Steven Spielberg at the head of a long wooden dining table set for lunch. He rose to meet us, his hand outstretched.

…”Have you met Michael yet?”

Steven turned and gestured across the table, and there he sat.

…“Are you ready to fly?” Steven asks, jump-starting the meeting into the reason why we were all in the room. “Ready to strap on the harness and take flight, Mike?”

“Oh yes!” Michael says, breathlessly.

… “Are you sure you want to do this,” Steven teases. “You’re sure you’re committed to it?”

“Absolutely!” Michael says, his enthusiasm clearly evident in the large grin on his face.

“We’re not going to lose you to some world tour…?”

“This is a dream of mine,” Michael assured him.

“…or back to back albums?”

“I want to be Peter!”

“It’s going to be a lot of work, a lot of commitment,” Steven says, seriously.

Michael nods his head. “I’m ready to do this. I’ve been waiting my whole life.”

It is enough to compare the hard facts collected from various sources with Craviotto’s cheesy story to realize that the above scene is something akin to science fiction.

She, Michael Jackson, Katzenberg and other Disney executives were probably there, but all the rest of it is hard to imagine. I mean it is hard to imagine Spielberg to be involved in the Disney project and offering the role of Peter Pan to Michael Jackson on the one hand, and almost at the same time be involved in the Hook project and offering this role to Robin Williams on the other.

Add to it that in this case Spielberg would be working for two rival film studios – the secret Peter Pan script would be for Disney and the not-so-secret Hook project would be for Sony’s Columbia/TriStar.

To make matters worse, Steven Spielberg himself said (in an interview with Cinema magazine #87 mentioned earlier) that at the time he was approached with a suggestion to direct “Hook” he had long gone past the Peter Pan story and was planning to make “Schindler’s List” instead, and it was only because of the new twist to the old tale that he got interested in it.

Now what are we supposed to think when two different people tell us the opposite stories?

Did Spielberg take part in the Disney plan as Craviotto says or he didn’t?

And who are we to believe here – Craviotto or Spielberg who never once mentioned it?

The fact that “Project M” did exist doesn’t raise doubt with me and Michael Jackson did indeed have all those meetings with the author, otherwise we wouldn’t have all those lovely conversations between him and her recorded for the book, but the question is a different one – did Spielberg take part in it and was Project M for real? 

While you are deciding whose word to believe in this dilemma, I will give you a definite answer to the latter question.

COPYRIGHT

No, Project M was not real.

It was a scam that did not mean anything and was devised for window dressing only.

To make sure that this is the case all you need to do is introduce the copyright factor into the picture.

Even in the unlikely case Disney studios still had some rights to James Barrie’s writings which they probably acquired together with Al Fayed in 1985, the rights still retained by Al Fayed and resold to Sony in 1989/90 for no small sum of $1.35 million would not have let Disney make a Peter Pan movie anyway.

Disney executives knew it very well, so the only other option we have for them is that they plunged Michael Jackson into a project all the way knowing that it could not be realized.

And despite knowing that the project would go nowhere, they still took Michael Jackson for a ride, and when all of it came to its inevitable end, they made Spielberg look like the only one responsible for the failure and squarely put all the blame on his shoulders.

He was turned into a fall guy while all the others put up a theatrical show of being “shocked, disappointed, frustrated” by what was supposed to be Spielberg’s fault.

Now that I am looking at the smouldering ruins of Craviotto’s story I am not even sure that the notable meeting with Spielberg took place at all and that he even knew of that secret project.

The version that Spielberg took part in that fraud willingly, only to be thrown under the bus by his co-conspirators at the last minute, doesn’t hold water for me. This scam could not end in anything else but the project cancellation, so one day the people who devised it would have had to explain themselves anyway and name those who were to blame for the failure.

They decided to name Spielberg, and this is evidently how the story was presented to Michael Jackson who most probably believed it as rumor has it.

NEW VISTAS

To finish with this Peter Pan scam devised by a Disney group (Jeffrey Katzenberg et al.) we need to answer the question that yet remains unanswered– why did they decide to take Michael Jackson for so cruel a ride?

Craviotto repeatedly says in her book that she went out of her way to make Michael Jackson “100% happy”, and I wouldn’t rule out that this statement should be interpreted literally.

One of their goals could indeed be keeping Michael happy. However why they wanted to make him happy, all the time knowing that they would deliver him a hard blow in the end, still requires an answer and this is another of those fields which we need to explore.

In the meantime let me share with you a totally mad idea that crossed my mind recently.

It may not be the main reason why Craviotto accompanied Michael to his Hideaway condo and Neverland, but her later moves against him and the nasty gossip she has been spreading since then, vaguely suggest to me that she could be on a “fact-finding” mission there – to see what Michael Jackson thought about “boys” and how he interacted with them if they were around, and look for anything suspicious that she could report back to those who sent her here. Discussion of Peter Pan and his “boys” could provide a perfect platform for such a mission.

This is a mad idea of course but I, same as Craviotto, have the right to my fantasies too.

Now that we know that Project M, devised by Disney executives in 1990 for the trusting Michael Jackson was a sham and was not intended to be realized from its very beginning, we can have a look at other episodes in Darlene Craviotto’s book.

An important episode worth our attention took place in March 1990 during the author’s first visit to Neverland where she was supposed to discuss with Michael the concept of their so-called Peter Pan movie.

“HE WON’T LEAVE!”

The problem was that when the author arrived on a pre-arranged meeting with Michael, he was not available to her for half a day because of another visitor there. This other visitor was Jon Peters of Sony studios who had already spent there the whole weekend and was supposed to leave early in the morning, but “wouldn’t go away” though a small red helicopter was already waiting for him.

Ms. Craviotto put much emotion into the scene to show how much Michael Jackson was exasperated by the long-staying and possibly unwelcome guest.

“I’m so sorry, Darlene…”

“Why?”

“We’re supposed to meet, but I don’t know how that’s going to happen…”

He seems skittish as he meets me in the doorway, and then starts to lead me out of the library, down the hallway towards the living room.

“Is there a problem?” I ask.

“I have a visitor, and he won’t leave!” he says, sounding totally exasperated as he guides me through the beautifully appointed living room with its roughly hewn oak floors and a grand piano covered with silver framed photos of Michael, his family, and numerous celebrities and dignitaries.

“I don’t know what to do!” Michael says, as he leads me next into the largest kitchen I’ve ever seen in my life.

…We have barely entered the kitchen before Michael hands me a phone from behind a counter.

“Talk to Stella,” he instructs, in a quiet, apologetic voice.

…”Jon Peters won’t leave,” she explains, letting out a little sigh.

Jon Peters is Sony Studios, or at least he runs it.

“He spent the weekend, and he was supposed to go home late this morning, but he’s still there, and he doesn’t seem to want to leave.”

… “There’s a helicopter waiting for him, but he’s just not leaving.”

…“What would you like me to do?” I ask Stella, even though Michael is standing right next to me, and we could easily be having this conversation ourselves. “Do you want me to leave?” I ask.

“No!” both Michael and Stella say, almost at the same time.

They finally did manage to sit down for a discussion that day but it started only at 4:30 pm after the author had been taken on a tour of Neverland and waited, waited and waited until the small red helicopter picked up Jon Peters and took him away at last.

When Craviotto later related the scene to Howard Fein, a “vice-president of something at Disney”, his reaction to it was that of anger and anxiety according to Craviotto. He suddenly demanded that she turned in her script as soon as possible, much earlier than the September deadline stipulated in her contract with Disney.

The reason for it? Craviotto says that Disney executives were afraid that a rival studio, Columbia pictures, bought by Sony half a year earlier, would steal Michael for their own movie project – “Pinocchio” to be directed by Coppola with  Jackson in the title role. Disney pushed her to hurry up as they were afraid that the rival movie could kill their lovely (though sham) Peter Pan project.

 “Why are you pushing this?” I ask.

“I’m not going to sit back and watch Jon Peters and Sony come courting in a little fucking red helicopter!” Howard says, angrily.

So that’s what this was about: Disney was afraid of Sony stealing Michael away from them.

“Michael is excited about this project,” I explain, trying to calm his fears. “He loves Peter Pan!”

“He loves Pinocchio too,” Howard says, cryptically.

What’s Pinocchio got to do with this?
I ask him.

“Sony’s flirting with Coppolla for a Pinocchio film,” he explains. “Starring Michael as Pinocchio.”

Suddenly, I remembered that Michael had told me how much he loved Pinocchio. Maybe that’s why Jon Peters stayed so long at Neverland Ranch and didn’t want to leave. Peters wasn’t there because of the beauty; he just wanted to make a deal. But could a Sony Pinocchio deal kill out Disney Peter Pan project?

“You need to come up with a story treatment ASAP,” Howard tells me. “We need to lock up Michael before Sony comes to him with a Pinocchio deal.”

At this point let us recall where we are in terms of the timeline.

TIMELINE

According to Craviotto all of it was happening in March 1990.

From Mike Medavoy’s memoirs and other sources we know that in March 1990 Medavoy was hired by Sony to head the TriStar studios, bought by Sony together with Columbia pictures in September 1989.

By then TriStar already had the rights to the Peter Pan screenplay, but the studio intended to turn it into a “Hook” version. Mike Medavoy’s job was to finalize the copyright acquisition from its previous holders Dodi Al Fayed and Jerry Weintraub and invite Steven Spielberg to direct “Hook”.

For details of that story please look up the previous post. At the moment let us just repeat that since the rights to the screenplay were kept by another film studio, making a similar movie at Disney was impossible and this betrays Project M as a scam meant to just keep Michael “happy” and deceive him into thinking that he was participating in a serious movie project.

Ms. Craviotto constantly mentions this “happiness” factor and when describing her first visit to Neverland even measured it in per cent – according to her their Project M was only 90% about writing the script and full 100% about keeping Michael happy.

…the contract mentioned September. But I will not tell that to Michael. It’s 90% about the writing, and 100% about keeping Michael happy. I want him to think he can frolic as long as he likes in Neverland. He more relaxed he is, the better the work, and the better the product. Besides, it’s only March. September is a long, long way from now.

After Howard Fein, the author’s contact person with Disney, asked her to turn in the script as soon as possible motivating it by the rival studio’s looming project, she tried to speed up things with Michael. However when she approached Michael’s secretary (she calls her “Stella”) for the next appointment, the secretary said she could set it up for the following month only.

“Next month is looking good!” she says, hopefully.

Next month?!

“What about this month?” I ask.

“Already booked. But the end of next month looks possible.”

Possible?!

“This month he’s meeting with the President who’s giving him a medal,” she says, with great reverence. …“He’s “Entertainer of the Decade” she says proudly.

Looking smashing and at his best

This dialogue gives us an opportunity to place the described events in time with finer precision. Michael Jackson was indeed invited to Washington to meet with President Bush and his wife Barbara on April 5, 1990 and was indeed honored with the “Entertainer of the Decade” humanitarian award there.

Michael Jackson at a White House event with President Bush on April 5, 1990

The conversation with “Stella” took place prior to that White House event and since the next appointment with Michael Jackson was possible “at the end of the month” only, this takes us to the end of April or probably early May.

When Craviotto handed in her final script sometime in May/June that year the Disney people told her that Spielberg had taken up another project, and this was evidently true as by then Spielberg must have already begun rewriting the Hook script for Columbia studios – he was invited to direct that movie as soon as Mike Medavoy took his post in early March 1990.

But even the correct timeline does not prove that Spielberg was involved in their Project M in the first place. Nor does it make their sham project any more realistic – the copyright to the Peter Pan/Hook screenplay still belonged to Columbia/TriStar and this is all that matters here.

So all that Disney’s urge to hurry up with the script is just a drama element in Craviotto’s story and a make-believe scenario invented by them both for the reader and Michael Jackson.

«Katzenberg is nipping at my heels!”

Howard had said the magic word: Jeffrey Katzenberg.

“He wants to know what the hell’s taking so long?!”

When the head of a studio says a writer is taking too long, you are taking too long. No matter what your contract says. No matter it is says your deadline is September, and it’s only May. May is September on Katzenberg’s calendar.

“You’ve been meeting for almost two months,” Howard tells me, sounding exasperated. “Where is the story?!!!!”

Well, now we can even determine the approximate date when their sham project began. If by May she had been meeting Michael Jackson for almost two months, this places the start of it on March or February at the earliest.

And again this more precise timeline doesn’t change anything in the overall picture. Since the rights to the screenplay had been with TriStar studios since 1989, whatever time in 1990 their game started it was still a fraud and from its very beginning too.

Okay, but what about “Pinocchio”, the rival project mentioned in the above scene, the one that was supposed to be directed by Francis Ford Coppola at Columbia?

COPPOLA AND “PINOCCHIO”

Interesting, but in contrast to the Peter Pan fraud the Pinocchio project was genuine, however Craviotto and Co. still manage to tell a big fat lie about it. You will wonder how that is possible and how a real project can still be a lie?

The answer to the riddle is in the timeline again and the fact that though Coppola did want to direct Pinocchio and apparently considered Michael Jackson for the lead role, all of it happened much later – Coppola’s project started only in 1991 and at a different studio (Warner Brothers), and was shifted to Columbia Pictures only three years later, in 1994.

So claiming that Columbia was trying to steal Michael Jackson for their Pinocchio project in 1990 is an outrageous lie which Craviotto and her Disney bosses are telling us for seemingly no reason at all, unless they want to embellish their story and make it sound more thrilling.

To find why they are telling us so absurd a lie we need to look a bit closer into Coppola’s “Pinocchio” project.

Numerous articles of that period retell Coppola’s long saga of trying to direct Pinocchio at Warner Bros and then Columbia, but still never making it. The first landmark in that saga came in 1998, when the jury decided in favor of Coppola in his lawsuit against Warner Brothers where he claimed that they were blocking him from making the film, and the second landmark came in 2001 when the appeal court overturned the jury verdict and ruled in favor of Warner Brothers instead.

The morale of Coppola’s story is in the importance of having the rights to the movie and what happens when these rights are infringed. No director and no studio are capable of making a movie if someone else has the rights to it, or when the director still has his obligations to another film studio, and Case No. B 126903 at the Los Angeles Appeal Court is the best proof of it.

The summary of facts in this document gives us all necessary information about Coppola’s “Pinocchio” complete with the dates.

        In the late 1980’s, appellant Coppola began considering concepts for a motion picture based upon the 19th century novel, “Pinocchio.” The story itself is in the public domain. Previously, in the 1960’s, Coppola had had negative experiences at Warner and had not since worked with Warner for many years.

…In 1991 Coppola and Warner began discussing the “Pinocchio” project and two others [ ].

…In mid-1991 Coppola and Warner came to disagreement over the compensation to be paid Coppola for his directing services on “Pinocchio.”

…In May 1992, Coppola wrote a “Pinocchio” treatment, which was registered with the Writers’ Guild. Coppola testified that “I wrote that treatment at Warner’s request. Yes, everything I was doing was on their behalf.”

…Lisa Henson, a former senior creative executive at Warner assigned to the “Pinocchio” project, testified that a producer’s agreement had not been accomplished by the time she left Warner at the end of 1992. After leaving Warner, Lisa Henson became president of production at Columbia.

…In early 1993, [screenwriter] Galati submitted his first draft screenplay for the “Pinocchio” film. Warner decided not to proceed with the “Pinocchio” project on the basis of a Galati screenplay. Coppola continued to work on the development of the “Pinocchio” film project.

…In mid-1993, Coppola, in collaboration with Borelli, produced a draft screenplay based upon a concept which was significantly different than the Galati screenplay. He also wrote 14 original songs for potential use in the revised “Pinocchio.” Warner was apparently unaware of this new “Pinocchio” treatment until the Coppola-Columbia Pictures relationship surfaced.

…By letter dated June 30, 1993, addressed to Warner, counsel for Coppola “…advised that our clients…do not wish to continue negotiations…in connection with the motion picture project presently known as “Pinocchio” and we are terminating such negotiations on their behalf. This letter returned checks for the fee advance and expenses paid by Warner and demanded return of all “Pinocchio” materials provided by Coppola to Warner.

…By letter dated July 1, 1993, addressed to counsel for Coppola, Warner’s General Counsel advised that “The Producer Loanout Agreement between this company and Coppola has been and remains in full force and effect. We expect all parties involved to live up to their obligations under that agreement…” The checks tendered by Coppola’s counsel’s letter of June 30, 1993, were returned.

…By cover letter dated September 29, 1993, Coppola’s attorney sent various “Pinocchio” materials [ ] to Jared Jussim,Columbia Pictures’ Vice-President, Legal Affairs. Jussim concluded the rights of and any claims by Warner should be resolved before Columbia could proceed with the Coppola “Pinocchio” project.

…Coppola contends that there was no agreement with Warner; [ ] and, that “Pinocchio” is a public domain story which Coppola was free to develop anywhere, at anytime with anyone.

…Coppola and Columbia entered into an agreement “as of June 15, 1994” for the production of Coppola’s “Pinocchio.”

…A Warner executive, Steven Spira, heard through industry rumor that Coppola and Columbia were discussing a “Pinocchio” film project. Spira sent a letter dated February 17, 1994, to Coppola’s agent with a copy to Columbia, which read: “It has come to our attention that Coppola may be considering making a deal in connection with a PINOCCHIO project at Columbia. As you know, Warner has previously notified Coppola that he has an agreement at Warner in connection with any such project. Such agreement would preclude him from proceeding at Columbia.”

This case was filed September 13, 1995, 19 months following Spira’s February 17, 1994 letter. During this period, Warner, Coppola and Columbia were attempting to resolve the competing claims of rights in and to the Coppola “Pinocchio” project.

…The Warner-Coppola claims were not resolved. The “Pinocchio” project was not financed. Columbia would not proceed. Coppola’s “Pinocchio” was not produced. This litigation followed.

In the end the appeal court ruled in favor of Warner Bros. despite the fact that Coppola’s deal with them was not in writing but oral agreement only, and the rights to Pinocchio story were in public domain and not private property in contrast to Peter Pan screenplay.

Now that we know of the sad fate of Coppola’s “Pinocchio”, we are even less inclined to fall for Craviotto’s soap opera about Disney’s best intentions to make a Peter Pan movie starring MJ, which were ruined by Steven Spielberg who suddenly dumped their project and went to make “Hook” at Columbia instead.

Spielberg was surely not suicidal enough to involve himself in litigation similar to Coppola’s by drifting from one film studio to another and starting a project without first obtaining proper rights to it. And since the rights were with Tristar, Disney was ruled out and that makes this point final.

Was there a chance that Coppola was planning his Pinocchio movie at Columbia in 1990 as Craviotto claims it? Absolutely not. The Pinocchio project began only a year later and at Warner Bros. too, and Coppola himself says that everything he did was solely for that film studio and no one else.

But how do we know that Francis Coppola wanted Michael Jackson to star in his movie?

The media of that period repeatedly mentioned it. The article quoted below, for example, was written at a time when Pinocchio had already been taken to Columbia. And it also says that “at one point Coppola apparently considered casting Michael Jackson in the lead role”.

NOSING AROUND: No Lie: Coppola Eyes ‘Pinocchio’

July 17, 1994|JUDY BRENNAN

George Lucas, Michael Jackson and Francis Ford Coppola working on “Captain EO”

First there was a live-action movie version of the popular cartoon TV series “The Flintstones.” Now there’s a live-action version of a Disney animated classic in the works–“Pinocchio.”

But the master pulling the strings on the latest version of the fairy tale about the puppet-turned-boy is not in the Disney camp. It’s Francis Ford Coppola, the maestro of “The Godfather” trilogy, “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” and the upcoming Nov. 4 release “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.”

While Coppola’s associates and executives at Columbia Pictures, which would be the film’s likely distributor, are downplaying the immediacy of the project, sources close to the director say it could be his next endeavor.

At one point, Coppola apparently even considered casting Michael Jackson in the lead role.

Fred Fuchs, president of Coppola’s American Zoetrope Studio, insists that the director’s “lifelong dream” to film the fairy tale is only in the embryonic stage at this point.”

Because Collodi’s fairy tale, first published in 1883, is in the public domain, Disney doesn’t have a say about how the filmmaker portrays the Pinocchio characters unless he makes them look like those in its movie version. Only then would there be trademark infringement, a Disney spokeswoman said.

One Columbia source said the studio was a bit concerned that Coppola’s plans might be swallowed up in a dispute with Warner Bros., which several years ago had expressed interest in doing its own live-action “Pinocchio.” But Fuchs said, “it really didn’t go anywhere. . . . There was no deal with Warner Bros. regarding Francis’ script or this project.”

A Columbia source said that the earliest cameras could begin rolling is the spring [1995].

http://articles.latimes.com/1994-07-17/entertainment/ca-16701_1_coppola-pinocchio-writers

It’s funny that in the year 1994 Columbia said that the Pinocchio movie was only “in the embryonic stage” at their studio, while Craviotto tells us that they were stealing Michael Jackson for it already in 1990.

Now what does all this mess tell us about Craviotto’s book?

It tells us that she wants us to believe that in the year 1990 she and Disney knew what Francis Coppola didn’t yet know himself – that a year later he would start a Pinocchio movie at Warner Brothers and three years later would take it to Columbia.

Just as a reminder here is the respective episode from her book:

“Sony’s flirting with Coppolla for a Pinocchio film,” he explains. “Starring Michael as Pinocchio.”

Suddenly, I remembered that Michael had told me how much he loved Pinocchio. Maybe that’s why Jon Peters stayed so long at Neverland Ranch and didn’t want to leave. Peters wasn’t there because of the beauty; he just wanted to make a deal. But could a Sony Pinocchio deal kill out Disney Peter Pan project?

“You need to come up with a story treatment ASAP,” Howard tells me. “We need to lock up Michael before Sony comes to him with a Pinocchio deal.”

When we first read it, it looked okay to us, but now that we know the truth behind it, it sounds totally ludicrous. This piece is a clear invention on her part which sticks out like an artificial jaw that absolutely doesn’t fit.

Apparently, Craviotto invented this lie for her 2011 book on the basis of newspaper reports that surfaced in 1994 about Coppola shifting his project to Sony, or she was told to change the time of those events by her secret sponsors and designers of Project M.

But what can be the explanation for so strange a lie? After all every lie is told not just for the fun of it, but also to reach a certain goal, but what goal could the fairy-tale about “Pinocchio” at Columbia in 1990 aim at?

The key to this riddle is hidden in a totally different place and is connected with the name of the person who arrived to visit Michael Jackson at Neverland in that small red helicopter of his. The name of that person was Jon Peters.

JON PETERS

Jon Peters was a co-chairman of Columbia/TriStar film studios (the other chairman was Peter Guber) and he was the one who visited Neverland when Ms. Craviotto was there, and was said to have “exasperated” Michael Jackson by staying too long.

We’ve never heard of this Jon Peters, but he is a very interesting phenomenon in the film industry. He and his long-time business partner Peter Guber were appointed in 1989 as chairmen of Sony Pictures division after the company bought Tristar and Columbia Pictures, and that nomination sent the whole Hollywood into a hysterical laugh.

The first reason for the elation was the fact that just before taking their posts with Sony, the two film producers had renewed their contracts with Warner Bros. with whom they had been since 1983, and when Walter Yetnikoff lured them to Sony, the Japanese company had to release them out of those contracts by paying to Warner Bros. a staggering sum of $800 millions. This deal even prompted some wags to call it “Pearl Harbor revenged”.

Peters and Barbra Streisand with their Golden Globes in 1977. Peters’ A Star Is Born won for best film (musical/comedy), with Streisand winning best actress and best original song

The second reason for all the mockery was Jon Peters’s character and background. There is no nasty story that hasn’t been told about him in Hollywood – he is a womanizer and a vulgar bully, an illiterate nobody who rose to the top just by being a hairdresser and boyfriend to Barbra Streisand, a rogue whose sole goal was power and laughing all the way to the bank, etc. etc.

However despite all the ridicule the team of Jon Peters and Peter Guber did have a number of successful movies to their credit – A Star Is Born (1976) with Barbara Streisand in the lead role, Caddyshack with Chevy Chase (1980), An American Werewolf in London (1981), Flashdance (1983), The Color Purple (1985), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Rainman (1988) and Oscar-winning box-office megahit Batman (1989) for which Jon Peters was the main driving force.

Jon Peters and Michael Jackson

Jon Peters’ other difference was that he was especially close to Michael Jackson and Walter Yetnikoff, who had invited him and Peter Guber to Sony.

Jon Peters was also credited with facilitating a long-term agreement between Sony and Michael Jackson as their biggest recording artist.

One of those articles that laughed at Jon Peters (and was sarcastic about Jackson) described the way the two of them got acquainted.

Jon had been woken up in the middle of the night by a very whispery voice whose first words were “I love Batman.” Jackson asked if he could visit Jon, that very night, and he soon arrived at Jon’s Beverly Park mansion in his helicopter. Jackson became obsessed by Jon, who spent some of the weirdest times of a weird life at Jackson’s Neverland estate. The parties Jon gave for his new little girls [adopted daughters] became the hottest ticket in town, because Jackson loved to perform for Jon. Jon announced his plans to sign Michael to Columbia in the biggest deal in history, to do records, film, videos, theme parks, whatever he wanted. Here was the “synergy” the studios were all seeking, and here was Jon Peters, putting it all together.

http://deadline.com/2009/05/it-should-be-called-dickhead-jon-peters-book-proposal-sets-new-low-9337/

After joining Sony in 1989 Jon Peter indeed threw himself into a movie project with Michael with the ardor only he was capable of.

The sham Project M described by Craviotto was no match for what Jon Peters’ was planning to make at Columbia – his movie project was called “MidKnight”, the script was well in the making, the film director was nominated and ready to proceed, and it is only Craviotto and Co. who don’t want anyone to know anything about it.

So not only does Craviotto tell a fairy tale about Coppola working for Sony at the time, but the book also lies about Jon Peters coming to Neverland with a Pinocchio project. The truth is that it was his own “MidKnight” project and since the idea of it was suggested by Michael himself, there couldn’t be any talk about any exasperation on MJ’s part – Michael was very much interested in that movie and was keen on making it.

“MIDKNIGHT”

The “MidKnight” movie was supposed to be a musical and was about a shy young man who turned into a singing and dancing hero at 12 a.m.

The media said that “Jon Peters focused a great deal of energy on a Quixotic attempt to make an action movie starring Michael Jackson.” The dictionary defines the word “Quixotic” as both idealistic and having a sense of romantic nobility, and this gives us a feeling that Peters’ s attempt to make MidKnight was indeed a dedicated and chivalrous one.

We learn some details about this project from screenwriter Caroline Thompson who wrote scripts for Edward Scissorhand, the Addams family and other horror films, and who was hired to write a script for MidKnight too.

Her account is rather cynical which is the usual style of this writer, and at times she also sounds pretty mad, which doesn’t surprise those of us who have seen at least her Addams family movie.

Michael Jackson would have loved to have been Edward Scissorhands

Sep 28 2009

Screenwriter Caroline Thompson’s first produced film was Edward Scissorhands. After that she went on to write The Addams Family, The Nightmare Before Christmas and last year’s City of Ember. She has also directed versions of Black Beauty and Snow White. She now lives on a ranch with lots of animals in Ojai, Caifornia, and makes films for her website, http://www.smallandcreepy.com. We had a chat with her.

Vice: So you wrote the Michael Jackson movie that never happened?
Caroline Thompson: Yes. Larry Wilson, who I wrote The Addams Family with, and I wrote a film for him. The director was Anton Furst, who was the production designer on Tim Burton’s Batman.

Oh yeah, he killed himself, right?
Yeah. And the last words I said to him were, “Grow up, Anton.” So Jon Peters, who produced Batman, went to be the head of Sony and promised Anton a directing gig there. And Anton naively took the gig but didn’t realise that it meant he couldn’t work with any other studio, so couldn’t work with Tim Burton again, which distressed him. At any rate he threw himself into this project for Michael Jackson, which we called MidKnight. I think the reason we decided to do a story about a knight was that a knight usually wears a helmet mask and we wanted to cover up Michael’s face because we thought a film audience wouldn’t take him seriously as an actor. We ourselves had a hard time taking him seriously as an actor. We had a very long and hilarious day at Neverland with him. It was Anton, our executive Amy Pascal who is now one of the heads at Sony, Larry and myself. There was this bathroom, which was full of paper wrappers and candy wrappers, all kinds of shit. It was really small, surrounded by a concrete wall, and Michael looked at it and said to us, “Isn’t it beautiful? It’s my favourite place where I go to be by myself.

… And then, when we finished the script, I got a phone call from Michael. At the time, I thought it was my then-boyfriend Danny Elfman playing a joke on me, so when I heard the voice go: “Hi Caroline, it’s Michael Jackson,” I answered, “Hi Michael!” in this Michael Jackson voice. Then I thought, Oh fuck, and I quickly worked out that it fucking was him, and he realised that I automatically made fun of him, and I don’t have any memory of what he said; I was just blushing and sweating the entire conversation.

Did you like him?
Well, I was fascinated by him. He had this little Band-Aid on his cheek, it was really small, and I just kept fantasising that… You know how you blow up a bicycle tyre? I just fantasised that something like that was under there to blow up his face. I was an admirer of him as a child, and as he aged and went on his weirdy journey, I just thought, How can this be a human being? It’s hard for any of us to imagine what it must be like to be someone who can’t go out of their house without being mobbed. He described to us how he would get in disguises and go out into the world, that was one of his greatest joys. I can’t say he made me feel sad, but it was close to that.

I would imagine that he would have been an Edward Scissorhands fan.
Oh he was a huge Edward Scissorhands fan; that’s why I was hired for the job. I’m sure he would have loved to have been Edward Scissorhands.

So what happened to the project?
Well we turned it in, and Anton didn’t want to, which is when I said, “Grow up, Anton.” I told him it is what it is and we’ll see what happens. Anton was scared, it was his first movie. He had no idea what shape it should be in to go to the studio. In those days, studios were in the development business, which they’re not really anymore, so things were taken and processed, as it were. But Anton was going to rehab, I guess he was a drunk; you’d go out for dinner with him and he’d look at the menu and he’d go, “I’ll have a brandy!” And evidently, none of us knew he was also a very serious Valium addict. Stanley Kubrick had driven him in despair to finding comfort in Valium and he’d never really gotten off it.

What had he worked with Kubrick on?
He did Full Metal Jacket. You know, turning London into Vietnam, which was quite a feat.

What can you tell me about your first novel, First Born?
…I always loved those late-19th century horror novels that were in the form of diary, and I wrote this diary from the point of view from a woman who had an abortion then had the abortion return. It turned out to be a live birth and many years later it finds its way home to her. …He ended up a little homunculus, with a tail. It’s not an anti-abortion story, it was meant to be a black comedy really.

And Hollywood picked up the rights to the book, right?
Yeah, but as most things go in LA, it just sort of withered on the vine, but it was pretty cool to get my first thing that far. And such a strange one. Many years later, William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection) wanted to do it, and he’s such a scary creep I told the producer that if he ever left me alone in a room with Billy Friedkin I was not gonna go on with the project. And on the third meeting it was at Billy’s house at midnight with nobody else around and the guy’s really scary, and I said never mind, and walked away. He’s just creepy. And he had this little kid, a nine-year-old boy, that was sleeping in one of the rooms, that he told me he had shown all of his movies to, like at age five. This five-year-old must have been traumatised for life having seen The Exorcist. He just was a person without barriers. Like so many people here. https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/7bjmmq/michael-jackson-would-have-loved-to-have-been-edward-scissorhandsARE

It is an off-topic of course, but I can’t help feeling amazed by her and all those others “without barriers” there, who have the cheek to call Michael Jackson “weird”. William Friedkin was traumatizing a child with Exorcist and other horror  movies since age 5 (the boy was sleeping at his place for some reason), but it is Michael Jackson who Craviotto rushes to report to Hollywood because of a nine-year old who listened to the innocent Peter Pan story together with Michael and Buz Kohan?

Indeed, as one wise old book says, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

However even this cynical lady has to admit that their MidKnight movie project was to be taken seriously, as the director Anton Furst, same as producer Jon Peters, “threw himself” into it and they went as far as finishing the script, and then everything suddenly stopped when Anton Furst committed suicide.

Please note the irony and scepticism with which this screenwriter is talking about Michael Jackson’s chances in Hollywood: “A film audience wouldn’t take him seriously as an actor. We ourselves had a hard time taking him seriously as an actor”. This was a widespread notion in Hollywood that was repeated in almost every newspaper article that wrote about Michael and his dream of going into the movies.

All of them kept saying that Michael Jackson was too “weird” for a feature length film which was of course a grave exaggeration. In fact he was even less weird than others in that Hollywood crowd. As to his looks he was at his best at the time, and it was only his acting skills which required polishing, to be frank about it.

Whatever the case, while Jon Peters and Anton Furst were working hard on their MidKnight project many others were making fun of it and even called it “window dressing” only.

The book “HIT AND RUN: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood”, by Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters, which is an open hatchet job against Yetnikoff and his protégés Jon Peters and Peter Guber, claims that “everyone” at Columbia knew that it was window dressing with the exception of Jon Peters and Anton Furst. For them the project was absolutely real.

Jackson’s much-vaunted deal, brokered by Jon Peters, had amounted to nothing. It had been “all window dressing” from the start, said a Columbia executive. “Everyone knew it as.” Everyone except Peters and Anton Furst, Batman’s brilliant production designer, that is.

While most people in Hollywood had long been convinced that Jackson was simply too weird to put into a feature-length film, Peters and Furst had tried to develop MidKnight for the star.

But Jackson had lost his two collaborators in 1991. Peters had left the studio, while Furst had died tragically in November. On the day he was scheduled to admit himself into a detox program for an addiction to Valium, Furst had either fallen or jumped off the eighth floor of a Culver City parking garage.

When the Jackson scandal broke [1993], the two projects that had been in the works at Jackson’s production company, Jack and the Beanstalk and MidKnight, had been in turnaround for some time. Executives could breathe a sigh of relieve that this scandal, at least, would not tar the studio. (p.407).

Jon Peters and Peter Guber

Photo [unavailable]: Peters and Guber pose with Michael Jackson, who signed a $60 million deal with Sony in 1991 encompassing films as well as music. Although most Hollywood insiders believed that Jackon’s  persona was too weird for him to become a film star, Peters was developing MidKnight, a fantasy project about a superhero, for him. MidKnight was shelved after Peters left the studio.

The idea that MidKnight was shelved after Peters left the studio is actually wrong. Jon Peters left the studio in spring 1991, but was offered by Sony to do an independent job under their umbrella, so he and Anton Furst still went on with their project.

In November 1991 the LA Times reported that the movie was in progress, was set to go into production in the first half of 1992 and was to be distributed by Sony’s Columbia pictures division.

Next on lineup: another movie for Michael Jackson?

November 15, 1991|By David J. Fox Los Angeles Times

Michael Jackson’s new music video, “Black and White,” was scheduled to make its debut on nationwide TV last night, but another of the entertainer’s projects remains under heavy wraps: a deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment to develop a movie titled “MidKnight.”

Is it the story of a meek young man by day who secretly changes into a heroic singing and dancing knight at the stroke of midnight? A Sony executive declined comment.

But he did say that the storyline based on Mr. Jackson’s idea would encompass elements of action and, of course, music. And that it will be presented in “different” ways not before seen on the screen.

Based on Mr. Jackson’s unspectacular track record with film acting (“The Wiz” and in Disneyland’s “Captain EO”) some doubt his ability to carry a full-length feature film of his own. But the Sony executive said the company sees Mr. Jackson’s appeal and the film as a means to link up to the company’s software markets.

Produced by Jon Peters, the former co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment and by Oscar-winning “Batman” set designer Anton Furst, “MidKnight” could go into production in the first half of next year. The movie would be distributed by Sony’s Columbia Pictures division.

“Now the focus is on the release of Mr. Jackson’s new album, but it will shift soon,” the spokesman said.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-11-15/features/1991319094_1_sony-pictures-entertainment-michael-jackson-captain-eo

The MidKnight project was really killed when its director Anton Furst fell off the 8^th floor on November 24, 1991, just a week after the above article. His death was called suicide but the circumstances accompanying it were strange, though foul play was ruled out by the police. He was just about to check in a hospital for treatment for his Valium addiction and said to his friends that he was going to the car to fetch his cigarettes, but moments later fell off an eighth story parking deck.

Friday 3 July 1992

Anton Furst

….He moved first to New York to design Awakenings, Penny Marshall’s hospital drama based on the work of Oliver Sacks. At the beginning of 1990 he was firmly established in Hollywood, and initially expressed pleasure at his new life. A deal with Sony (which had recently taken over Columbia Pictures) had thrown up several exciting possibilities.

Michael Jackson was apparently keen to make Midknight, a full-length musical, and Furst had ideas for a film version of Candide and a new Frankenstein. Everyone appeared to be in awe of this eccentric with the piratical dress code and Home Counties accent.

Towards the end of November 1991, Furst announced his intention to kick drugs and drink. He cropped his lanky brown hair as a symbol of his clean-up. Nigel Phelps, one of the few of his old friends who had accompanied him to Los Angeles to work in his office, was pleased to take him to Midtown Hospital to check in. But the formalities took a while, and Furst wandered outside. He climbed the eight floors of the garage opposite; he was found in an alley moments later.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/when-hell-burst-through-the-pavement-and-grew-anton-furst-conjured-up-batmans-gotham-city-in-england-1531040.html

A FEW ANSWERS

Now it is probably time to answer  some questions.

Did Michael Jackson know that Project M was unrealistic? Certainly not, at least until the final stage of that “project” – the numerous dialogues the author had with Michael Jackson sound authentic and none of them would have taken place if Michael had not believed in that project.

Who did he blame for the project failure? Most probably Steven Spielberg as this was the explanation given to him by the Disney executives. Michael had no reason to doubt their word – after all Spielberg did start working on the Hook version of Peter Pan soon after that, and it only confirmed their story. The fact that Disney had no rights to make that movie from the start of it was most probably never disclosed to Michael.

Was Michael really frustrated with Jon Peters’ long stay at Neverland? This I doubt very much as the rival Midknight project was a no less attraction to Michael Jackson than Peter Pan.

Why did Darlene Craviotto’s book portray Jon Peters as a stubborn blockhead who kept staying at Neverland though MJ was allegedly “exasperated” with him and the helicopter was waiting? The answer is lying on the surface – it is important for Craviotto and those involved in this Peter Pan sham to belittle Jon Peters and everything done for Michael Jackson by him and his company (Columbia/TriStar/Sony).

They don’t want readers to know either that Jon Peters’s project was real and suggest the idea that the only real project was theirs, devised by then Disney executives – Jeffrey Katzenberg and others.

To confuse people further they introduced into the picture that Coppola-Pinocchio twist. The Pinocchio project was used by them as a way to explain Jon Peters’s long stay at Neverland and since much later Coppola did indeed take it to Columbia, the episode looked quite credible – no one checks up the dates these days, and this is what they counted on.

Jon Peters and his MidKnight project were meant to be fully erased from public memory or never to be known at all,  and this is one more goal of Craviotto’s story. The reason for that is slightly more complicated than the rest of it, and apparently is not even connected with Michael Jackson. Its most probable origin is in a personal clash of Jon Peters with the biggest power players in Hollywood, namely a Hollywood mogul Barry Diller who once made an oath that “Peters would never work in this town again”.

An interesting fact about Barry Diller is that he was a mentor to Jeffrey Katzenberg and other top executives at Disney, who initially worked for Diller when he was head of Paramount Pictures (one more film studio in Hollywood) and only later took their jobs at Disney.

Jon Peters’ violent clash with Barry Diller is described in his autobiography that was about to be published recently, but was given up due to an uproar in the press, adverse publicity and a threat of lawsuits. Some well-wishers leaked the excerpts from that book to the media and this is how we know that Barry Diller swore that he would turn Jon Peters into a Hollywood outcast.

… at the Malibu home of Michael Jackson’s manager Sandy Gallin, Jon was ridiculed by Barry Diller. “What do you know about movies?” the most powerful, most arrogant gay man in the business (before David Geffen came onstream) derided Jon. “You made Endless Love. What a joke.”

But the joke was on Diller, when the furious Jon lifted Diller over his head, slammed him against a wall and bitch-slapped him for le tout gay Hollywood to see. Then, to create the illusion that he was just playing [] Jon kissed Diller on the cheek.

Unamused, Diller swore to Jon that he would never work again in this town, which Jon laughed off as a joke. The high-style crowd, many Brooke Shields fans, actually cheered Jon, before the normally unflappable Diller was dragged away in shock.”

So the powerful Diller swore to Jon Peters that he would never work again in Hollywood?

This may explain why others were so skeptical about Peters making the MidKnight movie, why it was so idealistic an attempt, why we know so little of Peters and why Ms. Craviotto is trying to portray him as some clown who annoyed and exasperated even the genteel Michael Jackson.

In fact, the whole situation around Jon Peters opens our eyes to the fact that Craviotto’s smooth story is covering up for an intricate power struggle between big Hollywood players in 1990 – then Disney executives and people associated with them vs. the people who began working at the newly formed Columbia/TriStar/Sony conglomerate.

And Michael Jackson happened to be in the midst of that power play. He was probably even unaware of the whirlpool he was in, seeing only the ripples of it and getting the blows that came his way just because of other people’s games and intrigues.

Craviotto is there to express the views of only one faction around Michael Jackson – the one represented by Jeffrey Katzenberg and others in the same team. These people are portrayed by her in the most positive light – they are very well-meaning, having the best of intentions and always ready to help Michael to star in a movie of his dream. The fact that that their project was actually a fake is of little importance, just a minor detail in comparison with the grandiosity of their “help” to Michael. After all they did make him 100% happy, so what more could they give?

The other people who were around Michael Jackson then are described in less benign terms. Jon Peters is a clown not to be taken seriously, Buz Kohan is a nobody who goes as some shady character “Buddy” who doesn’t even deserve a name, and Steven Spielberg – well, what can you expect of these creative geniuses who change their plans every five minutes, do one thing and then another and you never know what they are up to?

When you look at the reality behind Craviotto’s book you start realizing that her story is a kind of a roadmap to untangling all that power play around Jackson, learning who was who in his surrounding and what role these people played in Michael Jackson’s life.

And watching this game would probably be even some fun if it weren’t for one point – the fact that the people who are standing behind Craviotto’s book and are made out as the “good” guys in her story, are also the ones who are trying to portray Michael Jackson as a “molester”.

 DELIBERATE SMEAR

The evidence that she is smearing Michael Jackson on purpose is undeniable.

First she made a mountain out of a molehill over that ten-year boy “from New Zealand” who listened to her final reading of Peter Pan script at Michael’s place together with Buz Kohan. The next morning she rushed to Hollywood with her innuendos about Michael, based on nothing but fantasies alone.

The following year, in 2012 she wrote a piece about Jackson with a focus on his so-called “mistakes”, expressing the ideas very typical of a certain kind of people who first slander Michael Jackson, then call their own lies about him his “mistakes” and then generously “forgive” him with a dismissing sigh saying that “this is not the Michael they will remember”.

Here is an excerpt from Craviotto’s essay about MJ in 2012 (the bold type is mine):

We all have times in life when we make mistakes (some of them big mistakes) that we’d rather forget.  Usually we do forget.  We push those mistakes to the farthest (and deepest) places in our mind.  We make ourselves forget, and unless we’re in the safety of a therapist’s office, or a priest’s confessional, no will ever know.  But if you’re a celebrity, everyone will know.

Michael never had a chance to be a regular person.  It’s tough enough when you become a celebrity as an adult.  But when it’s thrust upon you when you’re a child, and you really have no power over it, it can end up being destructive and terribly sad.

But that’s not the Michael I want to remember.

And in the year 2015, when the lawsuit of a “boy from New Zealand” (a prototype for the now grown-up Wade Robson from Australia) had not yet been thrown out by the judge, Craviotto made her final judgment on Michael Jackson, passing her guilty verdict on him based on nothing she knows about him.

All she saw back in 1990 was a boy at Michael’s place who listened to her final script, then fell asleep and Michael carried him to another room in the presence of two adults, and that was all, however this woman has the audacity to claim that she was “one of the insiders to know the “truth”.

Here is the notable exchange of comments that took place in her blog in 2015 where she shared the opinion of  another MJ detractor:

Reader: Michael Jackson was almost certainly a pedophile. Sorry your movie script wasn’t used but MJ would have been a disaster in that role. The part about MJ and the child creeped me out big time. Very interesting book confirms my suspicions.

Craviotto: I think that I agree with you on this – It would have been a disaster to have Michael play Peter Pan. I am guessing that this must have been a well known fact about Michael and that I was just not one of the insiders to know the truth.

Let us not forget that at least half of Darlene Craviotto’s book is complete fiction, used by her not only to express her own ideas about Michael Jackson, but also the views, wishes, fantasies and lies of those who encouraged her to write the book.

These people drew in Michael Jackson into a sham project of theirs, were untrue about other people working with him, distorted their characters and misrepresented their deeds, and this gives us reason to believe that those who masterminded it also wanted Craviotto to portray Michael as a “molester.” And smearing Jackson was the big idea of it all.

And from this point of view the black-and-white picture painted by this author is even a helpful tool revealing the truth to us – now we know for sure that all those who are made out by her as the “bad” guys around Michael Jackson were actually his friends and supporters, while those who are supposed to be the “good” guys in her story were absolutely not.

When you encounter the same people again and again and in most unexpected places too you react to this amazing fact by saying “it’s a small world”.

But if the world is a small place, the top tier of Hollywood executives must be the tiniest place possible, because over there you constantly stumble across the same handful of people who move from one film studio to another, take each other posts, leave and come back, join and break up, and much more of it.

Well, at least this is what it was like in the 1980-90s when Michael Jackson was trying to start a film career in Hollywood. Going into the movies was Michael’s lifelong dream and a kind of a passion as he thought that not his concerts or even records, but only the movies could secure him a solid place in human memory.

Steve Knopper, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone writes about it in his book “MJ: The genius of Michael Jackson”:

“He admired Elvis Presley’s career greatly, and he felt that his career should be modeled against that,” says Rusty Lemorande, who wrote and produced Captain EO and worked closely with Michael on movie projects through the early nineties. “He felt Elvis Presley was more remembered because of his films than because of his performances.”

Rusty Lemorande said:

“He used to talk about Elvis Presley’s career and say, ‘If Elvis hadn’t made all those films, he wouldn’t be as remembered as he was.’ He really wanted a film career.”

And Michael was right – the videos he made for his songs are indeed a fascinating visual legacy to him. Without them much of his charm and phenomenal dance would have been lost. Now I really understand why he created a new genre of videos with a plot of their own, and why he insisted on calling them short films – all of it sprang from his craving for (and absence of) feature films proper and was the next best thing he could think of. His videos were sort of teasers to the movies never made and now we can only imagine what his King Tut movie could have been like if it had been made instead of Remember the Time video, for example.

Live action musicals were undoubtedly Michael’s most coveted dream and to see why this dream never came true we need to look at the handful of powerful players who were populating the tiny world of Hollywood executives back in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

His association with some of these people will explain a lot in Michael Jackson’s fate – even as far as the false allegations against him.

THE NAGGING QUESTION

Initially my interest in the Hollywood top tier was sparked off by Darlene Craviotto’s book and her blunt portrayal of Disney executives as the angels who meant only the best for Michael Jackson, Steven Spielberg as the bad guy who ruined their beautiful Peter Pan project for MJ, and Jon Peters of Columbia/Sony as a nuisance to Michael who also wanted to lure him into a rival Pinocchio movie to be made by Francis Coppola at Columbia.

Something was not quite right about so black-and-white picture and the previous posts in this series already looked into many of Craviotto’s distortions. But out of all her half-lies the story about Pinocchio movie planned at Columbia while Disney allegedly wanted Michael for their own Peter Pan project seemed to be the silliest and kept me wondering why she told that lie about Columbia in the first place.

The thing is that the Pinocchio project really existed but it was started at Warner Bros. and stayed there for two years until the desperate Coppola took it to Columbia Pictures (here is more about it). But it happened only in 1993, and that year was already well beyond the time frame of Craviotto’s narration who is describing the period of February-June 1990 — so why did Craviotto change all the dates and build her story around Columbia and not Warner Bros. where the project actually began?

The lie looked silly and it is actually its absurdity that intrigued me more than anything else – the devil is always in the detail and Craviotto’s unwillingness to tell the simple truth must have had a reason.

When details don’t fit it is often a crucial factor and in this case the strange detail could be a cover for some power play around the name of Michael Jackson. And this power play could unwittingly reveal the identity of the sponsor and inspiration force behind Craviotto’s book and consequently point to the one who encouraged her to make sudden allegations about Michael at the very end of the book despite the peaceful flow of all her previous narration.

By now it is absolutely clear that smearing Jackson and stamping him with a bad label was actually the whole idea of that book.

So once you know that inspiration force, you will also know who orchestrated the smear campaign around Jackson and who can’t leave him alone even after his death.

In other words the detail was worth looking into, and this is what I’ve found.

 THE BIG SIX

Surprisingly, the cinema landscape in the US is dominated by only six film studios which are known by the name of the Big Six. Wiki describes them as follows:

The “Big Six” majors, whose operations are based in or around the Los Angeles neighborhood of Hollywood, are all centered in film studios active during Hollywood’s Golden Age of the 1930s and 1940s.

In three cases—20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., and Paramount Pictures—the studios were one of the “Big Five” majors during that era as well. In two cases—Columbia Pictures and Universal Pictures—the studios were also considered majors, but in the next tier down, part of the “Little Three”.

In the sixth case, Walt Disney Studios was an independent production company during the Golden Age; it was an important Hollywood entity, but not a major. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, RKO, and United Artists were Golden Age majors that survive now only as relatively small independent companies or as a brand name.

Today, Disney is the only member of the Big Six whose parent entity is still located near Los Angeles. The five others report to conglomerates respectively headquartered in New York City, Philadelphia, and Tokyo.

The Hollywood BIG SIX in 2017

The six majors are not only involved in making movies, but their primary job now is distribution of films made by other, independent companies (“indies”). The role of majors in distributing the movies is so big that if indies want their films to reach a broad audience, they should be distributed by one of the Big Six by all means.

The Big Six major studios are today primarily backers and distributors of films whose actual production is largely handled by independent companies—the specialty divisions often simply acquire distribution rights to pictures in which the studio has had no prior involvement. The activities [of the Big Six] are focused more in the areas of development, financing, marketing, and merchandising.

Today, the Big Six majors routinely distribute hundreds of films every year into all significant international markets. It is very rare, if not impossible, for a film to reach a broad international audience on multiple continents without first being picked up by one of the majors for distribution. 

All of the above must be elevating the top executives of the Big Six to a position of nothing less than cinema gods. Having connections with them must be regarded as a ticket to paradise or at least a huge step on a path to success.

No wonder Michael Jackson was so enthusiastic about the Disney “Peter Pan” project for him which he never expected to be a sham. According to Craviotto this so-called “Project M” was initiated by Jeffrey Katzenberg himself who was the Disney studio head and the great Steven Spielberg as a director of the movie, so from its beginning to end the project did sound to Michael Jackson perfectly genuine and not just a way to “keep him happy” which it actually was.

The executives mentioned in Craviotto’s book (scarcely though) belonged to two rival studios, both of which are members of the Big Six – Jeffrey Katzenberg was Chairman of Disney and Jon Peters, the one who was allegedly luring Michael into the Coppola project, was in a top position at Sony/Columbia/TriStar Pictures together with the other co-chairman Peter Guber.

While Katzenberg was simply a rival, Barry Diller was Jon Peters’ enemy – the two had a severe clash that even went physical after which Diller announced to those who attended the notable party that Peters “would never work in this town again.”

Barry Diller

A look into who Barry Diller was (and still is) left me with no doubt whatsoever that he really had all the power and means to do away with Jon Peters and his projects.

Peters was a novice to running a huge company – he was a self-made man who rose from a hair-dresser to a successful film producer known for Batman and other movies. He held the top post at Sony/Columbia/TriStar studios for two years only, while Barry Diller first headed Paramount Pictures and for ten years too, and then moved to 20^th Century Fox where he became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Fox Corporation – a parent company of Fox broadcasting network and the 20th Century Fox movies, which is surely a much higher position than just the head of a film studio.

Diller held that post for another eight years, from October 1984 to April 1992 and was in this capacity when the newly-appointed chairman of Sony/Columbia Jon Peters confronted him at that party, after which Peters himself and his passionate movie project Midknight, where Michael Jackson was supposed to play the main role, were doomed.

Jon Peters

As a short recap, the Midknight movie was actually the project Peters was working on at Columbia at the time when Disney was busy with their sham Peter Pan.

The movie was Michael’s own idea and when Midknight was already close to production strange things started happening around it – first its director Anton Furst suddenly jumped off a parking lot roof (or fell from it for some reason), then the movie producer Jon Peters was fired by his friend and co-chairman Guber, and ever since the media has been gunning for Peters for everything he did and didn’t do, so all we know about him now is that he is a bully, an illiterate hairdresser, a complete nobody and total has-been.

His recent plans to publish a tell-all book were killed by a leaked publication of his book proposal intended only for the publisher’s eye and the highly adverse publicity that followed. Now Jon Peters is still well-off, but lives in seclusion and rarely talks to the media.

We don’t know whether Barry Diller had anything to do with it, but his management style and power grip are legendary and earned him the name of “Killer Diller”. At least this publication mentions this nickname as “given to Diller by his detractors” and it also ranks him as number 3 on the list of 101 most powerful people in the entertainment industry in the year 1990.

Wiki echoes the same idea by having a special paragraph about Diller’s team, for whom he was a mentor and supporter when he was chairman at Paramount, and calls these kids “The Killer Dillers”, which evidently refers to the management skills acquired from their mentor and their common take-no-prisoners style.

Some of the names on the “Killer Dillers” list have taken me by surprise.

Diller is responsible for what the media dubs “The Killer Dillers” – people whom Diller mentored and who later became big-time media executives in their own right. Examples include Michael Eisner (who was President of Paramount Pictures while Diller was its Chairman & CEO, and went on to become Chairman & CEO of The Walt Disney Company), Dawn Steel (future head of Columbia Pictures and one of the first women to run a major movie studio, who worked under Diller at Paramount), Jeffrey Katzenberg (head of DreamWorks Animation, former head of Walt Disney Studios, and a head of production of Paramount under Diller), Garth Ancier, President of BBC America, and Don Simpson, who was President of Production at Paramount under Diller and Eisner.

So Katzenberg and Michael Eisner of Disney also belonged to Diller’s team and for some time took guidance from him? Yes, they did, and a closer look at the dates reveals that Diller and his team worked at Paramount Pictures until 1984 after which all of them left – Diller went to run the Fox Corporation, and Katzenberg and M. Eisner moved to head the Disney Studios.

The only one who remained at Paramount for some time was Dawn Steel, an extremely self-confident woman characterized by Katzenberg as “a determined tornado with a lot of passion and no room in her life for the words ‘no’ or ‘it can’t be done.’ ” Steel rose from a low-level marketing job at Penthouse magazine devising X-rated products (where she poked fun on the Gucci label by stamping it on toilet paper, followed by Gucci’s copyright lawsuit and out-of-court settlement) to the post of President of Production at Paramount, which she inherited from Jeffrey Katzenberg. After the new managers ousted her in 1987 she was taken to Columbia Pictures and made President there.

But in 1989 Columbia/TriStar studios were acquired by Sony, and this Diller’s kid was replaced by the new chairmen we already know – Jon Peters and Peter Guber. And though the threesome did work side by side for several months there was certainly no love lost between them. In January 1990 she finally quit the job, calling it an escape from a cage rather than a resignation.

Dawn Steel Quits Columbia Pictures Post

January 9, 1990

”You don’t resign from these jobs, you escape from them,” Ms. Steel said. ”I feel like I’ve been let out of a cage.”

After leaving Columbia/Sony she joined her former colleagues Eisner and Katzenberg at Disney but something went wrong there too.

Though she remained for a time after Jon Peters and Peter Guber were handed the studio chairmanship reins, Steel was soon eased out. In 1990, she joined Eisner and Katzenberg at Disney, but this time as an indie producer. After wrangles over “Cool Runnings,” which was postponed, shelved and finally made, her relationship with Disney faltered.

Now if you mark these names on the chart of the Big Six film studios you will see a surprising picture that in the year 1990 described by Craviotto half of Hollywood studios were run by Barry Diller’s team.

Diller’s team in Hollywood in the ’90s

To be frank it was a shock to find that the Hollywood of that period was sort of monopolized by a mere handful of people and wherever you looked you saw the same old familiar faces circulating back and forth there. And the joke about “The Killer Dillers” didn’t make it any better but only worse.

At least in theory this kind of monopoly could result in a concerted effort of these people to influence the Hollywood trends and could help them present a unified front for or against some projects or people, should God forbid, they fall into disfavour with these powerful players. A closely knit group like that could open many doors to friends, but what could happen to those who were not?

Now the fierce media ridicule of Peters and Guber for their lack of experience in running a film studio also finds an explanation from whatever angle you look at it. In the opinion of those who monopolized half the industry, the entry of newcomers to the top tier of executives must have indeed looked like a laughable episode in the history of then Hollywood.

And the level of education and expertise of the newcomers had nothing to do with it. The mockery of Jon Peters as a former hairdresser, for example, is irrelevant here – Barry Diller and his star employee, Katzenberg, haven’t been to college either, but no one ever dares ridicule them for it.

Okay, but what was the situation like with the people running the remaining studios?

SPIELBERG COMES HOME

The two studios out of the Big Six majors not yet covered here were Universal Pictures and Warner Bros.

In terms of management the Universal studio looked like an example of stability as its Lew Wasserman and Sidney Sheinberg ran the company for more than 20 years. In 1995 the studio changed its ownership and was headed by Ron Meyer who is presiding over it even now and has been running it for 23 years already.

Universal is also special as it is a home place for Steven Spielberg. This studio was the first to discover the talented college dropout and sign a seven-year contract with him though all he had done by then was amateur short films. Spielberg created his own production company on the Universal lot called Amblin Entertainment where he enjoyed the comfort never enjoyed even by Michael Jackson in his Neverland home.

Nicole LaPorte who wrote a book about DreamWorks describes the conditions created at Universal for Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment production company as nearly surreal:

Amblin had been created to serve its star resident to an almost surreal degree.

Screenwriter Richard Christian Matheson tells the story of a jaunt around the Amblin campus with Spielberg: “Every once in a while, from a rock or a tree, you’d hear, “Steven, your two thirty is here.” Obviously, there were microphones among the rocks that talk, because you’d hear a voice saying, “Steven, do you want something?” He’d say,”Guys, do you want some Popsicles?” And then he would say to nobody, “Bring us three root-beer Popsicles!” The whole place was obviously tracking his whereabouts.” (“The Men Who Would be King” p.17)

The article dated 2010 calls the partnership between Universal and Spielberg the most successful studio/director partnerships of all time.

Steven Spielberg and Sidney Sheinberg

12/16/2010 by Bill Higgins

Spielberg and Sheinberg at Amblin on the Universal Studios lot in 2010. (Photo Art Streiber)

For four decades, Steven Spielberg, 64, has reigned as the king of Hollywood. As a director, producer, philanthropist and general mensch, he has no peer. But if there is one man to whom he defers, it’s Sidney Sheinberg, 75, the former MCA/Universal executive who first recognized the young filmmaker’s talent.

Spielberg still remembers the words Sheinberg offered him along with his first job: “Hopefully you’re going to have a lot of success in your career. And a lot of people will stick with you in success; I’ll stick with you in failure,” the older man — though, at the time, Sheinberg was only in his 30s — promised his new discovery. “I never forgot that,” Spielberg says. “It became almost an anthem to me.”

Their long-standing friendship — they still meet for lunch — began in 1968, when Sheinberg was president of Universal TV. Film librarian Chuck Silver showed him a quirky road movie made by a college student living nearby on Regal Place. “That’s the first time I saw Amblin’,” Sheinberg says of the short that became Spielberg’s calling card — and that would become the name of his first production company.

“I thought it was special because I’d been seeing a lot stuff that was very technical” Sheinberg says. “But this was a human story.” A meeting was arranged, and, as Spielberg recalls, he “was plucked out of Long Beach State and given a chance to sign a seven-year contract and direct TV.”

…By 1973, MCA chairman Lew Wasserman had made Sheinberg his right hand as president and COO, Spielberg was ready to graduate to features, and the stage was set for one of the most successful studio head/director partnerships of all time. During Sheinberg’s tenure, Universal released Spielberg’s Jaws, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Jurassic Park.

Together they transformed Universal from a second-string studio, dependent on its TV productions, into a major player. When 1975’s Jaws ran over budget, Sheinberg had Spielberg’s back — what skeptics dismissed as an overpriced B-movie became a horror classic that defined the new summer-blockbuster genre. (The $471 million it collected worldwide would be more than $1.9 billion today.)

Spielberg looks back on his earliest days finding his way around the Universal lot with a mix of fondness and angst. Sheinberg, he says, had “such a traumatic influence on me. The career hit me like a brick wall.” “I’d gone from making these 16mm amateur shorts, had long hair, and I’m a late-’60s college dropout,” Spielberg says. “And they saw a change in the paradigm of Hollywood.”

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/steven-spielberg-sidney-sheinberg-59773

After leaving Universal Spielberg went into the adventure of co-founding the ambitious DreamWorks, the first new Hollywood studio in the last 60 years. DreamWorks was set up in 1994 by Spielberg, Katzenberg (who had just left Disney banging a door on his partner Michael Eisner) and David Geffen.

The joint project broke up in 2008 when Geffen abandoned it, Katzenberg split to run the DreamWorks animation offshoot and Spielberg was left on his own, struggling for some time with the help of first Paramount, then an Indian financier and then Walt Disney Co.

And in December 2015 Universal announced that Spielberg was coming back and that DreamWorks would now operate under the Universal umbrella. Their official statement said that they “couldn’t be more pleased to be back in business with Steven Spielberg” and the head of the company Ron Meyer made a comment rarely heard in the tough world of Hollywood: “Universal is, and always has been, Steven’s home.”

Steven Spielberg returns to Universal Pictures

By MEG JAMES

DEC 16, 2015 | 7:09 PM

Steven Spielberg: Come home.
In true Hollywood fashion, the legendary filmmaker is returning to his longtime production home at Universal Pictures. The Los Angeles-based studio on Wednesday announced a five-year deal with Spielberg’s Amblin Partners, a new consortium of companies that includes DreamWorks Studios, Participant Media, Reliance Entertainment and Entertainment One.
Universal will market and distribute films produced by Amblin Partners domestically and in some international markets.
“We couldn’t be more pleased to be back in business with Steven,” [the Universal said in a statement.]  Spielberg, for his part, celebrated his homecoming.
“The same magnet that pulled me to Universal when I first wanted to make movies is bringing me home again to this new exciting relationship,” Spielberg said in the statement.

The company’s intention is to make movies under three banners: Amblin Entertainment, DreamWorks Pictures and Participant.
…Many in Hollywood were aware that Spielberg was interested in resuming his relationship with Universal. Spielberg’s DreamWorks offices have long been located on the Universal lot, off the Hollywood Freeway.
DreamWorks was founded in 1994 and eventually spun off its animation unit into a separate publicly traded company. Spielberg’s live action film unit experienced turbulence in the subsequent years. It was briefly owned by Paramount Pictures and later turned to Indian conglomerate Reliance for financing. Following a breakup with Paramount in 2008, DreamWorks reached a distribution deal with the Walt Disney Co., a pact that was due to expire next year.
The longtime head of Universal Studios, Ron Meyer, was involved in orchestrating the reunion with the celebrated director.
“Universal is, and always has been, Steven’s home,” Meyer said.

All of it sounds like a happy end in the best Hollywood fashion and the Universal studio in general and its head Ron Meyer in particular also sound like a safe haven, especially against the background of ego clashes and feuds ravaging at other Hollywood studios.

The media does not dwell on the reasons why the three founders of DreamWorks parted their ways. Spielberg wouldn’t comment, but the bits and pieces I picked here and there provide some colorful details without actually telling the whole story.

Despite the Oscar haul and Shrek’s monster box office, rumors continue that the privately held company is bleeding red ink. Financial stress may explain what the Sunday Times (London) described as “furniture-throwing” arguments involving the three principals. Indeed, Katzenberg has publicly complained that the films Spielberg has produced for other studios (megahits like Men in Black and The Mark of Zorro) were “more demanding than any of us had anticipated” and deprived DreamWorks of Spielberg’s full attention, which may explain the flying furniture without aid of special effects. (Frank Sanello’s biography of Spielberg, page 295).

Kim Masters, a friend to both Katzenberg and Geffen (the one who co-wrote that hatchet book “Hit and Run” about Yetnikoff, Jon Peters and Peter Guber) sounds sad at the obvious DreamWorks’ failure:

As for DreamWorks, after launching with so much hope, it became clear that not even the mighty combination of Spielberg, Geffen and Katzenberg could overcome the hurdle of launching a studio without an income-generating library of films to get the company through the lean times.

In 2004, Geffen acknowledged the truth to The New York Times. “Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs,” he said. “We did what we could do. … The world has changed a great deal in 10 years.” 

And the New York Times just makes a cryptic statement that “Geffen is still a friend but not quite so close as he was only a few weeks ago.”

For some reason they close their article with the advice Spielberg and Geffen once received from another major Hollywood player – Steve Ross, the CEO of Warner Bros, who changed the old Chinese proverb “Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer” into its opposite: “Keep your friends close, and your enemies far away”, thus leaving to us ample room for speculation.

David Geffen Makes a Sudden Exit

By MICHAEL CIEPLY OCT. 26, 2008

David Geffen and Steven Spielberg, 2004    (Photo Reuters)

Steven Spielberg actually stammered a bit in trying to explain his erstwhile business partner’s departure.

No, Mr. Spielberg said, he really did not know why Mr. Geffen was parting ways with DreamWorks after 14 years.

But yes, he hoped he and Mr. Geffen would remain close. “I know David will be in my personal life,” said Mr. Spielberg, who stood near the door of his office in a Southwestern bungalow complex on the Universal Studios lot.

Mr. Geffen’s departure originally was planned more than a year ago, after he negotiated new terms with Paramount.<> What Mr. Geffen did after negotiating the deal, Mr. Spielberg said, caught him by surprise: He told Mr. Spielberg that he did, in fact, intend to leave. And he expected Mr. Spielberg and Ms. Snider [DreamWorks CEO] to do the same.

“Where do we go?” Mr. Spielberg now recalls asking.

“Don’t worry, I will handle all of that,” Mr. Geffen said.

In any case, Mr. Geffen appears to have orphaned a small corps of associates who had come to view him as the central support for their own hopes and dreams.

…In describing Mr. Geffen’s role at DreamWorks, Mr. Spielberg likened it to a family relationship. “Jeffrey and I were like the kids,” he said, while Mr. Geffen built the house and saw that the bills were paid.

..By his own recollection, Mr. Spielberg was initially reluctant to join in creating the original DreamWorks studio, which was conceived by Mr. Katzenberg shortly after he was fired as chairman of the Walt Disney Company’s studio operation in 1994. But Mr. Katzenberg begged for a meeting, and asked to bring a friend. The friend was Mr. Geffen, who not only did all the talking, but insisted to Mr. Spielberg: “I am representing your best interests.”

That assurance was to become the theme of Mr. Geffen’s dealings with Mr. Spielberg, who describes Mr. Geffen’s efforts for him over the years as a kind of “altruism.”

At the time, Mr. Spielberg agreed to enlist with DreamWorks on the condition that Mr. Geffen become its third partner. He thus rounded out a tagline, “SKG,” that continues to identify the rebooted company, though now neither Mr. Geffen nor Mr. Katzenberg is involved.

…Just one other studio relationship has figured seriously in Mr. Spielberg’s life — that with Steven J. Ross, the Warner communications chief executive, who, before his death in 1992, had been an industry godfather to Mr. Spielberg and Mr. Geffen. From Mr. Ross, said Mr. Spielberg, he and Mr. Geffen had learned now-fading rules that once governed Hollywood. The most basic, he said, was to “keep your friends close, and your enemies far away.” Mr. Geffen, of course, is still a friend. But not quite so close, professionally speaking, as he was only a few weeks ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/business/media/27dream.html

All these articles produce the impression of stopping short at telling the main thing, but I will refrain from any guesswork and will just state the plain fact that can’t be doubted and is relevant to our little research.

This fact is that in 2011 when Craviotto wrote her book about “Project M” Spielberg and Geffen had already parted ways and Geffen was not “quite so close” to Spielberg as he had been before.

The quest for details led me to author Nicole LaPorte who wrote a book about DreamWorks in 2010 and an article with a telling title “The spectacular rise and fall of DreamWorks”. The details disclosed by her sound more like the reciprocal rebukes thrown at each other by the studio founders. As a result Spielberg comes across as a capricious god, Katzenberg as a workaholic doing the bulk of the work and Geffen as someone who instills so much fear in people that no one agreed to give an interview for the author’s book.

Here is an excerpt from it – it is long, but very much worth reading:

The spectacular rise and fall of DreamWorks

It’s the film studio that brought us ‘Shrek’, ‘American Beauty’ and ‘Gladiator’, so where did it all go wrong for Steven Spielberg and his dream team, asks the author of The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called DreamWorks.

By Nicole LaPorte

09 Jun 2010

Geffen, Spielberg and Katzenberg promoting DreamWorks. 1996 (Photo SIPA PRESS/REX)

The coming together of Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen made headlines around the world. Each was a towering titan in his own right.

There was Geffen, the openly gay billionaire, who had worked, schemed and bullied his way from the mailroom at the William Morris Agency to the heights of the music industry. When Katzenberg came calling, Geffen’s days were spent flipping through his investment portfolios, dialling up President Clinton and flying the world in his Gulfstream IV, perpetually changing directions as boredom set in.

Then there was Katzenberg, the workaholic studio executive who had slaved for a decade at Disney, only to be unceremoniously fired and cheated out of a multimillion-dollar bonus. Katzenberg brought his adrenalin-charged ways to DreamWorks, where executives often found themselves sitting in the gleaming, all-white kitchen of his ‘business house’ in Beverly Hills at 7am on a Saturday or Sunday, to discuss film release strategies or a faulty storyline.

At the centre of DreamWorks was Spielberg, the Sun God around whom the company revolved, and the living mascot for the artist-friendly studio. The director of blockbusters such as Jaws, E T and Indiana Jones, Spielberg had been a Hollywood wunderkind for most of his life. But by 1994, the year he won his first Best Picture Oscar for Schindler’s List, he was ready for something new, something bigger. Not that he needed it – no one was more comfortably set up in Hollywood than Spielberg, whose $4 million ‘campus’ on the Universal lot, Amblin, felt more like a spa, equipped with all the latest gadgetry, a personal chef, jacuzzi and a masseuse named Julie.

As the celebrity of the troika, Spielberg provided DreamWorks’ sizzle; his name was the carrot held out to lure film-makers, money men, executives and actors.

…Keep Steven Happy was the unwritten rule at DreamWorks, and the reason Geffen and Katzenberg pursued ideas and ventures even when they felt they were ill-advised, such as building a state-of-the-art studio on the marsh land at Playa Vista, west Los Angeles. There was no need for a physical studio (DreamWorks operated just fine out of Amblin), but Spielberg was enamoured of the old Hollywood dream, as defined by Thalbergs, Mayers and Warners, who had all driven through their own studio gates in the morning, and so he mapped out plans for a wildly hi-tech and ambitious studio situated on the edge of a lake. But in the end, like so many of Spielberg’s wished-for endeavours at the company, after much time and resources were ploughed into Playa Vista, it never came to pass.

Spielberg had no interest, no patience, for business details, something he made clear from the beginning. Nor did he have any tolerance, or ability to handle reality when it was anything other than rosy.

…It is this protective veil that surrounds not just Spielberg, but his partners, which caused people to warn me off writing a book about DreamWorks.

Not only were they insular, controlling and image-obsessed, but they could be vengeful, none more so than Geffen who is famous for his decades-long, and very ugly, feuds. Geffen did not play nice. He had already turned on another reporter, Tom King, who wrote Geffen’s at-first authorised biography, The Operator. But halfway through Geffen decided he didn’t like the direction the very candid book was going in, and tried to thwart its publication. King died tragically of a brain haemorrhage, at the age of 39, just a few years after the book came out. When I called a friend of Geffen’s and asked him if he’d speak to me, I was met with a heavy silence on the other end of the line. And then a deep-throated growl: ‘The last person who wrote a book about David Geffen is dead! And he was young. And healthy. And now he’s dead!’ Click.

Unsurprisingly, the DreamWorks partners made it clear from the beginning that they would not speak to me for my book, despite the fact that I had no intention of writing a hatchet job. <> I expressed this to Katzenberg in an email once, to which he responded something along the lines of: ‘Sounds fair enough but no thanks.’ No thanks, indeed. Katzenberg proceeded to call up dozens of potential sources and warn them not to talk to me.

Meanwhile, everyone around me assured me that I would never eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner in Hollywood again. Why? Besides the reputations of SKG, the story of DreamWorks was ultimately one of failure. Despite some memorable films, the studio’s ambition to be a huge multimedia venture came to nothing, in part because the economics of the company never made sense. In short, the dream was more of a nightmare.

… Now that my book has been published, the Dream Team has been remarkably quiet. There have been no lawsuits. No death threats. The statement everyone at the company is hewing to, and which I tend to believe Katzenberg crafted, is: ‘We’re not reading it.’

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/7801642/The-spectacular-rise-and-fall-of-DreamWorks.html

Wow, that was impressive. First I was amazed to see again that “keep Steven happy” idea which we have heard from Craviotto on numerous occasions, only with regard to Michael Jackson. Now it is clear that it is a universal motto in Hollywood and their very specific phenomenon when a company placates their star with various niceties and promises, not necessarily true ones, to keep hold of him and make sure he doesn’t leave for a rival.

And the second astonishing thing was of course that reaction of Geffen’s friend to a request for an interview. This person was so mortally afraid to speak that the only thing he could growl is that the young and healthy guy Tom King, who was the last to write about Geffen, was dead. Click.

Tom King indeed wrote Geffen’s biography titled: “The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys and Sells the New Hollywood”. According to all book reviews, what was supposed to be an authorized bio eventually turned into portraying Geffen as a monster, “repeatedly bullying, outmaneuvering and crushing men who are in his way as he scampers nimbly upward from the William Morris Agency mailroom, into the lower echelon of the TV industry, then into the recording and film industries….Monster though King often makes Geffen out to be, he is clearly not alone in the moral tar pits of the entertainment industry,” as one of the reviews says.

And Tom King did indeed unexpectedly die when he was only 39 …. however the story of that book and its author will have to be left until some other time. At the moment we are interested in the Big Six film studios and the place of Geffen among the other key Hollywood players in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

Indeed, we’ve heard about almost everyone on the top of Hollywood at the time, but where was David Geffen?

GEFFEN

From what I’ve read about that period David Geffen was everywhere and nowhere as he preferred to stay mostly behind the scenes.

There is no adequate word to describe how influential Geffen was. Others couldn’t express it either same as explain what Geffen was actually doing. The New York Times article dated 1985, for example, stated that he was at the top of the “A” list of producers, and clarified that he didn’t actually produce anything and just talked on the phone and said yes and no.

California magazine, listing the most important people in Hollywood, recently ranked Geffen at the top of the ”A” list of producers, just behind studio heads and ”foolproof talents” like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. But Geffen doesn’t produce movies. He doesn’t produce records. He is nominally a producer of Broadway shows, but not in any sense of the word Karl Marx would recognize.

So what does David Geffen do? He talks on the phone. He says yes, he says no. He is an entrepreneur who mediates between the interests of businessmen in making money and the interests of artists in doing good work.

Looking back at the ‘80s and ‘90s we see that Geffen’s influence was over the entire Hollywood and included people like Barry Diller at Fox Corporation who was and still is one of his bosom friends. His other friends were at Disney – the young Jeffrey Katzenberg had been his long-time ally since the moment he worked as Barry Diller’s assistant at Paramount and impressed Geffen by meeting him at the airport and whisking him through the customs so quickly that Geffen had no time to blink.

Eric Eisner, the son of Michael Eisner, the second top figure at Disney, worked for ten years as President of the David Geffen Company until it was sold in 1990 and Eisner sued Geffen for the unpaid bonus, so for at least some time Geffen was friends with both of them too.

On the other hand that friendship didn’t stop him from arranging a feud between Michael Eisner and Katzenberg, which led to the latter’s loud dismissal from Disney. However the sympathetic Kim Masters who was in close contact with all three of them explains that it was probably unintentional harm on the part of Geffen.

Kim Masters is a journalist who was covering Hollywood for Vanity Fair in the ‘90s, was also a staff writer for the Washington Post, and is also the co-author of the Hit and Run book about the horrible Sony/Columbia management in early ‘90s under the horrible guidance of Yetnikoff, Peters and Guber whose names are ripped into pieces in her book. So if Kim Masters says that the harm done by Geffen was unintentional, we can probably believe her that it was.

Here are some excerpts from Kim Masters about the war between the two top executives at Disney:

The Epic Disney Blow-Up of 1994

by Kim Masters  April 09, 2014

Twenty years ago [in 1994], Frank Wells, Disney’s No. 2, died in a helicopter crash, and war broke out in the industry. It was Eisner vs. Katzenberg, the dominoes started to fall, and Kim Masters was in the middle of it.

…By the time of the helicopter crash, I was covering Hollywood for Vanity Fair but also was a staff writer for the Washington Post — living in the nation’s capital and covering political issues while flying to Los Angeles for Vanity Fair when events warranted. I was on good terms with both Eisner and Katzenberg, but perhaps because of the distance, I had no inkling of the tension that had long been simmering between them.

For some time — encouraged by his friend and mentor, Geffen — Katzenberg had been pushing hard for a promotion.

…The spectacle that unfolded following Wells’ death 20 years ago laid bare the reality that may not be taught in business school — how irrational personality conflicts and jealousies can transform an entire industry.

….Eisner told the Los Angeles Times, “This is not a Shakespearean tragedy,” but it did have its Shakespearean qualities. I had quoted a source in my Vanity Fair story describing Geffen as “the Iago” of the Disney drama — a reference to the whispering villain in Othello. The idea was that Geffen had been behind the scenes, pushing Katzenberg to push Eisner, and the strategy had backfired spectacularly.

The insult drove Geffen wild, and he set out to discover who had said it. (Among his guesses: Eisner and Diller.) He failed.

I’ll tell you who said it now, but only because he’s dead and left no wife or children. It was Don Simpson, who knew the players well and had watched the whole spectacle with fascination — and who was really the only one with the erudition to make the analogy in the first place.

At one point he told me in a panic that Geffen had demanded to know if he’d been the source of that quote. “What did you say?” I asked, to which he replied, “I lied!” Years later, well after Simpson’s death in 1996, I told Geffen the truth, expecting him to laugh. He was livid, presumably because Don was dead and he couldn’t kill him again.

…It turned out Geffen, Eisner and Ovitz were the last of their breed. Anyone old enough to remember has to miss the days, not so long ago, when rampaging beasts roamed Hollywood and the action behind the scenes was as dramatic and improbable as anything on the big screen.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/epic-disney-blow-up-1994-694476

So here is a new character, Don Simpson, entering the scene. However, we’ve heard this name before – Wiki referred to him as one of those “Killer Dillers”, and this is just another of those cases when you see familiar faces all over then Hollywood.

Don Simpson

When Don Simpson first worked at Warner Bros. he got fame as “vice-president for Clint” – a nickname derived from his ability to “keep Clint Eastwood happy” (their standard practice as we know).

Then Simpson was stolen by Paramount and its Barry Diller and Michael Eisner who among other things “loved his flamboyant fierceness, his exuberant routine of looking to lay every woman he met, and enormous capacity for fun, money, debauchery and drugs”. By 1981 he was president of production at Paramount.

According to Wiki both Geffen and Katzenberg attempted to get Simpson to go to rehab for his drug use, but nothing worked and he continued to be a “party animal”.

When he died in 1996 the doctors found 21 different illegal substances in his body and to this day, his body was the most toxic ever examined in the state of California (however the media talks only about MJ, who didn’t have a single narcotic drug in his system).

Despite Simpson’s cocaine addiction he managed to produce wildly successful movies like Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop and the nature of his films makes me think that Eddy Murphy’s character of a streetsmart cop from Detroit finding himself in Bel-Air must be a replica of Simpson himself.

So Don Simpson was really in the midst of that crowd and if he said that Geffen had played the villainous role of Iago in the war between Eisner and Katzenberg, we can believe him too. It is also interesting that Kim Masters dares disclose Don Simpson’s revelations only because he is dead and “left no wife or children” – a remark that adds a somewhat chilling touch to Geffen’s portrait.

However some speak of Geffen with genuine gratitude. The head of Universal Ron Meyer, already mentioned here, calls him a dear friend and Geffen did indeed do him a huge favour in 1995 by recommending him to the new owners of Universal as an ideal candidate to run the studio. The deal was a momentous one – Geffen just talked on the phone with one man and then with the other and the deal was made.

Here is a short excerpt from the recent book by James Andrew Miller about the easy way it happened:

Ron Meyer, President of Universal (PR Photos)

JAMES ANDREW MILLER

APRIL 2016

EDGAR BRONFMAN JR.: [the new owner of Universal] …Then I got a call from David. At that point, he hated Mike and liked me—then, not now.

DAVID GEFFEN: Ron is a very good friend of mine, and I said to Edgar, “I’ve got the perfect guy for you.” He said, “Who’s that?” I said, “Ron Meyer. Ron Meyer is the guy you should get. Ron Meyer is a guy who you can work with, who you can trust, who isn’t greedy, and everybody loves him. And he knows everybody.” So he said, “What would he cost me?” I said, “Send me a contract and Ron will sign it. He won’t negotiate it at all.” He said, “Are you serious?” I said, “Absolutely.”

I called up Ronnie, and I said, “I can make a deal for you to become president of Universal.” And Ron said, “You’re kidding.” I said, “No, I’m not. I told him that whatever he offered you there’d be no negotiation. You’d sign the contract as it was.” He said, “Count on it.”

RON MEYER: … One of the things that had happened since Mike had blown the deal with Bronfman a few days before was that David Geffen had been kind enough to say very good things to Bronfman about me. David is a really dear friend, and obviously his words were meaningful. I said yes right away.

Mike who “had blown the deal” is Michael Ovitz, one of the founders of Creative Artists Agency (CAA) which represents actors, directors, screenwriters, etc. and negotiates their terms of employment with the studios.

Michael Ovitz (Picture: Twitter)

He acted as an agent for Spielberg and other movie celebrities, and was considered another of Hollywood gods. For some reason he was also the object of Geffen’s deep hatred and it was top important for Geffen that Ovitz shouldn’t get the post of President at Universal as he wanted, and this probably explains his ardent support for another candidate when Ovitz “had blown the deal”.

The NY Times article published in 1993 described Hollywood of that period as the Balkans with two emperors – Geffen and Michael Ovitz, with respects to be paid to both of them.

Geffen’s friends would not comment on the feud and would only make an observation that Geffen preferred to control and manipulate things by “sitting there in the darkness”. They also say that if you are Geffen’s friend “he will do anything for you”, but if you are his enemy, “you might as well kill yourself”.

“David will do anything for you if you’re his friend,” says Howard Rosenman, a movie producer and, yes, a friend. “But if you’re his enemy, well, you might as well kill yourself.”

One of David Geffen’s closest friends says that Hollywood is like the Balkans. “There are duchesses and dukes and a court of sychophants,” the friend says. “And David is one of the emperors. There’s Mike Ovitz and there’s David. Two emperors.

“And you have to pay your respects to both of them,” he goes on. “And David sort of sits there in the darkness. Very quiet. You don’t know what he’s doing except controlling and manipulating. Sort of like the original-cast album cover of ‘My Fair Lady.’ That’s David.

Not quite sure what Geffen’s closest friend meant by the original-cast album cover of “My Fair Lady” I looked it up and saw a picture of someone big manipulating a smaller figure as a puppet of his and via that puppet manipulating still another one.

“THAT’S DAVID” (The cover for “My Fair Lady” by artist Shelly Manne)

I don’t know about you but this picture told me more about Geffen’s modus operandi than any stories from his foes or friends could ever tell. Some pictures talk louder than words.

What impressed me most about it is that the puppets don’t even know that they are being manipulated.

The final note here is that there is a wide-spread opinion in Hollywood that it was Geffen who crushed Ovitz’ career. And this isn’t any malicious gossip, but a fact of life Geffen himself isn’t too shy to talk about.

This fine piece from Nicole LaPorte’s book gives us in insight into what happens (and how) if a person like Geffen turns on someone whom he perceives as his enemy.

…Both Geffen and Katzenberg are known to have long memories when it comes to keeping score, and when an enemy is declared, the war is no mere skirmish.

…Ovitz undoubtedly had a hand in his own fall, but Geffen fuelled the process, trashing Ovitz for years and creating the perception that he was very damaged goods; the result of these effective theatrics was estimable. As Ovitz himself loved to say of Hollywood: “Perception is everything.” Similarly, when Geffen turned on Bill and Hillary Clinton, after years of serving as the former president’s biggest Hollywood donor and champion, it was not pretty. Or private. “Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling,” Geffen told New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd. Down neglected to question her source’s own credentials as an arbiter of integrity. Not to mention that some speculated that should Geffen buy the Los Angeles Times (a possibility at the time), she would be one of his first hires.

Few people in Hollywood are willing to cross these men, for fear of risking a premature close to a career or some other form of revenge.

… Media relations in Hollywood often involve unspoken trade-offs. If the powerful get buffed and polished, they give: beneficial “friendships,” exclusive scoops, trips on the private jet or yacht. But just as easily as VIPs can bestow favors, so can they take them away.

…Katzenberg made dozens of calls, warning sources not to talk to me for this book. <>As a result, many of the more than two hundred people I interviewed only felt comfortable under the veil of anonymity, and even they were anxious. I got used to nervous glances toward restaurant entrances, quick exits.

…Geffen nursed a vivid spectrum of resentments against the CAA chieftain – from the superagent’s supposed homophobia to a brouhaha over the first feature film that Geffen produces, 1982’s Personal Best, which had cost Geffen millions.

… Battling Ovitz kept him hungry. According to producer Howard Rosenman, Geffen fumed of Ovitz: “I’m gonna kill that motherfucker. It may take me years, but I’m going to destroy him. Watch me.”

GEFFEN AND WARNER BROS.

While Geffen was always on his own and worked behind the scenes, rarely coming into the open, he still had a notable connection with one of the Big Six studios – Warner Bros.

Two years after Geffen started his first records company called Asylum, Warner Bros. bought it from him for $7 million (“the biggest number Geffen could think of”) and after merging it with Elektra kept him as its chairman.

When Geffen Records label was established in 1980 it was also distributed by Warner Bros. Records.

And when Geffen set up a film company and produced three dark-tinged comedies, these movies were not only distributed, but also financed by Warner Communications.

The 1985 NY Times article explains Geffen’s exceptional luck with Warner Bros. by the role of Steve Ross, chairman of Warner Communications who bankrolled Geffen’s ventures for almost 15 years. Steve Ross indeed sounded like a godfather to Geffen judging by his confidence in him and unconditional support. This support was so monumental and unwavering that Ross even agreed to buy from Geffen the film “Personal Best” that was to be a flop even in Geffen’s opinion.

Steve Ross was evidently so mesmerized by his employee that at some point he even made him Vice-chairman of Warner Bros. pictures, however a year later Geffen left in disgust saying that it was a “nightmare” which nevertheless didn’t turn Steve Ross away from him – until Geffen turned away from Steve Ross himself, of course.

The reason for it? Some sources says Ross didn’t inform Geffen about the Warner Bros. merger with the media Time Corporation that took place in June, 1989 which transformed Warner into a mega conglomerate called Time Warner Inc. Geffen was furious about not getting the stock options he felt he deserved from the Time Warner merger.

And Nicole LaPorte says that Geffen finally managed to drive Ross past forgiveness when he abruptly sold Geffen Records to MCA (Music Corporation of America) severing all ties with him and Warner Bros.

Whatever the reason, Geffen was so furious with Steve Ross that he never talked to him again, and blasted him in the media even when he was undergoing chemo for prostate cancer and was already on his death bed.

More about the unique Geffen-Ross cooperation in the 1985 New York Times article, already partially quoted here:

…The Geffen Film Company, whose pictures are financed and distributed by Warner Communications, has released only three films to date, but they’ve already established Geffen’s taste in movies. Robert Towne’s ”Personal Best” concerned sex and friendship among female athletes. Paul Brickman’s comedy hit ”Risky Business” portrayed a suburban high-schooler who turns his parents’ house into a brothel for one night. And Albert Brooks’s ”Lost in America” is an offbeat comedy about a married couple who drop out of corporate society to tour the country in a Winnebago. All three are the work of writer-directors, the film counterpart of Geffen’s singer-songwriters, and they champion sex, money and individual achievement – subjects of great personal interest to him.

Geffen’s balance of taste and judgment has earned the confidence of Steve Ross, chairman of Warner Communications, the entertainment conglomerate that has bankrolled his ventures for almost 15 years. This convergence of taste and judgment, not to mention power and money, in one person has created a mystique around Geffen – a mystique that sometimes makes it hard to say exactly what he does.

…One year after Asylum released its first record, Warner Communications bought the company for $7 million. Geffen stayed on as a highly paid executive and merged Asylum with Elektra Records (another Warner subsidiary) in 1973, and watched his custom label turn into one of the parent company’s most profitable entertainment ventures.

After 10 years in the music business, he was tired of kid stuff and asked Steve Ross for a job in the movies. In 1975, he became vice chairman of Warner Bros. Pictures and immediately threw himself into movie production.

Geffen proved gifted at casting and clever about signing artists, but he was naive about the movie business. At the end of one year, he quit. ”It was a nightmare,” says Geffen. ”I hated those meetings, everybody afraid to be responsible.”

…When he discovered that the tumor removed from his bladder in 1976 was not a debilitating cancer but a harmless growth, Geffen got on the phone with Steve Ross and Mo Ostin, president of Warner Bros. Records, and he was back in business. A string of splashy signings (Donna Summer, Elton John, John Lennon and Yoko Ono) put Geffen Records on the map, but he wanted to do more than repeat past successes. So when Robert Towne, an old friend and the Oscar-winning screenwriter of ”Chinatown,” asked for help financing ”Personal Best,” his first film as director, Geffen agreed. He didn’t foresee that he would wind up the sole producer of an arty, controversial film originally budgeted at $7.5 million that, through various mishaps, finally cost $16 million.

”In order to do something with the movie,” says Geffen, ”I went to Steve Ross and said ‘Help! I want you to buy this film from me.’ He said, ‘Do you think it’s a hit?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t.’ He said, ‘Why should I buy it from you?’ I said, ‘Look, if you buy this film from me and it flops, it will be just another flop picture; you have many of them. But if I don’t sell this to you, it will obsess my life. I’ll lose a fortune. I won’t be able to work.’ ” Ross agreed to take the film if Geffen would sign an exclusive five-year deal setting up his own company with backing from Warner Bros. Pictures. ”The first picture I made under that deal was ‘Risky Business,’ from which they’ve made $20 million-$25 million profit, so I feel I’ve paid back.”

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/21/magazine/on-the-go-with-david-geffen.html?pagewanted=all

The Chicago Tribune dated 1987 informs us that during his deal with Warner Bros. Geffen had a $150-million line of credit to make any kind of picture he wanted – which is a condition unique for a producer. The Warner Bros. were ready to finance any Spielberg’s project too, but Spielberg was a film director making blockbusters and was a welcome guest at any studio of his choice. But giving similar terms to a producer was totally unusual.

The Chicago Tribune article speaks about that arrangement under the mysterious title “David Geffen’s Good Works”.

David Geffen`s Good Works

February 08, 1987|By Gene Siskel, Movie Columnist.

…Dressed in blue jeans, gym shoes, and a wrinkled blue shirt the diminutive, excitable Geffen currently has a $150-million line of credit at Warner Bros. to make any kind of picture he wants.

Eleven years ago, he turned his back on one of the most prestigious jobs in Hollywood, quitting in disgust after a year as production chief at Warner Bros. He hated the lack of quality control, he said.

He was only 32 years old, and he proceeded to retire for four years. During his retirement he acquired an internationally famous collection of Tiffany lamps, only to sell them when he came out of retirement in 1980 and reestablished his relationship with Warner Bros., but this time as an independent contractor. “I decided I wanted to live according to my taste, not according to my wealth.”

Geffen`s record of success has been linked primarily with one company, Warner Communications. “I`ve been in business with Warners for 17 years, and I`ve made money for Warners for 17 years.“So part of my success,“ he said, “is that I`m given a certain latitude that is not given to others. Virtually no one in the movie business has long-lasting relationships anymore. Everyone out here today is a freelancer who will work for anyone who will hire them.

“But I only work with Warner Bros. That, in turn, means I don`t have the attitude of a lot of people who are in it for the quick buck, saying, in effect, `OK, if it flops, I`ll go to Universal or Paramount.` There`s a totally cavalier attitude in Hollywood today that is completely different from the old days.“

“David`s deal with us is unique among producers in Hollywood,“ said Robert Daley, the Warner Bros. chieftain. “Steve Spielberg is a special case, but he`s a producer-director. David, however, is alone in our industry as a producer in having the contractual right to make any kind of film he wants for us.

Geffen`s reason for quitting in 1976 after a year as production chief at Warners stemmed, he said, from his unwillingness to make a slate of movies he didn`t believe in.

“I don`t think David likes to delegate authority,“ said Robert Daley of Warners. “And David is much better working just on what he loves.“

So the specifics of Geffen was that he as a producer worked only on the projects of his choice and was given a free hand by the Universal chairman to do any movie he liked.

But considering his preference for “championing sex, money and individual achievement as subjects of great personal interest to him” as the NY Times told us, I am not at all sure that he could be inspired by sweet and family-oriented projects like Pinocchio, Peter Pan or even Midknight (for example). His interests lay more in the sphere of Broadway “Cats” or movies like Risky Business where a teenager turned his parents’ house into a brothel.

Steve Ross, Warner Bros. chairman

In 1992 Steve Ross died. Geffen’s only comment on his cooperation with his mentor was that he had been nothing but an asset to him, and not a father figure as everyone thinks, and that “Steve didn’t have an easy life”.

May 2, 1993

…In 1975, its chairman,Steven J. Ross, named Geffen vice chairman of Warner Brothers, the company’s Hollywood studio. The job’s corporate and bureaucratic restrictions left him stifled. He quit in 1976, wealthy and unhappy.

It is common lore in Hollywood that Geffen was constantly in search of father figures, and found one in Steve Ross. Actually, the man who proved to be his mentor was Ahmet Ertegun, head of Atlantic Records. “Ahmet took a fatherly interest in me,” Geffen says. “Steve never took a fatherly interest. I was an asset of his.”

In his fears of growing increasingly isolated, Geffen is haunted by the specter of Ross, the chairman of Time Warner who died of cancer last year.Geffen had broken furiously with Ross, his one-time boss in the late 1980’s, after a sharp disagreement over the value of his music company. The breach never healed, even as Ross lay dying.

“He did not have an easy life, Steve,” says Geffen, cryptically. “He didn’t make it easy for other people but he sure didn’t have an easy life.”

Spielberg and Geffen showed their feelings to Steve Ross in remarkably different fashions. Author Nicole LePorte says about it:

“Geffen’s vilification of Ross in the press, even as the older man lay dying of prostate cancer, offended Spielberg, the good son, who remained at Ross’s side, attending the funeral along with Quincy Jones, Paul Simon, and Barbra Streisand, who sang at the service. Geffen received no such invitation. Nor was he asked to the less private memorial – the guest list was several thousand names long – at Carnegie Hall, though he attended anyway.”(p.23)

WHAT DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH MICHAEL JACKSON?

Indeed, what does all of the above have to do with MJ?

Probably not much, except that we’ve learned about the most powerful players in Hollywood in ‘80s and ‘90s and that “keeping people happy” is a universal method there to keep a star on their hook by saying yes to his every wish, but probably never meaning it.

Now we also know that Steven Spielberg and David Geffen parted ways in 2008 and at the time Craviotto wrote her book they weren’t as close as they had been before.

We also learned about Geffen’s scope of influence in Hollywood and his modus operandi, and the fact that if you are his friend “he will do anything for you”, but if you an enemy (or he perceives you as such) “you might as well kill yourself”. This valuable knowledge should be added to what we already knew about Geffen – that in the ‘80s-‘90s he was one of Michael’s closest advisors and had Michael’s ear for everything he said.

But what we didn’t know yet is that Geffen forced his way into Michael’s inner circle by promising him roles in the movies, and this is where the mystery of his so much power over Michael evidently was.

Remember the New York Times article which said that Geffen does nothing but talks on the phone and says yes and no? That article was written in July 1985 and besides explaining how Geffen went about his business, it also revealed the invaluable fact that sometime in 1982 Geffen said to Jackson: “Let’s make a movie” and this is actually how he “got” him, probably in an effort to lure him to his own Geffen Records label.

David Geffen, Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones at a party in Los Angeles in 1982 (Photo: FilmMagic).

And indeed, by 1985 Michael had received his first movie project from Geffen, which was “Captain EO” to be made at Disney for its theme park – the project was arranged via Geffen’s connection with his friend Katzenberg of course.

So here is the final piece about Geffen’s “Let’s make a movie” suggestion.

ON THE GO WITH DAVID GEFFEN

By Don Shewey

Published: July 21, 1985

…This September, Geffen will release the new Martin Scorsese film ”After Hours.” By then, the new film version of ”Little Shop of Horrors” will be in production, to be followed by a new movie musical by the screenwriter and lyricist Dean Pitchford. And he recently scored the coup of the year – a deal with Michael Jackson to play his first starring role in the movies.

Thursday: Lunch with Frank DiLeo, Michael Jackson’s personal manager, at the Palm, the kind of Holly-wood steak joint where rock musicians in rooster haircuts mingle with lawyers and agents. Geffen schmoozes with everyone at the door, table-hops, banters and boxes with people in the parking lot afterward. DiLeo, a former CBS promotion man suddenly catapulted into the big time, hangs back shyly. But Geffen keeps an eye out for him. If he is going to be making a movie with Michael Jackson, it wouldn’t do for the manager to feel threatened or left out.

Saturday: Meeting with Michael Jackson to discuss movie projects. Anyone in Hollywood would love to be in business with Michael Jackson, but Geffen got him because he said ”Let’s make a movie” three years ago, before Jackson’s ”Thriller” sold 20 million albums.

Geffen’s ability to present himself as someone who can get things done without going through a corporate bureaucracy is contingent on his alliance with bigger sources of power and money – Steve Ross, Mo Ostin, Bernie Jacobs of the Shubert Organization, co-producer in all his Broadway ventures. They are, in a sense, his bosses. But it’s important to Geffen that he be seen as an equal partner rather than a subordinate. This sometimes amuses them. Ross doesn’t say it in so many words, but implies that the $100-million credit line attributed to Geffen Films is one invented by Geffen. The big guys indulge him because they value his instincts; in return, they get his loyalty. It’s called bonding for power, and it means Geffen can spend less time on boring money matters and more time on the phone dreaming up projects.

The more you look into it, the more discoveries you make and the longer this story gets. So all that hype about the many-million credit Geffen allegedly had with Warner Bros. was actually Geffen’s invention as Steve Ross implies? But how did he manage to convince the media that the $150 million credit for his movies was real?

And what if he convinced Michael Jackson of the same? What a vast new field for research…

In the meantime you can go over this circus once again and judge for yourself the true worth of that 1990 top-secret “Project M” for Michael Jackson, as well as ponder over the reasons why Ms. Craviotto never spoke of Jon Peters’ Midknight and why the name of Warner Bros. was not to be mentioned either.

We are coming to the end of the road where most of the questions still pending will have to be answered.

And considering that today is nine years since Michael Jackson is gone, the first most natural question to ask is whose guilt is the biggest in contributing to his death.

Well, technically it was Conrad Murray working for AEG Live (and not for MJ as they told us) while the overall atmosphere of unbearable pressure, humiliation and primitive exploitation that finally killed Michael was created by the company itself and specifically its Randy Phillips, whose monstrous methods of work deprived Michael of the last chance to sleep in an natural way.

These methods included arranging for MJ a huge number of concerts he never agreed to and creating for him a harsh schedule of performances he could not follow even when young. There was also shouting at the artist, slapping him and humiliating him in front of others, threatening to leave him on skid row and even take away his children – all of it in case Michael didn’t fulfill Randy Phillips’s willful orders he never had the right to make in the first place.

The only thing that more or less reconciles me with AEG Live is that they fired Randy Phillips, though not until after he gave his pro-AEG testimony in Katherine Jackson’s lawsuit against the company.

But horrible as they are, they are certainly not to blame for the false stories of child molestation about Michael Jackson that were killing him slowly, and most probably not for the introduction of Wade Robson into the scene at the beginning of the Jacksons vs. AEG Live trial (May 2013), as well as supporting Robson in his slander campaign against Jackson for the past five years.

The co-occurrence of Robson’s allegations and the beginning of that trial was indeed too striking not to notice it and the suspicion that AEG Live was involved was the first thing that came to our minds (even Thomas Mesereau thought that there was a connection).

The only factor that restrained us from making a definitive conclusion was the fact that a cunning entity like AEG Live wouldn’t have done it so blatantly and wouldn’t have made itself so obvious a target. So even at that time connecting Robson’s allegations with AEG looked like too easy an assumption and the thought that someone else took advantage of the situation to smear Michael’s name did cross my mind, however looking in that direction seemed like over complicating things, so the thought was brushed aside then.

However now it is probably time to return to this matter. Was there a third party and who was it? Who was so determined to ruin Michael Jackson’s name and legacy that he encouraged a new liar to tell his fake story and supported the accuser (or accusers, if we also include Safechuck) for several years, paying their two consecutive teams of lawyers and carrying out a dirty publicity campaign with the help of tabloids like RadarOnline? And do the main actors of the game know who is orchestrating the whole thing?

THE OPERATOR

To me the answer to these questions came in the form of a picture which explained that it was possible – at least possible – for a certain person to play others like puppets so that they do what the operator wants them to and at the same time have no idea who is masterminding the scene.

Those who have read my previous posts know that the picture I am talking about is a cover page for the original cast of ‘My Fair Lady’ which serves as an illustration of the usual modus operandi of David Geffen as described by one of his friends.

David sort of sits there in the darkness. Very quiet. You don’t know what he’s doing except controlling and manipulating. Sort of like the original-cast album cover of ‘My Fair Lady.’ That’s David

David sort of sits there in the darkness. Very quiet. You don’t know what he’s doing except controlling and manipulating. That’s David.

No wonder that the only biography written about David Geffen is called “The Operator”.

Actually its full title is even more tale-telling as it suggests that David Geffen’s operating field is the whole of present-day “new” Hollywood which Geffen is said to be building, buying and selling.

The biography is called “The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys and Sells the New Hollywood” and it was written in 2000 by Tom King, a journalist who worked for the Wall Street Journal.

The book is unavailable online and it is not sold in my country, but the reviews of those who have read it are quite illuminating as regards its main character. Here are some quotes:

“This book is not just about Geffen but about all the lives he touched, helped and often ruined. There is no excuse for some of the things Geffen has done.”

Geffen seems at points to realize that his best traits are undermined by his worst traits–greed and a vengeful spirit–but seems at a loss to change his behavior.”

“The richer Geffen became, the more good he did, but it is confounding that he hurt so many people in the process. Geffen’s most disturbing trait as relayed in this book is his willingness to sabotage the careers of others by manufacturing toxic and unfounded rumors.

No matter how much you thank your lucky stars that you never, ever have to do business with David Geffen, you cannot help but be awestruck at his genius as a businessman, visualizer and strategist.

The Operator opens up endless hidden layers of world class mind games, shameless confabulation, breathtaking intelligence, and inexplicable weirdness. One leaves with the sense of the entertainment business as one great dysfunctional family, loves spinning out of control into hatreds, and mutual disgust converting into strategic alliances.

The stories about his interaction with (and abuse of) fellow moguls like Ovitz, Eisner, Ross, and Davis were jawdropping. I found myself shaking my head at the deals he cut, for example talking Steve Ross into giving him back his music label for free after Ross had bankrolled the whole thing! …In this book Spielberg is portrayed as a man at the opposite end of the spectrum: a man who is grateful for his success, indebted to the people who helped him achieve it, satisfied with the money he has made, and eager to give something in return.

Notwithstanding his many contributions to the recording and film industries in particular, and his phenomenally generous philanthropy, Mr. Geffen is quite simply a completely unappealing person as depicted in this biography and, undoubtedly to many people, in real life as well.

Mr. Geffen unquestionably has left his mark on history. Unfortunately, he has been absolutely ruthless in doing so. Mr. Geffen comes across in this book as a selfish and greedy creature for whom (literally) billions of dollars still isn’t “enough.” I highly recommend this book but with fair warning: Once you get to the end, you’ll probably feel like sticking your finger down your throat.

He can be a caring friend or an implacable enemy. He can be embarrassing intimate with almost complete strangers, yet distant as a north star toward his own family. He shows great generosity personally and publicly; yet hasn’t a qualm about financially ruining friend and foe alike for a perceived slight, and sometimes just for the hell of it.

About two-thirds of the way into it, I had to put it aside for awhile. The paranoia, betrayal, double dealing, etc. had happened over and over so many times, with so many people, that I wondered if there was anything more to the story.

Despite pulling off some major deals, Geffen also found himself with some very bad breaks, like taking on Donna Summer as a client just as she found religion and homophobia. He was an uneven judge of talent and largely out of touch with the popular culture his business helped shape. It’s also telling that some of his greatest feuds were with people like Jerry Wexler, who understood music, built careers and helped open new doors for different styles of music. Geffen’s money came from his trading in junk bonds, rather than his show business wheeling and dealing.

It was sad to see the accounting for all the debris (people, careers, reputations, companies) he has apparently left in his wake as he’s made his way down the path to earning his billions. An inspirational yet sad tale all in one.

And here is a little more about the way Tom King found himself writing a book about the man that intrigued him so much and what came of his benign plans.

How David Geffen Got Ahead: Lies, Loot and a Little Luck

By David Handelman • 03/13/00 (excerpts)

…according to New York magazine, Mr. Geffen “became physically ill” when he read the manuscript for The Operator , his demi-authorized biography written by Tom King, who covers the entertainment industry for The Wall Street Journal .

It’s easy to see why. Yes, the book tells the story how he rose from nothingness to media moguldom. (Mr. Geffen now advises President Clinton.) But the bulk of The Operator exposes [] how along the way he has betrayed, badgered, lied to and cut off most of his family, friends and colleagues.

It’s been widely reported that Mr. Geffen originally cooperated with the book partly because of Mr. King’s classy employer, and partly because Mr. King is openly gay. Mr. Geffen himself, after much hemming and hawing, finally came out in a speech at a 1992 AIDS fund-raiser in his honor.

After about a year, Mr. Geffen stopped speaking to Mr. King, shocked that there might be some negatives in the book. When the author sent him an advance copy of the manuscript, Mr. Geffen called it “fiction” but didn’t single out any falsehoods.

But David Geffen has trafficked in fictions all his life. The Operator could have easily been called The Liar. The William Morris agent-turned-rock manager-turned-record label executive-turned-movie executive has lived a life of self-denial and manipulation, always trying to control the story and make the buck. (As one record executive once screamed at Mr. Geffen, “You’d jump into a pool of pus to come up with a nickel between your teeth!”)

He’d advise clients to lie to get what they wanted; he’d spread lies about people with whom he was feuding; he’d lie about providing a haven for artists against the big corporations, when all he really wanted to do was sell out to them as fast as possible.

He went into the music business not out of any love for it but because it promised the quickest advancement to a young person. He was drawn to singer-songwriters less for their artistic purity than for the fact that they owned their own material and thus could generate more profits.

Mr. King never really analyzes how much of Mr. Geffen’s success is, like anything in Hollywood, dumb luck. He invested a million dollars in Broadway’s Cats, and has made a third of the profits ever since. But he also put out the worst records in the careers of Elton John and Neil Young (who have since rebounded). While he focused his energy on Little Shop of Horrors, for instance, another Geffen movie he barely paid attention to, Beetlejuice , was the one that hit.

Money always seems to be the goal. Mr. King even points out that while Mr. Geffen has donated millions of dollars to AIDS causes, instead of doing so quietly, he has always “insisted on, or agreed to, having his name celebrated openly.”

Amazingly, many of the fellow moguls Mr. Geffen alienates pretty thoroughly in these pages-Mike Ovitz, Mo Ostin, Sandy Gallin-are back in his circle. Maybe they’re just aware that, as Warren Beatty once put it, “a mobilized David Geffen is something that you want working for you, not against you.”

http://observer.com/2000/03/how-david-geffen-got-ahead-lies-loot-and-a-little-luck/

“David Geffen. The book he doesn’t want you to read”. Cover picture for Tom King’s interview. The Advocate, April 11, 2000.

Whose Life Is It, Anyway?

By Lisa DePaulo

…This week, as King’s book, The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood, finally hits bookstores, Geffen is beyond offended. He’s furious, with King “and with himself,” says Terry Press, his right-hand person at DreamWorks.  The way Geffen — one of the most feared and powerful men in Hollywood — sees it, Tom King seduced him, wooed him with “promises and lies,” then went about blithely assassinating his character in 688 pages.

King sees it differently. [ ] At a time when powerful subjects routinely quash books before they are even written, King won Geffen over by convincing the mogul that his cooperation would ensure a “fair and accurate” portrait of his life. Is his largely unflattering portrayal a betrayal of their deal? Or is it simply good journalism?

…King seems to hold back intentionally when it comes to anything intimate, including Geffen’s much-speculated-about sex life. King is more focused on the melodramas of his business dealings, especially an ongoing pattern in Geffen’s life of forging powerful relationships, then sabotaging them, or at the very least getting supremely pissed at his closest friends.

…In one memorable scene, he brings his professional-diver boyfriend to the Oval Office, to advise President Clinton on how to spin the press.

King also goes into great detail about Geffen’s colorful feuds and battles — with Steve Ross, Ahmet Ertegun, Mike Ovitz, Michael Eisner, Don Henley, Phil Spector, Donna Summer, Clive Davis, Neil Young, Madonna, Sandy Gallin, Barry Diller, and countless others. At one point, he recounts an incident in which Geffen picked a tactical fight with Warner music legend Mo Ostin — to ensure that Ostin would be safely out of the way when a deal was struck.

But even Ostin came back into the fold. He now works for Geffen at DreamWorks. “That’s what’s so fascinating,” says King. “One moment he repels people, and the next moment he draws them in. There’s a magic about this guy that’s irresistible,” King says. “I found it seductive, too.”

In the beginning, the Geffen-King partnership seemed, in true Hollywood fashion, to be the start of a beautiful relationship. “I’d been intrigued by Geffen and his life and his career for a long time,” says King. “And being a gay man myself, I knew him from that perspective, too. He was certainly one of the most, if not the most, famous gay man in America.”

Over the years, Geffen had not only fended off other prospective biographers but also managed to get books killed. [ ] This time, Geffen was intrigued. His friends say that two things about the young writer appealed to him: that King was gay and that he worked for the Wall Street Journal.

Geffen’s well-known propensity for killing books would have scared off most publishers. But King had secured more than Geffen’s promise of cooperation: He had Geffen’s agreement in writing.

Geffen’s green light was crucial in getting people to cooperate. Whether it was Cher, Tom Cruise, or Geffen’s cousin in St. Louis, it was always the same drill: They’d check with David first, then call back, astounded that he told them that they could actually talk.

Geffen’s first “real freak-out” on King was the day he called his biographer as King was headed to Encino to interview Geffen’s estranged older brother, Mitchell, a retired attorney. King told him where he was headed, as he usually did. Tom, you can’t interview my brother! You agreed not to interview my brother! (King says he never agreed to that.) And finally, We can call this whole thing off right now.

“When I first heard he was unhappy with the book, I wasn’t sure I should believe it,” King says. “He’s such a Machiavellian character, I wasn’t entirely certain he wasn’t putting on an act.”

Geffen’s friends insist it is no act and claim he has gotten increasingly depressed as the buzz around the book intensifies. .. in the end, he is less outraged by revelations of his conquests than he is about his depiction as an unscrupulous businessperson.

Even as he privately rants over King’s “betrayal,” Geffen has steadfastly declined to comment publicly on the book, telling friends he refuses to give it any more attention. Behind the scenes, however, he and his team have mounted an impressive effort to discredit it.

… sources claim that representatives of DreamWorks have called various networks, trying to persuade them not to give airtime to the biographer. Typically, Geffen has vowed that King will come to regret his betrayal. At the very least, he has told friends, King will never write another book in this town again.

That might be wishful thinking. Last week, before a single book appeared in stores, The Operator had already climbed to No. 20 on the Amazon list.

King is back to work at the Journal, writing a weekly column about Hollywood. So far, being Geffen’s No. 1 enemy hasn’t hindered his job. “At the end of the day,” says one of King’s colleagues, “Who cares what David Geffen thinks of him? He’s a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. What’s the worst thing that could happen to Tom? He won’t get a contract at DreamWorks?”

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/2329/index3.html

The worst that could happen to Tom King took place just three years later – he died at an early age of 39 of a brain haemorrhage while on vacation. He just complained of a headache, collapsed on the floor of a bathroom and was rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

“King’s death stunned the Hollywood community and his colleagues. Jonathan Friedland, the Journal’s Los Angeles bureau chief, said it was “a terrible shock — Tom was a great guy, seemingly in great health.”

And though the cause of his death was indicated as natural ever since then the people close to Geffen have flatly refused to give any more interviews. One of his friends sort of summed up the general feeling in a short conversation with journalist Nicole LaPorte:

“When I called a friend of Geffen’s and asked him if he’d speak to me, I was met with a heavy silence on the other end of the line. And then a deep-throated growl: ‘The last person who wrote a book about David Geffen is dead! And he was young. And healthy. And now he’s dead!’ Click.”

Tom King was indeed the last person to write about Geffen, however not the first one. There was also an earlier book by Fred Goodman published in 1997 about rock music turned into a commercial product where Geffen was one of the key players (“The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce).

And if anyone suspects that Tom King was biased in making an unflattering portrait of Geffen, the publisher’s note to the book by Fred Goodman, a former editor at Rolling Stone, makes it clear that King was actually quite balanced and even charitable to this character. The publisher’s note to the earlier book says:

This hard-nosed history of the rock-music business concentrates particularly on the rise of the manipulative, calculating and utterly ruthless, billionaire music business Svengali, David Geffen.

The book reviewers add to it:

Goodman sees Geffen as being very different than Albert Grossman [Bob Dylan’s manager] because Grossman really cared that his artists were able to say what they wanted to say, whereas Geffen simply wanted his artists to make money regardless of their content.

The book includes excellent portraits of Mr. Dylan, Mr. Geffen, Mr. Springsteen, Neil Young and Jon Landau, the rock critic turned record producer who transformed Mr. Springsteen’s career. Mr. Geffen gets the harshest treatment, being depicted as one of the most arrogant young men ever to come out of Brooklyn. Mr. Goodman recounts one particularly startling series of events that began when Mr. Geffen convinced Neil Young he should sign with Mr. Geffen’s record company for $3 million less than another company was offering, because the singer ”would be free to make whatever records he wanted without commercial constraint.” Then, after Mr. Young made two eccentric albums for Mr. Geffen that were both commercial failures, Mr. Geffen sued Mr. Young for the return of the $3 million the impresario had advanced him. As Mr. Goodman points out, ”Geffen’s claim was extraordinarily brash,” considering how he had persuaded Mr. Young to sign with him in the first place. ”The truth is I fought with him because I wanted him to do better work,” Mr. Geffen explained afterward. ”I was taking too much of a fatherly role in his life.” Even in the record business, only David Geffen could describe a $3 million lawsuit against one of his prize musicians as an excess of paternalism.

What little respect you may still have for the music business will be whittled down to next to nothing before you are finished with this book. It’s a fascinating read nonetheless.

Considering Geffen’s extraordinary ability to manipulate, control and take advantage of everyone who came his way, his ongoing pattern of forging relationships and then turning on his closest friends, his exceptional vindictiveness and incessant feuds, his propensity to sabotage the careers of others by manufacturing toxic and unfounded rumors and spinning the press, as well as a long trail of reputations ruined for a perceived slight or just “for the hell of it”, as one reviewer said, there is no reason to believe that Geffen treated Michael Jackson any differently.

In fact the notorious 2003 Vanity Fair article by Maureen Orth did claim that Geffen was on Michael Jackson’s “enemy list”.  But if MJ lost his affection for Geffen and had a falling out with him, the same must have been all the more true for the other side, so the thing we can be absolutely certain of is that it was Michael Jackson who was on Geffen’s enemy list. And if he was – well, “he might as well kill himself” as one of Geffen’s friends said.

“David will do anything for you if you’re his friend,” says Howard Rosenman, a movie producer and, yes, a friend. “But if you’re his enemy, well, you might as well kill yourself.”

To call a spade a spade, I think that David Geffen has much to do with Michael Jackson’s character assassination and smearing campaign, as well as the attempts to ruin his career, legacy and finances, both during his lifetime and after his death.

The only problem here is that due to Geffen’s usual modus operandi there are no traces left – he always stays in the shade and wages his wars via proxies or those who don’t even suspect that they are being manipulated and are certainly unaware of the identity of the person acting from behind the scenes.

…David was never there, but it was very clear that he had influence,” says the actress Allison Caine. “David never had his fingerprints anywhere “.

But if Geffen never leaves his fingerprints anywhere, finding any direct proof of his anti-Jackson activity is simply ruled out. Expecting those in the know to talk about it is wishful thinking too, at least at the moment, as everyone is absolutely terrified to open their mouth – even in case Geffen himself authorizes them to talk. Tom King said about it back in 2000:

I was surprised to find, however, that many of Geffen’s friends were reluctant to talk, even though he encouraged them to do so. Most, apparently, they did not believe him when he told them, “I’m comfortable with everything – say whatever you want.” When various other authors had set out to write books about him in the past, he had sent letters to nearly everyone he knew, imploring them not to cooperate.

“Nobody is going to tell you anything really nasty about him because they are afraid of him,” Ahmet Ertegun, the head of Atlantic Records and one of Geffen’s earlier mentors, told me.

… a number of the people who did talk candidly – even if they had not said anything mean – almost instantly regretted what they had said. Carrie Fisher, one of Geffen’s brightest and most articulate friends, tracked me down at Los Angeles International Airport the day after our first interview, telling me she was panicked about the stories she had told. [“The Operator”, foreword]

And Carrie Fisher was certainly no coward – however in Geffen’s case an innocent story told about him sent her into so much panic that she followed the author to the airport to track him down there.

So when no one is willing to talk and when any direct evidence of Geffen’s meddling with Michael Jackson’s life is impossible to find in principle, we will have to make do with what we have – draw analogies between Michael Jackson and ruined careers of other people close to Geffen and find the reasons why he did away with them, collect the tiny bits and pieces left here and there, and look into Geffen’s interaction with Michael Jackson, paying special attention to the way it was reported by the press at different periods of time.

This will require a whole series of posts and looking into the subjects that may seem irrelevant at first sight. However, if you are building your case on circumstantial evidence alone there are no such things as irrelevant subjects or insignificant points.

This post will be the first take on this matter.

THE LETTER

On June 21, 1990 Michael Jackson wrote a letter to David Geffen thanking him for the flowers sent to him while he was in hospital for a few days. This letter was later sold at Julien’s Auctions complete with the envelope.

MICHAEL JACKSON LETTER TO DAVID GEFFEN  

Lot closed – Winning bid: $2,560

Michael Jackson signed letter to David Geffen dated “June 21, 1990” written on MJJ Productions stationary, thanking Geffen for flowers sent during an illness. Letter reads in part, “Thank you for standing by me. You’re wonderful!” signed in red marker by Michael Jackson. With original transmittal envelope. 10 1/2 by 7 1/4 inches

http://www.julienslive.com/view-auctions/catalog/id/3/lot/447/

The letter said:

June 21, 1990

Mr. David Geffen

100 Universal Plaza

Universal Plaza, CA 91608

 

Dear David:

The flowers you sent during my illness were so beautiful and greatly appreciated.

With your prayers and blessings as my shield, I am quickly advancing towards complete recovery. I fully expect to resume work in the near future and continue sharing the fruits of my labor with loyal friends such as you.

Thank you for standing by me. You’re wonderful!

Love always,

Michael Jackson

The author Mike Smallcombe who wrote Michael Jackson’s biography says that Michael was taken to hospital on June 3, 1990 with chest pains that later turned out to be inflammation of the ribcage cartilage.

On June 3, Michael was admitted to St. John’s Hospital in Los Angeles with chest pains. Tests later traced the pains to inflammation of rib cage cartilage. Although Michael was released from hospital five days later, the illness kept him out of the studio for several weeks.

The date of June 3 wonderfully fits in with the time estimated by us for the same episode described in Darlene Craviotto’s book. You remember that the book was published in 2011 and is about her writing a script in 1990 for the so-called secret Project M for the Disney studio – a Peter Pan movie with Michael Jackson in the main role.

The project was a fraud from its inception as the rights to the movie belonged to another film company where Spielberg was about to begin his work on a similar project (‘The Hook’), so under no circumstances could ‘Peter Pan’ be made at Disney – which Michael Jackson certainly knew nothing about.

However Craviotto is thoroughly painting a picture of everyone at Disney allegedly wanting to make the film happen and when Michael Jackson was taken to hospital she made it look like an unwelcome delay to their project because they were allegedly “running out of time” with it.

… a voice on the television suddenly makes an announcement.

“Michael Jackson hospitalized with chest pains! News at 11!”

…Howard calls me first thing that morning.

“He’s fine,” he tells me, matter-of-factly. “He just pulled some ligaments in his ribcage.”

“I’ll call Stella today to see when Michael wants to meet…”

Howard interrupts me before I can finish.

“We’ve run out of time,” he says, ominously.

I remind Howard about the September deadline in my contract. I tell him that I don’t think Disney can afford to anger Michael just because they want to read the story treatment before he does.

“This isn’t about Michael anymore,” Howards says firmly.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“I can’t get into it,” he explains. “The studio wants to make this film happen, but we need the treatment right now – the future of the project depends on it.”

When the movie didn’t happen (as it was never meant to) the Disney executives blamed it on Steven Spielberg and Michael believed their version, forever after considering Spielberg to be responsible for ruining his most cherished dream.

And while Spielberg did indeed look like a bad guy, David Geffen was made out to look good. In Michael’s letter to Geffen, written two weeks after his release from hospital, when he must have already known that Project M was cancelled, Michael called him a wonderful and loyal friend and thanked him for “always standing by” him. Michael hoped to resume work soon and continue sharing with Geffen the fruits of his labor…

Curious to know the whereabouts of Geffen’s office I looked up the address of the letter, and was amazed to find that it was located on the premises of the Universal Studios lot which is a seat of Steven Spielberg’s Amblin production company and the place Darlene Craviotto went to for the initial meeting with Hollywood executives about the Peter Pan movie.

Universal studios Hollywood address

According to Craviotto that first and only meeting with Hollywood executives was attended by her as a scriptwriter, Michael Jackson, Disney head Jeffrey Katzenberg, another Disney executive, and director Steven Spielberg. No mention was made of David Geffen.

But how could Geffen not attend that meeting if it was held on the same premises, next to his office, and he was actually the one responsible for all movie projects for Michael Jackson? Finding the right movie for MJ was the task he took upon himself in the 1980s and this was the way how he won Michael Jackson’s admiration, trust and undivided attention – the news we’ve learned about Geffen only thirty five years later. Some people surely know how to keep their secrets.

Michael Jackson and David Geffen in 1982

Let me remind you of the New York Times article dated July 1985 which revealed that sometime in 1982 Geffen said to Jackson: “Let’s make a movie” and this is actually how he “got” him and won his loyalty at least for the next decade.

Two years later, in 1984 Michael was reported to have signed a deal with David Geffen for the production of a musical. The musical was planned for 1985, was to be produced by Geffen’s Film company and distributed by Warner Bros. (where Geffen was once Vice-President and later headed one of its subdivisions). The music to the movie was to be composed and performed by Michael Jackson and released by CBS Records with whom Michael had a contract.

Mind you that the musical was to be a full feature film and not a short Captain EO video suggested by Disney at the same period and to be run at Disneyland only.

The JET issue of November 1984 described Michael’s major film deal with Geffen as follows:

November 26, 1984

Vol.67, No.12

MICHAEL JACKSON PENS MAJOR FILM DEAL WITH GEFFEN MOVIE COMPANY

In what has been called the coup of all coups, Geffen Film Company has signed superstar Michael Jackson to showcase his talents in a musical to be produced sometime next year.

Many Hollywood moviemakers have made overtures to Jackson for several years.

Jackson will write the music as well as perform, according to a spokesman at Warner Bros. Studios, the organization that will distribute the property.

The project will integrate Jackson’s full range of talent in dance, drama, as well as music. The music will comprise Jackson’s next album project and will be distributed by CBS Records.

According to Geffen President Eric Eisner, “Michael Jackson is the most acclaimed entertainer in the world today. His talents are magical. The picture will be a reflection of his creative vision as well as a showcase for his gift as a performer.”

Daily Variety quoted a Geffen official as saying the deal was a result of “a very special relationship David Geffen and Michael have enjoyed for many, many years…

So Geffen’s official said that by the year 1984 Geffen and MJ had enjoyed a very special relationship for many, many years? Well, it means that the previous piece about Geffen’s suggestion to guide Michael into the movies in 1982 was perfectly correct.

Almost a year passed since the announcement of the major Geffen/MJ movie deal, but it was still “in development” having no title, no script and no director – at least this is what the Chicago Tribune said about it in July 1985.  A short film for Disneyland was also mentioned as a project already under way.

July 14, 1985

Perhaps most anticipated is his upcoming feature film for David Geffen`s Geffen Films Co. The most anyone would say is that the project is still “in development.“

In fact, the project doesn`t even have a title, script or director yet. More information is expected later this summer on what will be Jackson`s first major feature since he played the Scarecrow in “The Wiz“ in 1978.

Even with the delays, Geffen Films is still gung-ho on the project, if for no other reason than that Jackson`s next album is expected to be the movie soundtrack.

More intriguing are news media reports about a film Jackson is supposedly doing for Disney World in Florida. The 10-minute film, which was said to have a budget of $10 million, is reportedly going to be produced by George Lucas and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. However, representatives for LucasFilm, Walt Disney Studios and Coppola`s Zoetrope Studios would not comment on the story.

Another four years passed but no musical or any other movie had yet materialized. Michael Jackson was still hopeful and at the beginning of 1989, after closing the Bad tour, he said he would bid farewell to touring and focus on recording and films instead.

Michael’s manager Frank Dileo who spoke to the LA Times in January 1989 said that another tour would kill him, and made it clear that touring was so strenuous for Michael that even at the age of 30 he insisted on only three shows a week and having a rest on the remaining four days, even though this schedule cost him more than half a million a week in salaries to the cast.

At this point I would recommend recalling Randy Phillips again who set 50 shows for the 50-year old Jackson with half the shows having a one-day break between them – which sent Michael, his mother and friends into a state of consternation (Phillips said it was “just business” and Kenny Ortega laughed it off as an unimportant matter too).

David Geffen gave a separate interview for that 1989 LA article as a person specially retained by MJ for their joint movie adventures and in that interview admitted, so uncharacteristically of him, that he had yet failed to find a suitable movie project for Michael.

And again this news takes us by surprise as firstly, we were never told that Geffen was retained by Michael for finding suitable movie projects for him, and secondly, it is incredible news that this powerful Hollywood mogul and genius of success failed in his task – which makes us wonder whether Geffen took the job seriously and really meant what he was doing for Michael Jackson.

A New Stage for Michael Jackson

January 27, 1989|PAUL GREIN

When the 30-year-old superstar leaves the stage after his performance tonight at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, he’ll not only end a marathon, 16-month “Bad” world tour but also bid farewell to touring–so he says.

Having set records for the largest grossing tour in history ($125 million) and the largest paid attendance (4.4 million), Jackson plans to focus on recordings and films.

“He’s accomplished everything he has to accomplish as far as touring,” [Jackson’s manager, Frank Dileo, said during an interview in Beverly Hills this week.] “He’s got the biggest gross and has played to the most people. What are we going to do next time? Play for two years? That would kill me.”

Another factor: Jackson is known to prefer film and recordings because performances in those media–unlike concerts–are preserved for posterity.

The interview-shy Jackson has said for years that he wants to break into films, but Dileo said it’s more of a priority now than ever before.

The two hope to develop a film musical for Jackson to star in. Jackson’s only theatrical role to date was in the 1978 film version of “The Wiz.”

“We have stacks and stacks of scripts and proposals,” said Dileo. “We’ll sort through them and see what’s right for Michael.”

Finding the right property for a specialized talent like Jackson has proved to be a challenge.

Even multimedia producer David Geffen was unable to find the right project when he was retained by the singer around the time of the Jacksons’ 1984 “Victory” tour.

“I couldn’t come up with anything,” Geffen acknowledged in a separate interview Thursday. “It’s my failure, not his. I just wasn’t interested in doing a bad movie.

“I think it will take a special project. You can’t cast him in just anything. I don’t think you’d cast him as a dramatic actor, or that you could have believably cast him in ‘Coming to America.’ It would have to be something created for him.”

But Geffen added: “I don’t think they could cast Fred Astaire in just any picture either. I think they had to develop special pictures for him too.”

“Don’t bet against him,” Geffen cautioned. “He’s very single-minded and he’s a very hard worker. He’ll get it done.”

Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, is among the top producers who is reportedly trying to develop a film project for Jackson.

Meanwhile, Dileo said he and Jackson are prepared to wait until a suitable film comes along.

“There are a lot of artists who have chosen to do scripts that they shouldn’t have done,” Dileo said. “It’s like a good poker game. You can afford to wait it out ’til it’s right.”

Relaxing over a pot of coffee in a hotel suite, the soft-spoken Dileo said that the “Bad” tour, which encompassed 123 shows in 15 countries, is still something of a blur to him. The tour may well be the most expensive ever mounted, in large part because of Jackson’s insistence on playing only three shows a week and resting the other four days. Dileo kept all the musicians and crew members on salary for the entire week, resulting in a weekly “nut” of between $500,000 and $650,000.

The “Bad” album has sold more than 6 million copies in this country, and is the only album in pop history to generate five No. 1 singles.

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-01-27/entertainment/ca-1672_1_michael-jackson/2

Finally in 1990, which was eight years after their first talk about going into the movies, the so-called Project M to allegedly make a Peter Pan film emerged, which looked like a perfect proposition for Michael and his most coveted dream come true. Jeffrey Katzenberg was pronounced its initiator and producer, the project was made secret (for some reason) and was disclosed by Craviotto in her book only 21 years later, and there was no mention of Geffen’s involvement.

But since Geffen was specially retained by Michael to find a suitable movie for him how can we believe that he had nothing to do with this Project M? It is simply impossible! And considering that the first and only meeting over that movie project took place on the Universal Pictures studio premises where Geffen had his office then, the chances that he was attending it are practically 100%, even though Craviotto never mentions it – which effectively points to which side she is on.

In contrast to that there is nothing to confirm that Steven Spielberg was there – except Craviotto’s word of course, which is a dubious source considering her agenda and all the half-lies and half-truths she told us earlier (see the previous posts for that).

Well, so what does all of it boil down to?

The way I understand it, it is highly likely that the big meeting described by Craviotto was held by two close friends – Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen (and not Spielberg), and it is them who inspired Michael Jackson with a secret Peter Pan movie – secret because no one was supposed to know as it was actually a fraud.

They must have promised to get Spielberg for the project, and this is why Michael was so worried during his sessions with Craviotto whether Spielberg would or wouldn’t like his ideas about the movie – this alone suggests that he didn’t have direct contact with Spielberg and couldn’t discuss it with him personally.

In fact, it may well turn out that Spielberg was not even aware of the plan. Remember that the project was “secret”, maybe even for those who were to implement it, and that our Operator is reported to be an easy liar who has no qualms about inventing things.

When Spielberg started working on ‘Hook’ the same year, he called MJ and explained that it was a different version of Peter Pan where Michael could have only a very small role. Having all those great expectations Michael was mortally offended and surely not interested. All the blame for the collapse of Project M rested with Spielberg while the well-intentional Geffen looked like a loyal friend who was “always standing” by Michael, even when that terrible Spielberg so terribly betrayed him.

And though the above is only a hypothesis you will agree that it is explains a lot and is very much in line with general Geffen’s style as described in his biography by Tom King and other sources.

WHY?

Now what could be the reasons for that scam?

The most obvious reason was to keep Michael Jackson “happy” – this idea was mentioned by Craviotto too often to be just a random thought. Keeping a client happy is a regular method employed in Hollywood for placating their stars in order to have a grip over them and stop them from leaving for a rival.

In fact Geffen and Katzenberg pursued the same policy towards Spielberg himself while they were still partners in their DreamWorks enterprise.

“…Keep Steven Happy was the unwritten rule at DreamWorks, and the reason Geffen and Katzenberg pursued ideas and ventures even when they felt they were ill-advised”

Another obvious reason was that eight years after Geffen first promised movies to Michael he simply had to produce something to justify his presence in Michael’s life and forge his friendship with him.

But a less obvious reason is that it could be a fact-finding mission on the part of Craviotto. She could be assigned to meet Jackson to discuss the concept of a Peter Pan movie and listen to his thoughts on eternal boyhood with a side goal to find something “wrong” about him while observing him in the company of his child friends.

At least this is the only way I explain why Craviotto so readily rushed to Hollywood to spread nasty rumours about Michael the very next morning she saw at his place the so-called Andrew from New Zealand (real name: Wade Robson from Australia) in the company of someone called Buddy (real name: Buz Kohan, a renowned producer and writer, father of three and long-time friend of Michael Jackson).

All readers of Craviotto’s book found her actions and sudden innuendoes about MJ at the very end of the book extremely strange – yes, it was late in the evening, but a boy listening to the final script, eating pizza and then falling asleep in Michael’s condo in the presence of three adults was absolutely nothing to worry about, however the very next morning she rushed to Hollywood exclaiming “How does Hollywood not know about it?”

But if one of the big ideas of that project was finding something that would confirm, say, the project initiators’ suspicions about Michael, everything would fit in. For several weeks she met Jackson and heard from him nothing incriminating, though the story of Peter Pan and his companions was clearly a provocative subject, but as soon as she saw a boy at Michael’s place she immediately rushed to report it to her Hollywood mentors. In these circumstances it did look like a triumphant final note: “Here it is! I’ve found it!”

And not that these Hollywood people would have minded it that much, even if the nasty story had been true (it was not). We have heard so many reports about rampant pedophilia in Hollywood raging there in the 90s and other times, that no one there would have been shocked by the alleged crimes against children attributed to Jackson. Their goal could easily be just gathering information on Jackson to confirm what they were thinking about him anyway. And then keep this information just in case.

So Wade Robson was the boy the anti-Jackson campaign began with and the first Hollywood started buzzing about. He was their first and favourite target who was constantly provoked to “come clean” about Jackson.

Not that it justifies Robson’s behavior now, but having to live with that label and facing queer looks and stifled laughs throughout his life can make almost anyone a little kooky and lose touch with reality. And it is no coincidence that history made a full circle and for lack of anyone else the initiators of that project had to return to Robson – he was their best “victim” all along and someone they always had in mind.

Incidentally, the fact that Robson was their leading hopeful perfectly fits in with information from Victor Gutierrez for whom Robson was the most sought-after boy on that list of Michael’s child friends which this unknown newcomer from Chile received from some American source soon after his arrival in the US.

In his book Gutierrez is openly telling us that he was spreading toxic rumors (he calls it “information”) about Jackson for several years before the first Jordan Chandler’s allegations and while making rounds of all children in Michael’s vicinity he was specifically looking for Wade Robson. The search took him five months until he finally saw him quite by chance in 1992 on the Venice beach in California impersonating Jackson. This is when he interviewed the eleven-year old Robson and his mother Joy, who were amazed to hear his nasty stories about MJ and instead of cooperating with Gutierrez reported him to Michael’s team as Gutierrez complains in his book.

Actually when describing his so-called “interview” with Joy Robson where, following his usual method, Gutierrez spilled a lot of dirt on Jackson, he said:

“She silently listened as I told her about the cases involving other young boys and about the several statements made in Hollywood about Jackson’s sexual preferences for boys”.

Statements made in Hollywood about Jackson?

How come we never noticed that the toxic rumors spread by Gutierrez were actually coming from Hollywood (and not police sources, for example)?  And is it where he got his list in the first place? And was it someone in Hollywood who gave him the task (and paid for it) to make rounds of all those children and smear Michael Jackson?

In any case by now it is clear that the campaign of Michael Jackson’s character assassination is simply inseparable from Hollywood and some of its people.

• Gutierrez refers to certain statements made in Hollywood about Jackson…
• A child manager from Hollywood advises the Santa Barbara sheriffs about Jackson and then turns out to be a pedophile who molested Corey Feldman… is never followed by the police….
• The dentist Evan Chandler working with Hollywood stars and dreaming of a career in Hollywood says about his allegations against Michael Jackson: “Everything is going according to a certain plan that isn’t just mine. There’re other people involved.” See his secretly taped telephone conversation for that…
• Craviotto runs to her Hollywood bosses to spill her innuendoes about Michael as soon as she sees a boy in his presence …
• Michael’s haters bombard us with their hate stories about MJ based on what they claim to be their exclusive “sources in Hollywood” …

In other words wherever you go it is Hollywood, Hollywood and Hollywood again. And this mud-slinging campaign against Jackson is taking place against the background of real crimes against children which are effectively hushed up there, are rarely reported and investigated, and if someone is caught red-handed and does get a sentence they are often welcomed back as if nothing happened…

This alone is enough to make your head spin.

HOLLYWOOD KNOWS THE TRUTH

While a certain part of Hollywood is surely working against Jackson, it is also obvious that the rest of it knows the truth about Michael Jackson’s innocence, but is afraid to raise its voice and speak up.

In 2004 Buz Kohan, Michael Jackson’s friend and collaborator, the one who was derogated in Craviotto’s book, wrote a poem for Michael Jackson and sent it to him to assure him of his support and let him know that he loved and cared for his friend during the most difficult time of his life.

The poem is exceptionally insightful and heartwarming and it provided the help to Michael he critically needed at the time when he was fighting his lone fight.

But what is also characteristic about that gesture of support was that the poem was sent privately, with no one else knowing about it … however in the face of so much evil it would probably be asking too much to expect such empathy to be displayed openly.

This remarkable video presentation of the powerful Buz Kohan’s poem will remind us of the anguish Michael had to live in and will make many of us tearful.

A poem dedicated to MJ by Buz Kohan

“Buz” Kohan was born in New York in August 1993. He is an award-winning producer, writer, and composer. Among his many credits are working on “Jackson Family Honors”, “Going Back to Indiana”, “Motown 25”, “You Were There” – Sammy Daivd Jr.’s 60^th Birthday Celebration, the 1993 Presidential Inaugural Gala, and too many others to mention.

He also co-wrote and co-composed “Gone Too Soon”, which most people know Michael sand on behalf of Ryan White, who dies of AIDS in the 1980s. Buz remembers a living gift Michael gave to him in appreciation for a poem Buz wrote for Michael. It was a poem that let Michael know that Buz understood the anguish he was suffering during a difficult time in his life.

REMEMBRANCE’

Big storm blowing

Danger growing

Wind coming up from

Every side

Air is filled with

Flying objects

No relief

No place to hide

Fury follows

Shaking, breaking

Taking charge

Complete control

Whirling, swirling,

All around me

Trying to

Destroy my soul

All so senseless

I’m defenseless

Caught in a frenzy

Whipped and tossed

Pushed and shoved and

Smashed and bashed

When all is chaos

All is lost

More harsh raids

Resistance fades

I am alone,

Wind-blown and beat

Wind, you win

I must give in now

In disgrace, I

Face defeat

Then, from way off

In the distance

There comes a tiny

Shaft of light

Growing brighter

Growing lighter

Shining through the

Endless night

From a tiny

Ray of sunshine

There comes a brilliant

Amber glow

Touching all that

Comes before it

As I watch it

Grow and grow

With the sunlight

Comes the voices

All getting louder

More intense

Speaking to me

Pain and anguish

Let the healing

Now commence

Let the truth

Emerge before us

Let all the lies be

Drowned in shame

Let the storm

At last disperse

To clear the air and

Clear my name

You, my friends

You all sustain me

There to defend when

I’m attacked

You restore my

Faith and courage

When the mirror

Has been cracked

You surround me

With your passion

Guiding my steps when

I’m unsure

Through your love I’m

Wrapped in sunlight

Once again I

Feel secure

For your faith, I

Make this promise

I shall not fail your

Trust, I swear

No disaster

Can destroy me

Long as I know

How much you care

Long as I know

Your love

Is

There.

Buz Kohan said about his poem:

This poem I wrote for Michael back in 2004, when he was going through a very difficult time. I sent it and a day or two later a messenger came to my door to give me a big bag of gifts. I was about to sign the shipping, when he said that there was more. He returned with a large metal object that seemed to be chirping. I thought, how nice, someone’s sent one of those mechanical birds, but when I uncapped the cloth that covered it, I realize that there were no mechanical birds, but two beautiful white doves or pigeons and they were very much alive.

Together with the birds was a lovely and heartfelt note thanking me for the poem and telling me that he had been touched by it. Also, there was a book about exotic birds and bird food for an entire year.

I took the box with the birds to the yard and named them “Billie Jean” and “Bad”.

One night an animal that roamed the house attacked “Bad”, and I thought that being so close, soon Billie Jean would die with a broken heart. As a tribute to his indomitable spirit, “Billie Jean” continues chirping five years later.

Keep on singing, sweet bird.

Sadly Michael never had the opportunity to sit with me to put music to the poem and I’ve just kept it in my files. I hope it can send an inspirational message to the world …. something that Michael always tried to do with his music, his charity, and his life.

My friend Michael is gone too soon, but his light will never fade.

Rest easy, dear soul.

“Buzzie Wuzzie” (this is what Michael always called me)

What an astounding tribute to Michael Jackson, made as if for today! Given the ongoing efforts to still smear Michael’s name and rob him of his finances through various schemes and frivolous claims, even the present time is still difficult for Michael Jackson and will remain so until the truth finally emerges, lies are drowned in shame and the healing commences.

So let these words be our inspiration.

Let the truth emerge before us

Let all the lies be drowned in shame

Let the storm at last disperse

To clear the air and clear my name…

For the majority of us the most important periods in Michael Jackson’s life are 1993 and 2005 (for obvious reasons), while the year 1990 is always mentioned in passing, usually as the time when Michael finished his Bad tour and began working on the new songs for his next, Dangerous album.

My attention to the year 1990 was drawn quite by chance too, through Darlene Craviotto’s book, but after a good look it turned into a pivotal point in Michael Jackson’s life – a kind of a “before” and “after it” matter, the moment of crucial changes in the power play around Jackson which in its turn determined the course of the events that followed.

Everything that happened at the time is of importance, to a degree that some of the episodes require analysis on a day by day basis. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that this post will abound in quotes, documents and various characters acting in those days – it will be an effort to restore the real picture and fit each detail into its right place.

WALTER YETNIKOFF

MJ and Yetnikoff, President of CBS Records

The mega event Michael Jackson was participating in at that time, though probably being unaware of it, was the January 1988 acquisition of the CBS Records by Sony Inc. as a result of which Sony inherited MJ together with other hottest artists.

About two years later, in November of 1989 Sony also purchased Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc., one of the Big Six motion picture companies in the US.

The chief architect of both acquisitions was Walter Yetnikoff, president of the CBS Records who headed the company for 15 years (1975-1990).

In 1988, Yetnikoff engineered the sale of ‘the all-American company of all-American music’ to Akio Morita and Norio Ohga of Sony, aka ‘the Happy Japs’, with whom he had first forged a relationship two decades earlier.

At the time the media referred to Yetnikoff as “the most powerful man in the record industry”. In contrast, these days his contribution to the industry is rarely mentioned and seems to be forgotten altogether. At least when looking for information about CBS Records I haven’t been able to find as much as a Wiki page on CBS Records proper, not to mention the list of artists signed to this label under Yetnikoff, which is completely missing.

And it is only via the media reports of that period that we will be surprised to learn that besides Michael Jackson Yetnikoff’s name was also associated with Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, Billy Joel, Cyndi Lauper, the Beach boys, Michael Bolton, Meatloaf, Terence Trent D’Arby and many others, whose names are less familiar to me but are all-time music icons for the US audience – James Taylor, Boston, Men At Work, Marvin Gaye and others.

This huge roster of artists was one of the reasons why Sony paid to Yetnikoff a bonus of $20 million, the other reason being that it was due to his personal effort that this acquisition took place at all.

Yetnikoff’s boss Laurence Tisch was about to sell CBS to someone in the food industry (for $1.25 billion) which made the shocked Yetnikoff contact Michael Schulhof, then the highest-ranking American official at Sony, with a suggestion to buy CBS outright. A year later the deal was made.

Here are some details:

The Rolling Stone Interview: Walter Yetnikoff

By Fred Goodman

DECEMBER 15, 1988 The Most Powerful Man in the Record Business

In January of 1988, CBS Records – the largest record company in the world and the owner of the greatest catalog of original American music – was sold by CBS Inc. to the Sony Corporation of Japan for $2 billion. To retain the label’s key executives, Sony offered a sizable sum – reportedly $50 million – in bonuses. The chief beneficiary of Sony’s largess was the president and CEO of CBS Records, Walter R. Yetnikoff, who lobbied hard for the sale to Sony and whose share of the pot is said to be as much as $20 million. Yennikoff won’t divulge just how much Sony paid him, but he does allow that the Japanese firm has made him a rich man.

One might wonder why any record executive would be worth that kind of money. But Yetnikoff is in a position to guarantee something that perhaps no one else can: a roster of bona fide superstar talent. Record companies sell CDs, LPs and cassettes, but their true value is also based on something that no accountant can measure – the artists they have under contract. And Walter Yetnikoff, perhaps more than any other executive in the record industry, is very good at keeping big artists happy and under contract.

Michael Jackson has described Yetnikoff as “a friend and a true believer. In my years with CBS, he’s encouraged me to be my own man and to do the things that had to be done the way I had to do them.” Among the other CBS artists Yetnikoff counts as personal friends are Cyndi Lauper, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen.

Now fifty-five, the Brooklyn-born Yetnikoff is one of the record industry’s most colorful and outspoken executives. A graduate of Brooklyn College, he received his law degree in 1956 from Columbia University. After serving in the army and spending three years in private practice, Yetnikoff joined CBS Records in 1961 as a lawyer. He became president of the CBS Records Group – which includes the Columbia, Epic, Portrait and Associated labels –in 1975.

Pictures of CBS artists like Mick Jagger and Barbra Streisand decorate the wall over an immense stereo system. The wall behind his desk is practically a shrine to the label’s biggest-selling artist, Michael Jackson: there are platinum records for Thriller, a letter from Jackson thanking Yetnikoff for his help and an assortment of photographs of the singer. Leaning against one wall is a framed copy of the cover art for Bruce Springsteen album “Live: 1975-1985”. It is inscribed, “To Walter – The wildest man north of Asbury Park. Thanks for your friendship – Bruce.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-rolling-stone-interview-walter-yetnikoff-66907/

The inscription to “the wildest man” is appropriate. At the peak of his career Yetnikoff was indeed wild, incredibly wild. And on September 4, 1990 the retribution came – he was fired by Sony, after which the media turned relentless and remembered him all his flaws and sins.  He was described as a deranged alcohol and drug-addled egomaniac, “wild, menacing, crude, and, above all, very loud”, as a “brash, bumptious, foul-mouthed creature of outsize appetites: for deals, for booze, for women, for drugs” and much more of it.

In his book Howling at the Moon published in 2004 Yetnikoff admits all his sins and is disarmingly candid about everything he did. He says that “all hell broke loose” in 1975 when he was made President of the CBS Records. Then, according to Yetnikoff “a low-key, married father of two, morphed into a philandering egomaniacal monster who brazenly lived on the edge and flouted authority at every turn.”

”I’d come out of a coma around 7 or 8 a.m.,” he said, describing his daily routine as president of CBS Records from 1975 to 1990. ”By 9 I might have drunk a half a bottle of vodka. Then I would call someone at CBS, maybe the head of the network or accounting, and yell at them. I’d finally drag myself out of bed and get into the office around noon. The steward would immediately bring me a screwdriver.” Mr. Yetnikoff was referring to cocktails, not hardware.

At the urging of his doctor he checked into rehab in 1989, sobered up and discovered spirituality. After a stint at Hazelden [a clinic for drug and alcoholic dependence], he returned to CBS. A clearheaded Mr. Yetnikoff was not good for business.

”I would go into meetings and ask people to hold hands and say the serenity prayer,” he said laughing. ”It really freaked people out.”

The media says that Yetnikoff’s devilish humor and barbed tongue were legendary. He spoke his mind with no reverence for authority, never checked his tongue and even when working at CBS used to refer to his immediate boss as a “goy upstairs” [a Jewish derogatory name for a non-Jew] and to his next boss, the notorious cost-cutter Laurence Tisch as a “kike upstairs.”

“He liked to refer to former CBS chief Thomas Wyman as “the goy upstairs” and to Wyman’s successor, the frugal Laurence Tisch, with whom he feuded openly, as “the kike upstairs.”

Yetnikoff is also Jewish and according to Fredric Dannen’s book Hit Men it is his Brooklyn Jewishness that is the heart of his persona:

“He filled the air with Yiddish epithets. The heart of Yetnikoff’s persona was his Brooklyn Jewishness,” says Fredric Dannen in his book Hit Men – Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business. “An outsized number of label bosses were Jews from Brooklyn, but Walter wore his ethnicity like a gabardine. 

But despite Yetnikoff’s biting tongue and all his brashness his artists thought highly of him. What warmed them up to him was his honesty, frankness, fierce loyalty and a kind of a brotherly spirit.

“They thought of him as a sparring partner… The more outrageously he behaved – telling Cyndi Lauper she should come back “when your period’s finished”; summoning the Beach Boys, four years late with their new album, to his office for a talk that opened with the words, “Gentlemen, I think I’ve been fucked” – the more they loved him. He inspired them.<..> Michael Jackson called him his Good Daddy, meaning he’s so close to Yetnikoff, he thinks of him as the nice father he never had.   

Walter keeps his powder dry with Liza, Michael and Liz, sometime in the ’80s.

Yetnikoff said:

”I’ve gone out of my way to establish relationships with many artists, even the new ones” He chats them up by telephone, goes to their acts, visits them backstage. ”I go out more than I should, at my age. Sometimes I can’t believe the places I find myself.”

Show-business relationships are either very professional or very personal, Mr. Yetnikoff said, and personal is better. ”I sometimes feel like their shrink,” he said of his performers, ”their rabbi, priest, marriage counselor, banker. I know more about their personal lives than I’d like to know.” 

Yetnikoff’s style is inimitable – only he could praise Michael Jackson for his Thriller album the way Steve Knopper described it in his book “Appetite for Self-Destruction”:

With just months left in 1982, he gave Jackson and producer Quincy Jones a deadline: Finish a new album, and make it a blockbuster, by Christmas. They weren’t happy about having to rush, but they obeyed and finished the final Thriller mixes in a month. They turned them in to Epic Records, for release just before Thanksgiving.

“I told you I’d do it,” Jackson told Yetnikoff. “I told you I’d outdo Off the Wall.”

Yetnikoff responded: “You delivered. You delivered like a motherfucker.”

Jackson: “Please don’t use that word, Walter.”

Yetnikoff: “You delivered like an angel. Archangel Michael.”

Jackson: “That’s better. Now will you promote it?”

Yetnikoff: “Like a motherfucker.”

What made Yetnikoff special is that he understood the right of artists to be different and have the so-called “artistic temperament” which he appreciated even despite it being a difficulty.  In the above interview to the Rolling Stone he said that this temperament is exactly what makes artists unique and “being an artist means that you are not easy”.

What’s it like to work with Dylan? He has a reputation for being difficult.

Being an artist means you’re not easy. You are an original. Being a great artist means you’re different. Dylan’s not complicated. He’s moody … he’s Dylan. He’s not difficult at all; I don’t know where people get that impression. … in terms of being difficult to deal with, no, he happens to be a surprisingly nice guy. That doesn’t mean that I can tell Bob Dylan how to record. I’ve tried that – forget it.

Mottola, Bob Dylan and Yetnikoff

You have close relationships with many of your artists. What do you see as your role with CBS artists?

I think I have a heavier caseload than most psychiatrists. But you have to: this is the product. It doesn’t come off an assembly line, and it’s temperamental by definition. And it’s often difficult, because the touchstone of being a great artist is to be unique and original. Now, those who are unique and original, you don’t have a mold to deal with, because they’ve broken the mold. That’s what makes them good…. But when something is really serious. I have a big hammer.

I don’t know quite what my role is. While there are structures, and we have an organization, I am trying to change my approach to things, more like the mishpocheh theory. I don’t know how you are going to write that, but I have to do a little Yiddish. It means the extended family… You have to be sensitive to what is too easily called artistic temperament. It sounds like a negative thing, but it’s not. The artist must have artistic temperament in order to be an artist, because you can’t have an M.B.A.’s temperament and be an artist. How can you be a performing artist if you don’t have ego?

The NY Times likened Yetnikoff to an anxious Jewish mother nurturing and bullying his performers, and a short Wiki article on Yetnikoff says that he was fiercely loyal to his artists and was their strong advocate.

“Billy Joel speaks of how Yetnikoff bought back Joel’s publishing rights and gave them to him as a birthday present. Yetnikoff notes that he had to threaten Artie Ripp to close the deal. 

Also, when MTV first declined to air the music video to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean“, Yetnikoff charged the relatively new cable channel’s executives with racism and threatened to pull all of CBS’ material off the station.

Of course, when standing up for his artists Yetnikoff was also thinking of better promotion of the company’s “product” and more profits for it, but there is no denying that he was also ready to rise to any challenge on their behalf and take risks even at the cost of his career.

However soon after the Sony acquisition all of it came to an abrupt end.

THE POWER GRAB

The event that took place in 1990 is called by Steve Knopper “a monumental power grab” which shaped Sony’s policy for more than a dozen years after that (until 2003):

“What Yetnikoff didn’t know was that an old friend, hyper-ambitious Thomas D. Mottola Jr., was quietly consolidating his power at CBS, positioning himself to take over the moment Yetnikoff slipped. Given Yetnikoff’s drug-and-alcohol problems and his increasing lack of public discretion, Mottola and his allies felt certain that time was coming—soon. It would be a monumental power grab, one that would shape the way Sony’s music companies, Epic and Columbia, would operate for more than a dozen years.”

(from “Appetite for Self-Destruction”)

Allen Grubman, 1988

Yetnikoff made friends with Tommy Mottola in 1977 after being introduced to him by lawyer Allen Grubman.

The Vanity Fair article headlined “Tommy boy”, published in November 1996 and then disappearing from public view (the only place it is available now is here) explains how the three of them were brought together. It gives us the first feel of what the Mottola and Grubman pair was like.

We enter the story at the moment when Mottola signed the duo Hall and Oates to his budding management company, in a deal drawn up by his lawyer friend Grubman. As a result of the deal Mottola was soon driving in a limo with Grubman seated beside him while “the best-selling pop-rock duo of all time had to borrow $250,000 to pay their taxes”:

With Tommy disbursing the funds and overseeing the accounting, what had become the best-selling pop-rock duo of all time had to borrow $250 000 to pay their taxes. …Tommy, though was cruising Broadway, good pal Allen in the Limo seat beside him. They were a strange duo: Tommy always toned the Bronx tale slick; Allen usually fat and sloppy. Ambition, though, they had in common.

…Tommy and Allen had acquired a new best friend. That was CBS records chairman Walter Yetnikoff, boss of what was at that time the largest music company on the planet <>It was his liking for characters with similar backgrounds (Brooklyn-bred, Jewish, up from the streets) that bonded Yetnikoff to Grubman, who introduced him to Tommy. That friendship soon took off, and in 1977, CBS announced a production deal with Champion Entertainment.

At that point a problem arose – when Mottola went into business with CBS he neglected to inform about it his parent company RCA, which was home to the acts he was managing. It was Yetnikoff who got him out of the trouble – and Mottola realized that if Yetnikoff was a friend he was really a friend.

When RCA president Bob Summer pointed this out, Tommy went to Yetnikoff, who let him out of the deal. “From that point on.” Tommy told journalist Frederic Dannen, “I knew the kind of guy Walter was. If he was your friend he was really and truly your friend.”

They were all friends. Or so, for a long time, it seemed.

Knowing he could count on Grubman to keep the artists in line, Yetnikoff steered the attorney more and more acts. <>Allen Grubman, Esq., happened to do legal work for CBS Records as well. Was there a conflict of interest? Not for Grubman, who collected a $750 000 fee.

The above is an interesting detail – so Allen Grubman represented the interests of artists signed with CBS and simultaneously did legal work for the company too? This looks like a gross conflict of interest and when Grubman became Michael Jackson’s lawyer, replacing Branca in 1990, the same pattern was repeated – he negotiated Michael’s new deal with Sony/CBS while at the same time being the company’s legal consultant.

The rest of the “Tommy boy” story is a summary of the intricate events that followed.

In 1988 Yetnikoff promoted Mottola to the post of President responsible for the domestic US labels, replacing veteran Al Teller, who was a Harvard MBA (“not the most loved guy, but he liked music”, as his associates said). In this deal Mottola was also represented by his lawyer friend Allen Grubman, and though this was a conflict of interest again, apparently Yetnikoff trusted Grubman or Mottola, or both of them so much that he didn’t mind.

Mottola’s appointment boggled the industry. “Tommy boy” says about it:

 “Walter could have done better by opening the L.A. phone book and choosing at random,” one manager was quoted as saying.

 The news also brought a quick call to Sony from a CBS corporate officer. “Do you know this guy has a Mafia background?” a senior executive quotes the CBS man as saying. “What are you doing tainting this wonderful company you just bought from us with a guy who has a background that could make the F.B.I cringe?”

Rattled Sony contacted the F.B.I. director William Sessions, requesting a quiet background check. The response was a qualified O.K. ‘The F.B.I. said, ‘No this guy is not somebody who will start dealing with people we should worry about, but he has friends who do,” says a former senior executive at Sony. “We said as long as he’s clean, we won’t worry.” And that was the basis on which we didn’t.”

Aware of the probe, Tommy quickly began assembling a coterie of executives loyal to himself.

…however, Walter got distracted: first by a month-long drying out at Minnesota’s Hazelden clinic, then by his role in the arrangements for bad boy producers Peter Guber and Jon Peters to take the helm of Sony’s latest acquisition, Columbia Pictures. During those negotiations, which wound up costing Sony $800 million in assorted payouts and contract settlements, the newly sober Yetnikoff managed to alienate nearly everyone, most fatefully his Japanese bosses, who packed him back to the record company.

In his absence, the company had become a different place. “This is my team; these are my people,” Tommy bragged. The new hires were his people. Schulhof knew of his ambitions -“Tommy,” he says, “has always been power-hungry”- and knew as well that a number of industry figures were assisting in furthering them. By far the most formidable was David Geffen, the billionaire record impresario and implacable Yetnikoff foe.

More than once Geffen had urged Schulhof to get rid of Yetnikoff, and Geffen also urged Michael Jackson, Yetnikoff’s most prized act to leave CBS. Jackson was unwilling to do that but did drop several key members of his entourage closely identified with Yetnikoff.In their place, he installed figures tightly linked to Geffen. Notable among them was an attorney Tommy had recommended to David years before, Allen Grubman.

The last two paragraphs explain why the original Vanity Fair article disappeared from public view (though Maureen Orth’s series defaming Michael Jackson is still on a proud display there) and is available now only in its reprinted version.

“Tommy Boy” was written not by the regular Vanity Fair staff but by a contributing author Robert Sam Anson. Apparently, the editors chose to remove this contribution from their archives not to draw attention to the fact that it wasn’t only Mottola who put a hand to Yetnikoff’s fall, but there were other forces assisting him and the most formidable of them was David Geffen.

As it turns out Geffen considered Yetnikoff his implacable foe and regularly pressed Schulhof to get rid of him, and also urged Michael Jackson to leave CBS.

Getting rid of Yetnikoff did not necessarily mean that it was also necessary for Michael to leave CBS. Though related to each other, these were clearly different Geffen’s ideas and therefore should be regarded separately.

STIFF RIVALRY

Why did Geffen want Michael to leave CBS? A brief answer to that is because he wanted Michael Jackson for himself and his company Geffen Records.

In addition to Geffen’s personal ambitions such a transition would have been perfectly in line with the stiff rivalry between Warner Bros. Records and CBS. Together they controlled about 50% of the records industry and the share of each was constantly changing. In 1984 CBS prevailed, most probably due to Thriller’s smashing success, while in 1989 the situation was the reverse.

The NY Times reported the details (please note that it is only from articles like these that we learn what artists were signed to CBS Records under Yetnikoff and that he was indeed “the king of records” then).

THE KING OF RECORDS AT CBS

By SANDRA SALMANS

January 22, 1984

CBS Records is the largest of the American record operations – it had a 22 percent market share last year [1983], followed by Warner Communications with 19 percent, according to a report by F. Eberstadt & Company “ – is enjoying the most dramatic upturn.

Many of the brightest stars in the recording business’s firmament are at CBS Records. The most radiant, of course, is Michael Jackson. But the roster also includes former Beatle Paul McCartney, Men at Work, Quiet Riot, Bonnie Tyler, Billy Joel, Culture Club – an English group whose sound Mr. Yetnikoff cheerfully characterized last year as ”transvestite rock” – and Barbra Streisand, whose new movie, ”Yentl,” spawned a top-ranked album.

THOSE luminaries and others put CBS firmly at the top of the charts last year: The record group boasted 4 of the top 10 albums, and 5 of the top 10 singles. And last summer, Mr. Yetnikoff moved to strengthen CBS’s grip on the stars by signing up the Rolling Stones in a multiple-album, multimillion-dollar deal.

And somewhere in the future, the CBS Records president suggests, there could be a CBS movie starring Michael Jackson. ”Who could be more perfect for a movie,” Mr. Yetnikoff asks rhetorically, ”and who has as good a relationship with him?”

 But five years later, in 1989 the Warner Music Group was prevailing over CBS Records. The same NY Times reported that one of the reasons was the structure of the company – it had four records divisions, each competing with each other to bring talent and two more labels to distribute.

Geffen Records was one of them – smaller than the others, but extremely ambitious, so no wonder Geffen was courting Michael Jackson and trying to lure him away from CBS.

A Cold Spell for CBS Records

By GERALDINE FABRIKANT

May 17, 1989

….suddenly CBS Records is, in record industry terms, ”cold.” A little more than a year  after the Sony Corporation bought the company for $2 billion, its established artists are not producing as many hit records and it is has not come up with enough hot young artists to keep its lead in the industry.

CBS’s market share is spiraling downward. According to data compiled by Warner Communications Inc. from Billboard, the industry trade paper, over the last 52 weeks Warner Records has had 41.2 percent of the top 20 albums and CBS has had just 19 percent.

Some people in the industry think that part of CBS’s problem stems from the company’s corporate structure. Under Mr. Yetnikoff, CBS has tended to be run from the top down. And it has had just two major record labels, Columbia Records and Epic/ Portrait/CBS Associated. Each is run by a senior vice president for marketing and a senior vice president for artists and repetoire. Both executives reported to Al Teller, the former president of the division. Mr. Teller in turn reported to Mr. Yetnikoff. A lawyer by training, Mr. Yetnikoff was responsible in many cases for courting and signing top artists.

At Warner, by contrast, the men who run the three main labels are all powers in their own right: Ahmet Ertegun, the founder of Atlantic Records, Mo Ostin the founder of Warner Brothers Records, and Robert Krasnow, the chairman of Elektra.  Warner also distributes records by the Geffen Company led by David Geffen. The Guns ‘N Roses album is a Geffen release. The company also releases albums from Island Records and Virgin Records.

Warner has a much more decentralized structure, analysts say. That means generally that it has more artist and repertoire people: executives whose job it is to discover, nurture, and promote talent. As Mr. Azoff put it: ”At Warner there are Warner, Elektra, Atlantic and Geffen. There are four staffs and four major executives all competing for talent.”

Would Michael Jackson have been happier if he had left CBS/Sony as Geffen urged him to? Especially if he had signed with David Geffen as the latter apparently wanted?

Hardly so. George Michael tried it in 1992 after losing his lawsuit against Sony and leaving the company with a bang.

At the time Geffen ‘rescued’ his career by allegedly offering a check for $30 million to buy the artist out, and signing him with his own Dreamworks SKG (to manufacture and distribute his records in the US) and Virgin (to handle the rest of the world) which was a label also distributed by Warner.

As it could easily be expected, later it turned out that the many-million Geffen contribution to George Michael’s career was somewhat an embellishment:

It becomes clear that Virgin will pay more than Geffen, as it stands to make more from the new deal: the profitability in Virgin’s territories are greater per unit than Geffen’s, as record pricing more competitive in United States.

George Michael with Al Teller and Walter Yetnikoff of CBS Records

Throughout his dispute with Sony, Michael had maintained that his complaint was never about money; he had pleaded in court that he already had “more money than I know what to do with”. His beef was always about creative control, musical direction, mutual understanding between artist and multinational conglomerate.

Sony offers to talk again, but George Michael says the situation is irreversible.

Indeed, George Michael’s campaign against Sony was not about money. The trigger that reportedly set him off was a certain incident when then Sony chief Don Ienner allegedly called the artist “a faggot”. Ienner said it was not true and the remark could easily be a rumor sent racing around by someone who wanted George Michael for himself – a possibility that cannot be ruled out considering the usual modus operandi of the character we are dealing with here.

Whatever the case, eleven years later, in 2003 George Michael returned to Sony and signed with the same Ienner, and was welcomed back. The media had little or nothing to say about George Michael’s experience with Dreamworks SKG and Virgin labels. The only information I’ve found is that he regretted going to war with Sony and also made this somewhat enigmatic statement about his stint with David Geffen:

“He told friends that it did not matter that he had signed with Geffen, run by a prominent gay executive and founder David Geffen, because the music industry functioned as an old boys’ club, its contracts based on those used to tie stars to studios.” “It was part of the reason he turned his back on America,” recalls Kim Bowen, a close friend of the singer. 

To me this cryptic comment sounds like George Michael being disappointed with his cooperation with Geffen, so whether gay or not gay, the terms for the artist there must have been the same or even worse, considering that he chose to go back to the studio on which he had once slammed the door.

The reasons why even the biggest stars signed to Geffen’s label were not quite happy with the experience are rare to find as the internet has been apparently cleaned of the most dramatic episodes, but time and again you can come across an occasional piece.

Have a look at this one, for example, which is an extract from Barney Hoskyns’s book Hotel California. According to the author Geffen was on a hunt for the most significant artists, but not so much because he cared about the music but because he was “in the David Geffen business.”

Barry Diller, Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson and David Geffen at Liza Minelli’s post-concert party

Same as the late Geffen’s biographer Tom King who was stunned by Geffen’s ability to lie, this author also speaks of him as a “ruthless schemer” and the truth being “invariably the first victim of his insatiable need to win”.

Geffen’s method is described as earning the trust of artists and their inner circle and then waging war on everybody else.

Sex, drugs and the billion-dollar rise of David Geffen

By Barney Hoskyns 

18 November 2005

“I quickly figured out that the one ability I’d better have is to create relationships,” Geffen says of his time in the William Morris mail room. With chutzpah, David figured he could beat just about anyone at the entertainment game. The key, though, was to earn the trust of an inner circle of artists and then wage war on everybody else.

An early victim of Geffen’s ruthlessness was Paul Rothchild, who’d produced the first CSN demos but was unceremoniously squeezed out of the frame before recording began. “That was the beginning of the end of the love groove in American music,” Rothchild says. “When David Geffen enters the California waters as a manager, the sharks have entered the lagoon.”

…From their adjoining offices at 9130 Sunset Boulevard Geffen and Elliot Roberts built their musical empire with remorseless drive. Geffen left Roberts to massage the egos of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Mitchell and company and instead concentrated on the next phase of empire-building: launching his own label.

Together, they plotted their route to world domination. Crucial to their strategy was the creation of an insulated élite, a pampered aristocracy of Geffen’s significant artists. ….Now this short, slim New Yorker was running rings around everybody in the business. It was a wake-up call for anyone growing lazy and complacent. “If you want to talk about what happened to the LA scene in the 1970s you can sum it up with one name,” says David Anderle. “David Geffen happened. All of us stopped smoking pot and got serious.”

… Handsomely backed by Steve Ross and Mo Ostin, Geffen Records took off slowly, with flops by Elton John and Donna Summer. But Geffen parlayed his friendship with John Lennon into a deal that paid off handsomely after the ex-Beatle was shot dead in December 1980.

…”At some point David said, ‘I’m not really the finder of talent any more,'” says Mel Posner, who headed up Geffen’s international department. “He said, ‘Let’s get the best people.’ That’s what he did. Over the ensuing decade, the troika of talent-finders would bring a host of multi-platinum artists – from Cher and Aerosmith to Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana – to Geffen. Yet he himself managed to antagonise the very Reprise/Asylum artists (Young, Mitchell, Henley) who’d brought him such success in the 1970s.

…When Young’s and Mitchell’s albums failed to sell, “David started feeling real pressure,” Elliot Roberts recalls. Infamously, Geffen in 1983 took the unprecedented step of suing Young for making “musically uncharacteristic” records. This time he made a foe not only of Young but of Roberts, his oldest ally. “It ended our friendship,” Roberts says.

Mitchell, meanwhile, blamed her commercial failure on Geffen, alleging that he’d failed to pay her publishing royalties. On at least one occasion the former Bel Air housemates got into a screaming match in Geffen’s office, with Joni demanding to be released from her contract. “If I didn’t talk to her for the rest of my life,” Geffen bluntly told his biographer Tom King, “I wouldn’t miss her for a minute.”

“David Geffen used to care about music,” [his other client] Don Henley said sourly. “But he’s not in the record business any more. He’s in the David Geffen business.”

Now that we know what Michael Jackson missed when he didn’t give in to Geffen’s urge to sign with his label and lost the chance to be added to his “aristocracy of artists” roster, it is time to ask the second question – why did Geffen want to get rid of Yetnikoff and more than once urge Schulhof to fire him?

THE REMARK

To find out why Geffen considered Yetnikoff his implacable foe let us resort to the scarce information still available to us despite the obvious effort to erase its last traces.

The Hit Men by Fredric Dannen (first published on July 7, 1990) says:

Apart from his falling-out with Grubman, Walter made an even more tragic mistake – he aroused the rage of David Geffen. 

…Geffen was vengeful and used to getting what he wanted. And shortly after Walter’s release from Hazelden what Geffen wanted most was a Michael Jackson single for the movie Days of Thunder, since his records company was going to put out the soundtrack album. When Jackson declined to write an original song for the movie, Geffen agreed to settle for an outtake from the Bad album – a cover of John Lennon’s “Come Together.”

The trouble was, Walter did not agree that Geffen could have the recording. Worse, his method of delivering the bad news was crude even by Walter’s standards. <> Yetnikoff had occasionally made sarcastic references over the years about Geffen’s bisexuality, but never to his face.

Now, on the phone with Geffen Records president Eric Eisner, Yetnikoff was screaming about Geffen’s attempts to secure the Jackson single [and] also told Eisner that he would compensate Geffen handsomely if he would give Yetnikoff”s new girlfriend lessons in fellatio. Geffen was not amused in the slightest. This was war.

Geffen began to explore a course of action that, if successful, would surely damage Walter’s professional standing. If he couldn’t get a Michael Jackson single, could he get Michael Jackson himself? As Geffen was well aware, the singer’s recording pact with CBS had been negotiated under California law, which provides that contracts can be abrogated after seven years – an amount of time that had already expired in Jackson’s case…

Yetnikoff, DiLeo and MJ

The signer’s former manager, Frank DiLeo, a diehard Yetnikoff loyalist, might have saved the day for Walter.

But he had been let go in early 1989, partly at Geffen’s urging. DiLeo had not been replaced. Instead, his role was filled by Jackson’s lawyer of more than a decade, John Branca.

Branca was very much Walter’s man and therefore an obstacle between Geffen and Jackson. Geffen had never had much love for Branca. Despite Branca’s presence, however, it seemed that Jackson was increasingly willing to take his cue from Geffen.

… Jackson replaced Branca with a manager and three attorneys. The manager, Sandy Gallin, happened to be one of Geffen’s closest friends. For publishing, Jackson now used Lee Phillips – Geffen’s West Coast attorney. For litigation, he hired Bert Fields, who was also Geffen’s litigator. For records, he retained Allen Grubman. <> According to Rolling Stone, when he learned that Jackson had hired Grubman, “Walter went crazy.”

…Rumor of Michael Jackson’s possible defection to Geffen Records had presumably reached Sony’s ears by now. As it turned out, however, Geffen had already concluded that he could not pull it off. Bert Fields had delivered the bad news. True, under California’s seven-year statute, Jackson could break his CBS contract. But he still owed CBS four albums. Whoever signed him could be sued for the estimated combined earnings of those albums – a sum greater than the gross national product of Uganda.

…On September 4, 1990 Sony announced that Walter Yetnkioff was leaving his post. After fifteen years as head of CBS Records, Yetnikoff’s reign as “king of grooves” was over. It had fallen apart with astonishing swiftness. In one year of sobriety, Walter had turned on, or been turned on by, many of his closest friends in the business: Geffen, Grubman, Guber, Landau, Mottola, and Schulhof.

As usual, David Geffen was among the first to learn the news. He reportedly telephoned Irving Azoff, with whom he now maintained a truce. “Ding dong the witch is dead,” Geffen said.

The above gives us the general idea of what happened. So the feud presumably started with Michael’s Come Together record, which Geffen wanted for his soundtrack album to Tom Cruise’s movie, but Yetnikoff refused him. And when Yetnikoff added that vulgar sexual remark real war began.

However it also looks like Geffen started his maneuvers from afar, by first urging Michael to fire his manager Frank DiLeo (in 1989) and later dealing with John Branca who temporarily filled in as Michael’s manager, and who was Yetnikoff’s ally and another obstacle between Geffen and Jackson.

In any case if the issue was only the revenge, it means that in order to resolve his personal problem with Yetnikoff Geffen removed the two people who had been working with Michael for many years and contributed to his success. What a massive approach to one’s revenge…

In search for more detail let us see what Yetnikoff says about the same episode. His book Howling at the Moon amazes you by its supreme honesty which is often extremely damaging to his own self, so it is impossible to doubt his word when he says that he refused Geffen because Michael first promised the record to Geffen, but later changed his mind.

Yetnikoff describes the incident as nothing much, as an almost routine problem to settle between his morning screwdriver (a cocktail) and his business with Mick Jagger. It was also a chance for him to bite Geffen which Yetnikoff didn’t mind taking. And in that context even the vulgar sexual remark looked like his usual teasing banter and a mindless joke.

The ringing wouldn’t stop, so I schlepped back inside and picked up the phone. I couldn’t mistake the high-pitched voice of Michael Jackson.

”Walter,” he said. “I’m in a helicopter flying over Long Island.”

“You with the monkey?”

“Bubbles is back in California. This is important, Walter. David Geffen just called. He’s producing the soundtrack for Tom Cruise’s new movie, Days of Thunder. He wants to use one of my songs. And I don’t want him to. But I told him yes.”

“Why did you say yes when you wanted to say no?”

“Well, you know Geffen…”

“Too well. I once proposed marriage to him.”

“You what?”

“I’m kidding, Michael. I’m kidding.”

“Anyway, I couldn’t tell him no, but I want you to. I don’t want my music in that movie. My music’s is getting spread too thin.”

“Fine, Michael. I’ll tell him no.”

“But I don’t want him to know that I’m saying no. I don’t want him mad at me. I’m saying yes. You’re saying no.”

“So he should get furious with me?”

“You like it when people get furious at you.”

Michael wasn’t entirely wrong. Besides, the King of Pop was right even when he was wrong. In this case, Geffen had been working behind my back to get Michael’s ear. Once a friend, soon to be a nemesis, Geffen spent all his waking hours manipulating the fortune of famous artists. Fuck Geffen. I welcomed the chance to burn his bitchy ass.

“Anything else, Michael?” I asked, my head throbbing.

“When are you coming back to Neverland?”

“When you get rid of the zoo. Your peacocks hate me. They are jealous.”

…“You’ll talk to Geffen?”

“I’ll talk to Geffen.”

“And you’ll make the soundtrack problem go away…”

“Like magic.”

 ….the goddamn phone wouldn’t stop ringing.  [David Geffen] was calling from Malibu. Just what I needed.

“Walter,” he said. ”I spoke with Michael this morning…”       

“You’ve spoken with everyone this morning,” I told him. “You get up at five in the morning and start calling the world. I must be your fiftieth call. I thought I was important, but I didn’t even make your top ten…”

“Don’t start it with me, Walter.”

The screwdriver arrived. Thank God.

“Michael said I could use a song on the Days of Thunder soundtrack,” Geffen continued.

“Forget about it.”

“What do you mean, forget about it?”

“It’s not going to happen.”

“What are you talking about? Michael himself agreed. Your artist gave me his word.”

“He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Besides, you bully him. You bully everyone.”

“Who’s the bully here?”

“This conversation is useless, David. You’re not getting the song.”

“That’s Michael’s call – and he’s already made it.”

“You’re wrong. I’m making it. And I’ll make it stick. Find some other song. And if you want to be useful, teach my girlfriend to give better blow jobs.”

I hung up and looked over my littered desk memos, calls-to-return slips, copies of the soon-to-be-released Rolling Stones CD, Steel Wheels, reminders that Jagger was looking for me… All they had to do was sign when suddenly at 3 a.m. Mick goes mental and calls me a “stupid motherfuckin’ record executive”. I reach for his throat… I stop myself, envisioning tomorrow’s headline – “Yetnikoff Kills Jagger.” Jagger relents, signs and from then on it’s wine and roses.

(from “Howling at the Moon” by W.Yetnikoff)

What impressed me most was not Michael’s inconsistency about that record (Geffen is a master of persuasion) or his fear of Geffen’s fury, but the fact that Yetnikoff was ready to get Michael out of the trouble even at the cost of a huge trouble for himself. Of course the “screwdriver” contributed to his carelessness, but still.

Apparently, Michael Jackson was embarrassed by his refusal to Geffen. “Hit Men” says about it:

On June 3, 1990, Jackson was admitted to a California hospital, complaining of chest pains. … A source close to Jackson claims the malady was either a fake or brought on by the stress of not wishing to disappoint Geffen.

Then again, perhaps the real source of stress concerned John Branca. On June 19, only a week after his release from the hospital, Jackson sent Branca a termination notice. The letter was promptly rescinded, but by early July, Branca was let go by Jackson once and for all. Branca later learned that Geffen had convinced Jackson that the attorney was “too close” to Walter Yetnikoff.

What a coincidence. Only recently, in connection with Craviotto’s book we talked about that Michael’s malady (which was quite real) and the letter he sent to Geffen after his stay at the hospital, and here we are with another piece of the puzzle that is perfectly fitting in.

Michael’s letter was written on June 21, 1990 and in case you forgot it here it is again.

June 21, 1990

Dear David:

The flowers you sent during my illness were so beautiful and greatly appreciated. With your prayers and blessings as my shield, I am quickly advancing towards complete recovery. I fully expect to resume work in the near future and continue sharing the fruits of my labor with loyal friends such as you. Thank you for standing by me. You’re wonderful! Love always, Michael Jackson

To be frank, the first time I saw this letter Michael’s promise to “continue sharing the fruits of his labor” with Geffen looked somewhat out of context, but now his words acquired meaning and the picture became complete.

The promise to “share the fruits of his labor” was evidently Michael’s way to apologize to Geffen for that small misunderstanding with the “Come Together” record and assure him that in the future he would share his records if Geffen wanted them.

And secondly, since the letter was written two days after Branca’s termination, its idea was also to convey to Geffen Michael’s respect for him and express hope that now that the last obstacle was removed Michael would reach the new heights with the help of a loyal friend like David Geffen.

What a naïve hope.

Another source of that period mentioning Geffen’s role in the global power shift around Michael Jackson is the April 1991 issue of Spy Magazine. Its article by Fred Goodman is actually about Geffen as the “Toughest, Richest Impresario in Show Business”, but it also details the way Geffen went about his revenge against Yetnikoff. Here are some extracts:

“Geffen must have been pleased to see Michael Jackson help the unthreatening Mottola take over CBS Records” (SPY, April 1990)

…letting bygones be bygones is not generally Geffen’s style. While wheeling and dealing his way to extraordinary wealth last year he found the time to help do in Yetnikoff, his longtime nemesis.

The last straw apparently came last fall, when Yetnikoff refused to allow Michael Jackson, CBS’s biggest act, to record a song for the Days of Thunder soundtrack, which was to be released by Geffen Records. The voluble, foulmouthed Yetnikoff, already on thin ice with his rather more reserved new bosses at Sony, reportedly offered to have Sony buy Geffen Records for $1 billion if Geffen would show Yetnikoff’s girlfriend “how to give me a blowjob.”

Geffen indulged his vengeance subtly. He was reportedly behind press leaks regarding Yetnikoff’s waning power that hastened his downfall.

Geffen also supplanted Yetnikoff as a confidant of Jackson’s. Insinuating himself into Jackson’s confidence, offering his business advice as a friend, Geffen persuaded Jackson to replace his manager and attorney, who had been pals of Yetnikoff’s, with men close to Geffen.

While Yetnikoff foundered, rumors abounded that Jackson would be deflecting from CBS to Geffen Records or MCA. In the end, Yetnikoff left CBS, and Jackson stayed.

Geffen, however, wasn’t through plotting.  As Yetnikoff’s longtime lieutenant Tommy Mottola was looking to shore up his position with Sony, observers noted Geffen’s influence when the reclusive Jackson sat at Mottola’s table at a dinner honoring Mottola in Los Angeles. Sony executives were pleased to see that Jackson and Mottola seemed close, and Geffen must have been pleased to see a not-very-threatening figure to take the helm of a major rival.

Later, Jackson’s publishing company, ATV Music, through which he controls most of the Beatles’ songs, moved from EMI Music to MCA Music for administration.

What makes this peculiar is that MCA Music is not set up to manage the catalog outside the United States and will be obliged to hire another company – EMI, say – to perform that task. It’s a testament to Michael Jackson’s esteem for David Geffen that he will needlessly pay more for these back-office services just to be under the same corporate umbrella as Geffen.

Nothing could illustrate Geffen’s modus operandi better than this vengeance plan against Walter Yetnikoff. The operation was carried out subtly and slowly with nothing pointing in the direction of the one who masterminded it.

First came the press leaks regarding Yetnikoff’s waning power. The second edition of Hit Men (1991) says that all it would take to shatter Yetnikoff’s power would be an article by Laura Landro that appeared on August 17, 1990 in The Wall Street Journal.

“She reported that Yetnikoff’s relations with Jackson and Springsteen had soured, and that he had just signed a new contract under which he would gradually phase out his managerial duties and groom a successor. Tommy Mottola was described as the “most logical candidate” to take his place… Someone had leaked this information with a decidedly negative spin. Landro would not reveal her sources, but Walter was sure that Geffen and Mottola were involved.”

However the book itself, I mean “Hit Men” by Fredric Dannen, is also the press leak meant to damage Yetnikoff’s reputation and undermine his professional standing. As I already said its first publication came in July 1990, two months before his dismissal, and its central idea was to depict Yetnikoff as the main record industry villain involved in the shady business practice of “paola”.

Initially paola was a way to bribe radio promoters with gifts, expensive trips, etc. Later it transformed into an official Network promoting certain records with the goal to turn them into hits, naturally for a fee. The annual revenue of the Independent Promoters Network amounted to about $80 million as a fee collected from all record labels.

Yetnikoff’s associate, Asher wanted to put an end to this practice, however Walter disagreed (probably because it would put his company at a disadvantage in comparison with everyone else). A tough feud followed, and in 1983 Asher was fired.

Steve Knopper says about it:

Asher walked into a feud with his boss, Walter Yetnikoff, who knew many of the promo men personally and looked the other way at the gigantic budget items. Tension between the two stubborn men blew up into profanity-laced shouting matches at the CBS offices and soon led to Asher’s downfall. Yetnikoff fired him in 1983.

“I wasn’t a whistleblower. I wasn’t,” says Asher. “I reached a point where I didn’t want CBS involved in something. If any part of CBS were caught in any illegal activity, the government could pull their licenses.” (from “Appetite for Self-Destruction”)

No licences were pulled as the activity was not illegal, however in Fredric Dannen’s book Yetnikoff looks almost like a mafia boss. These revelations were a bomb for the uninitiated and it is due to Dannen’s interpretation of the problem that today’s Wiki page on Yetnikoff speaks more about paola than about his artists – though all record companies, I repeat, all of them spent more than 30% of their profits on independent radio promotion, according to Fredric Dannen himself.

Yetnikoff was simply much more candid about that practice in the music industry than the other insiders, and hence the result. So though “Hit Men” did look like an impartial expose criticizing the industry as a whole, it was actually a hatchet job against Yetnikoff and was partially responsible for his fall.

Incidentally, Fredric Dannen was a contributing editor at the Vanity Fair. What does it matter, you will ask? Nothing, just a small observation that may come in handy one day.

Now, according to Spy Geffen’s next move was to “insinuate himself into Jackson’s confidence” and make him fire the people close to Yetnikoff. The key changes were made in the summer of 1990.

• Allen Grubman replaced John Branca (early July 1990) and negotiated Michael’s new recording deal with Sony.
• Geffen’s closest friend Sandy Gallin became Michael’s personal manager (August 18, 1990) and replaced Frank DiLeo, who was a “diehard Yetnikoff loyalist” fired in early 1989, immediately after Michael’s Bad tour.
• At about the same time Geffen’s lawyer Bert Fields was hired for litigation purposes.
• And on September 4, 1990 came the turn for Walter Yetnikoff to be dismissed.

As we already know the Wall Street Journal named Mottola a “logical successor” to Yetnikoff, however the head of Sony Norio Ohga decided otherwise and gave the job to the President of Sony America Schulhof (who was responsible for all Sony software in the US – films, TV and music). So Mottola had to wait until Schulhof was fired too (in December 1995).

Adding to the list of those who were removed from Michael Jackson’s side, in spring 1991 Jon Peters, co-chairman of Sony/Columbia Pictures (the one who was working on the MidKnight movie project with MJ and was Michael’s ardent supporter) also had to go. Jon approached his two lawyers (one of them was Bert Fields), but the media reported that “the dogs of law refused even to bite, or even bark”, urged Peters to accept the golden parachute and leave.

Since David Geffen was the obvious driving force behind all these changes it means that the very least he wanted from those moves was to enforce his role around Michael Jackson and establish his priority in advising Michael on his career and finances.

By now we know the result of those efforts, whether it was deliberate or not. So whenever someone points at Sony’s Mottola as the main “devil” in the above game, these people should be reminded that Mottola was not the only one and had the powerful and “most formidable” Geffen working behind the scenes.

The third interesting detail in the above Spy article is that Michael Jackson moved his publishing company, ATV Music (the Beatles catalog) from EMI to MCA for administration.

Extract from SPY, April 1991

The beauty of this move will be appreciated only if you realize that in March 1990 Geffen sold his record label to MCA for $550 million but continued running it until 1995, so this transition placed the catalog management either into Geffen’s hands or at the very least into the hands of Geffen’s parent company.

Another beautiful thing about that move was that MCA could not manage the catalog outside the US and was obliged to hire another company (the same EMI, for example) to perform the task. Most probably Geffen convinced Michael that MCA would do the job better, and Michael followed the advice though it placed him in a position of having to pay extra expenses needlessly, especially if the overseas job was to be done by the same EMI.

What did Geffen get from this deal and why was he interested?

Well, the very least is that it must have been bringing more profit to himself or his parent company, and this is the very least of it.

ONE MORE SOURCE

This post is already too long, but it would be a crime not to mention still one more source. It is an article published in the NY Magazine on November 5, 1990 which is a unique and priceless gem.

What’s valuable about it is that it was written in the wake of Yetnikoff’s dismissal and provided the colorful details in their raw unpolished form before they were removed from everywhere else thus making the eventual story squeaky-clean and almost sterile.

This unforgettable piece is not especially kind to Yetnikoff or the other characters (probably, except Sony’s chairman Norio Ohga) and does create an impressive picture of the 1990 events.

Same as with the previous article some extracts from it had to be retyped as there is no text version of it online.

How Record Heavyweight Walter Yetnikoff Took the Big Fall

By Eric Pooley

The NY Magazine, November 5, 1990 issue

‘Remember, Grubman – I made you.” Walter Yetnikoff was smiling as he said this, but he wasn’t joking. On a winter’s afternoon early this year, Yetnikoff – the bearded, devilish CEO of Sony”s CBS Records, for years the most powerful and outrageous executive in the $20-billion global music business – was looking across his desk at Allen Grubman, a chubby and ingratiating man who with Yetnikoff’s help had become the industry’s mightiest lawyer.

The two men had been cronies for more than a decade, adversaries across the negotiating table but also allies in a synergy of schmooze that had launched hundreds of big-money deals and made them both rich. Grubman’s firm represented one third of the artists on Yetnikoff’s pop roster (including Bruce Springsteen, George Michael, and Luther Vandross), but the lawyer was working for so many other record companies, executives, managers, and stars – Madonna, Bon Jovi. Sting, dozens more – that Grubman’s influence  was beginning to outstrip Yetnikoff’s. He didn’t need Yetnikoff anymore – and that notion drove Walter up the wall. Worst of all, Grubman was working for Yetnikoff’s rival, entertainment mogul David Geffen. Yetnikoff wanted that to stop. “I made you,“ Yetnikoff said, “and I choose not to destroy you – at least not now.”

Grubman had heard that kind of B-movie threat before from Yetnikoff, 57, who’s been issuing such warnings more often as his ability to carry them out evaporated. After hammering away at his industry rivals for fifteen years, the cantankerous Yetnikoff – the master deal-maker and self-styled rabbi to the stars who’d boosted CBS Records’ revenues from $485 million in 1975 to well over $2 billion last year [1989] – was falling victim to his own power games. Though he’d done time in a drug-and-alcohol rehabilitation clinic six months before, Yetnikoff sober seemed harder to deal with than Yetnikoff drunk.  His bitter feuds with key businessmen like Geffen and superstars like Springsteen were killing his industry alliances, and his sidekick and second in command, Tommy Mottola, 42, was challenging his power inside CBS Records.

“Thank you,” Grubman, 47, replied. “And I’ll return the favour – I won’t destroy you just now, either.”

Within the year, though, Yetnikoff was destroyed. On September 4, CBS Records announced that he had “decided to step down as head of the company.”

No one believed he’d gone willingly. Wild rumors began swirling through the music capitals of New York and Los Angeles. <>  Everyone was talking about Walter’s Fall, and everyone had a different theory about it: that Yetnikoff’s bizarre behavior had made him a pariah in the industry and even at CBS records.

That a book called Hit Men – a devastating look at the record business that cast Yetnikoff as its leading villain – had torpedoed his already shaky relationship with Sony.

That Geffen, 47, the multimillionaire whose Geffen Records has such huge-selling acts as Whitesnake and Guns ‘N Roses, has helped poison Yetnikoff’s friendship with Michael Jackson so Geffen could lure him to his own label.

That his protégé, Mottola <>had cultivated his friendship and became his right-hand man, and then turned on him and, with Grubman’s knowledge, staged a successful palace coup.

Many of these wild rumors turned out to be true.

…. “Tommy Mottola, aw, he got lucky”. Those words were repeated throughout the industry in April 1988, when Yetnikoff hired Mottola as his second in command, replacing domestic-records president Al Teller, whom Walter perceived as a threat – and fired. “Tommy was my close friend,” says Yetnikoff. “I thought I had made a good choice.”

Few agreed with him. In fact, the industry was shocked by Mottola’s hiring. Apart from an ability to coddle artists, Mottola seemed unqualified for the job: He had no record-company experience, no apparent administrative or executive abilities….

Mottola, a failed pop singer from Brooklyn who owned a management company called Champion Entertainment <>had met Yetnikoff through Grubman in 1977. In the eighties, Mottola had become Yetnikoff’s little brother <>By the time Yetnikoff hired him, Mottola had become indispensable.

“I’m trying to figure out who my friends are,” says Yetnikoff (NY Magazine, Nov.5,1990)

…Yetnikoff began pulling away from some of his old friends, spending more and more time with Mottola. At the end of the business day, Mottola and Grubman would appear in Walt’s office, and the three would hang out and talk about money and power and deals, Walter sipping a drink and doing business with the West Coast and laughing with his two best friends.

“It was Walter’s happy hour,” says a friend of Yetnikoff’s. <>Everybody used to call Tommy his lapdog. It was pretty craven but Walter needed his pals.”

In 1988, Yetnikoff needed his pal to get the record company back on track; the performance of the domestic labels was slipping badly. CBS’s share of Billboard’s Top Pop Album chart had dropped to 18 percent, while arch-rival Warner-Elektra-Atlantic’s share rose to 34 percent. It was Mottola’s job to reverse the trend, so he set about hiring a new management team – one loyal to him, not Yetnikoff.

….When Yetnikoff got back from his movie deals and his dry-out stint, he found that he hadn’t been missed. Mottola’s performance was surprising people. He’d been working hard, breaking acts, cultivating his ties to artists, managers, and executives, making himself the key man that Yetnikoff had once been.

“When Walter was in Hazelden,” says one source, “Tommy got a taste of running things – and liked how it tasted.”

And Yetnikoff, colleagues say, no longer displayed anything close to Mottola’s drive and enthusiasm. Part of it, they say, had to do with his newfound sobriety. <> When Walter was taking the cure,” says one West Coast manager, “he had no social life. I’d come into town and suggest dinner, but he had to go to AA meetings – which is far more important.

Meanwhile, Tommy was wining and dining the artists and the bosses. Mottola’s industry relationships were improving, and Yetnikoff’s were not. His biggest, most ill-advised feud of all was with David Geffen.

At some point during the Guber-Peters negotiations with Warner, Yetnikoff had tossed off a vulgar joke about Geffen. He’d said he wanted a girlfriend to take lessons from Geffen in the performance of a certain sex act; in exchange he’d buy Geffen Records for $1 billion in Sony stock.

“That got back to David from so many people,” says one Geffen friend, “and David decided it was time for a little payback.” Geffen and Yetnikoff had always feuded – they’d be screaming one day, dealing the next. But this was different. The feud didn’t go away.

Last spring, Geffen says, Michael Jackson asked him to include an unreleased Jackson song – a cover version of John Lennon’s “Come Together” – on Geffen’s Records’ soundtrack for the Tom Cruise race-car movie, Days of Thunder. Yetnikoff refused to allow it. <> “I didn’t want him to have the thing,” says Yetnikoff.

It was a small matter, but Geffen’s friends say it enraged him all the same. If Geffen couldn’t get Jackson’s song, maybe he could get Jackson himself – lure him from CBS to Geffen Records. Or, at the very least, make a move to do so and wreak some havoc for Walter.

Geffen’s influence over Jackson was stronger than Yetnikoff’s; he’d been on the star’s board of directors for a decade. After Geffen sold his record company to MCA last March for $550 million in stock, Jackson was awestruck. “Michael likes Guinness Book-type records,” says someone who knows the star well. “Most records sold, biggest deal made. That’s David.”

Yetnikoff had a different reaction to Geffen’s big MCA deal. He sent word to Allen Grubman that the lawyer was to sever his lies with Geffen/MCA and have nothing to do with Geffen. “Friends of my enemies,” he said, “are my enemies.” This annoyed Grubman and Geffen all the more.

Allen Grubman (screenshot from the NY Magazine Nov.5, 1990)

“Walter thought he owned Allen,” says Geffen. “He didn’t”.

Sources say Geffen wanted to explore the idea of breaking Jackson’s CBS contract. To that end, they say, he had Jackson fire his longtime lawyer, John Branca – an ally of Yetnikoff – and replace him with Geffen’s litigator, Bert Fields. (Jackson had already fired another Yetnikoff ally, manager Frank Dileo, and replaced him with another Geffen crony).

Jackson seemed under Geffen’s control – but Geffen denies having a hand in any of this. “If Michael had been free,” he says, “of course I’d be interested in signing him. But he wasn’t free. Michael changed lawyers because he wanted to – he felt John Branca was too close to Walter.”

Jackson didn’t try to break his contract (which would have paid him $18 million for his next record), but he did send word to CBS that he wouldn’t deliver that record until the contract was renegotiated. “Tommy starts screaming to Sony,” says source, “because Jackson isn’t coming across with product – and it looks like Walter’s fault.” Then Jackson brought in Grubman to help negotiate the new deal. Yetnikoff pitched a fit. Word leaked that Jackson was talking to other labels. Sony was getting tired of Walter’s wild-man act.

Geffen says that none of Jackson’s moves was done to hurt Yetnikoff. “People want to make me out as having more to do with all of this than I had,” he says. “Walter behaves badly, and that’s why he blew up his career, two marriages, and most of his friendships. When people think they’re powerful, the world has a way of reminding them that they’re not. I feel sorry for him, but he shot himself in the head. None of us had anything to do with it.”

..In early July, Random House published Hit Men, Fredric Danner’s best-selling music-business expose. The book lays out the web of alliances that rules the industry – the cozy deals and conflicts of interest, the companies’ reliance on independent- promotion men with alleged mob ties, who are said to spread money and drugs around in exchange for radio airplay. Yetnikoff rages across the pages like a sailor on a three-day pass, making deals and wars and women, defending the indie promoters, acting mighty peculiar at the helm.

Yetnikoff didn’t see an advance copy of the book until a month before publication. But sources say Grubman and Mottola saw it long before – and didn’t share it with Yetnikoff. Published reports have charged that Mottola sent a copy to Ohga in an attempt to discredit Yetnikoff; Mottola calls the charge “absurd”.

Sony president Ohga called Yetnikoff and said, “If you need help because of this, Sony will help you.” (NY Magazine, Nov.5, 1990)

…Yetnikoff says he got a call from Ohga about the book. “Ohga said, “If you need help because of this, Sony will help you,’” Yetnikoff says. “I said, “Naw, it’s just a book – here today, gone tomorrow. I don’t need any help.’”

The crunch came on August 17, when the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed “executives familiar with the plan,” broke the news that Yetnikoff was “preparing to pull back from his management duties… and leave the chief-executive post in two years”. The most logical candidate to replace Yetnikoff, the Journal reported, was Tommy Mottola.

In a stroke , the story turned Yetnikoff into a lame duck; and industry deathwatch began. Then Yetnikoff launched a counteroffensive, telling Billboard that he had no intention of stepping down after two years..

In the Billboard interview, Yetnikoff denied his strained relations with Jackson and Springsteen. Some public support from the stars would have helped immeasurably. But another article on the same page of the magazine – a rare public statement by Landau [Springsteen’s manager] – did quite the reverse. For many years, Landau said, he and Springsteen “enjoyed a superb professional relationship” with Yetnkioff. “For reasons that remain obscure,” he said, “the relationship ended not long after CBS was purchased by Sony.” The words were mild, but they reverberated through the business. The deathwatch went on.

… Yetnikoff was boiling over. <> CBS executives say he accused Mottola of planting the Wall Street Journal story and threatened to fire him. <> Mottola contacted Shulhof and told him that Yetnikoff was out of control – threatening to fire him, screaming at stars, endangering the bottom line. Mottola, these executives say, told Shulhof that either Walter must go or Mottola and his team would walk. Shulhof called Ohga, and he made his decision. On Tuesday, September 4, the announcement was made: Yetnikoff was out of a job.

As soon as Yetnikoff was gone, rumors began sweeping through CBS Records that Mottola had done him in. Yetnikoff loyalists believe that Mottoal betrayed the man who made him – that the lapdog devoured his master.

…While Ohga decides who should fill Yetnikoff’s chair (or whether to keep it for himself), many people at the company say they’re missing the man who used to sit there. “He was a difficult guy,” say one, “but he was a mensch – and that’s something Tommy is not.”<> “Tommy makes people miss Walter,” one source says,” the way the ayatollah made people miss the shah.”

“Tommy makes people miss Walter the way the ayatollah made people miss the shah” (NY Magazine, Nov.5, 1990)

… Apart from Mottola, who may or may not emerge victorious, there are a few others who seem to be big winners in the fall of Yetnikoff. One is Geffen – clearly the most powerful man in music now that Yetnikoff is out of the way.

Another is Grubman, whose web of power is unsurpassed – he now has a hand in 40 percent of all the records on the Billboard pop charts, by representing the artist, manager, label executive, or label involved in the release.

A third is Jackson, who is close to signing a new $50-million contract with Mottola, who needs to demonstrate that he can keep his superstars happy and productive.

Well, the benefits to Michael Jackson from Yetnikoff’s fall were dubious, but all the others really emerged victorious.  And frankly speaking, if I were someone who could appreciate Geffen’s style the way he did it was indeed ingenious.

Geffen knew that he would not sign Michael to his label as it was too costly, but nevertheless urged him to break his contract with CBS. Michael did not abide, but as a result of all the persuasion said he would not make another record unless his contract terms were renegotiated. Simultaneously “word leaked that he was talking to other labels”. Sony grew nervous and turned on Yetnikoff of whom they had already grown a little tired. Mottola also blamed Yetnikoff for all the havoc, and all of it resulted in Yetnikoff’s dismissal ….. and Geffen had nothing to do with it.

Except that he sang to his associates “Ding dong the witch is dead”. And couldn’t resist to add a little lie that it was Michael who asked him to include that song into his soundtrack album.

Incredible stuff.

And the funniest thing is that for decades we were forced to discuss Sony, Branca and other horrible characters around Michael Jackson, never knowing that the person who played all the key notes was David Geffen. And please remember that the power grab masterminded by him had a lasting effect on Michael Jackson and determined his future for the next 12 years, at least until Mottola’s dismissal.

But since we knew nothing of the above let me ask a cautious question – how much more are we still unaware of? The described modus operandi is a universal recipe for destruction and could be applied anywhere else, should someone decide to ruin Michael’s career, finances or good reputation. So what if?

By the way the above article is another proof that Fredric Dannen’s “Hit Men” put its hand to the anti-Yetnikoff campaign – otherwise Grubman and Mottola wouldn’t have seen the manuscript before its publication. As well as Geffen and Clive Davis both of whom were supposed to be ‘exposed’ in Dannen’s book, but got familiar with the ‘expose’ well in advance.

Actually it seems that all key players except Yetnikoff saw the draft copy of that book. And not only saw it, but also made corrections to it after which the author removed the episodes most offending to these characters.

As proof of the above see this final piece for today:

New Book on Music Industry Is No Hit With the ‘Hit Men’

August 05, 1990|PATRICK GOLDSTEIN

(extracts)

Record moguls say the funniest things . . . about each other.

It’s no wonder that over the past weeks fax machines between New York and Los Angeles have been churning out hot passages from Dannen’s graphic portrait of the seamy side of the music industry. But the really hot debate over the book, published by Random House, happened before it went to press.

“Much to my horror,” says Dannen, now a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, a first-draft copy of the book leaked out last March and fell into the hands of several key industry figures, including–Dannen contends–Davis, Geffen and top industry lawyer Allen Grubman.

Dannen heard from Geffen’s attorney first. “If Geffen had picked up the phone and called me, everything could’ve been settled in 10 seconds. Instead, he sicked his high-powered attorney, Bert Fields, on us for something in the book that was more an issue of privacy than fact. Fields sent us a nasty note saying he would sue for invasion of privacy, so the dispute got to Mach 3 very quickly.” Dannen would not divulge what specific privacy issue was involved, but said he removed the offending passage from the book.

He heard next from Grubman, who agreed to meet with him last December after Dannen asked for additional information about certain episodes in the book. “As soon as I walked into his office, I realized it was an ambush. It became obvious they had a copy of the manuscript.”

Instead of making a scene, Grubman turned on the charm. “He ordered chicken soup and kreplach for me and then said, in a hushed whisper, that if his mother read the chapter on him she’d die,” said Dannen. “I got to see why he’s such an effective lawyer. With Geffen, everything was a pitched battle. With Grubman, everything was negotiable .”I made a couple of voluntary concessions and let him say a few passages in his own words.

Clive Davis’ attorney also submitted a 10-page letter with changes they wanted, but Dannen said most of what Davis sought to excise was “constitutionally protected opinion.”

“That book went through a legal review that was like the Nuremberg Trial,” Dannen said.

So after spending four years studying the business, what were Dannen’s final impressions? “I only met three execs–Clive Davis, Bruce Lundvall and Russ Regan–who truly had a great love and appreciation for music. The rest? Yetnikoff is tone deaf. Geffen seems to have absolute contempt for his artists. Allen Grubman brags that he never even listens to rock ‘n’ roll.

“The biggest problem with the music business is that it’s become all about power, money and vendettas. It just isn’t about music anymore.”

So not only was the draft copy corrected by its key players, but it also went through the legal review à la the Nuremberg Trial by the attorneys of the main parties concerned – with the exception of Yetnikoff, of course.

And this means that when Dannen was disclosing some details of Geffen’s revenge plan it must have been authorized by Geffen himself, so evidently at times he does allow to take an exclusive peek into his behind-the-scenes operations to show others what fate befalls those who make irresponsible jokes.

What did Yetnikoff say about that book when Norio Ohga offered his help? “Naw, it’s just a book – here today, gone tomorrow. I don’t need any help.”

If he had only known.

Today, on August 29^th 2018, we celebrate Michael Jackson’s 60^th birthday. It could have been a day for him to celebrate this special birthday with a huge party like the one he had on his 40^th birthday at Neverland – with a lot of music and many guests. Sadly, he is no longer here to be part of his own birthday celebrations.

For those who are interested, here are a few celebrations officially announced on the occasion of his 60th birthday:

The musical “Thriller Live” in London plans special perfomances for Michael’s 60^th birthday:

“Further celebrations and prime-time TV appearances are also planned to mark what would have been Michael Jackson’s 60th birthday in August as well as the show’s 4,000th West End performance later this year.

Inspired by the life and music of Michael Jackson, the show recently announced a new West End booking period, taking the show up to September.”

In Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil and Michael’s Estate prepared a special “ONE” celebration :

“For this year’s very special Diamond Birthday Celebration, the Estate has decided to honor Michael’s well known desire to help disadvantaged people around the world, especially children, by welcoming The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation to the event. We will join forces to support the work of GAIA Elizabeth Taylor Mobile Health Clinics which brings accessible and free health care to those living in rural Malawi.”

Also in London the art show “On The Wall” at the National Portrait Gallery devoted to Michael already has opened to mark his 60^th birthday. See here and here.

In addition, as I read, many national events in many countries are planned for today to honor MJ – the man is still good for special events!
However, unfortunately his birthday celebrations include some more stupid TV documentaries full of old lies and inaccuracies, as we already could see on German TV!

~~~

I also had my 60^th birthday this year, so I felt the wish to honor Michael on this day with at least a short post. Well, I’m sure his 60th birthday means something different for everyone, but perhaps some of my views can be shared by others, too.
Since we were born in the same year, I was interested what connects us with this year of birth and looked a little bit into the history of the year 1958.

A few events of that year are quite interesting and have even some kind of MJ connection. For example, a couple of Michael’s strongest competitors in the music industry of his time were born in the same year: Prince and Madonna, Madonna was even born in the same month (August 16). Sadly, Prince also is no longer with us, but Madonna could celebrate her 60th birthday two weeks ago.

The Bee Gees, who belonged to Michael’s best friends, were founded in 1958 as a child band. So they already were in the business when Michael was born.

Nelson and Winnie Mandela married in 1958 (Photo: Api/Gamma-Rapho via Getty)

In 1958 Nelson Mandela married his second wife Winnie Mandela, the first black medical social worker in Johannesburg (who passed away just a few months ago). The man who later became a good friend to Michael began his marriage with his famous wife in the year Michael was born.

For me it is quite interesting that Elvis Presley came to Germany in 1958 to serve as a US soldier. The man, whose daughter later married Michael Jackson, created a hype in Germany that year. One day before my 60th birthday in March this year I visited the house in Bad Nauheim where Elvis had lived for some time during his stay in Germany in 1958. It is still a hotel with a small restaurant in it, which still hosts the piano Elvis had played on.

In politics this year was marked by the “space race” and the nuclear armament of the superpowers. Some noteworthy events in world history of 1958 were:

In Brussels, Belgium, the “Expo ’58” took place and became famous for the “Atomium” which depicts a unit cell of an iron crystal. It was the hope of its designers to present it as a symbol for the peaceful use of nuclear energy contrary to the nuclear armament. But there were heavy debates about it.

The Atomium in Brussels, designed for the “Expo 1958” (Photo: Wiki)

Around the year 1958 also the space flight competition between the US and the Soviet Union began taking up speed (“Space Race”).

Sputnik 1, the first artificial earth satellite, was supposed to be sent to the orbit by the Soviet Union in 1958 – at least Western experts expected it to be started in mid-1958 -, but then surprisingly it was launched already in October 1957 and burned up in January 1958 when reentering earth’s atmosphere.

As a result, in the US the NASA was founded on July 29, 1958, and also the manned space flight began in 1958 with Project Mercury.

The peace sign was designed in 1958 by the British artist Gerald Holtom on behalf of the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and later became and still is of worldwide use.

Anna Politkovskaya, born on August 30, 1958 (Photo: Wiki)

Another person of interest was born in the US one day after Michael, on August 30, 1958. It is Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, born in New York and murdered in Moscow on October 7, 2006. She would have been 60 tomorrow. Many of our readers may not know her, but I mention her here because of the symbolic link she is between America and Russia (she also had the US citizenship her whole life) and because of her significance for our Helena. Her brave journalistic work especially on Chechnya made her a target and led to her assassination – like it happens to many Russian journalists.

In 2005 she was a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize together with a group of others.
Anyone who is interested can read her story here.
This year the European Court of Human Rights ordered Russia to pay 20,000 € in damages to her family because it didn’t carry out an effective investigation into her killing.

For the development in politics from 1958 until today, which was shaping for us in the West who become 60 this year, I want to present the case of the John Birch Society as an example. The John Birch Society was also founded in 1958 and is usually described as a far-right, even radical organization. It’s main activities were in the 1960ies, among others against the civil rights movement in the US. Being very influential at the beginning, it lost members and influence in later years. The Western world mostly had developed into a different direction, accepting human rights, civil rights, equality and peace as a primary goal. However, since Donald Trump has become president, the John Birch Society is reinvigorating, especially in Texas.

This can be seen as an exemplary case for the changes that are taking place all over the world, where far-right and nationalistic views are on the advance and many of the humanistic achievements of the last decades since 1958 are getting lost in the heat of nationalistic ambitions and hate speech between people and nations.

In many countries racism is again socially acceptable and openly propagated, so that we have to ask ourselves if we are going back straight to the 50ies and the time we were born, to relive the whole development – unnecessarily, because we already should know better what it did to the people.

This leads us to the question: How would Michael see today’s political situation and the state the world is in and what would he say of the Trump administration? What kind of person would he be today?

I don’t want to start a discussion here on Michael’s political views or speculate what he would say regarding certain people and developments. But this question is one which is asked quite often by his fans and advocates in view of the substantial changes that took place since his death and during the last couple of years. Next year marks Michael’s 10th death anniversary, and the historical changes of this decade are amazing.

To me, one thing is clear: Michael would be very sad because he would have to recognize that we didn’t manage to “heal the world”, that the planet is far away from his desires for a better world.

From the outspokenness of his children regarding political issues we can assume that politics and social issues were discussed at their home while Michael was with them. It is obvious that he instilled in them an interest in the problems of the world and how they have to be addressed. His children tell us a lot about Michael’s views because he laid the foundations for their views and opinions. And I’m glad his children let us know their opinions. Not that these kids don’t develop into independent individuals with independent opinions, but I think it still gives us an insight into what Michael would think.

When news came this year about the thousands of children of “illegal immigrants” being separated from their parents at the Mexican border – many of them transported thousands of miles away from them, without proper documentation and care for a reunion – , I immediately thought of Michael and his song “The Lost Children”.

Michael would have been devastated! Even if Michael had been quiet all the time during these last years, I’m almost sure he at least would have said a word on these cruel decisions made in his mother country and would have tried to step in and make his former “friend”, the president, change his mind.

Not to mention all these refugees and their children drowning in the Mediterranean Sea and the world watching without the will to find real solutions or showing empathy.

In view of our world’s problems I only can hope that Michael is in a better place. Let us honor him on this day and celebrate his legacy, not only his music but also his activities to heal the world. He is terribly missed!

Happy 60^th Birthday, Michael Jackson!

So much time has passed since the previous post (about the power grab in 1990) that all of us need to refresh our memories about the key changes that took place around Michael Jackson at the time.

The setting of the scene remained unchanged – it was the same old Sony with whom Michael Jackson had a recording contract, initially signed with CBS Records and its head Walter Yetnikoff and inherited by the Japanese company when it acquired CBS in 1988.

However the Japanese bosses were far away and out of touch with the local landscape, and it was the US scene where a monumental shift of power was taking place. As a result of it the Sony before and the Sony after the event were two different companies, at least for Michael Jackson.

Before that tectonic shift Michael’s team included Walter Yetnikoff, the CBS Records President under whose wing the Jackson 5 were since 1975 (when they signed with the CBS subsidiary Epic Records) and with whom Michael Jackson collaborated until 1990, Frank Dileo, initially the head promoter at Epic and Michael’s personal manager since 1984, and John Branca, Michael’s attorney and sort of his chief executive officer of more than a decade.

“Midknight” movie: A shy young man was to turn into a knight

Quite by chance, via a little-known book about a certain “Project M” (for details see this series, please) we learned that another man who grew close to Michael at the newly formed Columbia/Sony Pictures was its co-president Jon Peters, who in 1990 was tirelessly promoting a musical called “Midknight” the idea of which was suggested by Michael himself. MJ was to star in the role of a shy young man who turned into a knight at midnight, so hence the title.

But the person who had the most influence on Michael Jackson in the year 1990 was surely David Geffen.

Different sources give different years for the time when Michael’s cooperation with Geffen began.  The book “MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson” by Steve Knopper says that “Geffen insinuated himself into Michael Jackson’s advisory team in 1989.”

Zack Greenburg in his “Michael Jackson, Inc.” book says that already in the mid-1980s David Geffen was regularly sitting on Michael’s informal advisory team that also included John Branca and John Johnson (the founder of Ebony magazine and the first black man to appear in the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans).

The idea of the committee was to advise Michael Jackson on his financial strategy, and it was as early as 1985 that Geffen was consulting MJ about the Beatles catalog acquisition on a par with John Branca. Greenburg says that Geffen “seemed to think that the bidding had gotten too high.” Yetnikoff also considered the price exorbitant but he wasn’t on the committee and was just Michael’s confidant. The deal was made with John Branca’s help and this situation alone shows the disposition of forces in 1985 and the weight of various characters around Michael Jackson at the time.

The LA Times article places the beginning of Michael’s cooperation with Geffen at an even earlier date and says that the latter was “retained by the singer around the time of the Jacksons’ 1984 “Victory” tour.”

The would-be-billionaire David Geffen was retained by Michael Jackson? But for what? The surprising answer to that is that Geffen promised to work on a movie development project for Michael Jackson, however the plan went nowhere and, in an even more surprising move, the ambitious Geffen admitted that it was his failure.

And the New York Times article takes us even deeper into the past and claims that Geffen won Michael’s loyalty already in 1982 when he first told Michael “Let’s make a movie”.

As we know nothing came of that promise, but it didn’t prevent Geffen from staying on Michael’s advisory team for more than a decade – this time in the capacity of a friend and unpaid business advisor.

David Geffen, MJ and Madonna celebrate Geffen’s birthday in 1991

By the year 1989 Geffen’s influence on Jackson became so strong that it took him a couple of effortless manipulations and some whispering in Michael Jackson’s ear to oust all his old aides and replace them with totally new people loyal to Geffen.

For details of the operation you can see this post, while over here I will mention just the chronology of the dismissals.

The first to go was Michael’s accountant, Marshall Gelfrand who at the end of the Bad tour was replaced with Richard Sherman who worked for Geffen.

On January 27, 1989 – soon after the Bad tour ended – came the turn of Frank Dileo, Yetnikioff’s diehard loyalist and Michael Jackson’s personal manager of five years. A year and a half later, in August 1990 the job of a personal manager was taken by Geffen’s closest friend Sandy Gallin.

Sandy Gallin, MJ and Madonna at David Geffen’s birthday in 1991

In between Dileo and Gallin when the post was vacant, John Branca temporarily filled in. But Branca was close to Yetnikoff whom Geffen considered his most implacable foe, and in July 1990 Branca had to go too.

His place was taken by three attorneys – Geffen’s lawyer Bert Fields was hired for litigation purposes, music attorney Lee Phillips who knew Geffen since the 60s when he represented his label Asylum Records was responsible for music publishing, and Allen Grubman who simultaneously worked for Michael Jackson, Sony and almost everyone else in the music industry, including David Geffen, was to negotiate Michael’s new contract with Sony. Grubman was initially Yetnikoff’s friend later turned into a nemesis, and a bosom friend and ally of Tommy Mottola.

The final touch to the grand power shift came on September 4, 1990 when Walter Yetnikoff was fired too. This was Labor day later dubbed the Labor Day Massacre in the industry, because not only did Yetnikoff have to go but he was also rumored to be unceremoniously driven out of Sony’s back door with no permit to enter its grounds again –  right at the time when Mottola was sitting next door in negotiations with his superiors about his own big future at Sony.

The first to learn about Yetnikoff’s dismissal was David Geffen who announced it to others with a triumphant “Ding dong the witch is dead”.

In April 1991 Jon Peters, the Sony movie man, was also fired and when two more chief  Sony executives, Bob Summer and Mickey Schulhof  standing in the way  to the top were also gone, the monumental power grab was finalized.

MJ and Tommy Mottola

“Tommy boy” by Robert Sam Anson claims that after some reorganization at Sony Tommy Mottola Jr. became Chairman of Sony Music  Entertainment in December 1995. However numerous sources of that period place Mottola as Chairman CEO of Sony Music already in March 1990.

The April 1990 issue of SPY makes it clear that Michael Jackson was both the target and key instrument in this huge power grab – Sony’s fear to lose him made Michael a convenient but unwitting tool in the hands of big players who used his name for getting rid of the people undesirable to them.

To outsiders the dismissals of Michael Jackson’s closest aides customarily looked like the star’s whim with all the blame for the decision-making put on his shoulders. However the SPY article makes no bones about the chief manipulator behind Michael’s back, whose name was David Geffen.

As usual, Geffen’s signature mark was that he was not directly involved in the operation and the power grab by his loyalists was made with the help of Michael Jackson himself, who tearfully parted with his former aides, but was convinced by Geffen that the change was necessary and was only for the better. SPY says about it:

“Geffen must have been pleased to see Michael Jackson help the unthreatening Mottola take over CBS Records”.

Unthreatening to Geffen of course, but not to MJ as the later events showed it.

SPY refreshes our memories about the basic elements of that story. A short excerpt from their article starts with a feud between David Geffen and Walter Yetnikoff which at some point turned for Yetnikoff into a really deadly game.

“Geffen must have been pleased to see Michael Jackson help the unthreatening Mottola take over CBS Records” (SPY, April 1990)

…letting bygones be bygones is not generally Geffen’s style.

…Geffen indulged his vengeance subtly. He was reportedly behind press leaks regarding Yetnikoff’s waning power that hastened his downfall. Geffen also supplanted Yetnikoff as a confidant of Jackson’s. Insinuating himself into Jackson’s confidence, offering his business advice as a friend, Geffen persuaded Jackson to replace his manager and attorney, who had been pals of Yetnikoff’s, with men close to Geffen.

While Yetnikoff foundered, rumors abounded that Jackson would be deflecting from CBS to Geffen Records or MCA. In the end, Yetnikoff left CBS, and Jackson stayed.

Geffen, however, wasn’t through plotting.  As Yetnikoff’s longtime lieutenant Tommy Mottola was looking to shore up his position with Sony, observers noted Geffen’s influence when the reclusive Jackson sat at Mottola’s table at a dinner honoring Mottola in Los Angeles. Sony executives were pleased to see that Jackson and Mottola seemed close, and Geffen must have been pleased to see a not-very-threatening figure to take the helm of a major rival.

Later, Jackson’s publishing company, ATV Music, through which he controls most of the Beatles’ songs, moved from EMI Music to MCA Music for administration. What makes this peculiar is that MCA Music is not set up to manage the catalog outside the United States and will be obliged to hire another company – EMI, say – to perform that task. It’s a testament to Michael Jackson’s esteem for David Geffen that he will needlessly pay more for these back-office services just to be under the same corporate umbrella as Geffen.

The essential point to be added to the above is that earlier that year Geffen had sold his company Geffen Records to MCA Music but was still running it, so the administration of the Beatles catalog fell either into his hands or his parent company MCA.

When asked about the Machiavellian role he played in Yetnikoff’s downfall and the many other changes that followed Geffen brushed off as “Hollywood silliness.”

THE NEW CONTRACT

So what good did the new management team do to the hopeful Jackson?

Michael’s new lawyer Allen Grubman renegotiated his contract with Sony which was announced to the media and public with great fanfare in March 1991. The contract was presented as “the most lucrative arrangement ever for a recording artist” and a striking synergy bargain that was bridging together records, movies and video software to reflect MJ’s versatility.

The price to pay for so great a future were at least six albums to be recorded by MJ including those four that still remained from his previous contract with Epic Records, a Sony subsidiary.

As is the custom with MJ the grandiose contract terms were interpreted by the media and experts by the need to “deal with his ego” – as if it wasn’t Geffen who urged Michael to part with Sony and who spread rumors about Michael’s plans to leave for Geffen Records or MCA, which scared the Sony bosses out of their wits and was a contributing factor to raising their stakes.

The threat to sign Michael with Geffen was a ruse of course, though initially it was Geffen’s real intention. The idea had to be dropped after he made enquires through his lawyer Bert Fields and to his disappointment found that Michael still owed four more albums to CBS, so “whoever signed him could be sued for a sum greater than the gross national product of Uganda”, according to Fredric Dannen’s estimation.

What’s interesting is that among the many bonuses awaiting Michael Jackson under the new contract the New York Times article mentioned the plans to create feature films with Michael’s participation as a number one point.

Here are some excerpts from their story.

Michael Jackson Gets Thriller of Deal To Stay With Sony

By RANDALL ROTHENBERG

March 21, 1991

In what may be the most lucrative arrangement ever for a recording artist, the Sony Corporation announced yesterday that Michael Jackson, the gyrating pop-music icon of the 1980’s, had entered into an agreement to create feature films, theatrical shorts, television programming and a new record label for the Japanese conglomerate’s American entertainment subsidiaries.

Mr. Jackson, whose albums “Thriller” and “Bad” were the two biggest-selling records of the past decade, also agreed to extend by six albums his existing contract with Epic Records, a Sony subsidiary.

Neither Sony executives nor representatives of Mr. Jackson would say how much the singer will receive under the agreement, which had been in negotiations for six months. [~ since September 1990]

Entertainment industry executives and analysts said that to keep the 32-year-old Mr. Jackson, who had reportedly made rumblings about leaving for another label, Sony had no choice but to allow him to produce his own records and films.

Dealing With an Ego

“He doesn’t need the money; this is the guy who owns the Beatles’ music catalogue,” said Emanuel Gerard, a communications analyst with Gerard Klauer Mattison in New York. “What we’re dealing with largely is his ego. And from Sony’s standpoint, no matter what, they could not afford to have Michael Jackson signed away from them.”

A senior executive of a rival entertainment company, who spoke only on condition that he not be identified, said: “My reading is that they were close to losing Michael Jackson. So you start by saying, ‘What do you have to do to keep him?’ He doesn’t need the money. So you say we have this fantastic company that has all these avenues for you. Give us your albums and you can do movies, TV shows.”

“This is the first example where we have been able to combine interests in both film and records,” said Mr. Schulhof, 48, who is directing Sony’s efforts in multi-media packaging.

Mr. Schulhof said the contract with Mr. Jackson was the first involving a performer with Sony Software, rather than with Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment or one of the company’s other entertainment subsidiaries.

Tommy Mottola, the president of Sony Music Entertainment, said the company based the estimate of $1 billion in retail revenues on the 40 million copies of “Thriller” and 25 million copies of “Bad” that have been sold, at an average of $10 per record, or $650 million.

Under the terms of his deal with Sony Software, Mr. Jackson will star in his first full-length feature film, which will be produced by one such subsidiary, Columbia Pictures Entertainment. The company described the film as a “musical action adventure” based on an idea of Mr. Jackson’s.

Many features of the new contract appear to be speculative. For example, while Sony executives publicly said they expect the forthcoming movie to be the first of many with Mr. Jackson, one executive who would speak only on condition that his name not be used, said the current agreement only called for one film. Executives also said that the script for his forthcoming movie was not yet completed and that a director had not yet been signed.

The singer is also creating a new record label, called Nation Records, under the auspices of the Jackson Entertainment Complex. With it, “he will be developing new, young and budding talent, and he will be the magnet to attract superstars to leave their current recording company to come to Sony,” Mr. Mottola said.

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/21/movies/michael-jackson-gets-thriller-of-deal-to-stay-with-sony.html

Now that we know the background for the story we may very well guess the identity of a certain “senior executive of a rival entertainment company” who preferred to stay anonymous and was mentioned here twice. For someone belonging to another company he was exceptionally well-informed and it was this person who disclosed that the film agreement was for one movie only.

But if that was the case the movie in question could easily be the “Midknight” musical promoted by Jon Peters. However Jon Peters belonged to the previous Sony management team and as soon as he was fired the point about the movies could be easily dropped and happily forgotten.

And this is exactly what happened shortly thereafter. In April 1991, only a month after all that hoopla about Michael Jackson movie projects, Jon Peters was fired.

True that prior to the dismissal there had been much media speculation that Jon Peter was unqualified to head a big film studio like Sony/Columbia pictures (he started his career as a hairdresser to Barbra Streisand and only later grew into a successful producer of films like Batman) and it is also true that after a fight at a party with Geffen’s friend Barry Diller the latter announced to those present that “Peters would never work in this town again”.

However even despite all that Jon Peters’ dismissal came as a big surprise because he was terminated on the initiative of his closest friend Peter Guber, who was also his long-time business partner and co-chairman at Sony/Columbia pictures. Guber claimed that he had done it on the orders of his Sony superiors, and Sony superiors said that it was Guber who asked them for Jon Peters’ dismissal and all of it resulted in their mutual sobbing on each other shoulders.

Whatever the case, there is no denying that the only movie project really intended for Michael Jackson was “Midknight”, but even that was dropped soon after its only ardent supporter was fired. This alone gives us the idea of the true worth of all those grand promises given to Michael by his new management team. Especially since they knew about Peters’ departure well in advance as the LA Times reported that “the move had been in the works for several weeks but was kept carefully under wraps.”

Another LA Times article of that period also glorified Michael Jackson’s new contract and mentioned that the movie in question was indeed “Midknight”.

Michael Jackson Agrees to Huge Contract With Sony

ALAN CITRON and CHUCK PHILIPS Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

March 21, 1991

In a thriller of a deal, pop icon Michael Jackson has signed a long-term contract with Sony Corp. that guarantees him an unprecedented share of the profits from his next six albums, his own record label, a role in developing video software products and a shot at movie stardom.

The contract, the biggest ever awarded an entertainer, is expected to return hundreds of millions of dollars to Jackson. It also cements Sony’s relationship with its biggest star, who reportedly had threatened to move to another label in a contract dispute last year.

“We’re married to him now,” Sony Software President Michael P. Schulhof said Wednesday.

Jackson, 32, reportedly could receive more than $120 million per album if sales match the 40-million-plus level of his smash mid-’80s album “Thriller.” Two sources close to the talks said the reclusive singer is guaranteed an advance payment of $5 million per record plus a 25% royalty from each album based on retail sales.

Jackson’s much-rumored deal is the result of months of difficult negotiations between Sony executives and Jackson’s phalanx of managers and lawyers. People close to the talks said Jackson insisted on striking a bargain that bridged records, movies and video software.

Jackson’s next record, for which he reportedly received an $18-million advance, is due this summer. In addition, Jackson will be paid a onetime $4-million fee, informed sources said, plus $1 million a year to run Nation Records, the record label created under the deal. Sources said Sony also agreed to put up $2.2 million a year in administration costs.

Jackson is not the first star to get his own record label. Frank Sinatra started Reprisebefore selling it to Warner Bros. The Beatles had Apple Records, and more recently labels have been established by such performers as Elton John, the Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and M.C. Hammer. More often than not, the results have been disappointing. Unlike those acts, Jackson will remain on Sony’s Epic Records label.

The deal further assures that Jackson will star in his first feature since the 1978 flop “The Wiz.” People close to the talks said he will be paid at least $5 million to appear in a musical action adventure based on his own idea.

The movie deal is largely the result of Jackson’s friendship with Columbia Pictures Co-Chairman Jon Peters and his partner, Peter Guber. Company officials said further films may follow if the first, set for a 1992 release, is a success. Jackson is also supposed to be given offices on Columbia’s Culver City lot.

http://www.latimes.com/la-me-jacksontimeline-sony-story.html

Funnily, many years later Peter Guber (who was also dumped in 1994) confirmed that all their promises to get Michael Jackson into the movies was nothing but shallow talk. See what he wrote in his book “Tell to Win” in 2011:

“Back in 1991, Jackson already was a force to be reckoned with. After renewing his contract with Sony for a record-setting $65 million, he released his eighth album, “Dangerous¸” with the singles “Black or White” and “Remember the Time,” both of which dominated the pop charts. As CEO of Sony Pictures, I’d sat in on the studio production of that album and was overwhelmed by Michael’s creative intensity and perfectionism.

His ambition knew no bounds. But when Sony’s most important musical asset invited me to his home in Encino to discuss his plans to get into movies and television, I was taken aback. Michael had proven he knew everything there was to know about pop music, but movies were a different animal. He wanted to produce as well as act…

https://www.thewrap.com/drama-gets-your-story-moving-25254/

So Guber was “taken aback” when Michael raised with him the movie issue? Forgetting that their 1991 agreement had a contractual obligation to find a suitable movie project for MJ, twenty years later Guber sounded like he was hearing about it for the first time and presented it as a bolt from the blue, a kind of an outlandish claim and the illustration of Michael’s ambition that “knew no bounds”.

How very nice.

ANOTHER SURPRISE

According to Zack Greenburg’s book called “Michael Jackson, Inc.: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of a Billion-Dollar Empire” Michael Jackson learned of the real terms of his new contract with Sony only in the mid-1990s.

Sometime in 1997 Michael began working on his Invincible album but was in no hurry to deliver. Greenburg says that “he believed he could get out of his latest Sony contract in 2000 and simply sell the new material to the highest bidder.”

Artists in California have the full right to do so as contracts governed by California law can be indeed abrogated after seven years. Greenburg explains:

“Back when he signed his first solo contract with Sony’s predecessor, CBS, Branca had insisted that the agreement be governed by California law, which would allow Jackson to terminate it after seven years if he saw fit. The singer assumed the same statutes held true.

As Jackson discovered in the mid-1990s, however, the contract had been reworked by one of Branca’s replacements. Three albumswere added to his original five-album deal, along with massive penalties for early termination—as much as $20 million for each album he didn’t complete—which effectively nullified the benefits of the California law clause.

Jackson eventually determined that he could leave the label only after delivering Invincible and a greatest hits album.”

Branca’s replacement the author is referring to could only be Allen Grubman as it was he who continued renegotiating Michael’s contract with Sony after Branca was fired and the power at Sony Music Entertainment was grabbed by another team.

And it was Allen Grubman, Mottola’s bosom friend and a big Geffen loyalist, who added three albums to Michael’s existing contract and by working into the agreement a multimillion penalty clause bound him to Sony almost forever, doing it in a way that Michael learned about the changes only several years later.

No wonder that M. Schulhof declared in 1991 that they were “now married to Michael Jackson” and the media spoke about “cementing” Michael Jackson’s relationship with Sony.

So much for the promises of a greater future to Michael by his new advisors.

Much more about these events is revealed in another outstanding publication called “MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson” published in 2015.

The book was written by Steve Knopper, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and veteran music reporter, whose earlier “Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age” is already known to us by its description of “paola” in the music industry (the inducement by record companies to broadcast their songs on commercial radio for money, gifts, favors, etc.) and a witch hunt against Yetnikoff on paola allegations, though all recording companies are involved in this business and are level in spending enormous sums on this practice.

The USA Today considers Steven Knopper “a more conscientious historian than tabloid newshound” which is only partially true. Knopper is indeed quite credible when he sticks to the music business subject, but when it comes to the “molestation” issues he often falls into the usual traps. However despite repeating some silly stereotypes his overall conclusion is that “all evidence points to no” – meaning that Michael Jackson was innocent:

«Knopper, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone who is more conscientious historian than tabloid newshound, only deals with whatever can be substantiated. OK, so did Jackson molest children? Concludes Knopper: “All evidence points to no – although sleeping in bed with children and boasting of it on international television did not qualify him for the Celebrity Judgment Hall of Fame.”

Fortunately Steve Knopper’s book is more about business than the allegations and this is what’s most valuable for us at the moment. Here are some more colorful details from Knopper about the coup at Sony in 1990:

p.183

When Michael fired DiLeo, he gave no warning. Branca, Michael’s longtime lawyer, made the call: “Michael doesn’t want to work with you.”

“Guy doesn’t want to work with me. I don’t want to work with him, “DiLeo told Branca. “What do you want me to do? Kill myself?”

People speculated DiLeo lost his job because he had been unable to put the big-budget Moonwalker into theaters.  (The film did, however, make a killing in the home-video market, shipping three hundred copies in its first week, at $24.98 apiece, in 1989).

The truth was more complicated. In 1989, David Geffen, the smooth-talking record mogul, insinuated himself into Michael’s advisory team. Geffen didn’t get along with Branca, and he hated Walter Yetnikoff, president of CBS Records and a longtime Michael adviser. Geffen had recently come out as a gay man, and Yetnikoff, ever the crude needler, spread around a story, as he later wrote in his autobiography, that he wanted Geffen “to show my girlfriend how to give superior blowjobs.”

Geffen engineered a coup. He teamed up with Yetnikoff’s CBS number two, Tommy Mottola, and a top music-business attorney, Allen Grubman. Together they worked to sever Yetnikoff’s ties to CBS and its new parent company, Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp. Geffen convinced managers for longtime CBS artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Barbra Streisand to pull away from Yetnikoff. DiLeo had been a loyal Yetnikoff underling when he worked at the CBS affiliate Epic Records. As Michael’s manager, he provided a stable line of communication between the record company and his client. To break the link between Michael and Yetnikoff, Geffen convinced MJ to dump DiLeo.

Another reason: Michael’s goal at the time was to act in movies – he felt The Wiz and Captain EO were just the beginning. Geffen convinced Michael that DiLeo knew nothing about Hollywood. Geffen’s old friend Sandy Gallin was the man for him. In addition to managing music stars such as Dolly Parton and the Pointer Sisters, Gallin was a well-connected Hollywood hand who’d produced Father of the Bride and would later help create Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Los Angeles Times declared he had “an instinct for recognizing talent, hard-nosed negotiating skills [and] a bottomless schmooze capacity.” Michael hired Gallin to replace DiLeo. Thus, Geffen’s plan to cut Yetnikoff’s connections in Michael’s world succeeded. Sony’s executives, weary of Yetnikoff, installed Mottola in his place at the influential record label.

Michael continued to retool his management team. In 1990, he asked Branca to deliver him a new CBS Records contract that was bigger than any other pop star’s deal. Branca came up with a suitably impressive, unprecedented proposal, which would have earned Michael an $18 million advance, a royalty rate of roughly 25 percent of each album sale, and a guaranteed $5 million per album (up to $120 million total if he hit certain sales levels) The deal was to begin with an album that had been Branca’s idea – a greatest-hits package, Decade, with a few new songs, intended to buy time and ease Michael’s pressure to create. Branca met with Michael in spring 1990 and asked for equity in the publishing company he’d helped purchase. Michael said he’d think about it. He called Geffen for advice. Geffen, who liked Branca almost as little as he liked Yetnikoff, convinced Michael to dump Branca, just as he’d dumped Quincy and Frank.

Michael’s deal with CBS Records had essentially expired by March 1991. The company, now owned by Sony, wanted to keep its biggest superstar, even though his sales power had been diminishing since Thriller. Michael’s new attorney, Geffen loyalist Grubman, negotiated a new record deal with Sony Music, including a 25 percent royalty and a $50 million advance. The deal was lucrative and imperfect – it added a couple of albums to Michael’s existing recording contract.

But for Michael, the real enticement to the new contract was movie connections. “He admired Elvis Presley’s career greatly, and he felt that his career should be modeled against that,” says Rusty Lemorande, who wrote and produced Captain EO and worked closely with Michael on movie projects through the early nineties. “He felt Elvis Presley was more remembered because of his films than because of his performances.”

In addition to signing with Gallin, Michael hired well-known Creative Artists Agency to represent him for film projects. The new connections paid off immediately – Sony Pictures executive Jon Peters attached him to a project with Batman production designer Anton Furst (who committed suicide before he could direct his first movie). Later, Michael was supposed to star in Angels with Dirty Faces, and update of the Jimmy Cagney gangster film…

Speaking about gangster films this piece reads like a gangster story too.

First of all we get another confirmation that it was David Geffen who engineered a coup around Michael Jackson and got rid of Michael’s closest aides. The way it looks he did it to avenge himself on Yetnikoff, and this makes Michael a chance victim to Geffen’s personal vendetta and an ugly feud Michael had nothing to do with.

As a result of the coup the terms of MJ’s cooperation with Sony changed, but only for the worse and he got surrounded by people who didn’t have his best interests at heart and were not even above plain cheating on him.

Another interesting note is that Geffen “didn’t get along with John Branca” and “liked him almost as little as he liked Yetnikoff”.

Considering that Geffen hated Yetnikoff you can probably imagine the amount of affection Geffen has for Branca, so it won’t surprise me if Geffen turns out to be the main force behind the never-ending campaign against this lawyer which never ceases and at times only subsides, reaching the climax after Michael Jackson’s death. Getting at Branca via MJ fans, relatives, rumors in the press and overall confusion of minds would be very much the style of our great manipulator.

And if we compare the figures of what was planned for Michael and what he received under his new contract we will have to admit that the most lucrative terms of the new MJ/Sony deal were actually negotiated by Branca and not Grubman (an $18 million advance, a royalty rate of 25 percent of each album sale, and a guaranteed $5 million per album) though Michael’s new team boasted of it as if it was their own achievement.

In fact Allen Grubman only made things worse as according to Knopper’s book he added two ( Zack Greenburg said three) more albums to Michael’s existing contract. In contrast, Branca wanted to ease the pressure on Michael and buy him more time for future creations and to this end he suggested a two-disc “Decade” album of greatest hits that would include only a handful of new songs. However that idea was discarded – with Geffen’s support by the way –  and the pressure to make new albums did not only ease, but built up.

We know these details from another meticulous study of MJ’s career, by Mike Smallcombe who mentioned it in this piece about making the Dangerous album:

John Branca attempted to take some pressure off by persuading him to release a two-disc greatest hits collection (with up to five new songs included) to followBad, rather than an album of entirely new material. The collection was to be titled Decade 1979–1989 and completed by August 1989, in preparation for a November release.

With the Decade format in mind, Branca began renegotiating Michael’s contract with CBS Records. CBS was now under new ownership; the label was sold to the Japanese Sony Corporation for $2 billion in November 1987.

Michael was indecisive about the Decade project and unsure about which songs to include on it, and had already missed the August deadline for its completion. Yet no definite decision was made; Michael would keep creating and see how he felt later down the line.

In the summer of 1990, Michael finally decided to shelve the Decade project in favour of an album of new material, due to an avalanche of song ideas. ‘Michael simply wasn’t interested in old material, he wanted to keep creating.’ David Geffen was also said to have influenced the decision.

Getting back to the 1990 coup around Jackson we also find out that the movie connections promised by his new advisors were the main enticement for MJ to reboot his team (remember the NY Times placing this matter first in their account of Michael’s new contract?)

If we are to believe Steve Knopper’s findings it was in anticipation of a bright new career in Hollywood that Michael Jackson replaced his old personal manager Frank Dileo with Sandy Gallin. As usual, it was Geffen again who whispered in Michael’s ear that Dileo knew nothing of Hollywood and that his friend Sandy Gallin was the only right person for MJ.

Okay, but if Sandy Gallin was so good in his job where are the promised movies then?

I’m afraid there are none, because the “Midknight” project was developed by Jon Peters whom the new Sony team disassociated itself with.

And the idea of “Angels with Dirty Faces” mentioned above sprang from Michael’s personal connection with Rusty Lemorande whom he had known since 1986 when the latter produced Captain EO for a Disney theme park. Here is what Lemorande said about the way he came to cooperate with MJ over that movie:

“We remained friendly and had two film projects in the pipeline. He wanted to do films. We developed a film at Turner Films that doesn’t exist anymore; and one at the Warner Brothers. They stopped after Michael’s scandals. That really killed his movie career.

Interesting that neither of those two projects was at Sony/Columbia pictures. In another piece Lemorande provided more detail:

“Michael was pretty pleased with our relationship, and he had just set up his film company at Sony-Columbia. And the problem was, with all the development people, etc. he wasn’t committing to anything.”

“I used to say to him, ‘You’re a little like Arnold Schwarzenegger. You can’t do any part. The part has to be tailored to you. He became a star because of Terminator.

“Well, Michael said, ‘You come up with some ideas.’ And I came up with two fairly quickly.

“One was to remake an old film called 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, which was a [1964] Tony Randall film that involved a child protagonist, and the other was to remake the film Angels with Dirty Faces, which is a James Cagney film. Michael was a huge James Cagney fan.

“Michael loved both projects. One was set up at Warners. And the other was set up at Turner – who owned the remake rights. And everything was going great. Fantastic! And then the first scandal hit.”

In fact the list of feature films with Michael’s participation is very scarce, and none of them were suggested by Sandy Gallin, Geffen or Michael’s new Sony team. His only finished projects were “The Wiz”, “Captain EO” and “The Moonwalker”, the producer of which was none other than Frank Dileo – the man dismissed from Michael’s team as someone who “knew nothing” about Hollywood.

THE OLD INTERVIEW

In 2007 Dileo actually told us the whole story, though naming no names. But now that we see the overall picture and are familiar with its main actors Dileo’s careful wording can be easily deciphered and is like an open book to us. What’s also wonderful is that he was telling the truth (a rare treat) and his take on the 1990 events was correct.

Here are some excerpts from Dileo’s account.

Hit Man

JACK SILVERMAN

NOV 22, 2007

In his 1990 exposé Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business, journalist Frederic Dannen makes the case that Dileo pretty much ran the show at Epic.

…Amusing anecdotes aside, Dannen’s depiction of Frank Dileo is not entirely flattering. Much of Hit Men is concerned with the use of independent promoters, particularly a group known as The Network.… Dannen suggests that these third-party promoters were a way for record companies to keep their own hands clean while using guys who weren’t afraid to bribe program directors. Though he never accuses Dileo of payola, Dannen describes him as a staunch advocate of indie promo men, a claim Dileo doesn’t deny.

“This is what guys like Dannen don’t understand,” Dileo says. “That was my field force. I had 60-some people. Say 40 of them are in the field. They have to cover all the pop stations, the album stations, the AC stations. Well, sometimes it’s too much. So you hire independents to help. They can do things with the PD that the local guy can’t. And I don’t mean illegal things. I mean they can take him to dinner—it’s just the way businesses operate. It’s no different than having a lobbyist in Washington, D.C.”

Still, Dileo’s hot streak at Epic can hardly be pinned exclusively on his use of indies. Every major label at the time had a sizable budget for independent promotion—whether or not it was a shady business, the playing field was level. Yet in a short time, Epic had risen from No. 14 to No. 2, in no small part because of the way Dileo handled a record that would become the greatest-selling album of all time. …When Jackson released Thriller in December 1982, in the heart of Frank Dileo’s Epic reign, it went on to sell more than 51 million copies.

…Jackson, who had been without a manager for eight months, asked Dileo to fill the position on a Monday in March 1984 at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Two days later, when Dileo accepted, the music industry was abuzz. One unnamed source in Dannen’s book says, “Everyone turned fucking green when Frank pulled that one off.”

Out of the record-label frying pan, into the megastar-management fire. Dileo started managing Jackson three months before the start of the Victory Tour, which reunited all of the Jackson brothers.

“Believe me, that was work,” Dileo says. “Every brother had a lawyer and an accountant. We had to have white promoters and black promoters. It was quite a complicated fiasco. But I got Michael through it safely.” [On the Victory Tour] “Michael used to moderate everything I ate,” Dileo says. “It’s amazing—when I started with him I was 210; when I ended with him, I was 265. So that’s what eating healthy does to you.”

…In September 1987, Jackson embarked on his first tour as a solo performer, the Bad World Tour, which Dileo produced. Though the hassles of dealing with the Jackson brothers’ handlers were absent, Dileo was in for the ride of his life—123 dates over 16-and-a-half months. It was the largest-grossing tour of all time, putting Michael in front of 4.4 million fans on four continents.

“It was a headache,” Dileo says—a grand understatement to be sure. “You were moving 213 people every three days. …Of course, there was a lot more to managing Michael Jackson than producing world tours. “We did a lot of things, Michael and I,” Dileo says fondly. “I got to executive produce all the videos of the Bad album. I did Moonwalker. I got nominated for two Grammys: for ‘Smooth Criminal’ and ‘Leave Me Alone.’ And I won a Grammy for ‘Leave Me Alone’—as the producer of the video, not the record.”

Dileo harbors no ill will toward Jackson over his firing in February 1989. “It’s a shame it ended,” Dileo says. “I really like Michael. It ended for a lot of reasons. First of all, Michael and I spent every day together for five-and-a-half years. A lot of people were jealous of that.

And at that point in time, we had a lot of power between us. There was one or two record executives, and a lawyer, possibly two lawyers, that sort of needed me to get out of the way, so that they had more control with Michael. And it also was a way for them to get rid of Yetnikoff, who had a lot of power and was my friend.”

It’s not hard to imagine why a bunch of industry suits wanted to get their hands on Jackson. But how was Jackson convinced?

“Unfortunately, they talked Michael into it,” Dileo says, “by promising him—now this is according to Michael, and I believe this—by promising him that if he fired me and hired Sandy Gallin, that he’d be able to make movies in Hollywood. Now the truth be told, Michael never made a movie. The only movie [besides 1978’s The Wiz] he’s ever made was with me, and that was Moonwalker.”

The rest of the story is beyond the scope of the present subject but I can’t resist quoting it too.

…When Jackson went on trial in 2005, Frank stayed in Los Angeles for over three months, on his own dime. “I know that he is innocent,” Dileo says. “A lot of people attack him for a lot of different reasons. One is, everybody would love to get their hands on the Beatles’ publishing. And he’s just one of those guys, he’s real kind and real nice and he can easily be taken advantage of.

“In this particular case, this kid had cancer, he found him a doctor, they didn’t have any money, he allowed them to live on his ranch. And when it was over, they didn’t want to leave. It was like blackmail. That’s all it was.

“We talked at each and every break,” Dileo continues. “I wanted to let him know that I know he didn’t do it. In fact, when I went there, he didn’t know I was coming. It was very emotional. He went, ‘Frank, I can’t believe you’re here.’ And he started to cry. And I went over and I hugged him and we got on the elevator and he told [defense attorney] Tom Mesereau, ‘This is Frank Dileo. He used to manage me. I’ve had nine managers since then. He’s the only guy that showed up, or even called to see how I’m doing.’ That was a very rough thing on him, a very emotional thing.”

https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/article/13015497/hit-man

There is no man without a fault, but what’s definite about Dileo is that he supported the truth and was on Michael Jackson’s side at the time he needed it most. 

WINDOW DRESSING

By now it is clear that Michael expected Geffen and Gallin to be his doorway to Hollywood and for this reason alone he changed the whole team of his aides. But was Sandy Gallin supportive of Michael’s pursuit?

Well, when talking about it Gallin was never able to get his story straight.

To Zack Greenburg he said that “he shared Michael’s dream of making him as big in the film world as he was in music” and this was the reason why they bonded.

“Before Branca was fired, Gallin had approached him to set up a meeting with Jackson, who’d just dismissed Dileo. Gallin (who has also managed Cher, Neil Diamond, and Dolly Parton) thought he might be a good fit for Jackson. The singer had considered a handful of others, but Gallin eventually won the job after bonding with the King of Pop over the scope of their shared dream of making Jackson as big in the film world as he was in music.

And Mike Smallcombe says that when Sandy Gallin first met Michael Jackson they didn’t even discuss movies – which is a ridiculous and hardly believable statement considering that the reason Michael retained Gallin was movies and movies alone.

To support this laughable version Gallin claimed that “in his mind” Michael “might have thought” that Gallin could help him with the movies (thus suggesting that it was more Michael’s imagination than reality).

Gallin recalls the first time he spoke to Michael at Record One. “John Branca called me and took me to the studio, and we clicked right away,” Gallin said. “We had conversations about his music, and where he could go with selling records and touring. That night, we got talking about how big a star he could become, and he felt we were on the same wavelength. Michael knew how to seduce people better than anybody, and he just told me how much he liked me, and that I made him feel good in the meeting.”

One thing the pair didn’t discuss was movies. “Our conversation was much more about Michael continuing to be the biggest record seller in the world,” Gallin said. “In his mind, he might have thought, ‘Sandy has produced many television shows and he’ll be able to get me into the movie business’. But we didn’t actually discuss that until later on.”  

Now is there anyone on this planet who is capable to tell us the truth at last? Did Geffen and Gallin really mean it or was all that talk about getting Michael into the movies just tongue-in-cheek which Michael had the misfortune to take at face value?

Surprisingly, the person who dots the I’s and crosses the T’s is an apparent Geffen’s supporter whose name is associated with almost every story written in the press about Geffen and his circle. Back in the 90s this journalist was writing for the Washington Post and was covering Hollywood for the Vanity Fair.

Her name is Kim Masters and together with another author, Nancy Griffin, she co-wrote a book called “HIT AND RUN: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood” published in 1997. Yetnikoff is portrayed there as a delirious personality and his protégés Jon Peters and Peter Guber as the ultimate Hollywood con job and biggest blunder in the industry, while Geffen looks more like an awe-inspiring force not to be meddled with.

So what do Kim Masters and Nancy Griffin say about the 1990 power shift at Sony?

p.288-289

In August 1990, Walter read in the Wall Street Journal that he would be phased out of day-to-day operations at the record company. The article – followed by a similar report in the Los Angeles Times – didn’t comport with Walter’s understanding of his situation. True, he had turned over domestic operations to Tommy Mottola, the former talent manager whom he had hired after Sony bought CBS Records. But he wasn’t yielding control of the company.

At this point Yetnikoff was surrounded by enemies in the industry. The heads of other major record companies all had feuds with him.<> But his most dangerous enemy appeared to be David Geffen, the man who had sold his record label to MCA for more than $500 million. Geffen had a long memory. He was a bad enemy to have.

Yetnikoff had tossed a number of insults at Geffen over the years, but one story emerged from the many. The general outlines involve Yetnikoff coming across one of Geffen’s female assistants and asking her in crude terms whether Geffen, was gay but not yet openly so, would teach Walter’s girlfriend to perform oral sex. Whether that especially enraged Geffen or some other Yetnikoff behaviour was to blame, there was a widespread perception that Geffen did what he could to undermine Walter.

And Geffen was a man of influence with two of CBS Records’ biggest stars. He was close to Bruce Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau, and Michael Jackson, who began to complain about the way CBS Records was treating him. Walter was said to be incensed when Jackson dropped his lawyers and retained Allen Grubman. Grubman had become one of the most influential attorneys in the music business, in part with Yetnikoff’s assistance. Yetnikoff had steered many clients to him, including Bruce Springsteen. Now he and Walter had split and Grubman was closer to Geffen.

This is the closest Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters come to describing Geffen’s role in Yetnikoff’s fall. However another piece from the same book is much more tale-telling, and not in the way the authors intended it.

p.407

Jackson’s much-vaunted deal, brokered by Jon Peters, had amounted to nothing. It had been “all window dressing” from the start, said a Columbia executive. “Everyone knew it was.”

Everyone except Peters and Anton Furst, Batman’s brilliant production designer, that is.

“Although most Hollywood insiders believed that Jackon’s persona was too weird for him to become a film star, Peters was developing MidKnight, a fantasy project about a superhero, for him. MidKnight was shelved after Peters left the studio.” (from HIT AND RUN)

While most people in Hollywood had long been convinced that Jackson was simply too weird to put into a feature-length film, Peter and Furst had tried to develop MidKnight for the star.

But Jackson had lost his two collaborators in 1991. Peters had left the studio, while Furst had died tragically in November.

On the day he was scheduled to admit himself into a detox program for an addiction to Valium, Furst had either fallen or jumped off the eighth floor of a Culver City parking garage.

So here is the answer to our question and straight from the horse’s mouth at that– the movie projects promised to Michael Jackson were just window dressing and everyone at Columbia knew that it was. And since they knew about it from the very start, it means that they were just paying lip service to it when they were drawing up that ground-breaking contract of theirs and trumpeting about it in the press.

And it was only Jon Peters who was taking this job seriously. However the new Sony team did not only refuse any help to him, but also prevented him from carrying out the project by firing him and leaving him in complete isolation.

Before you habitually start throwing stones at Sony please ask yourself who were the initiators of all that window dressing and who were those Hollywood insiders who had long been convinced that movies were not for Michael Jackson.

Was it Yetnikoff of CBS/Sony who had successfully worked with Michael for more than 15 years? No, it wasn’t.

Was it Frank Dileo, the head promoter at Epic/Sony who produced for Michael Jackson the Moonwalker and most of the videos for his Bad album? No, it wasn’t Frank Dileo.

Was it the Japanese bosses sitting in Tokyo? No, it wasn’t Tokyo either as the people there were often unaware of the plans and day-to-day operations of their local US team. “Tommy Boy” by Robert Sam Anson says that the board members in Sony Japan were kept so much in the dark about some of Tommy Mottola’s activities that they had to approach reporters to provide them with information:

“…a befuddled Sony board member told a reporter, “Maybe you can find out what the facts are” “Maybe you can tell me.”

Sony Corporation President Nobuyoki Idei complained to the LA Times: “If I write a memo to Tommy, he gets mad. He goes crazy. He says, “What’s the matter, don’t you trust me?”

Tommy didn’t help matters when during a visit to Japan he publicly lectured Idei, telling him to leave him alone”.

But if all these people were not involved, then who was?

The people who came to the top at Sony as a result of the power grab engineered by David Geffen. The people who promised Michael to help him launch a career in Hollywood that would match his stellar achievements in music and videos. The people who in March 1991 made all that fuss in the press about an “unprecedented synergy contract” for Michael Jackson that would bridge music, videos and movies to reflect his versatility.

So before anyone is habitually tempted to repeat those trite little expressions like “Sony sucks” it is probably worth thinking about some fresh word combinations with individual names of Mottola, Grubman, Gallin and Geffen in a similar context.

And now that we know the sad story of Michael Jackson’s movie projects no one will probably think it “weird” that sometime in 1993 at a private dinner to discuss Michael Jackson’s film career Michael “inexplicably” placed his head on the table and began to cry uncontrollably.

Prominent executives and others who have worked with Mr. Jackson in recent months have expressed concern about his apparently fragile emotional state, even before the recent allegations. At a private dinner several months ago to discuss Mr. Jackson’s film career, some of the biggest players in Hollywood joined the superstar.

Several people who attended the dinner said that while the discussion was going on, Mr. Jackson, inexplicably, placed his head on the table and began to cry uncontrollably. The dinner reportedly broke up soon after.

~

A reader wondered why Wade Robson restarted his ‘molestation’ story this May though his frivolous lawsuits against the Estate and MJ companies were tossed out at the end of last year.

The question doesn’t even require an answer – Robson has nothing else to do but sit on his old bag of lies and has nowhere to go but the media which is always willing to listen to a Michael Jackson detractor even when his lies are so obvious.

So what’s really interesting is why this failed liar is still being invited there and why Robson’s renewed speech occurred at the time it occurred.

As to the timing of the event it is no mystery whatsoever – it has become a time honored tradition to restart allegations about Michael Jackson exactly a month before the anniversary of his death.

This period is a strategic check point in a continued war against Jackson and each year it pursues the same goals – the stories fabricated at this time are meant to obscure Michael Jackson’s full acquittal on June 13th (2005) unwelcome to some people, and overshadow his untimely death on June 25th (2009) still mourned by almost everyone in the world.

These bogus stories are meant to direct public attention elsewhere, refresh old lies about Jackson and add a couple of new ones in order to solidify the image of an ‘abuser’ long created for the poor Michael, and leave it there until the next anniversary arrives – a simple but effective propaganda technique that takes people on a smooth path from the initial rejection of a lie to its complete acceptance and ‘everyone knows it’ stage.

We’ve long noticed the ugly trend of this regular mud-slinging as had to regularly debunk new fakes about Michael Jackson at this time of the year, and now the history of those fabrications can be easily traced back by the posts made on those occasions.

And before we talk about this year’s venture let me remind everyone of previous attempts.

REGULAR EVENT

MAY 2010 was marked by the announcement of a new ground-breaking book about Michael Jackson, meant to ‘humanize’ him and recommended by some university professors for ‘family reading’. The author was a certain Carl Toms, who later turned out to be a convicted pedophile Thomas O’Carroll whose true identity was exposed by Michael’s fans.

Despite the overwhelming protests the book of this criminal was published, though its ultimate goal was to promote the ‘cause’ of this scum of the earth by dragging into the picture the innocent name of Michael Jackson. Here is a series of posts about it, complete with a look at those professors who recommended the pedophilia opus for family reading.

In MAY 2011 a certain Daphne Barak suddenly popped up with a tale about Aaron Carter who allegedly spoke of MJ’s inappropriate behavior towards him. An extensive investigation found the story to be a fabrication and the tape accompanying it a compilation of Carter’s words taken out of a different context.

Carter did indeed talk of some ‘King’ who once freaked him out by sitting on his bed at night, however it was Lou Pearlman, the King of boy bands and Carter’s manager at whose place many of them stayed and who is serving his time in prison now and has a long trail of sex assault accusations by the members of his boy bands. Here are the details of that thriller.

The MAY 2012 post was about Scott Thorson who, fresh from prison and on the eve of the third anniversary of MJ’s death, suddenly decided to improve his finances by alleging that he had once had a ‘secret romance’ with MJ.

Our detailed post debunking the lie ended with a question if Scott Thorson will ever understand that blood money has never done anyone any good. The journalist who happens to know Thorson answered a big NO to this question (so he never will) and was correct. When Thorson’s story subsided its author was incarcerated again for his other offenses which were numerous and varied.

MAY 2013 was a big time for Wade Robson. After testifying about Michael Jackson’s innocence twice and both time under oath – in 1993 to the Grand Jury and at the 2005 trial – he suddenly reentered the picture with an opposite story claiming that he had been ‘sexually abused’.

Robson defended Michael Jackson at the 2005 trial

Trying to explain his previous two decades of standing by Jackson he presented a ridiculous version that he ‘always knew what had been done to him’ only ‘he didn’t realize that it was rape’ (even when he testified to Michael’s innocence at the age of 22), and realized it, poor thing, only when it was explained it to him in a recent therapy session.

This is what British journalist Charles Thomson had to say about it.  And here is Joe Vogel’s take on the same issue.

Throughout the summer of 2013 which was also the time of a grueling court fight between Katherine Jackson and AEG Live, the media salivated over Robson’s news and kept throwing in even more mud.

Beginning with June 2013 a certain James Desborough, a former editor of the defunct News of the World and a freelance journalist now, published in UK tabloids a series of stories about the innumerable millions allegedly paid by MJ to ‘dozens’ of boys no one ever heard of and allegedly listed in some secret FBI files. The story was found to be a big fat lie and if you don’t mind a long and winding investigation here and here are the details.

JUNE 2014 was marked by a CNN interview with Conrad Murray, the doctor who killed Michael Jackson and whose sentence to four years in jail had been cut by half due to overcrowding in prisons. Immediately upon his release the ex-doctor was welcomed on TV to share his valuable views on Jackson – first in an interview and then in a widely publicized documentary. Both events were not only biased, but a horrible insult to justice, truth and simple human decency.

If the media anticipated some ‘dark secrets’ to be disclosed by Murray, they were disappointed – the ex-doctor mostly justified his method of treating Jackson (which led to his death) and only hinted at possible revelations if the media offers were interesting enough. All of it resulted in Conrad Murray writing a book in the summer of 2016 which showed him so malign a narcissist that after the initial agitation the media quickly dropped the matter to avoid further embarrassment. Here is more about that saga. And here too.

In MAY 2015 Robson suffered his first setback. He wanted money from the MJ Estate but the judge didn’t allow his probate creditor’s claim to proceed. The media downplayed the news focusing on the idea that the case was thrown out ‘for technical reasons only’, and was partially correct – at that stage the judge was not even expected to decide on the merits of the case. His sole responsibility was to find if the creditor’s claim could proceed or not, and it naturally couldn’t as all datelines had long expired.

JUNE 2015 was also the 10^th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s full acquittal in court, but not a single journalist in the mainstream and tabloid media, except Roger Friedman and Charles Thomson, remembered it. The details are here and here.

A year later, in JUNE 2016 Robson’s other case which was a civil lawsuit against MJ’s companies, was still dragging and to fill the void the media struck afresh with a series of lies published on RadarOnline and other tabloid media that reposted their story.

RadarOnline had been a go-to place for Robson’s lawyers since the inception of his project, but this time the forces supporting Robson surpassed themselves – they meddled with the police documents for the 2005 trial and fabricated the accompanying pictures to imitate porn which was declared to be ‘revealed only now’. The anti-Michael campaign raged all over the media, but the RadarOnline report was so crass and shameless a fake that Michael’s nephews threatened to take legal action against the paper. In the midst of it all Robson suddenly changed his team of lawyers and the matter somehow died, however leaving the unsuspecting public with ripples of suspicions about Jackson. More about it here and here.

That story would not be complete if I didn’t mention the fun fact that a few months after those RadarOnline publications their fakes mysteriously disappeared from the web and can no longer be traced even by archive machines. So even if you know nothing about that case, this disappearance act alone will tell you how big a lie the whole thing was.

When threatened with legal action RadarOnline didn’t want to be held responsible for their fabrication, especially since their goal had been achieved and all the damage to Michael’s name had already been done, so they quietly pulled that material leaving no trace behind them. This hit-and-run RadarOnline operation was revealed in this investigative piece.

Considering all of the above JUNE 2017 was expected by us to be another round of fakes about MJ (our Susannerb even made a post about it), however either because RadarOnline learned its lesson or we missed something in our overview of the battlefield, the eighth anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death seemed to be uneventful in terms of new lies about Jackson (please correct me if I overlooked something).

Moreover, the early summer of 2017 surprised us by a fairly well-made TV movie titled “Michael Jackson: Searching for Neverland” and based on the book “Remember the Time” by two of Jackson’s bodyguards – you can watch it here in minor quality.

However in MAY 2018 the mud slinging resumed. After all his setbacks in court Wade Robson resurfaced again, this time in the court of public opinion, and gave an interview to Jim Moret of Inside Edition – the one who interviewed the Robson family back in 1993 and made a report about them on CNN.  And since it was Jim Moret who provided his public platform to Wade Robson to let him rekindle his lies there, it is he who interests us most.

JIM MORET

Jim Moret. Twitter

Indeed, who is Jim Moret?

Wiki says that he is a journalist and also a lawyer who acted as a legal analyst in covering several celebrity trial cases for various TV and radio channels:

“Jim Moret (born December 3, 1956) is the chief correspondent for the syndicated television news magazine Inside Edition. Moret has covered entertainment news and traditional hard news stories for over 25 years. He is a regular guest contributor, legal analyst and guest-host on CNN, HLN, Fox News Channel, Court TV, and MSNBC.

Moret graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a degree in Communication Studies and received a J.D. from Southwestern Law School.

Moret has covered many major California criminal cases including [ ] the O.J. Simpson criminal and civil trials, Scott Peterson double murder trial and the Michael Jackson molestation case, for which he served as the broadcast legal analyst for numerous television and radio networks.

Okay, so since Jim Moret covered the MJ trial in 2005 ‘for numerous TV and radio networks’ as a legal analyst, here comes the next question: How did he cover it?

Describing the way the 2005 trial was reported by the media, several recent articles placed Jim Moret side by side with Diane Dimond as if suggesting that their presentation of the trial was similar or the same.

Steve Knopper, whose two books about the entertainment industry have already been quoted in this blog, spoke to Jim Moret and in his 2016 article made no bones about Moret’s views:

• “Jim Moret believes Jackson is a child molester. He acknowledges the prosecution made a weak case. But he adds: “Are you asking in my gut, did I feel he was guilty? Yeah, I did.”

Well, first of all, the prosecution case was very strong in terms of the number of con artists of various sorts collected by the prosecution to speak against Jackson and covering more than a decade from early 90s to early 2000s – the period that went well beyond the scope of that particular trial. But as regards the evidence against Jackson their case was indeed weak – there was simply none.

However Jim Moret is apparently the type of a lawyer who doesn’t rely on facts but is guided mostly by his gut feeling, which is enough for him to call a person a criminal. What a remarkable feature for a reporter and legal analyst who is supposed to be analyzing the trial with utmost objectivity! And how fortunate we were to have the 12 jurors who were guided by facts and facts alone!

Here are some excerpts from Steve Knopper’s piece:

Michael Jackson’s 2005 Child-Molestation Trial: Journalists Remember the Public Frenzy, Porn, Hijinks

7/1/2016 by Steve Knopper

Atty. Jim Moret, Network Legal Analyst for Michael Jackson trial [2005]

…Jackson’s trial lasted from the day Tom Sneddon, the Santa Barbara County district attorney, filed charges on December 18, 2003, to the jury’s not-guilty verdict on June 13, 2005.It had extreme moments of drama and spectacle befitting the King of Pop, like the day of his first court appearance, when he jumped on top of a black SUV and performed dance steps to a screaming crowd, or the day he showed up in court in pajamas.(And there was the porn, which prosecutors intended to show as evidence of Jackson’s boy-loving depravity, but, in a twisted way, it established him as a straight male.)Jackson’s trial was similar to those of O.J. Simpson, Scott Peterson and others, all covered wall-to-wall by cable television and drawing thousands of fans and gawkers. But Judge Rodney Melville closed the courtroom to live media, unlike Simpson’s trial, giving more weight to reporters’ brief daily reports.…Like some reporters who covered the trial, notably Diane Dimond of Hard Copy, Jim Moret of Inside Edition believes Jackson is a child molester. He acknowledges the prosecution made a weak case, particularly in its reliance on the bizarre, finger-snapping testimony of Janet Arvizo, mother of the 10-year-old boy who accused Jackson of molestation. But he adds: “Are you asking in my gut, did I feel he was guilty? Yeah, I did.”Other reporters were dismayed by the openly biased media experts and correspondents who took courtroom seats daily. “There were reporters [at the trial] who had dedicated much of their careers to, for some reason, exposing Michael Jackson as a molester,” says Linda Deutsch, the veteran Associated Press trial reporter who filed regular reports from Santa Maria. “I never understood it. And it was very troubling.”Although Jackson received the best possible verdict, the public ordeal of the lengthy trial visibly took a toll on his health; reporters watched in the courtroom as he struggled to sit down and stand up and occasionally did stretching exercises during breaks. (He died on June 25, 2009.) “It was clear to everyone his health was suffering,” says Peter Bowes, who covered the trial for BBC News. “He became frailer, a lot thinner—almost, I hate to use this phrase, zombie-like, as he walked in and out…. It was tragic to watch.”

There is always something new to learn even from an old story. The above article, for example, made me aware of the importance of live media in the courtroom and of a fundamental difference between MJ’s trial and the trials covered live (O.J.Simpson’s case, for example).

If Michael Jackson’s trial had been broadcast live the media would have had much lesser room for misrepresenting the case. Its outcome would have been the same (full acquittal), but the public would have been convinced of Michael’s innocence in the same way the 12 jurors were convinced of it when they were bringing in a unanimous NOT guilty verdict.

However since there was no live coverage the people had a completely distorted picture of that trial, but still imagine that they can liken Michael Jackson’s not guilty verdict to that in Simpson’s case though in one case they saw all of it with their own eyes and formed their own opinion of it, and in Michael’s case they were guided by other people’s reports that were largely biased, vile and often downright false.

But one thing is a far cry from the other and there can’t be any comparison between the picture you see with your own eyes with a false impression imposed on you by journalistic monsters like Diane Dimond et al. or legal analysts like Jim Moret who value their gut feelings more than facts.

Randy Taraborrelli: “Jim Moret, has been a friend of mine for years; we covered the Michael Jackson trial in Santa Maria together”

A small tip to the TV people – reenact the trial based on its court transcripts and it will open up a wealth of exculpatory information about Jackson and will clear the minds of many.

Another article of the 2005 period puts Jim Moret’s name beside Diane Dimond again and describes the US celebrity show trials as a crime caster industry calling its participants ‘a travelling band of analysts’ most of whom regard it as a way to make a good living for themselves.

To Some, Jackson Trial Is Another Shot at TV

By JOHN M. BRODER APRIL 2, 2005

SANTA MARIA, Calif.

Anne Bremner has taken unpaid time off from her Seattle law practice to sit in the courtroom and offer television commentary on the Michael Jackson trial. The visibility the case has given her, she said, has meant millions of dollars of new business for her firm.

…Drawn by the flame of the klieg lights and the television money that powers them, lawyer-commentators have been a fixture at widely publicized trials at least since William Kennedy Smith was tried and acquitted of rape in Palm Beach, Fla., in 1991. The tribulations of O.J. Simpson, Kobe Bryant, Scott Peterson and now Michael Jackson have brought this traveling band of analysts to the media bivouacs that spring up around America’s celebrity show trials.

Some of the sideline analysts at Mr. Jackson’s trial are familiar from previous spectacles. Jim Moret, who is covering the trial as senior correspondent for the syndicated program “Inside Edition,” was the studio anchor for CNN’s coverage of Mr. Simpson’s trial.

Diane Dimond of Court TV, who is not a lawyer, is among the nation’s foremost experts on Mr. Jackson’s personal and legal issues and is reporting around the clock from a tent pitched in the driveway of the Santa Maria courthouse.

…The Jackson trial has also provided a venue for lesser-known lawyers and courthouse denizens to break into the crimecaster industry.  There a revolving cast of talking heads offers up comment on the proceedings. The video is made available to the networks participating in a pool arrangement, which explains why Ms. Bremner or Mr. Moret, say, may show up on two or three different networks in a single day.

“Trials are like public morality plays,” Ms. Bremner said. “And there’s a public-education aspect to it, in this case more so than in many others.”

She said the Jackson case had provided an occasion to debate a state law on sex crimes cases that allowed the introduction of evidence of past offenses, even if they were not reported or prosecuted. The case has also illumined the vulnerability of a celebrity suspect to possible swindlers or to a prosecutor on a mission, she said.

Some analysts appear to have been hired because of their connections to the prosecution or the defense. NBC has contracted Jim Thomas, the former sheriff of Santa Barbara County, to analyze the trial. Mr. Thomas, who worked closely for years with Thomas W. Sneddon Jr., the Santa Barbara district attorney who is leading the Jackson prosecution, offers insight from the perspective of law enforcement officers and prosecutors.

NBC has also contracted Ronald Richards, who describes himself as a “professional friend” of Thomas A. Mesereau Jr., Mr. Jackson’s chief defense lawyer. Mr. Richards said he tried to be neutral but added that the network hired him because of his expertise on criminal defense issues.

Mr. Richards said no one but a blockhead did legal commentary without being paid. “I don’t understand these lawyers who come up here and do it for free,” he said. “I guess some people are addicted to the camera. It’s like a shot of heroin. If they think it’s good for their legal business, they’re just rationalizing their addiction.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/02/us/to-some-jackson-trial-is-another-shot-at-tv.html

This was an interesting insight into the trade of legal analysts. So while some of them used MJ’s trial for the promotion of their law firms, the majority of legal analysts did their commentary for money, and Jim Moret was among those who could show up on two or three networks in a single day. Imagine the financial benefits he reaped from that activity.

And not that he didn’t need that money – he needed it very much. Jim Moret left CNN in 2001 and stayed out of work for a while. Eventually his career went back on track, however by then he had already got himself entangled in loans and by 2008 his finances were so bad that he seriously considered committing suicide (all of it is described in his book “The Last Day of My Life” published in 2010). Here is the very short of that story:

Like so many Americans, Moret found himself mired in the problems brought on by the real estate and banking crash of the past year and a half. On the brink of losing everything, Moret – who had spent most of his life as the golden child, the guy to whom everything came easily – found himself obsessing about committing suicide.

When he left CNN in 2001, he was earning nearly $750,000 annually. [ ] With virtually no income, Moret quickly fell deeply in debt trying to keep up with his mortgage and private-school education in Los Angeles for his three children. To cover his costs, Moret ended up taking out a sub-prime loan that saved him in the short-term but eventually made matters far worse. By April 2008, Moret was having a hard time seeing a way out: “… selling the house was no longer a viable option,” he writes. “Because of the market’s precipitous fall, our home was now worth less than the amount we owed on it.”

“The timing of this impending crisis only heightened my sense of despair and hopelessness. My financial meltdown did not hit when I was out of work, but rather several years after my career was already back on track. I had reestablished my career and it was even on an upward swing.” It was then that Moret grew depressed and started wondering if he was better off dead.” 

Apparently, the upward swing in Jim Moret’s career was in close ties with Michael Jackson’s fall from grace in 2004/05. After Moret’s earlier coverage of Jackson he was considered an expert on MJ and during the Arvizo case his services were again in very much demand. His next stroke of luck came when Michael Jackson died in 2009 and Jim Moret found himself in the role of a go-to guy again.

In other words what was Michael’s misfortune was Jim Moret’s bread (and butter too).

Michael Jackson death big business for ‘Inside Edition’ reporter Jim Moret

By RICHARD HUFF | DAILY NEWS TV EDITOR |

AUG 10, 2009 | 10:03 PM

…”I never in a million years thought I’d be the ‘Michael Jackson guy,” said Moret, chief correspondent for “Inside Edition.”

Indeed, since Jackson died, Moret has become that guy and made more than 100 appearances and counting on shows other than “Inside Edition” to talk about the constantly unraveling story behind Jackson.

And with the autopsy results yet to be released, Moret’s extra airtime won’t end soon.

Moret gets the call because besides being a longtime journalist, he’s also a lawyer, which helps because of the various legal twists in the Jackson fallout.

Moret had been covering Jackson since 1984 when he was correspondent in Los Angeles. Then, while at CNN, he was inside the courtroom for Jackson’s first molestation case, and quickly became the go-to guy for other outlets looking for someone to talk celebrity and law.

Now, thanks to Jackson, Moret is everywhere – again.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/michael-jackson-death-big-business-edition-reporter-jim-moret-article-1.398049

To have a feel of Jim Moret’s style of reporting on Jackson here are some specimen of it.

In his 2010 article Moret sounded a little saddened, but not so much by Michael’s death but by the fact that after he died ‘the most questionable’ aspects of his life were ‘almost dismissed’.

“This death has catapulted him to the status of Elvis, in that he’s now a legend. And he was probably worthy of that status even in life. But all of the aspects of his life that were questionable when he was alive, have almost been dismissed in his death.”

And when reporting on the AEG 2013 trial Jim Moret could hardly conceal his frustration that Michael’s reputation and legacy were being resurrected. It even looked like his most ardent desire was to see Michael Jackson’s legacy killed.

Did the AEG Verdict Kill Michael Jackson’s Legacy?

10/02/2013

… For a brief time following Michael Jackson’s death, his reputation seemed resurrected, with millions of fans once again focusing on his music. The documentary This Is It chronicling the buildup and rehearsals for the ill-fated London concert tour cemented Jackson’s reputation as an artistic genius. His records were once again selling in the millions. Jackson’s estate which was estimated to be $400 million in debt at the time of his death, was turned around in dramatic fashion by the deft efforts of the estate’s executors.

Things changed for the worse when the wrongful death claim filed by Jackson’s three children and his eight-three year old mother against AEG finally went to trial earlier this year.

… During the five-month trial, witnesses took the stand and revealed sordid details about Jackson’s alleged molestations, drug addiction and abuse, subjects which Jackson had fought so vigorously during his life to keep out of the headlines.

The jury has spoken in this latest case and found in favor of AEG. Michael Jackson died in June, 2009. When this verdict was announced, I suspect that part of Jackson’s legacy may have died as well.

Now what the hell is that: “witnesses revealed sordid details about Jackson’s alleged molestations”?

Where did he get it?

Those of us who have closely followed the trial were certainly shocked and amazed by this statement. I nearly fell off my chair too. In this blog we analyzed every court transcript page by page and all those testimonies flashed through my mind within seconds, however I still couldn’t remember a single witness to even touch on the ‘molestation’ subject, not to mention ‘reveal sordid details’ of the allegations.

The AEG trial had many ups and downs, its own lies, inconsistencies and flaws, but what they surely didn’t have was the ‘molestation’ issue. I remember it perfectly well because I was even surprised that they didn’t.

So this is the kind of reporting Jim Moret did for his audience? Something that never took place is presented by him as fact?

All of it is beginning to explain why of all people in the world it was Jim Moret of Inside Edition who in May 2018 invited Wade Robson to share his precious lies about Jackson.

These two people are a perfect match for each other – both are not too much bothered about the truth and don’t mind it when it contradicts their stories. Both are driven by an ardent desire to smear Michael Jackson and both seem to benefit from prolonging the hate campaign against MJ and turning lies about him into their profession.

THE TWO INTERVIEWS

Half of Jim Moret’s 2018 interview with Robson is not actually an interview, but the usual voiceover retelling Robson’s allegations and illustrated by the pictures of MJ and young Robson together, Robson now teaching a dance class to his students and Robson sitting here and there with a slightly wistful but top honest look on his face.

Jim Moret interviews the Robsons in 1993

The centerpiece of the current story is Jim Moret’s own interview with Robson as a child when he as a young CNN correspondent spoke to the Robsons in 1993.

The three of them – Wade, his mother Joy and sister Chantal were calm and confident in their support of Jackson. They ruled out the possibility of any abuse on his part and spoke highly of him. The slumber parties were dismissed with a shrug of their shoulders as they were simply party time and were a lot of fun.

Rewatching that old footage now Robson commented on it as follows:

“I remember specifically the days leading up to the interview,” Robson recalled. “The conversation from Michael was they’re saying we did this, that, and the other, disgusting sexual things, and we never did any of that right? And I would just play along and say, ‘That was crazy — never did anything like that.'”

On the face of it his explanation may look feasible, but not until you learn the real timeline of the events. And the real timeline tells us a totally different story proving that MJ could not have coached Robson for his public statements even if he had intended to.

The thing is that first the Robson family was interviewed by police and Robson told them that he had never been touched by Jackson, and only then Joy Robson contacted Norma Staikos who contacted Anthony Pellicano who several days later arranged for Robson and his family to be interviewed by the media.

This timeline follows from Robson’s own Fourth Amended Complaint (yes, the judge allowed him to amend it four times) and shows that there was no need to coach Robson about the innocent things he had already spilled to the police. Especially since Michael was on the Dangerous tour then and Pellicano who would later handle the matter was accompanying him there.

In general Robson’s Fourth Amended complaint describes the succession of those events correctly with the only exception that for reasons of his own Robson shifted the dates from August 21st when all of it really happened to the second half of September.

Here is an excerpt from his Fourth Amended Complaint:

36. On September 14, 1993 […] Jordan Chandler, brought a civil lawsuit against MICHAEL JACKSON, which resulted in the Chandler Investigation identified above. Plaintiff  and his mother were interviewed by the Los Angeles Police Department in connection with the Chandler Investigation. Immediately afterwards, Plaintiffs mother [Joy Robson] called Norma Staikos, who put Plaintiffs mother in contact with Anthony Pellicano, MICHAEL JACKSON’s private investigator. Mr. Pellicano privately interviewed Plaintiff regarding the allegations against MICHAEL JACKSON, and he then arranged for Plaintiff and Plaintiffs mother to be interviewed by the media. Plaintiff was subpoenaed to testify before a Grand Jury in Los Angeles. He was eleven (11) years old at the time. MICHAEL JACKSON selected, hired and paid for counsel who represented Plaintiff in relation to his Grand Jury subpoena, to which Plaintiffs mother refused to let him testify. As a result of Plaintiff s refusal, Judge Lance Ito (the Judge in the O.J. Simpson 1994 criminal case) charged Plaintiff with contempt. A juvenile officer met with Plaintiff and his mother and told them he had to consider Plaintiff a child charged with a crime and possibly take Plaintiff to juvenile incarceration. A compromise was negotiated through MICHAEL JACKSON’s attorneys whereby Plaintiff would testify in a private session, and not before the full Grand Jury panel.

Never mind that September nonsense – the Robson family was interviewed almost a month prior to that. The criminal investigation started on August 17. On Saturday, August 21 the police raided Neverland and then MJ’s condo in Century City. In the meantime Michael’s several child friends were interviewed by police investigators (during the raid one of the boys was staying at Neverland and when questioned by the police fiercely defended Jackson).

On August 22/23 Pellicano interviewed the boys himself and on August 24 he arranged a press-conference with the participation of Robson and Brett Barnes.

On Wednesday, August 25 CNN spoke to Brett Barnes and the next day Robson and his family sat for an interview with Jim Moret.

The correct timing follows from the then press describing the events in their immediate succession and also from Jim Moret’s own original report citing ‘late Thursday’ (August 26) as the time when Robson and his family were introduced to CNN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37nw8K6H91c

To learn other important details see what the LA Times wrote on September 3, 1993:

Gloves Come Off in Damage Control by Jackson Camp

September 03, 1993|DAVID FERRELL and CHUCK PHILIPS, TIMES STAFF WRITERS

The instant the phone call arrived, Anthony Pellicano knew there was trouble–possibly big trouble. The caller told him there had been a raid. Police had confiscated photos and videotapes from the homes of the private investigator’s top client, pop superstar Michael Jackson.

For Pellicano, who was accompanying the singer on the Asian leg of a world concert tour, the bombshell was sufficiently jarring to prompt his own phone call moments later to Los Angeles, where it was not yet dawn.

“Wake up,” Pellicano told an old ally, criminal attorney Howard Weitzman. [ ] As the Aug. 21 police raid threatened to spill the accusations into the public realm, Pellicano sought to act quickly, enlisting Weitzman’s services before flying from Bangkok, Thailand, to Los Angeles.

…While sifting through the interview requests, Pellicano and Weitzman began dealing privately with the Los Angeles Police Department, providing information that led the LAPD to open an investigation into the alleged extortion attempt.

The private eye also tracked down child friends of Jackson who might help paint a positive image of the singer. Dealing with children is especially tricky because their accounts of events sometimes can change, according to Crutchfield and legal experts. And attacking the credibility of children who are the accusers runs the risk of alienating the public.

In spite of those dangers, Pellicano seemed to score a winner several days after the scandal broke when an Australian youngster appeared on CNN television, some experts said. The child was found by police in one of Jackson’s residences at the time of the raid, and was interviewed by LAPD investigators before he was questioned by Pellicano.

After Pellicano made the child available to CNN, the child talked of sleeping in the same bed with Jackson, but said that the singer never improperly touched him. “I’ll tell you what, he was good,” Crutchfield said. “They couldn’t have picked anybody better.”

[Elizabeth] Taylor arrived by jet in Singapore on Aug. 29, joining Jackson’s concert tour to show her support. The next day, Jackson’s mother and other family members spoke out on his behalf at a news conference. Former teen-age actor Corey Feldman, a star in the film “Stand By Me,” expressed his support for Jackson in an appearance on the television news.

http://articles.latimes.com/1993-09-03/news/mn-31256_1_michael-jackson

If we compare this article with Robson’s Fourth Amended Complaint it becomes clear that Michael’s associate who was contacted by Joy Robson via Norma Staikos after they were interviewed by police was Anthony Pellicano.

An interesting nuance is that Pellicano was unaware of the August 21^st police raid and learned about it from a call to Bangkok where he was staying with Jackson. Michael’s legal team didn’t know of it either as the services of criminal attorney Howard Wiezman were enlisted only later, upon hearing the news.

So before the police investigators interviewed Robson and before his mother contacted Norma Staikos there had been absolutely no one to coach the boy – neither MJ, nor anyone as no one simply knew.

And even if the boy who stayed at Neverland and fiercely defended Jackson to the police was not Robson, but Brett Barnes (for example), it won’t change anything as exactly the same succession of events was also described by Robson in his Fourth Amended Complaint – Robson was first questioned by police investigators to whom he spilled the story as it was, in a somewhat naive childish way (yes, we had sleepover parties but nothing happened, why are you asking?) and only then came his interview with CNN.

It’s funny that legal analyst Jim Moret didn’t ask a single question to clarify that point and swallowed that ‘coaching’ story hook, line and sinker.

By the way no one should be surprised that Michael’s child friends stayed at Neverland when he was away. Robson’s mother said that in the entire time they had lived in the US since 1991 she could remember only four occasions in 14 years when they were in Neverland together with Michael. She said: ‘Every other time we’ve been there without him.’

So what are we supposed to make of Robson’s recent explanations? The real timeline says that no matter whether Michael talked or didn’t talk to Robson before the CNN interview it doesn’t change the simple fact that Robson spoke in support of Jackson from the start of and of his own free will too.

Those boys had never been touched and were so sure of what they were saying that Pellicano even sent them to a press-conference and to a questioning on national TV – the risky test which not every grown-up would endure.

And this means that now Robson is lying again. He went on Jim Moret’s program to intentionally mar the anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death (and full acquittal in court) by rekindling his old lies and throwing in a new one. This was probably not his biggest lie as compared with all the rest of them, but as the former FBI director James Comey recently said: ‘Small lies matter.’

SMALL LIES MATTER

Mr. Comey also wrote that ‘little lies point to bigger lies’ and reminded everyone of the standard jury instruction:

And since James Comey anticipated a counter argument that ‘people may forget’ he made another remark which is also fully applicable to our Robson:

“F.B.I. agents know time has very little to do with memory. They know every married person remembers the weather on their wedding day, no matter how long ago. Significance drives memory. They also know that little lies point to bigger lies.”

Incidentally, the case which Mr. Comey was referring to is that of a certain woman, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Professor of Psychology who recently accused a certain man (Federal Judge Brett Kavanaugh) of a rape attempt she narrowly escaped 36 years ago when both of them were senior school students.

What’s remarkable about that case is that to prove her charges the woman voluntarily took a lie detector test conducted by a FBI expert and for several hours running answered direct questions from all sides in a gruelling questioning broadcast live from the Senate, and they still didn’t believe her.

And Wade Robson first said one thing and then another, broke his oath twice, openly called himself ‘a master of deception’, was never directly questioned about his present story and never took a lie detector test  – and he is still being listened to.

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford

To see the absurdity of the situation you will have to imagine that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford first defended her abuser for two decades and testified to his innocence as a girl and then as a grown-up woman, but then made a U-turn and now keeps amending her story depending on the circumstances – and the media still invites her and encourages for more.

For Robson to only minimally approach Dr. Christine Ford’s standing and acquire just a scrap of her credibility, he should first undergo a lie detector test, conducted by a professional investigator too, and then subject himself to several hours of direct questioning by lawyers or knowledgeable journalists (not Jim Moret), broadcast live please, and even in that case there will be no guarantee that he will be considered a trusted witness. After all they didn’t believe Dr. Ford though if you put her beside Robson she will tower over him like a pillar of truth.

And until Wade Robson does all of the above we can say an easy farewell to our dear lost friend, same as to those journalists and legal analysts who like fiction more than fact and make reports about innocent people on the basis of their gut feeling and not truth or rational analysis.

This is the continuation of the post about the so-called partnership between Sandy Gallin, David Geffen and Michael Jackson and the way it came to an end (see the first part here). We pick up from where we left off and where the story got somewhat complicated.

Look at Bernard Weinraub, for example.

Weinraub was the Los Angeles correspondent of the New York Times who set off the public outcry against Michael Jackson’s new HIStory album several days prior to the album release – when everything about it was still a guarded secret.

Weinraub suddenly announced that they had got hold of the album and introduced it to the public as “profane, obscure, angry and filled with rage” and its song They Don’t Care About Us as “pointedly critical of Jews”. This immediately sparked off an outrage though no one had yet seen or heard the album.

The name of Bernard Weinraub doesn’t mean anything to us, but not until we learn that he is married to Amy Pascal, who for many years was President of Sony/Columbia pictures.

Bernard Weinraub and Amy Pascal got married in 1997

Could Amy Pascal tip-off her husband with insider information for a sensational pre-release story?

Hardly so. Even if we disregard Sony’s total unwillingness to ruin their own album, Weinraub and Pascal got married in 1997 and started dating only in 1996.

And in the summer of 1995 when the scandal over the album broke out Amy Pascal was working for another company and didn’t have access to Sony music – she was head of Turner Pictures (1994-1996) and became president of Sony’sColumbia Pictures in December 1996.

Well, the lead to Amy Pascal was promising, but it took us nowhere, so we will have to give it another try starting from Bernard Weinraub again.

BERNARD WEINRAUB

Who is Bernard Weinraub?

The March 2004 issue of the Los Angeles Magazine has a big story about this journalist. Its headline is “‘NEW YORK TIMES’ REPORTER BERNARD WEINRAUB HAS HOLLYWOOD’S EAR. THAT’S THE PROBLEM.”

“Bernard Weinraub has Hollywood’s Ear. That’s The Problem” LA Magazine, March 2004

We learn that this veteran NY Times reporter who had been to Vietnam and used to write about politics began reporting from Los Angeles in 1991 as a NY Times entertainment correspondent and as Weinraub put it, began covering Hollywood “like a foreign country”.

His predecessor realized that he hated the place and told his bosses that “he’d never met a worse bunch of liars that the ones in Hollywood”, and when he left Weinraub seized the opportunity.

“The wealth and trappings of Hollywood are for many reporters hard to resist. And Weinraub got into the pool. He just loved it”, said a NY Times staffer. “He loved walking into restaurants and looking like a player.”

A couple of other passages from the LA Magazine story may bring us closer to the point. The esteem Hollywood felt for Weinraub was unrivalled – everyone there sought his attention and approval. And though many would be willing to talk to him he relied on the information of the chosen few.

Weinraub’s affections have been courted as if here were a studio head, because a Weinraub can have a powerful impact on a career. Having Weinraub quote you [] marks you as a player. Having Weinraub dog you, as he did Michael Ovitz, is the kiss of death. He is read obsessibly, his prose searched for nuances of meaning: Who is talking to him? What is the spin? Everybody reads Bernie.

…In a town full of knife hurlers and carpet bombers, it was muttered – albeit often by those who’d felt the sting of Weinraub’s reporting – that he was relying on a small group of sources. Some said he was way too close to Geffen and to Walt Disney Motion Pictures chairman Joe Roth.

“That’s nonsense,” says Weinraub.

“He was way too close to Geffen” LA Magazine, March 2004

Wow, so the Hollywood crowd muttered that Weinraub was way too close to Geffen?

But if that is the case it was certainly Geffen on whom Weinraub relied as part of his “small group of sources” and Geffen could easily tip-off his friend about the Jackson issue (if he wanted to).

The above piece also tells us that when it came to David Geffen’s foes, like Michael Ovitz for example, Weinraub was relentless. Even outsiders saw that the journalist dogged Ovitz so much that it amounted to “the kiss of death”, considering his power of forming public opinion all over the country.

Michael Ovitz says that it was true:

“The vehicle Geffen has repeatedly used to sabotage his image, Ovitz charges, is The New York Times, especially its Hollywood correspondent, Bernard Weinraub. Ovitz has compiled a list of Weinraub articles about him over the years. Few have much nice to say.”

“If I establish the foundation of the negativity,” Ovitz says, “it all comes down to David Geffen and Bernie Weinraub. Everything comes back to those two. I came up with a name for it: linked spin. Geffen comes up with the spin, and Weinraub parrots it back, quoting the same people over and over.“

So if we are to believe Ovitz, whose disaster Geffen did help to orchestrate, there was (and is) a linked spin between Geffen and Weinraub and “everything comes back to those two.”

But if everything comes back to those two, wherever Weinraub is, Geffen should also be somewhere around there. And since it was Weinraub who got exclusive access to Michael Jackson’s unreleased lyrics and triggered off the scandal, it could easily be Geffen who tipped him off – if he wanted to do Michael damage of course.

To me it sounds like a highly probable scenario, especially if we recall Geffen’s usual modus operandi of never acting openly and always working behind the scene. Remember the picture that characterizes Geffen’s ways according to one of his friends? I mean, this one:

“David sort of sits there in the darkness. Very quiet. You don’t know what he’s doing except controlling and manipulating. Sort of like the original-cast album cover of ‘My Fair Lady.’ That’s David.”

The probability of Geffen being behind that negativity about MJ will grow only stronger if we take into account the strange fact that by 1995 the information about Geffen-Michael Jackson partnership had ceased altogether and had been long gone – which points to all not being well between the two of them by that time.

Geffen’s plans for Michael Jackson were initially heavily publicized and even glorified by the media, and reached their peak when Michael signed a new contract with Sony in 1991, but then the stream of information turned into a scarce trickle and soon subsided, somewhat abruptly too.

In 1993 during the Chandler crisis, for example, Geffen didn’t go on the record to defend Michael Jackson (as far as I remember) and the most that can be regarded as Geffen’s support for him was a quote from an anonymous source which was reported – naturally by Bernard Weinraub – as follows:

“Some of the entertainment world’s most formidable figures who know Mr. Jackson said privately today that the current situation seems nothing less than tragic for the shy, reclusive and childlike entertainer, who has, by all accounts, few close friends. His future seems unpredictable.” 

“The entertainment world’s most formidable figure” does sound like Geffen, but what’s interesting is that now he prefers to stay anonymous. And all this “tragic-shy-reclusive” narrative doesn’t look to me like a support for Jackson at all – on the contrary, the remark that Michael has “few friends” and his future is now “unpredictable” conveys a slightly uneasy message and even looks like a faint threat.

In other words, by the year 1995 when the lyrics scandal broke out and considering his close ties with Weinraub it could be David Geffen who could first encourage Michael with those lyrics, but then arrange their leak to the media to present his former friend in the most unfavorable light. And though this is a supposition only, you will agree that it would be very much Geffen’s style.

DO IT, MICHAEL!

Michael Jackson also said that before the song release all his Jewish friends and partners had heard the lyrics “over and over” and obviously none of them objected to them. Sandy Gallin, Michael’s personal manager and Geffen’s best friend even called them “brilliant”.

Sandy Gallin. New York City 01.09.10 Credit: Joseph Marzullo /Wenn.com

Michael Jackson pleaded with Sandy Gallin to go on TV and explain that he wasn’t an anti-Semite, but his plea was met with a flat refusal. And all those whom Michael expected to come out in his support didn’t respond either.

“Michael Jackson Inc.” by Zack O. Greenburg says about it:

“The New York Times called the lyrics “a burst of anti-Semitism” days before the album was released, and Jackson was slammed by scores of media outlets and organizations including the Anti-Defamation League.

Jackson insisted that he’d been misunderstood, and apologized for any pain he’d caused. []

The damage had been done, though, both externally and internally. Shortly after the Times review was published, Jackson asked Gallin, who is Jewish, to go on television and explain that he wasn’t an anti-Semite. Gallin knew his client didn’t have a bias against Jews, but didn’t think getting on the talk show circuit was a good idea. He figured nobody knew who he was, and that they’d expect Jackson’s manager to stand up for him anyway.

In fact, Jackson thought all his Jewish friends, including David Geffen and Steven Spielberg, would take to the airwaves to defend him. He soon found they shared Gallin’s view. “I don’t think they really thought he was anti-Semitic,” says the manager. “But they weren’t going to go on television. He wrote the lyric and he had to stop and explain it.”

This only made Jackson push Gallin harder, to no avail. “He tried to convince me to do it,” Gallin recalls. “I knew it was the wrong thing to do, I wouldn’t do it. He was very upset about all of this, and he thought that maybe I thought he was anti-Semitic. And he fired me.”

Jackson immediately stopped talking to Gallin, and his relationships with Geffen and Spielberg suffered a similar fate.”

Given that Gallin withdrew at the crucial moment though he hadn’t found fault with those lyrics before, the situation reminds me of another episode in Michael’s cooperation with Gallin that took place in 1991.

When the ‘Black Or White’ video was made for the previous ‘Dangerous’ album, Landis objected to Michael’s crotch grabbing and it was Sandy Gallin who vehemently encouraged Michael to proceed. Steve Knopper says about it in his “MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson” book:

“Landis struggled on the set to contain MJ’s sexual expression. At one point, as Michael reached into his crotch, Landis yelled, “Cut!” and told Michael to knock it off – this was a family production. [ ] They asked choreographer Vince Paterson for his opinion; he agreed with Landis. But Michael insisted on calling Gallin, his manager. “Sandy was a screaming queen. A very flamboyant homosexual,” Landis said. “Sandy Gallin comes to the set, looks at the playback, and goes, ‘Do it, Michael! Do it! Do it!’”

However I don’t remember Sandy Gallin defending Michael when the video was released and another firestorm ensued. Nor did Gallin say that it was he who encouraged Michael Jackson to “do it”.

It seems that Gallin had a pattern to first support and even induce Michael to take certain actions and then leave him alone to face the music and deal with the consequences single-handedly, didn’t he?

DISCREPANCIES

The official story goes that Michael stopped talking to Gallin “immediately” after the lyrics scandal (in June 1995) and soon thereafter the split with Geffen and Spielberg followed.

However if you recall the date of that long Vanity Fair article this post started with, you will realize that it was written almost a year later, in April 1996, and even at that time Gallin was still claiming that he was Michael’s manager.

And indeed, the official notice of termination of Gallin’s company services arrived only in February 1997.

This huge discrepancy in time shouldn’t surprise anyone as we now know that there can’t be “a worse bunch of liars that the ones in Hollywood”, so in search for the minimal truth we can consider the following options:

• The falling out with Gallin and his friends indeed took place in mid-1995 and from then on Michael Jackson went without a personal manager
• Officially Gallin could still be there though there was no communication with MJ, so for the remaining period until February 1997 he did little or nothing for Michael (while Jim Morey stayed and took care of the History tour)
• Michael was unwilling (or afraid) to confront Gallin and Geffen openly, so he let their cooperation die out in an natural way, and this may explain the long period between the actual split and the formal termination.

The options are many, but what’s absolutely clear is that even in case Sandy Gallin did absolutely nothing for Michael Jackson for a year and a half after that incident, the latter was still paying him the fee of seven figures annually.

SMALL WORLD

World is a small place, and in February 1997 we meet the same media players who were involved in the 1995 lyrics scandal again.

Army Archerd, the Daily Variety columnist who had earlier urged Michael to kill his song, was now the first to report that Gallin Morey Associates would be replaced as Michael Jackson’s managers by Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal and his Kingdom Entertainment company (created with MJ three years earlier, in 1994).

Besides breaking the news Archerd portrayed Michael’s professional life as such a mess that it sent a clear message to the public that Gallin and his associates should be happy to be relieved of their unbearable duties.

SAUDI PRINCE’S CO. TAKES OVER JACKSON BIZ

By ARMY ARCHERD

FEBRUARY 3, 1997

Saudi Arabian Prince al-Waleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Entertainment will replace Sandy Gallin-Jim Morey Associates in all of Michael Jackson’s endeavors.

Jim Morey got word of the decision when he was en route to their BevHills offices from Paris and London, after putting together the second leg of Michael Jackson’s tour. The managers have represented Jackson for the past 6 years, through thick and thin. (In fact, when I had called Gallin awhile back, he was quick to agree that Jackson’s lyrics in “HIStory” were out of line and should be changed — and they were.) Another thorn (in Jackson’s professional life, that is) was the “Jackson Family Honors” concert-TV special in Las Vegas two years ago.

Monday, Gary Smith dropped the fraud case against the family to clear the way of getting verdicts on the other two cases before federal Judge Laughlin Waters. Waters can now decide if Jackson broke his promise to perform and whether the Jackson production company JCI and Michael personally are responsible for $1.5 million in excess costs — a result of Michael not showing up for the original event in Atlantic City in December 1993. Smith-Hemion won its case against JCI for $1.7 million, but the claim has never been able to be collected. Gary Smith also has a case pending before state court Justice Sherman Smith that could force Jackson to pay the money to JCI, which would then be collectible by Smith-Hemion. Still with us?

All that happened while Gallin-Morey managed Michael and were involved with all phases of Jackson’s biz, from concert to pix and legit development. Jackson’s showbiz activities are now in the realm of Kingdom Entertainment.

The Jackson Family Honors is an off-topic of course, but let me still decipher it for you. JCI stands for Jackson Communications, Inc – a company conceived by Jermaine Jackson and the Jackson parents in 1992. The ‘Jackson Family Honors’ was a televised charity event arranged by this company that was to be aired on NBC on December 11, 1993.

As a personal favor to his family Michael Jackson agreed to make his appearance with no obligation to perform, but present the awards only. The show was postponed until February 1994 due to Chandler’s allegations and Michael’s treatment abroad, and when it took place it was essentially a flop. Michael had nothing to do with the organization or finances for the show, but nevertheless became the subject of the usual ridicule.

The above piece is an example of that sarcasm, which in this case is meant to show how big and messy was the burden Gallin and Morey had finally shaken off their shoulders.

Now what did Sandy Gallin do after he was relieved of his unbearable duties?

A NEW PROJECT

A year and a half later, in the summer of 1998 the all-too familiar Bernard Weinraub, the LA correspondent of the NY Times emerged in the Las Vegas Sun with the news that Sandy Gallin was to handle another big project.

The owner of Las Vegas Mirage casino Steve Wynn set up a subsidiary to develop new theaters, arenas and cabarets, and create shows with a view to take them to Broadway, and Barry Diller suggested his friend Sandy Gallin as the head of this new project to which Steve Wynn enthusiastically agreed.

Mirage hires top manager to build new entertainment lineup

Bernard Weinraub

Thursday, June 4, 1998 | 10:41 a.m.

Steve Wynn, 2017

In a move designed to alter the type of entertainment now seen in Las Vegas, Stephen Wynn, chairman of Mirage Resorts Inc., announced the appointment Wednesday of Sandy Gallin, a top talent manager, to join his company and start new theaters, arenas and cabarets.

Wynn, who helped transform modern-day casinos into legitimate businesses with entertainment suitable for families, said he had hired Gallin to create theatrical shows that will eventually end up on Broadway.

“I don’t see anything in New York we can’t do as well or better here in Las Vegas,” said Wynn. “We will have relationships with creative people in New York and London. I foresee a time when a hit musical will open in Las Vegas and have a second venue in New York.”

Gallin, 57, a talent manager for more than 30 years, now oversees the careers of performers such as Neil Diamond, Dolly Parton and Mariah Carey. Over the years he has also handled Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Cher, Whoopi Goldberg and Richard Pryor. Gallin’s company, Gallin-Morey Associates, also produced films like “Father of the Bride” and “Fly Away Home,” as well as the television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

Gallin said he would spend the bulk of his time in Las Vegas but would still serve in a consulting role with his management company, which will be run by his long-time partner, Jim Morey, who was named chairman. Gallin said he would continue his management relationship with some of his most important clients “as long as they’ll have me.”

But the bulk of Gallin’s time will be spent developing what he termed “new and different entertainment for Las Vegas, attracting people who normally don’t work in Las Vegas.”

“We’re making friends and forming relationships with Broadway people,” Wynn said.

The LA Times reported that Wynn and Gallin were brought together by Barry Diller, whose dedication to his friends Gallin and Geffen was so big that Diller even called it a “cradle to grave” union:

Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn on Wednesday hired longtime Hollywood talent manager and producer Sandy Gallin to head his Mirage Entertainment & Sports Inc.

In an interview, Wynn said Gallin was suggested to him by mogul Barry Diller, a longtime friend of Gallin. Wynn said he envisions developing extensive entertainment such as live theater for Mirage’s Las Vegas properties, possibly even taking shows on the road.

The book by Christina Binkley first published in 2008 under the title “Winner Takes All: How Casino Mogul Steve Wynn Won And Lost The High Stakes Gamble To Own Las Vegas” tells us what came of those plans.

Surprisingly, the chapter about Gallin starts with nothing else but mentioning the so-called Velvet Mafia including Gallin, Diller and Geffen, which Steve Wynn was apparently happy to be involved with.  Wynn said that “they always stick together” and “are wonderful”.

The author says that Steve Wynn met all the members of this business group and liked them very much, so the “Velvet Mafia” expression was used by Wynn in a very friendly and even affectionate way, just as a term to define the closely-knit and powerful group of business people (not necessarily gay) who “hold sway in Hollywood.”

Here is an excerpt from chapter 15 of the book.

Steve Wynn about Sandy Gallin’s gang: “They’re all wonderful.”

“I had a wonderful day yesterday,” Steve Wynn said, sounding pleased and a little giddy – the way he behaves when he’s feeling creatively satisfed. “Elaine and Sandy and Eydie Gorme and I were dancing around.”

“Sandy was Sandy Gallin, a Los Angeles talent manager often mentioned in the press as a member of the so-called Velvet Mafia. This was a group of friends, some gay (but not all), who hold sway in Hollywood. Other supposed members of the Velvet Mafia are David Geffen, the music producer, and Barry Diller, the media mogul.

That whole gang of the gay guys – they always stick together, really, really, really,” Wynn said. “And they’re all wonderful.”

Barry Diller, who is married to the designer Diane von Furstenberg, put Wynn together with Gallin after Wynn insisted he wanted to “redefine the entertainment industry” in Las Vegas. 

“There’s nothing they do in New York that we can’t do just as well here, “ Wynn said.

Wynn was aware that he had changed the quality of entertainment in Las Vegas, with Cirque du Soleil.  Wynn was bent on bringing something even newer to the entertainment scene, and of course, he looked to his own interests for inspiration. He wanted to produce live theater. He would create a stable of his own Broadway-style productions for Mirage casinos in Las Vegas, Mississippi, and soon, Atlantic City – maybe even take his shows on the road. He talked about establishing a movie and television company. He formed a new subsidiary, Mirage Entertainment & Sports Inc.

In June he hired Sandy Gallin to run this new subsidiary.

Gallin looks weirdly like Steve Wynn. It’s something about the dyed-black hair, the strange cosmetic tautness, the visible hunger for attention. Wynn was so enthusiastic about Gallin that he agreed to pay his new entertainment guru more than he paid his right-hand, Bobby Baldwin.

Gallin ditched everything he’d built in Hollywood for a seven-year contract at Mirage Resorts worth $2,5 million a year in salary and bonus.

Gallin promised to relocate to Las Vegas from Los Angeles; he turned his embattled talent agency, Gallin-Morey Associates over to his partner Jim Morey; and he folded the production company, Sandollar Productions, that he ran with Dolly Parton.

And the following was a year later:

Gallin did not make himself popular among his new colleagues. He was widely thought to be “an absolute idiot” who said little during key meetings and neglected important details, said Dan Lee, who sat through many of them.

For a part of Belllagio’s opening festivities, at Gallin’s direction, Mirage Resorts hired a philarmonic orchestra and arrayed them behind the fountains to accompany the dancing waters. It turned out that the sound wouldn’t carry over the noise of the splashing. The musicians were told to do the orchestral equivalent of a lip-synch, Lee says.

So perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising that a year later, Mirage Resorts didn’t have a lot to show for Gallin’s costly presence. He still hadn’t made the move to Las Vegas, and there was no stable of theatrical shows or television and movie deals in the works.

One evening in later September 1999 Gallin joined the Wynns for dinner in Las Vegas. There, Wynn accepted Gallin’s resignation – just three weeks after he had fired Dan Lee.

At first, Gallin and Wynn kept up the pretense that it was a friendly parting from a successful relationship. “It really was a reevaluation of my life,” Gallin said a day later. []

”I lost Sandy Gallin. It’s murder.” Wynn said the day of Gallin’s departure. “Elaine and I are so depressed.”

But Wynn seemed to recover from his depression with alacrity. “I need somebody different than him, actually,” Wynn continued cheerily.“I need a really serious production manager. A schedules guy. A shopping guy. Or a girl, for that matter. I don’t need a deal maker. I’ve met everybody in show business now.”

Well, the above result could be easily expected. At the annual fee of $2,5 million Gallin just introduced Steve Wynn to “everybody in show business” – and apparently, that was it.

Wynn made it very clear that this was not enough and that now he needed a serious production manager, which Gallin absolutely wasn’t. And he wasn’t a “schedules guy” either – but this we already knew from other sources.

It took Michael Jackson 6 years to see that his career was similarly mismanaged or, most probably, he realized it much earlier, but lacked courage to part with Gallin and his team.  Steve Wynn was much quicker and braver as he got Gallin to resign just a year later, even despite his seven-year contract with him.

But judging by all that follow-up pretense of a friendly parting, even for Steve Wynn it wasn’t an easy decision, and it is probably in this context that the word “mafia”, so suddenly introduced by Wynn into the narration, should be understood here too.

PERSONAL INSULT

To round up our discussion of Sandy Gallin and his “gang” working with Michael Jackson during that crucial period there is one more source that has not been covered yet but is probably the most valuable of all. It provides the view of an insider, friendly to Sandy Gallin, who worked at his company for around 10 years and who discloses much more than any of the above sources taken together.

I am talking about Shana Mangatal who worked as a receptionist at Gallin Morey Associates exactly at the time when Gallin was Michael’s manager, and who naturally had a crush on MJ and recently published the book “Michael and Me: The Untold Story of Michael Jackson’s Secret Romance”.

The romance I don’t care about and the book may have the flaws of its own, but Shana’s down-to-earth description of Gallin’s company as well as the entertainment industry, Hollywood and their crazy ways is something really special. This awesome description made my day and will surely make yours.

Surprisingly, Shana also introduces her boss Sandy Gallin and his friends as the Velvet Mafia, so I am beginning to think that by now it is a kind of a set expression, used publicly and in good society, to denote the phenomenon of exceptional power and influence of a very tight group of several power players who  “hold sway” (dominate) in Hollywood now.

Here are some excerpts from the book – consider them a New Year gift to all those present here. One of these excerpts will tell you the real reason why Geffen ceased to be Michael’s close friend.

Shana Mangatal:

Gallin Morey Associates was one of the hottest music and talent management companies of the ‘90s. … for seven years, I was front and center in this exclusive enclave of dream makers.

Sandy Gallin was a flamboyant and charming Hollywood power player. His best friend was billionaire David Geffen. Together they knew everybody. They were a part of the so-called Velvet Mafia, which consisted of some of the most powerful gay executives in town.

Another of Sandy’s best friends was screen legend Elizabeth Taylor. Several times a day, Elizabeth called Sandy to discuss the latest Hollywood gossip. Her favorite topic of conversation – Michael Jackson. Sometimes she called so often that Sandy had to dodge her calls by asking me to tell her he wasn’t there. The funny thing is that she always knew when I was lying.

…Sandy Gallin was one of those bosses you could only find in Hollywood. He meditated daily with a turbaned guru named Gurmukh and fired his assistants on an almost weekly basis. I often heard him screaming at them for making the smallest mistake. I watched as they ran out of the office crying, never to return.

…Sometimes he would even throw things at them. The more they showed fear, the more he would attack. Most didn’t last long. But Sandy had a charm about him that made him difficult to dislike. He was funny, with an edgy wit, and was always nice to me. I grew to love him and, thankfully, I was never subjected to any of his tirades.

Jim Morey was the opposite of Sandy: loved by all. He was friendly and a genuinely nice guy, a family man, married with kids, and a dream boss. He was the more conservative one, wearing designer suits, smelling of rich cologne and always carrying a briefcase. He and Sandy evened each other out – yin and yang – the perfect partnership. He gave me advice and helped me navigate the crazy world I was now a part of.

My desk was the calm in the middle of the storm and often I acted as a therapist, encouraging the assistants to hang in there…

Some of those assistants were the young, gay, handsome boys Sandy met at his famous weekly pool parties, which were held at his sprawling mansion in Beverly Hills or his beach home in Malibu. Most of these boys were fresh off the bus from small towns across the country. They harbored dreams of becoming rich or famous – or both. I chuckled every time a new one stepped off the elevator for his first day on the job. They were so fresh-faced and eager. That excitement never lasted long.

I somehow managed to stay at the company for nearly a decade – a record, I’m sure. Over those years, I witnessed the birth of many legends and had a front-row seat to the wild and wacky music industry, which was thriving in those heady days of the ‘90s.

My first month on the job, I was invited to one of Sandy’s famous parties. They were a thing of legend something you only read about in magazines. Think The Great Gatsby. This would be my first real Hollywood party. I hadn’t even turned twenty-one yet, so to say I was naïve and unsophisticated would be an understatement.

…Something told me this was not going to be an ordinary party. The bash was being thrown in honor of Sandy’s boyfriend, Tom. It was his birthday. Tom was drop-dead gorgeous, with impossibly deep dimples and a sweet midwestern personality. He worked at Gallin Morey as a junior music manager. I had no idea he was gay or Sandy’s boyfriend until this night.  He was so cute I’d actually developed a crush on him during my short time at the company. Sandy was obviously besotted as well, because the party was extravagant.

…While I stood in awe, not knowing which way to turn first, I spotted Madonna. Yes, that Madonna. I had gone through my Madonna phase as a teenager, emulating her unique style of dress and watching her videos nonstop, so this was exciting, As I walked closer, I became disappointed. She didn’t look anything like she did in her music videos. She barely had on any makeup. Her hair was jet black and looked like it could use a wash – it was pulled back off her face. She wore a baggy T-shirt and shorts that were too big for her, with flat shoes and knee-high socks. She was also short, which I didn’t expect.

…She was thirty-two years old at this time but looked like a schoolgirl gone bad. Her demeanor was that of someone who was under the influence of something. I’m not sure if she actually was, but she was acting spacey. I overheard her saying, “I don’t do the blue ones,” I imagined she was discussing pills, as most of Hollywood seemed to be on them and other drugs.

Madonna had met Michael for the first time a few months earlier, at Sandy’s previous party. They had spent the entire night sitting on the steps in Sandy’s foyer talking.

…Michael loved to tell the story of his first date with Madonna. According to him, she came to his condo in nothing but a robe and tried to seduce him. But Madonna’s plan didn’t work. Her aggression turned him off.

Although he rebuffed her advances that night, he seriously reconsidered his decision, wondering if perhaps he should’ve tried it out. He asked a few of his male friends, including music producer Teddy Riley, for advice. “Should I do her?” he asked. His friends all told him to go for it. Most guys weren’t turning down Madonna at that time. She was just as famous as Michael and considered a sex symbol, having just released her controversial book, Sex. But he decided against it and the great hookup of Michael and Madonna never happened.

The drinks were free and endless at this Sandy Gallin party and everybody was indulging except me. I kept the same glass of champagne in my hand the entire night. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to drive home if I drank more than that. Terence Trent D’Arby, whose hit song “Sign Your Name’ had recently made him a star, was also there and appeared to have had one too many. I stood behind him in line for the bathroom. He became impatient because whoever was in the bathroom was taking a long time. After about ten minutes of waiting, he banged on the door shouting, “You’re taking too long!”

…To our surprise, when the door opened all three members of the Pointer Sisters came stumbling out, looking embarrassed. Terence hurried in without speaking another word and was out quickly. I went in after him and could smell the distinct smell of marijuana. That night I learned why people in Hollywood always went to the bathroom together and took forever to finish.

And here is a little touch to David Geffen’s portrait which explains how and under what circumstances his partnership with Michael Jackson frayed and why they eventually parted ways.

Sandy’s best friend, David Geffen, was also there. At that moment, he was the richest, most powerful man in town. He sported a perpetual tan and a certain je ne sais quoi that made him irresistible. David and Sandy were both in their late forties but in incredible shape, able to attract any young, hot guy they desired. Everyone wanted to know David, and, at this time, Michael Jackson was no different.

David and Michael had become fast friends, and David introduced Michael to Sandy. That’s how Michael became Sandy’s client. There were even rumors that David and Michael were secretly dating. I wondered if this was true. No one really knew what Michael’s sexual orientation was at this time  but everyone speculated about it. He had managed to keep that side of himself ambiguous even to those who knew him well.

Years later, I asked Michael about David and why they were no longer close friends (Michael managed to fall out with most of his friends every few years). I don’t know how true it is, because Michael was known to exaggerate on occasion, but he said that David had tried to seduce him, attempting to kiss him, and, according to Michael, he refused. Their friendship was strained after that. This story sounded surprisingly similar to the one about Madonna.

One thing was for sure: men and women were both intrigued by Michael’s natural charm. To know him was to be in love with him. Many had tried and failed to seduce him.”

Shana Mangatal about Michael Jackson and David Geffen

Oh my God, Geffen attempted to kiss Michael and seduce him in the same way Madonna tried it, but Michael rejected him…. And their relations were “strained” after that….  And this is the main reason Michael gave as to why they were no longer close friends….

Let me say it again for those who still didn’t get it.

MICHAEL REJECTED GEFFEN.

He rejected him, though it could be the big idea of Geffen’s relationship with Michael from the very start of it. And surely if Michael had agreed his future would have been totally different.

Geffen befriended Jackson in 1982 and officially parted ways with him sometime in 1995. And now we learn that at some point in between those dates Geffen tried to seduce Michael, and Michael refused him.

The crucial importance of what you’ve just learned shouldn’t be underestimated.

Other famous people were ruined by Geffen for much lighter offenses, and were never or little heard of since then even despite their sparkling talent (like Donna Summer, for example).

And Michael’s refusal was a personal insult to Geffen, and knowing the latter’s vindictiveness beginning with that moment Michael could say good-bye to his career.

People who know David Geffen personally say that if he is your friend, he will do anything for you, but if he turns into your enemy “you might as well kill yourself.”

Michael Jackson didn’t know it, but from that moment on the ruining of his career was just a matter of time.

In the face of a new slander campaign against Michael Jackson that is still going strong even ten years after his death, let us at least find out who is most probably behind it, who started it in the first place and who was so much intent on ruining Michael Jackson’s career according to Michael himself.

And if we are to listen to what Michael said about it, the person who ruined Michael was David Geffen.

Let me repeat:

Michael Jackson believed that the person who sank his career was David Geffen.

FOE

The information that Michael Jackson ‘hated’ Geffen is still available on the web, however nothing is said about Geffen’s hatred towards Michael. But even if the required information is not easily accessible to us, there can’t be any doubt that Geffen was Michael Jackson’s foe.

This conclusion simply follows from David Geffen’s notorious reputation of a person horrendously vindictive towards anyone who ever crossed his path. And there needn’t to be a valid reason for turning Geffen into your most implacable foe  – an ugly feud may start with no reason at all, just after a chance remark or a joke perceived by Geffen as a slight. Even his friends refuse to speak about Geffen for fear that they may accidentally drop something that may not be to his liking.

‘The Daily Beast’ reporter Nicole LaPorte says about it:

“Geffen is famous for his decades-long, and very ugly, feuds. … When I called a friend of Geffen’s and asked him if he’d speak to me, I was met with a heavy silence on the other end of the line. And then a deep-throated growl: ‘The last person who wrote a book about David Geffen is dead! And he was young. And healthy. And now he’s dead!’ Click.”

It seems that Geffen’s friends are so afraid of their ‘friend’ that they even think that he is capable of killing. Whether true or not, this unique vindictiveness allows us to read the statement about MJ’s hate for Geffen the other way around – if even the amiable Michael hated Geffen, the vindictive Geffen hated Michael even more, like no other person on the planet could, though he certainly never showed it in public as was his usual custom (Geffen usually shrugs off any unwelcome truth about himself as ‘Hollywood silliness’).

Many of you have probably heard of the so-called enemy list of Michael Jackson’s which was mentioned in the media with a sneer and chuckle, but no one ever explained why David Geffen was said to be on the top of that list.

Indeed, why on earth would Michael hate Geffen if the latter had been ‘advising him on his career’ for more than a decade and was his so-called ‘friend’ all along? Without at least some explanation of this rumor any information about Michael’s hate looked like an absurd and preposterous whim on the part of a ‘weirdo’ star.

And it was meant to look that way, which is why all traces about the reason for a falling out between Michael and Geffen were thoroughly erased from the web.

However despite all the effort some traces of it still remain and these traces explain to us that Michael Jackson hated David Geffen because a closely-knit group of people at Hollywood headed by Geffen had sunk his career, and Michael was perfectly aware of it.

Here is one of the pieces that contains this truly priceless information:

“… Jackson reportedly hates Geffen for being a part of what he calls Hollywood’s “Gay Mafia,” which he believes sank his career.”

Hollywood Gay Mafia? And this was said by Michael Jackson? The focus in this statement should of course be not on the word ‘gay’ as Michael never had anything against gays and was life-long friends with many of them (like Arnold Klein, for example).

The focus in this statement should be on the word ‘mafia’ because this is how Michael perceived the closely-knit group of extremely powerful people at Hollywood who were relentless in pursuing their goals and were not above destroying other people’s careers, reputation and even lives. Specifically, Michael pointed at David Geffen and his Hollywood friends, many of whom were non-gays but were very close to him and shared his ways and means.

So now that we’ve learned that Michael considered Geffen and his people to be directly responsible for sinking his career, there is another question – where does the above statement come from and can we believe it?

TRACES

This statement comes from a source you both know and don’t know.

You know it because it comes from the Vanity Fair article by Maureen Orth called “Losing his grip” published in the April 2003 issue of the magazine (though it was released a month earlier, on March 3 for some reason).

And you don’t know about it because since the initial publication Maureen Orth has changed the text and erased this precious detail, so it is no longer there in the online version of the article.

The deliberate erasure of this paragraph is an extremely telling point, and we surely need to look into its significance a little later. In the meantime let us see what traces of the original information are still available to us and how far this information initially spread.

The Vanity Fair article must have been redacted almost immediately after the release as Michael’s reasons for hating Geffen were copy pasted by a very limited number of media outlets, the traces of which remained in only two of them – in the New York Post and on a Fox News page which functioned until recently, but is no longer there and is now displaying a 404 sign.

In fact, if Michael’s words hadn’t remained in the New York Post we wouldn’t have ever learned that he ever said it and that these words were part of the original Vanity Fair text.

Here is the NY Post piece, complete with Maureen Orth’s ridiculous voodoo story.

JACKO’S VOODOO CURSES

By Bill Hoffmann

March 4, 2003 | 5:00am

Just when you thought Wacko Jacko could not get any more bizarre, a new report says Michael Jackson hired an African voodoo chief to put a death curse on Steven Spielberg and David Geffen.

And the King of Pop sealed the deal by bathing in sheep’s blood and having dozens of cows slaughtered, according to a story in the April issue of Vanity Fair.

Jackson began his quest for revenge by forking over $150,000 to a witch doctor named Baba, who put a hex on the Hollywood bigs three years ago in Switzerland, the mag says.

“David Geffen be gone! Steven Spielberg be gone!” chanted Baba, who assured the Gloved One that Geffen – who heads DreamWorks Pictures with Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg – would be dead within one week.

To strengthen the curse, the report says, Jackson went to another witch doctor and “paid six figures for a ritual cleansing using sheep’s blood” and the slaughter of 42 cows. For his money, he also reportedly got the “blood of a number of small animals for yet another slaughter.”

Some of the cash was paid to a go-between, a mysterious woman named Samia, who came to Jackson with a letter of greeting from a Saudi prince who is now the kingdom’s chief of intelligence, Vanity Fair says.

Spielberg and Geffen were two of 25 people on Jackson’s “enemies list,” the mag reported. Jackson reportedly hates Geffen for being a part of what he calls Hollywood’s “Gay Mafia,” which he believes sank his career. And he’s mad at Spielberg for nixing a deal to star him in a new version of “Peter Pan.”

Neither Geffen or Spielberg could be reached for comment. Jackson’s company, MJJ Productions, did not return a call. [ ]

https://nypost.com/2003/03/04/jackos-voodoo-curses/

The point about Michael being mad at Spielberg is correct. In 1990 Michael was involved in a certain secret Project M where an obscure scriptwriter, Darlene Craviotto, was hired by Geffen’s friend Jeffrey Katzenberg of Disney to write a script for a Peter Pan movie in collaboration with the enthusiastic Michael Jackson who was to star in it. And Ms. Craviotto said that the movie was to be directed by Steven Spielberg.

But after she recently wrote a book about it we found out that Disney had no rights for producing the film, so the project was doomed from the start of it and when it naturally went nowhere, all the blame for its failure was placed on Spielberg – by those who masterminded the sham project, of course.

Spielberg was a suitable scapegoat as he was about to make ‘Hook’ at Columbia Pictures (which did have rights to a Peter Pan story), and the overall situation brought us to a conclusion that both Michael Jackson and Steven Spielberg fell victims to a scam, and that Michael could be even deliberately alienated from Spielberg (see this series for details, please).

As usual, the scammers remained behind the scene, however even in this case there are some trails invariably leading us in the same direction – to the above mentioned group of David Geffen’s friends, Katzenberg and probably even Geffen himself, who as Michael said sank his career.

Besides the NY Post the reference to Michael’s statement about Geffen and his ‘mafia’ can also be found in some forum chats, and judging by what people say there this information was even reported on Fox TV News as one of the chat participants saw it on TV.

In their discussion taking place two days after the publication, on March 5, 2003, some people assume that all of it could be just some tabloid stuff, but upon learning that it was reported by Fox News take the information seriously.

“I saw this reported on Fox News yesterday. Now, it might have been during some type of light, celeb-rumor type segment … wasn’t paying that much attention… but still… not exactly a tabloid.”

And of course besides these few remaining online traces the original text with Michael Jackson’s words about David Geffen and his Hollywood ‘gay mafia’ responsible for ruining his career, is probably still in the physical copy of the Vanity Fair April 2003 issue which is sold online and can be bought by anyone who is willing to check it up and keep the original (unless the copy was really printed in April):

The April 2003 issue of Vanity Fair had a “special investigation by Maureen Orth”: “Michael Jackson: You Cannot Make This Stuff Up. New details on the boys, the business, the bizarre blood rituals”. The article went online on March 3, 2003

THE CLOSELY GUARDED SECRET

But is the alleged Michael’s statement credible? Indeed, how do we know that the words attributed to Michael Jackson were what he really thought and said?

In my opinion, the very fact that the telling paragraph disappeared from the article leaving almost no trace behind it serves as the best proof that this particular point in Maureen Orth’s narration is the most credible of all.

The thing is that the bulk of Maureen Orth’s article is a terrible mishmash of vile gossip, lies, half-truths about MJ and their biased interpretation, up to quoting Victor Gutierrez and gleefully repeating his stories. And all of it is what Maureen Orth wanted us to know.

But what she and others didn’t want us to know was initially mentioned there through an oversight and was then quickly removed so that no one ever learned about it.

So this disappearance act alone is in and of itself proof enough that while the remaining text may be full of lies in their many variations, Michael Jackson’s removed statement that David Geffen and his “Gay Mafia” at Hollywood ruined his career is true and Michael really thought and said it.

Those who initiated Maureen Orth’s long story and guided her in her writing surely didn’t want anyone to even consider the option that David Geffen could be the root of Michael Jackson’s problems, so the mere mentioning of it, even in the ridiculous voodoo context, highly negative to Michael, was erased by them from the original, with all references to it in other media outlets removed too.

Only imagine how significant that point was if they eliminated all traces of the original statement even in the copy-pasted material in the other media!

And how deep should be Geffen’s media connections if he and his people managed to suppress this information even after its release and kept it a secret for so long!

And how closely guarded should this secret be if we are learning about it only 16 years later and quite by chance too, by coming across its remnants that miraculously survived someone’s thorough job of cleaning the web!

Incidentally, here is a short piece that describes the power of Geffen over the media. It was published in 2006 when there was some talk about Geffen’s plans to buy the Los Angeles Times. Another Vanity Fair journalist Kim Masters (Geffen’s pal) said about it the following:

“I’ve heard from multiple sources in L.A., including an editor at the Times, that Geffen told a Timesman that were he to succeed in buying the paper, his first order of business would be firing a reporter in the business section who had crossed him.

Those who have dealt with Geffen while covering this business should find that obvious. Geffen is famously vindictive. One reporter now at the Times once called me in tears after an encounter with him on the phone (one truly has to be on the receiving end of his verbal savagery to appreciate it). And does anyone think he’ll tolerate articles that annoy him or his friends? And he has lots of friends—from Hollywood to Washington, from Steven Spielberg to Hillary Clinton.”

So does anyone still doubt that Geffen had and still has every opportunity to pull down any unwanted material and freely promote his own agenda in the media?

THE CONTEXT

To see the historical context for Maureen Orth’s article let us go back to the moment when the so-called ‘April’ issue of the Vanity Fair magazine was released on March 3, 2003.

It was the time of a huge public outcry over the disastrous Martin Bashir’s film “Living with Michael Jackson” aired in Britain on February 3 and three days later in the US.

On the same day the film aired in America an anonymous source leaked to the press the text of Jordan Chandler’s declaration made in 1993 with graphic descriptions of the alleged sex acts – which naturally added a ton of more fuel to the fire. Previously the public had read those reports only in their media (graphic) interpretation as all documents of the civil case were sealed as part of the settlement agreement, and now all of a sudden the full text of the declaration saw the light of day. Jordan Chandler’s lawyer Larry Feldman was adamant that he had nothing to do with their release. “You can say that categorically we did not release the complaint,” he said.

In short all of it looked like too much of a coincidence and as a well-orchestrated effort to smear Michael Jackson of which Maureen Orth was also a part. In her extremely long Vanity Fair article Orth refreshed every scrap of the allegations and gossip told about MJ for 10 years prior to that, adding to them the novel rumors about the alleged voodoo rituals which painted Michael both as a ‘weirdo’ and a cold manipulator.

Those juicy details were delivered to Maureen Orth by Michael’s former business advisor Myung Ho Lee who at that moment was suing MJ for the fee he claimed for the failed projects he initiated and invested Michael’s money in. The claim was countered by Michael’s complaint that Myung Ho Lee had embezzled some of his funds.

In his book “MJ: The genius of Michael Jackson”  Steve Knopper provides us with some details of the above:

In the late nineties, Michael had turned to Korean-born and University of Chicago–trained lawyer Myung-Ho Lee, who ran a Seoul company called Union Finance and Investment Corporation. Lee set to ruthlessly overhaul Michael’s finances.

“Michael gave him all kinds of ability and authority and power, and he exercised it to push John [Branca] out, any way he could, and push me out,” says Zia Modabber, one of Michael’s longtime lawyers, who had defended him in a number of cases after the Chandler settlement turned Michael into a legal punching bag.

Lee became close enough to Michael’s business affairs to realize the singer was “cash poor.” Michael had exhausted a $90 million loan in 1998; through Bank of America, Lee secured new loans for a total of $200 million over the next two years.

With Lee’s help, Michael paid $7.4 million to MJ Net, a German entertainment-memorabilia company, for use of his likeness on products, including a state-of-the-art audio speaker system with photos of Michael on the front panels. He invested $2 million in a fuel-cell technology company. He was “extremely interested” in a company that had engineered a magnetic motor, for use as a high-efficiency generator, and attempted to invest $10 million before reducing his stake to $2 million.

For all these deals, Lee took a 2.5 percent fee. Eventually, Lee sued Michael, divulging juicy details in his complaint: Michael had wired $150,000 to a Mali bank to pay Baba, a voodoo chief who ritually sacrificed forty cows in a ceremony designed to curse Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. By way of response, Jackson’s attorneys accused Lee of using Michael’s assets to enrich himself in elaborate ways: he paid for his sister’s $50,000 Lexus and the rent on two Century City condos, including furnishings, utilities, and cable bills.”

It’s interesting that by the late 90s John Branca had been back on Michael’s team, but the new advisor who seemed to emerge from nowhere, exercised all his power to push out Branca again, same as Michael’s lawyer Zia Modabber who handled the partially successful Michael’s lawsuit against Diane Dimond and Victor Guttierrez (Guttierrez was found liable and was to pay over $2 mln for his lies, but fled to Chili instead).

As to Branca, this was his second dismissal – the first time he was fired in 1990 on David Geffen’s insistence, but reentered the scene in 1993 when ‘some lawyer’ on Michael’s team advised him to sell the ATV catalog.  Branca reacted with “Are you crazy, Michael?” and made a deal with Sony instead equipping Michael with an additional $90 million.

It’s also interesting that one of the characters from Orth’s article, the woman named Samia, is mentioned by Steve Knopper too, so it seems that this person did indeed approach Michael Jackson (or was sent to him by someone) with a promise to help him buy a villa and a yacht.

Steve Knopper:

“At one point, Michael met a woman named “Samia,” who claimed to be a personal adviser to a Saudi Arabian prince. While Lee’s people were investigating Samia, Michael communicated with her directly, believing promises she would buy him a $40 million villa and a yacht.

The same was presented by Maureen Orth in a much more sensational manner:

“David Geffen, be gone! Steven Spielberg, be gone!” The witch doctor cursing Michael Jackson’s enemies and blessing the tarnished King of Pop himself in a voodoo ritual in Switzerland in the summer of 2000 had promised that the 25 people on Jackson’s enemies list, some of whom had worked with him for years, would soon expire. The voodoo man later assured one close observer of the scene that David Geffen, who headed the list, would die within the week. But Geffen’s demise did not come cheap. Jackson had ordered his then business adviser, Myung-Ho Lee, a U.S.-educated Korean lawyer based in Seoul, to wire $150,000 to a bank in Mali for a voodoo chief named Baba, who then had 42 cows ritually sacrificed for the ceremony.

The pop star, who is said to be $240 million in debt, had paid six figures for a ritual cleansing using sheep blood to another voodoo doctor and a mysterious Egyptian woman named Samia, who came to him with a letter of greeting from a high-ranking Saudi prince, purportedly Nawaf Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, now the chief of intelligence of Saudi Arabia. She had taken an eager Jackson to her basement in Geneva, where, he later told associates, he saw with his own eyes piles of $100 bills which Samia said totaled $300 million. It was “free money,” she said; he could have it, and she could also get him a villa and a yacht.”

The $150,000 wire to Mali is mentioned by both authors and may be correct too, though whether Michael wired the money for a voodoo ritual or contributed it to some African charity fund we don’t know.

However one more precious detail we learn from Maureen Orth’s article is that Michael allegedly wanted to ‘curse’ Geffen in 2000, and this means that Michael shared his thoughts with Myung Ho Lee three years prior to Orth’s article and considered Geffen responsible for sinking his career sometime in the 1990s.

The time Michael referred to must have been the period between 1991 and the summer of 1995 when a row over the song “They Don’t Care About Us” broke out and soon thereafter Michael stopped all communication with his then manager Sandy Gallin and friend David Geffen for their lack of support over the song’s unfortunate lyrics (see this post for details please).

Though of course it doesn’t rule out that Geffen could work on ruining Michael’s career well after they parted ways too.

So the essential question now is what point in time was regarded by Michael as the moment when his career sank, which will also explain to us when Geffen and his ‘mafia’ started working against Jackson, at least according to Michael’s perception of it.

WHEN DID IT HAPPEN?

The photo of Michael Jackson attending David Geffen’s birthday party together with Madonna comes from Geffen’s Instagram and is dated February 1991. This was the peak of their relationship – by that moment Michael had completely replaced his management team with people advised to him by Geffen and was about to sign with Sony a new contract (in March 1991), the biggest attraction of which was an agreement to involve Michael in feature films.

davidgeffen My birthday 1991. Posted on May 13, 2016 [Instagram]

This moment in Michael’s life seems to be a borderline between his earlier steady success and strange and unpredictable events that began to take place soon thereafter. The year 1991 is also noteworthy for a sharp contrast between the way Michael Jackson’s cooperation with David Geffen was reflected in the media before and after that.

Prior to 1991 the media was full of reports about Geffen and his friends being extremely helpful to Michael Jackson. Given that virtually nothing is said about their cooperation now, you will be amazed that at that time Geffen was part and parcel of almost every article that mentioned Michael Jackson’s business plans. Here are just a few examples:

1985:

“Perhaps most anticipated is his upcoming feature film for David Geffen`s Geffen Films Co. …Even with the delays, Geffen Films is still gung-ho on the project”

1985:

“Anyone in Hollywood would love to be in business with Michael Jackson, but Geffen got him because he said ”Let’s make a movie” three years ago [1982], before Jackson’s ”Thriller” sold 20 million albums.

1986:

“In 1985, Michael Jackson could be anything he wanted — and he wanted to be a movie star. His adviser, record executive David Geffen, suggested the singer meet with Disney.”

1986

“Michael Jackson, a huge Disney fan, was still enjoying the fame and notoriety of his hit album Thriller when his financial adviser, David Geffen, suggested Jackson make a movie for Disney. Geffen called his long-time friend, Jeffrey Katzenberg (then head of the studio), with the idea. Katzenberg and Eisner countered with creating a 3-D movie/rock video for Disneyland. Most of the project was supervised by Katzenberg.

1989:

“Having set records for the largest grossing tour in history and the largest paid attendance Jackson plans to focus on recordings and films…Finding the right property for a specialized talent like Jackson has proved to be a challenge….Even multimedia producer David Geffen was unable to find the right project when he was retained by the singer around the time of the Jacksons’ 1984 “Victory” tour.

“I couldn’t come up with anything,” Geffen acknowledged in a separate interview Thursday. “It’s my failure, not his. I just wasn’t interested in doing a bad movie. …”Don’t bet against him,” Geffen cautioned. “He’s very single-minded and he’s a very hard worker. He’ll get it done.”

Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, is among the top producers who is reportedly trying to develop a film project for Jackson.

1989:

“It’s time to do something else.” Industry bets are on a movie career. “He won’t suffer at all,” says producer and longtime Jackson friend David Geffen. “He just bought a ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley, which he probably wants to enjoy. And he wants to make records and movies.” Though Geffen has tried and failed to come up with a film project for Michael, he believes the star will find a script.

“Michael’s very specific in his tastes. You can’t just cast him in anything,” says Geffen. “But he’s a hard worker, and his talent is a given. Michael’s not the sort you’d bet against”

18th August 1990

It is announced that Michael has hired Sandy Gallin as his new personal manager.

In March 1991 Michael signed a new contract with Sony with the help of two new lawyers advised to him by Geffen – Bert Fields and Allen Grubman. At the time Geffen was still mentioned as a ‘longtime friend’ and ‘a confidante in the talks.’

March 1991:

“In Michael’s contract, the change of administration at Sony during the negotiations added to Jackson’s bargaining power,” says Bertram Fields, one of the attorneys who represented Jackson in the Sony negotiations. The Jackson pact was so complex that it took a year to complete. Negotiations were started by Jackson’s then-lawyer John Branca, and concluded by attorneys Fields and Grubman.

Geffen, a longtime friend of the singer, also served as a confidante during the talks.

Geffen says Jackson commanded the record figures because he is the biggest-selling recording artist in history. “Michael is a unique artist, and therefore his contract is unique.”

November 1991 does not sound that glorious but Geffen is still presented as someone who has ‘close ties to MJ but no business relationship’:

“…the consensus in the entertainment industry is that “Dangerous” will be an overwhelming success, even if it does not match the stratospheric sales of “Thriller.” “The times may have changed but he’s changed with them,” said David Geffen, the pop-music impresario, who has close ties to Mr. Jackson but no business relationship. “Remember that he’s been doing this since he was 6 years old, and he’s stayed on the money for a long time.”

But friends say Michael Jackson feels more in control of his life than he has since his days as a child star. Over the last several years he has replaced his old management team with Mr. Gallin and Mr. Fields, and is said to be taking a more active role in his business dealings.  Mr. Jackson’s supporters believe the possibilities for him are virtually limitless. “The only question,” said Mr. Geffen, “is where does he want to put his time.”

The year 1992 seems to have nothing about Geffen-Michael Jackson’s ‘friendship’, and 1993 brings a crash to Michael’s career during which Geffen is simply never mentioned. The most that can be considered as a reference to David Geffen is a vague impression that he is one of those well-informed sources who speak to the media ‘on conditions of anonymity’ only.

1993:

“… Mr. Jackson now faces a professional and personal crisis unusual even by the garish, high-profile standards of Hollywood. Some of the entertainment world’s most formidable figures who know Mr. Jackson said privately today that the current situation seems nothing less than tragic for the shy, reclusive and childlike entertainer, who has, by all accounts, few close friends. His future seems unpredictable.

Prominent executives and others who have worked with Mr. Jackson in recent months have expressed concern about his apparently fragile emotional state, even before the recent allegations. At a private dinner several months ago to discuss Mr. Jackson’s film career, some of the biggest players in Hollywood joined the superstar. Several people who attended the dinner said that while the discussion was going on, Mr. Jackson, inexplicably, placed his head on the table and began to cry uncontrollably. The dinner reportedly broke up soon after.

So even several months prior to the allegations (made in August 1993) Michael had already been totally frustrated by lack of any progress in his film career. And when the scandal broke out his last hopes for a better future crashed with a bang – his reputation sustained a fatal blow and even his financial standing was gravely shattered too.

“The numerous cancellations and postponements on the expensive tour so far, and its abrupt halt more than a month to go, would result in multi-million-dollar losses of income to Mr. Jackson, as well as losses to the tour sponsors. At the same time, the singer recently backed out of a video and song for the new Paramount film “Addams Family Values.” As a result, Mr. Jackson paid back the studio an estimated $5 million, said one executive who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Rusty Lemorande recalled how Michael’s career in Hollywood came to an end even before it started. The scandal hit right at the moment when their two movie projects were well on the way and then ‘suddenly, nobody wanted to touch him’.

“One was set up at Warners. And the other was set up at Turner – who owned the remake rights. And everything was going great. Fantastic!  And then the first scandal hit.” 

“Suddenly, nobody wanted to touch him… It was quite sad that it never happened, because it was very important for Michael to be in movies.

He also said:

“That really killed his movie career.”

Actually, November 1991 was the last time we heard about any cooperation between Geffen and Michael Jackson.

In October 1994 Geffen announced the creation of DreamWorks together with Katzenberg and Spielberg which delivered Michael another blow – he was said to be deeply offended by the fact that they stole from him the boy-on-the moon logo.

And in the summer of 1995 it was all over. Amidst the media row started by the ‘anti-Semite’ lyrics leaked by Bernard Weinraub (Geffen’s pal) from the yet unreleased song, Geffen appeared in the media once again presenting his best and last act of support for Jackson by saying that the latter was genuinely sorry and was just naïve.

“At worst, sometimes he’s naive, and I think to the degree that anybody is bothered or offended, he’s genuinely sorry”, said Geffen who is Jewish.

Michael asked him and his manager Sandy Gallin to be more vocal and explain that he wasn’t an anti-Semite, especially since they had heard the song well in advance and never objected to its lyrics, but they refused leaving Michael to his own devices, after which all communication between them ceased.

Since that moment nothing has been heard about the relations between David Geffen and Michael Jackson, and even after Michael’s death Geffen refused to give any interviews about him. He declined to be interviewed even for Zack Greenburg’s book about Michael’s business affairs though there was a time when he called himself Michael Jackson’s closest business advisor.

Instead, Geffen sent Greenburg an email: “I don’t want to talk about MJ. All too sad”.

ALL TOO SAD

Indeed, all of it is too sad.

If I were to determine the moment in Michael’s life when his career sank, I would single out the year 1993 when Michael’s career suffered a disastrous downfall triggered off by the worst accusations possible.

And if Michael Jackson were alive now he would probably agree that this was the moment his career sank. His music began to be taken off the radio, his endorsement deals were cut and were never again, the several movie projects Michael planned with his friends were dead with no prospect of revival, the Dangerous tour was cancelled resulting in $20million damages, and this in addition to the settlement sum with the Chandlers.

And to crown it all someone on his team advised him to also sell his ATV catalog, which didn’t happen only thanks to Branca’s intervention. The catalog remained a good source of income for Michael for years ahead, but we can easily imagine what would have happened if he had followed that advice – without his most valuable assets Michael could have easily gone bankrupt almost immediately afterwards.

So whichever way you look at the events in 1993 it was indeed the breaking point in Michael’s career.

But if this was the moment which Michael meant when he spoke about his career ruined by Geffen and his Hollywood ‘gay mafia’, the question arises how they did it.

Because if the child abuse allegations were the main reason for his career wreckage, it means that the Hollywood mafia wrecked it by putting their hand to those allegations. 

Indeed, there are many details to that disaster that still remain a mystery and are suggestive of foul play.

For example, no one can explain why the graphic details of the allegations were regularly leaked to the press and why the Santa Barbara authorities were keen on hunting down Michael Jackson only, ignoring complaints from genuine victims of child abuse like Corey Feldman.

Corey was molested by several people in Hollywood and it was exactly Corey Feldman’s molester to whom the police spoke in advance and who sent the detectives after Michael Jackson, while he himself was never arrested (back in 1993 Sergeant Deborah Linden even laughed about it in Corey’s face: “If we run across him, we’ll let you know. Hahaha”).

Another mystery never explained is what Evan Chandler meant when he said in a telephone conversation with his son’s stepfather Dave Schwartz that ‘the plan was not just his’ and that ‘there were other people involved’.

“Everything is going according to a certain plan that isn’t just mine. There’s other people involved –“ Evan Chandler 

Or what his son Jordan meant when he refused to participate in the 2005 Arvizo trial and replied to the authorities that ‘he had done his part.’ What part was Jordan playing and was the whole thing a game?

Similarly it is absolutely unclear how the photo albums by certain authors with questionable past appeared in Michael Jackson’s home. One book was sent by a fan called “Rhonda” with many love signs on its cover and the second one was signed by Michael (with a note about his hope for a happy childhood for his children) and was meant to be given back to the one who presented it. But instead both books found their way into Michael’s locked file cabinet, the only key to which was kept by Michael’s maid Blanca Francia who left Neverland in 1991 and was summoned by the police to open it in 1993. Can anyone explain to me why the former maid kept the key and for two years too, and how the police knew whom to ask for it?

Another strange occurrence is that the 1993 media witch-hunt started when the young journalist Diane Dimond was approached by someone in the street who provided her with a ready-made file on Michael’s so-called ‘victims’. Victor Gutierrez, the author of the file, had been making rounds of all Michael’s child friends for several years prior to that, and though he was a self-admitted attendee of a boylover assembly he nevertheless became Diane Dimond’s right hand and ‘best source’ in their crushing campaign against Jackson.

Diane Dimond’s other source was a certain Rodney Allen who tried to frame up Michael Jackson in Canada but the plot was uncovered by the Canadian police, after which it turned out that Rodney Allen was a pedophile (he is still serving a sentence). However it didn’t prevent Tom Sneddon, the Santa Barbara District Attorney, from using his services in the 1993 Michael Jackson case. In which capacity? We still don’t know it.

Another young journalist, Maureen Orth who joined the Vanity Fair staff exactly in 1993 also started her career with writing an article about Jackson called “Nightmare in Neverland” in July 1994 (when a year long criminal investigation was close to its end with no charges made) and continued with a series of articles which even according to Randall Sullivan of the Rolling Stone “drew largely on anonymous or pseudonymous sources to portray Jackson in a light as lurid as anything the tabloids had ever cast upon him.”

For our convenience the Vanity Fair collected all her articles on a single page devoted to Michael Jackson’s death in 2009 under the title “MICHAEL JACKSON IS GONE, BUT THE SAD FACTS REMAIN” and for some reason this nasty anthology ends with a big photo of …. David Geffen and an appeal to follow news about him. Here is the beginning of it:

The anthology of Maureen Orth’s articles is dedicated to Michael Jackson’s death

The middle part of it:

Orth’s first article “Nightmare in Neverland” came in July 1994 when the year-long ciriminal investigation was already drawing to an end (no charges were made)

And here is the end:

The list of articles about Michael Jackson ends with a photo of David Geffen as if it were a tribute to HIM

Isn’t it funny to have David Geffen’s photo right after the articles where Michael Jackson named him as the main person who ruined Michael’s career?

Oh, I forget that no one knows about it as the respective piece has been removed…

But even though now we know that Michael blamed Geffen and his Hollywood ‘mafia’ for what they did to him, many questions still remain unanswered.

Especially now that a slanderous movie about Michael Jackson called “Leaving Neverland” and based on Robson’s and Safechuck’s groundless allegations is planned to soon premiere at the Sundance film festival.

Why did this respected film festival decide to present a film about two obvious liars who testified to Michael’s innocence twice and then made a sudden turnabout? Why are they given so much media attention and preferential treatment despite their vague stories, while no one listens to the genuine victims of child abuse and their voices are barely heard?

And why is there so much money to back these two people? Who are those ‘selfless’ sponsors who seem to provide them with unlimited funds to keep their legal teams busy with several lawsuits and 6 years of litigation, while the genuine victims with credible stories have to resort to crowd-funding to be able to get justice for themselves?

And where is this justice? Have you seen it? For Corey Feldman and Corey Heim, for example? Where is a stream of good investigative journalism to promote their cases against the Hollywood molesters, especially since some perpetrators are already known, but are still going on with their activities?

And is it possible that Geffen and the Hollywood ‘mafia’ who sank Michael Jackson’s career in the 1990s are still at it even today? And that they are not only after Jackson and ruining his name, but are also there to obstruct justice in real crimes against youngsters?

The only good of the film to be soon presented at the Sundance film festival is that it gives people a chance to ask these and many other similar questions and demand immediate answers to them NOW.

The viewers of the “Leaving Neverland” film recently shown at the Sundance festival cite as one of the reasons why they believe Robson and Safechuck is that “their stories are so surprisingly similar!”

These good and unsuspecting people evidently don’t realize how easy it is to cook a “similar” Michael Jackson story nowadays, especially when the two so-called victims share one lawyer (to be more precise, two consecutive lawyers) and for six years too.

A good example of how these stories arise is a third sudden “victim” who made a similar U-turn a couple of days ago. It is Michael Jacobshagen from Germany who used to be a lifetime fan of Michael Jackson and who suddenly also realized that he was “abused” as a child.

When we hear the Sun speak of Jacobshagen as a father of a three-year old and look into the sad face of a man holding a photo album allegedly shown to him by MJ when he was a boy, your first reaction is – “oh, here is another victim who has finally come forward because he is no longer “afraid.”

But Michael Jacobshagen is nothing else but an example of the fantastic somersaults which yesterday’s MJ friends are capable of doing once they sniff which side their bread is buttered on.

With a little study of their own and some help from the outside these people are capable of creating stories that will grip the minds of many and will take the trusting audience into these “victims”‘ make-believe world.

Jacobshagen’s story is astoundingly similar to that of Robson and Safechuck.

‘Michael Jackson called me Rubba Rubba boy in bed and I now realise he abused me’ 
EXCLUSIVE Michael Jacobs-hagen was just 14 when he joined the singer on a string of tours but now he’s a dad himsef he realises he was abused

He shared a bed with Michael Jackson and was nicknamed “Rubba Rubba” boy by the superstar. When he was a baby-faced 14-year-old Michael Jacobs-hagen joined Jackson on a string of tours – smiling for the world’s media as he posed happily with the singer.

But today he reveals for the first time the full, horrific details of his bizarre relationship with the star who took him into his bed.

And he admits that only now, as the father of a three-year-old himself, does he realise the twisted and serious nature of the abuse he suffered at the Jackson’s hands.

At this point it won’t hurt to mention that Jacobshagen met Michael Jackson on ONE occasion only – when Michael was in Munich in 1998. Michael took him and other children to Circus Krone and after that all of them went to the Hotel “Bayrischer Hof” where they spent time together (where Anton and Franziska Schleiter and one more boy were also present). In the evening Jacobshagen left the hotel with some autographs of MJ ….. and this was the end of their ‘long’ friendship.

We know it for a fact from numerous witnesses some of whom were friends of Jacobshagen (when he was still a MJ fan) and who were horrified to read in his recent 100-page book that he had been a close friend of Michael Jackson and had even gone on tours with him.

These witnesses are totally above suspicion as the book was a pro-Jackson one, but despite that the reviewers still warned others not to read it and implored not to believe a single word of this liar.

Today Jacobshagen is not yet done with his lies – only now he is suddenly saying the opposite and is sharing with the “Sun” a heart-breaking story of his alleged molestation.

Speaking exclusively to the Sunday Mirror, Michael, 35, said: “He overstepped the mark with me and with other children. I’m almost the same age now Michael was when he met me. He was always asking me to sleep in his bed. I would say, ‘No Michael, I can sleep in my own suite’, but he was saying ‘Please, please… for Michael Jackson’.

“Since I had a son, it made me look at everything in a different way and I realise now how wrong it was. Becoming a father changed my feelings.”

The King of Pop – in his trademark face mask – was 38 and touring Europe promoting the HIStory greatest hits album. Michael spent three weeks with the singer in the hotel suite.

He said: “When I got back to school, pictures had been in all the media. Other kids would say, ‘You make sex with Michael Jackson’ and ‘You’re gay’.

“It affected me psychologically, but I never told Michael. It made me feel shame. Teachers warned my mother about allegations about Michael, but she said it was my decision if I wanted to keep seeing him.”

Michael had been thrilled to meet Jackson during an earlier visit to Disneyland Paris – after his mum asked an aide if her lad could be introduced to the star. He recalled: “Suddenly I was being picked up and taken to another hotel. When I went into his suite and Michael Jackson was there waiting for me, I just thought ‘Wow’. I was a huge fan.

“He gave me a hug and said in German ‘I love you’. We spent the day playing games like hide and seek and on his PlayStation.

“After that he kept phoning every day asking ‘Do you want to come again?’ and we spent the whole holiday together.”

“Michael invited us to other concerts, including the HIStory Tour, when I was 14. I travelled with him to other countries.”

Let me bring those who were swept away by the story down to earth again and remind them that Jacobshagen met Michael Jackson only once and could not be invited to any concerts on the History tour for still another reason – his one big happy day with Michael Jackson took place on March 27, 1998 when the History tour had long been over (it ended on October 15, 1997).

And there were no earlier visits to Disneyland either as the German documentary about Jacobshagen clearly says that initially he claimed his close association with Michael Jackson beginning with 1998 only. Here is a screenshot from this film:

“Michael Jacobshagen becomes famous as the boy with the red cap. In 1998 Michael Jackson visits Munich. He meets the then 14-year-old at Circus Krone. Jackson takes him backstage. Jacobshagen then claims that they meet on a regular basis from then on” [March 27, 1998]

Though Jacobshagen spent only one day with Jackson, at the time he was still Michael’s fan he kept telling everyone grand stories about him and Michael flying private jets when he was 14, 15 and 16, etc.

I then flew in private jets.. honestly… police escorts… everything… hmmm…. at 14, 15, 16 years of age…. honestly…. nobody can even imagine… this is really extraordinary…

Now he is singing a totally different tune and with the same ardor describes scenes of sexual abuse complete with a “psychological explanation” of MJ’s alleged actions.

“When I slept in his bed, we wore just boxer shorts and he would put his arm around me and push his body to my body, like you would with a girlfriend. He would put our bodies on each other and kiss me on the head and cheek. I woke many times and his hands were on me… one hand on the top of my legs and one hand around me.

“When he was high on his medication he would get closer in the same way as when a man gets drunk. It disinhibited him. He’d pull me closer and be grabbing me more and kissing me more on the head and on the cheek, He would also stroke my hair.

“I didn’t feel comfortable with it, but I thought ‘I can’t say No’. When you’re 14 and you’re there with the biggest megastar in the world, you say ‘okay’. He never carried out an explicit sexual act on me, but there were sexual intentions. He must have been getting something out of it sexually. I feel now like he was testing me, seeing how far he could go.”

The star was infatuated with Michael and sent notes saying he “truly missed him” – as well as instructions on hotel meets.

You will be surprised, but as to the alleged “instructions on hotel meets” Jacobshagen is capable of even producing physical proof of them. The fact is that he trained himself to imitate MJ’s handwriting so well that it helped him turn it into a lucrative business of his own. From one buyer alone he got 30,000 Euros for the exclusive autographs, letters, notes and other memorabilia allegedly related to Michael Jackson. The quality of his forgeries was so good that they were found fake only when the journalists took them to the Brandenburg Office of Criminal Investigation.

And Jacobshagen rolled his eyes and shamelessly denied that they were forgeries even when the journalists provided him with the official conclusion from the Criminal Investigation office.

“He [the buyer] paid 30,000 Euros. And the Land Office of Criminal Investigaion says: These are fake”

Michael also told how Jackson gave him a copy of The Boy: A Photographic Essay, containing naked snaps of young lads.

He said: “I found it strange. He said ‘This is one of my favourite books’ and he wrote personal notes inside. In one he called me ‘his special friend’ and his ‘rubba rubba friend’ because of what used to happen in the bed.”

Years later, another copy of the book was found in Jackson’s bedroom at his Neverland ranch in California after he was arrested on suspicion of abuse.

The “years later” lie about this photo album is told not by Jacobshagen, but by the Sun.

This book was not found at the Neverland ranch years later (during the police raids prior to the Arizo 2005 case). The book was indeed there, but it was found in 1993 and under very strange circumstances at that.

At around 1991 it was sent to Michael Jackson by a “fan” with the following inscription on its cover: “From your fan, xxxooo, “Rhonda”. 1983 Chicago”. Rhonda was in quotes.

The book was kept in a locked file cabinet in Michael’s closet where it stayed for two years, until the file cabinet was opened during the police raid of Neverland in 1993.

The person who brought the key to the cabinet was Michael’s former maid Blanca Francia who left her employment two years prior to the raid, in 1991. All this time she had kept the key as if knowing that one day it would come in handy for some special purpose.

Surprisingly, the police also knew who to approach in order to get it. Michael was away on a tour during the 1993 raid and was said to be surprised with the find as he didn’t remember having this and another book kept there at all.

The unique phenomenon about this book is that Jacobshagen could hardly know about it and someone must have “helped” him to remember it. He could freely improvise on Robson’s and Safechuck’s story to make his descriptions similar to theirs, but the book episode is indeed something novel here.

First of all this photo album, which is largely based on the shots from a very old film “Lord of The Flies,” is a rarity now and is difficult to find. Secondly, besides Jacobshagen telling a lie that he saw it in 1998, the Sun is also lying by implying that the book was found by the police in a raid prior to the 2005 trial.

No, all the time between 1993 and 2005 the book was kept in the police vault and even if Michael Jackson wanted to show it to Jacobshagen during their one day in Munich this was simply impossible.

And this means that someone thrust this book into Jacobshagen’s hands with the sole purpose to frame up Jackson and support his current lynching campaign that was started at the Sundance festival.

The whole thing is organized, and while you are thinking over what this staged performance might mean, let me add a couple of details to clarify the matter a little further.

Michael Jackson’s former maid Blanca Francia, the one who opened the locked file cabinet, was friends with Victor Gutierrez (there is even a photo of them together in Gutierrez’s book dating back to the 90s).

And Gutierrez is a notorious NAMBLA conference attendee who in the early 90s was making rounds of the families who knew Michael Jackson and was spreading stories about him being a “pedophile.” Among those parents was Joy Robson too, but she chose to report Gutierrez to Michael’s manager Norma Staikos rather than believe his stories.

Victor Gutierrez and Blanca Francia together [screenshot from his book]. Gutierrez says that communication with Michael Jackson’s personal maid Blanca Francia “made it easier my research to find the King of Pop’s sexual preference”

In 1995 Jackson sued both Dimond and Gutierrez for defamation and though she was released of liability for spreading lies about MJ, partially due to Tom Sneddon’s declaration who said something like “she didn’t know that her source was lying”, Gutierrez was found liable and was to pay $2,7 million in damages (which he never did as he fled to his native Chile).

These strange connections between Gutierrez – Blanca Francia – Diane Dimond – the key to the locked cabinet – and the book in it, eventually climaxed in the Jordan Chandler allegations in 1993.

And it is very interesting that now the same book takes us to the new allegations, thus linking the past and present together and suggesting that the same people who were sabotaging Michael Jackson then have placed the book in Jacobshagen’s hands now and are starting it all over again.

Under the circumstances I need to tell everyone that back in the 90s Michael Jackson believed that the people who sank his career in 1993 formed a certain group of powerful Hollywood players and even gave the name of his biggest foe who, as Michael believed, was responsible for ruining him (see this post for details please).

Leaving you to cope with this fresh information let me go on with the rest of the Sun article.

Besides everything else Jacobshagen also claims that he first met Jackson in 1995 (!) which is another of his lies, but we are no longer surprised. The rest sounds as a full replica of Robson’s and Safechuck’s stories.

Michael, meanwhile, told the Mirror about the time Jackson stripped off in front of him in a hotel hot tub. It was 1998 – three years after they met.

He said: “We were in the Jacuzzi inside Michael’s bathroom. He took his swim shorts off and said ‘If you want, you can take yours off as well’.

“I told him ‘No, I don’t do that. I don’t feel comfortable being naked. I was 14, but I always looked younger.”

The teenager told no one – not even his mum, who had split from his dad – about *****’s behaviour. But then the star had groomed him to remain silent and even bribed his mum.

Michael went on: “He would buy expensive things. He bought my mother a Cartier watch. We would go to toy shops or the Disney store and buy whatever I wanted. And he would drink wine and offer it to me. But I always said no. He called white wine ‘Jesus juice’ and red wine ‘Jesus blood’.”

Michael only came clean with his mum after Jackson died from a prescription overdose in 2009.

He came clean in 2009? But didn’t Jacobshagen say that he realized that he had been “abused” only recently? However in the face of so many colossal lies none of it really matters. The Jacuzzi, a Cartier watch, expensive things Michael bought for his mother – oh my God, there is simply no end to it…

He said: “She said that she gave him too much trust. She was very upset. All the time I was with him he needed psychological help. He was not okay.”

Michael now has a son aged three but is estranged from the tot’s mum. He last saw Jackson in Las Vegas two months before his death at the age of 50. He added: “When I became a man he did not have so much interest in me. When I went to visit the last time he didn’t ask me to sleep with him. I had to sleep on the couch.

“His fans won’t like me saying these things. They treat him like a God. But the truth is the truth.”
‘Michael Jackson called me Rubba Rubba in bed and I now realise he abused me’

There are two things that surprise me most in this anti-Michael Jackson business.

The first is how people allow the media to fool them so openly and so shamelessly. Don’t they understand that the authors of this fake have zero respect for their audience? Excuse my French, but do they enjoy the media pour this bullshit into their heads and insult their intellect and common sense in so blatant a way?

And the second thing that surprises, or rather, bothers me is that Jacobshagen, same as Robson and Safechuck, are not alone in their effort to frame-up Michael Jackson. The media and vile initiators of this lynching project obviously help the liars by supplying them with “facts” and “evidence” to support their stories – and the incident with this book is a vivid example of it.

In addition to all that there is one more nuance to Jacobshagen’s story which should not be overlooked as it is directly relevant to the good impression Robson and Safechuck produce on their unsuspecting audience.

The thing is that despite the fact that Michael Jacobshagen knows that he met Jackson only once, he seems to genuinely believe that he had a long friendship with him.

This nuance was noticed by Dieter Wiesner who for two years accompanied Michael in his business endeavors (and at some point also sued him). When asked by German journalists what he thought about Jacobshagen the visibly shocked Wiesner shook his head:

 “This closeness, that he claims he had with the artist. That he was communicating with him … for me… it simply makes me shake my head … that someone dares to do such a thing!”

And when they asked him how it was possible for Jacobshagen to deceive people for so many years Wiesner said:

“I met him three times. He is a real hard core fan – so I thought at first. But during the years I realized that he really believes what he says. I guess an expert is needed in order to figure this out.”

This is an amazing new detail.

It turns out that Jacobshagen produces so strong an impression on others by his ardor and seeming honesty that they begin thinking that he is believing his own lies.

They know that he is lying, but at the same time see him believe what he is lying. And they realize that he may be a medical case and only an expert can figure out how that kind of double thinking is possible.

This fantastic phenomenon has a direct relevance to Robson and Safechuck. Those who saw the film at Sundance are of the unanimous opinion that both “victims” look and sound genuine and under no circumstance could their words and emotions be false. The impression these guys produce is that they are top honest and this is actually what shatters the viewers most.

In this respect Robson’s revelations are not that important as he underwent the so-called “insight-related therapy” which is a highly dubious method of retrieving memories from the past which may result in false memories of which some therapy clients are known to be absolutely sure.

The above fantastic phenomenon may be more relevant to Safechuck. As far as I know he didn’t undergo any recent therapy (or did he?). But even if he didn’t Jacobshagen’s example shows that Safechuck can be a similar mental case and similarly believe his own lies, or at least produce the impression that he is believing them.

In other words this time the scam against Jackson is not just a scam, but a very well thought out and prepared psychological experiment which addresses both the “victims” and the public that is viewing the film.

To dot the i’s and cross the t’s the Estate, Taj Jackson and all others who want to know the truth behind it should immediately contact Dr. Loftus and Dr. Julia Shaw (who are well-known researchers of false memories) as well as Dr. David Jopling, a long-time researcher of the flawed “insight-oriented therapy”, providing them with depositions of Robson and Safechuck, as well as Robson’s testimony at the 2005 trial, and asking them to share their views on these people’s turnabout.

In the absence of Robson’s and Safechuck’s medical records this is the only way we can get to the bottom of what’s taking place here.

And please don’t tell me that in the process of their evaluation something ‘suddenly’ happens to these esteemed scientists.  If one single hair drops from their heads it will directly point at the initiators of this project.

~

Here is a video where Dr. Shaw explains how people may “recall” the crimes they never committed (not to mention the crimes never committed to them). This beautiful woman may help a lot in solving this enigma.

The recent MJCast episode 095 that several days ago brought together experts to discuss the recent Leaving Neverland so-called documentary is so profound and informative that it inspired me to make a partial transcript of it. The idea is to give a chance to those readers whose ear is not trained enough to understand an English-language radio podcast to get familiar with the discussion and take the word about it further.

One of the participants is Marcos Cabotá, a film director from Spain who has seen the film and is sharing his impression of it. As a professional filmmaker he explains the way it was deliberately structured to first gain the viewers’ trust and then do maximal damage to Michael’s name.

The other participants are Q and Jamon who lead the discussion. They are joined by Taj Jackson (member of 3T and son of Tito Jackson, who is currently raising funds to produce his own docu-series), Charles Thomson (The MJCast’s Legal Correspondent and award-winning investigative journalist who has exposed a range of actual child abusers and cover-ups for The Yellow Advertiser in the UK) and Samar Habib (of the Michael Jackson Academia Project, who has been a leading figure in the online movement against the film).

Here is part 1 of the transcript (I did my best but if you find some irregularities, please advise).

* * *

HOST: This is episode 95 Leaving Neverland roundable. It’s a bit of an emergency episode. The record date is February the 2nd, 2019. Welcome to the roundtable.

I am Q and I am joined by my co-host Jamon of the MJCast. And we have also got a number of other people seated around this audio roundtable today.

We have a very sick Charles Thomson who may not contribute as much as previous contributions. Can you please get well soon.

In London as well we have got Samar Habib, thank you for joining us. You’ve just come off an interview with the BBC regarding this very topic.

And calling in from Spain we have a first-time voice – his name is Marcos Cabotá, he is a film director, he is currently working on a Bruce Swedien documentary about his life and career. He has also made a very well known Star Wars documentary “I Am Your Father” (2015). Marcos, thank you for joining us. You’ve actually seen the ‘Leaving Neverland” film and you are one of its earliest critics. And we are very happy to have you on the show to hear about what you saw and your reaction to it. We can’t wait to hear your insight.

And we have Taj Jackson on the line, thank you so much for your time. We’ve seen you in 3T, the eldest son of Tito and nephew to Michael Jackson, and currently raising funds on the GoFundMe project for a counter documentary series. Thank you so much for joining us and welcome back to the MJCast.

3:40 Q: Please don’t miss episode 094 Harrison Funk Special if you can. There is a long discussion from Jamon, and Charles and Harrison regarding this ‘Leaving Neverland’ documentary and also his interactions with Wade and Jimmy Safechuck back in the day. We strongly recommend you to go back to episode 094.

It was fascinating to hear from Harrison Funk,  because he interacted with Wade and James in the day and hearing his insights into the real Michael Jackson, the real Neverland and the real Wade and Jimmy at that time is really interesting. And also the insight at the end.

Jamon, can you drop a little bit of context about this hack film, this mocumentary propaganda piece?

5:00 JAMON: It is not something we knew was coming or was being even worked on. A few weeks ago the news broke that a documentary was premiering at Sundance and it is a collaborative effort between UK’s Channel 4, HBO and Dan Reed Amos productions. It’s basically a film that captures the fake stories from James Safechuck and Wade Robson and their allegations against Michael Jackson. We know that they brought a case against the Michael Jackson Estate and its entities which was thrown out of court by the judge because of various reasons, but nonetheless the case was tried out, and now they’ve teamed up with Dan Reed to put this documentary together capturing their lies and also the thoughts of their immediate family members. It portrays Michael Jackson as a monster, a child molester. What can I say? We are devastated that this is going on. In a few weeks time it looks like this film is going to hit TV. It will be on HBO in the US and in the UK as well, on Channel 4.

6:40 Q. Just a little bit of context and the reason why this film is being able to go ahead – there are no laws protecting the deceased from slander. Charles, maybe you can clarify more for us?

6:55 CHARLES: Defamation law is civil law which exists to enable somebody who has been a victim of damaging claims in the public domain. So if somebody says something which could damage your reputation or business, that’s defamation. The law allows you to bring a civil claim for defamation and if you prove that you’ve been defamed you can be awarded damages. But the law ceases to protect you the moment you die. So effectively what they are doing to Michael Jackson in this film they can do to anyone of us the moment we die. They can do it to anyone. You don’t have to have any evidence whatsoever. You can say anything about anyone as long as they are dead.

7:45 Q. Thank you so much for the clarification. It is important for us to know that it is very different from back in the day when Victor Gutierrez wrote a book and was taken to court by Michael Jackson and sued. Victor lost the case and had to pay millions of dollars to Michael which he never did – he fled the country and hasn’t paid a cent.

We might hand over to Marcos and get a little bit of a rundown on the film ‘Leaving Neverland’ he has seen. Marcos was not at the Sundance festival to see the film – it was sent to his film distribution company and this is how he got to see the entire ‘documentary’. Marcos, can you give us a bit of a rundown on things that the film includes and how you as a filmmaker view this film and its effect?

8:45 MARCOS: Okay. Like two weeks ago, or ten days ago, I don’t remember, my distribution company called me that they had received a film ‘Leaving Neverland”. Actually they were a little worried. This distribution company distributes my films and my next film is not a Michael Jackson documentary [but about Bruce Swedien] and they called me and said, “Maybe you should see this because this could be a problem”. So I went to their offices and sat down in front of a computer and I watched the whole movie and I couldn’t believe what I saw.

What the director has done in this movie is that he builds up the first part of the movie very very good, and it’s very credible. The first part of the movie is how James and Wade met Michael. You have to think that meeting Michael Jackson is something quite unique. Not everybody has had the luck to meet the man. So when you are watching a movie where two kids, two normal kids have the luck to meet Michael it is already like magical.

They tell you this for like half an hour or 45 minutes, they explain to you how these kids met Michael. And they are showing you pictures of the kids with Michael – Michael with the kids in their home, like very relaxed pictures on the sofa with family, and you as a spectator you are like – oh, my God, how lucky they’ve been!

So you are slowing getting into their world. You trust them, you believe them, because you see the evidence – because yes, they’ve met Michael Jackson. And that’s quite unique.

And when they have captured you in this way, when they have you like “now you are in my world, you are now in a magical world, you see I met Michael, you see my pictures with Michael. Now I am going to start saying other stuff”.

And that’s why I couldn’t find it credible, that stuff. Because it was like a very nice movie about two kids meeting Michael, first one and then the other, and then suddenly they start talking about abuse, they start saying those nasty things that I cannot even reproduce. Descriptions, descriptions, descriptions of so many horrible things, you wouldn’t imagine.

I couldn’t believe a word of them. I saw clearly what the director was doing. When you want to say a lie first you have to say the truth. The first 35 minutes of the documentary is all truth, so you believe everything and from then on you have to believe everything they say. When the 35-45 minutes were over, it’s when lies began. I couldn’t believe a word of what they said.

What Dan Reed has done is a very credible 35 minutes beginning of the story and very nice too, so when they get you trapped, now the lies begin.

12:00 HOST: So basically he’s gained the audience trust and then…

12:05 MARCOS: Exactly! Because you like those kids. For the first 35 minutes you liked them, you want to be like them, you want to be their friends, you think how lucky they’ve been and how incredible was Michael. They talk about Michael and say that he is a great guy, so it is a very nice, nice atmosphere. And after that it turns like 180 degrees and the bad thing starts.

12:35 HOST: Also the first 35 minutes which is the wonderful stuff and all those photos is another reason why you trust and believe them, because it’s all real, easily provable, there is evidence for all of that. So they have evidence of all those stories – why would you then doubt the rest?

12:55 MARCOS: Exactly. That’s the trick, that’s the trick of the film. The 35 minutes are all true – so now you believe the rest, the other 3 hours. That’s what they’ve done.

13:05 HOST: So Marcos, when you get into the second half of the film when the allegations are coming out and they detail the allegations that are horrible lies around sexual acts, does Dan Reed attempt to put in any evidence, like other evidence around at all or is it just the stories of the guys?

13:25 MARCOS: No, no. Just the stories, there is no evidence. Zero evidence. There are some faxes and some autographs, and Michael saying “I love you”, “I miss you”, but that’s not evidence to me. That’s not evidence of sexual abuse.

Michael Jackson’s fax to Wade Robson: “Hello Doo Doo Head. You are the best of the kid dancers. Keep on toward perfection. You are now inspiring me to get better. Love (Hello Chantel. I love you Too)”

13:38 TAJ: Which is interesting because as soon as I heard that I actually went to my safe where I keep all my letters from my uncle and I found exactly almost verbatim a lot of them. And I thought to myself, well, in the wrong hands this could look horrible. This is because my uncle Michael was that trusting and he loved everyone. So I have exactly that same that says “I miss you. Love. Michael”.

To someone when they’ve already been in that mindset, and they see it the way that’s been edited and cut, and they see “I miss you”, it becomes something sinister while in reality it was innocent. I had such a fun time last night. I was thinking like WOW, it can really be explosive in the wrong hands. I’m going to post some of them on Twitter to just show that this is how he was. There is nothing explosive in any of this. I have these, my brothers have these, other people have these. That’s not anything new. But they don’t know Michael and they don’t know his universe, so to them it is “Oh, my God!”

15:15 SAMAR: When we were at Dorchester hotel in 1992 when Michael was touring on the Dangerous tour, all of us fans were standing outside, Michael was upstairs on the balcony with Brett Barnes and he had bed sheets and pillow covers and he would sign them “I love you, I love you so much, MJ” and he was writing a lot of messages, things like “You kept me awake last night” because obviously the fans ran under the window screaming and he wrote “I really need to get some sleep” and there would be tons and tons of these messages that would be thrown into the crowd. And anyone of those fans will have any number of bed sheets, handkerchiefs, pillow cases with his name and with his writing on them.

Michael Jackson’s fax to Wade’s mother: “Joey, whatever I can do to help I will. I love you all. Stay happy always. I love you all. MJ

Michael Jackson’s message to fans: “I love all of you so so much. I’m very lonely without you, you are my life always, please love me always. “Burn” all tabloids. Love. Michael Jackson”

Taj touched upon anything in the wrong hands – any message from your parents, any message from your children or your friends in the wrong hands. And the legalities Charles was speaking about and making a propaganda film like this – that’s not the only layer of the land, so to speak.

The other layer is also the money to be made, the prestige to be attained by being the next Ronan Farrow, by being the next person that breaks a big story. So Dan Reed is now in an oddly enviable position, because now he can say anything he wants about Michael Jackson and there is literally no comeback. And now you can celebrate wherever you go, you have every journalist eating off your hands as long as they actually don’t read any further into the allegations. As long as you limit what they have access to – which he has done incredibly by just speaking to these two families.

Hence there is no journalistic integrity in it, because it is not a documentary – it is a propaganda piece.

17:40 HOST: Samar, why do these ‘critics’ who take the film seriously and praise it – why do you think people are giving them any stock? This is a one-sided documentary that doesn’t present evidence at all, or any other side to the story, so why are people taking this seriously?

17:50 SAMAR: I’ve just come off the BBC radio where a woman who has just reviewed the film has talked about [it] and about almost the presumption of guilty before being presumed innocent, that “victims should be believed”. The host asked her to clarify, does she mean that the alleged victims should be listened to or should they be believed? She said, “I think they should be believed”.

But this is not the rule of law. This is not how society works. If you do this to Michael Jackson now, based on a couple of faxes and a legal case that was brought five years after he was dead, anyone is fair game. Anyone, as soon as they pass away is fair game. Bill Gates who’s worth billions is fair game. Steve Jobbs is fair game. Anything is fair game as long as you have someone willing to make the accusation.

A – there is a lot of laziness. B – as we find on social media today, there’s a complete lack of social, cultural and racial diversity in most news rooms in the Western hemisphere [vmj: not only in the Western hemisphere, lol]. In the UK, for example, 95% of journalist news rooms in mainstream publications are white middle class. What do you think they are going to think? What investigative work are they going to pull in trying to find the truth about a famous black celebrity? They are not going to do anything.

As soon as you talk about David Bowie and any allegations that might be made about him, as soon as you talk to them about Led Zeppelin, about Rolling Stones, they don’t want to talk about it. They celebrate their heroes and anyone who they don’t particularly care about, anyone they rise their eyebrows over is fair game. And that’s a failing of multiple layers of our society and also of our culture, that our media is being presented to us by a homogenous white middle-class grouping which is not representative of our society – in the UK and the US.

20:15 TAJ JACKSON: Yes, very true. I realized it from day one. Knowing my uncle I [wondered], why are they lying? I never believed the media, never trusted the media because to me they are always trying to make money out of my uncle. And the more sensational the story was, the more they made.

As a family the one thing we did wrong was, basically, we’d let it slide, let it go, we didn’t fight it. That was out style to do it, and our style has changed recently because we are sick of this. We are sick of these lies and that all these lies basically have become ‘truth’ to people now. So we have a lot of work to do, [fighting] a lot of ignorance and we are over there on Twitter answering things that have been answered already, millions of times.

But I don’t think it matters, I don’t think that truth matters any more. It is all about clicks, it is all about getting that headline. I think there is no journalistic integrity. There are some really good journalists but they are in the minority now.

21:45 SAMAR: The point I’ve made to a journalist called Marina Hyde, she works for the Guardian. The Guardian is supposed to be one of the most liberal of the mainstream press, supposed to be the fairest. She wrote an article today that would have been actionable, libelous if Michael Jackson had been alive. There is no way she would have able to write the article had he been alive and I questioned her on her tweet and she didn’t respond though I was perfectly polite. She responded to lots of other tweets that agreed with her.

22:35 TAJ: They can’t fight, they can’t fight the facts.

SAMAR: Yes, exactly. They can’t fight the facts. She wasn’t willing to defend her column to someone who would have been able to pick it apart easily, she wasn’t willing to engage in a conversation.

And she wasn’t the only one – there was another guy, who is a radio presenter in this country. He was on a TV show last week, and the spurious claims he was making as one of its talking heads…. He said, “these guys were ignored, no one listened to them back in the day”. And I tweeted and said, “Wade Robson was the first witness in the criminal trial in 2005. That’s the complete opposite of being ignored. That’s being invited to give your testimony.”

And these guys get paid speaking this nonsense. And with the knowledge that we have, we have to sit back and watch this parallel universe where the truth actually doesn’t matter. If you have facts on your side you will become a caricature, a laughter. We are flat earthers in their universe.

24:00 HOST: No, this is where I am correcting this narrative. They are the flat earthers. And we really need to get out there [to say] that this is junk science, these are ridiculous claims, they have zero evidence, zero facts.

Taj, you’ve found some letters that you’ve mentioned before. Marcos, you mentioned that in that documentary all they have is some faxes. Was there anything else other than faxes?

24:20 MARCOS: No. Nothing else. The big part of their accusations are descriptions. So when you are watching the film, the film is description, description, description. They say all these horrible things that supposedly happened. And you really feel bad. You feel bad because you don’t want to hear all those bad words, not because you are believing what they are saying.

If I do a three hour documentary saying that the Earth is flat someone will probably believe that the Earth is flat. And this is a documentary where for three hours and a half these two guys are saying horrible things. They describe horrible situations in hotel rooms, in Neverland and it’s quite sick, it is really, really sick. So this is like the strong part of the movie, the descriptions. But there is no evidence. Zero evidence. And there is only one side of the story. There is no one saying the other part of the story or trying to fight them back. This is not good professional work.

25:30 HOST: The other side of the story. Taj, you are going to be working on a counter film for this which we really want to make people aware of.

25:40 TAJ: We’ve been hitting this head on. I honestly in my heart of hearts think that at the rate this is going and things are being uncovered they may be found out even before I finish my documentary.

HOST: We can try.

TAJ: Because there’ve left so many trails and no one has done their homework. And it is not something hard to figure out. They are really relying on people’s emotions and they are relying on those descriptions to hit the people’s guts, and hit them in a way that they feel angry.

They played it really well at Sundance – they had psychiatrists outside in case you were disturbed, and it is such propaganda (laughs). And I am laughing (I shouldn’t be laughing because it is no laughing matter), because this was brilliantly played. It was the media, the people outside just in case it is so graphic that you need therapy, you know. It was played well, I’ll give them that.

But it still doesn’t have any facts to back it up. That’s all they have as someone’s case. And as we all know this is not something new in a society of blaming someone for something they didn’t do and convicting the wrong person. Convicting an innocent person.

I’ve grabbed a couple of letters [from Michael]. Here is one of them. “Dear Taj, I miss you. Love, uncle Michael”. That’s one that could be easily abused.

And this one is my favorite – it is on the Japanese Airline napkin and it says: “With love always. I had a great time. I love you. Uncle Michael”. The napkin I like is because it looks very suspicious. This is probably the one I would have got a lot of money for if it didn’t say “uncle Michael” on it.

I mean that’s how these people think. They think that disgustingly, and they think in terms of “we gonna twist someone’s words and gonna make them perverted”. And this is what they did.

A fan said it best in a tweet, and she said: “Michael Jackson is like a mirror. If you are pure you are going to see purity, if you have those kind of thoughts you are going to see those things”. And I think that’s true. That’s all how it’s read, but for me. I know that my uncle is 100% innocent. There is no question to me and I know these guys are lying and it makes me angry and at the same time upset that people are believing this, and prominent people are believing that. And this is when I started kind of breaking ranks to tweet these people back. I mean I can only take ignorance so far, and that’s the thing. When you have prominent people rehashing and regurgitating certain things – that’s it.

29:05 HOST: Taj, you’ve got a GoFundMe. Can you tell us about it and what you want to release to counter this film?

29:20 TAJ: I’m not the best marketer for myself but I think the thing is that I’m someone who’s spent so much time with my uncle Michael. I don’t even know if I can count how many hours that would be, but basically ever since I was born until he passed we were super close. This documentary, this docu-series – it is going to be more than one for sure, probably it’ll be around 4 or 5 episodes as parts to it – it is going to dive into everything. When I say everything I mean all the misconceptions focusing mainly on the allegations, because that’s where we have to really start.

I can’t tell how many times I’ve read that stupid phrase “Where is smoke there is fire” or “Why did he do this settlement in 1993? An innocent person wouldn’t do that.” I think we really have to go back to that and explain the logic and how he was basically backed against the corner. And he fought it. He literally tried to fight it from August to January, he tried to fight for the truth, but at the end of the day he was backed into a corner by California basically, who would not let the civil trial go after the criminal trial.

And the reason I know this is because when the allegations broke out we were the first to be flown up to him, to be with him, and I can tell you – he was angry. He was like “No, I’m not letting this happen.” And at the same time …. my uncle was a very sensitive person and as this carried on we saw what it did to him – going through a trial because we got to see it in 2005. He was already going through a lot when he was in Asia and we were there with him [in 1993]. He was already feeling that he was being tortured and he wasn’t there to fight.

I understand that but we also need to understand the mindset of the public, because a lot of people don’t know. Just like a lot of people don’t know about the drawing of the kid – that it didn’t match. Everyone says, “Oh, it matched”. A circumcised penis and a not circumcised penis doesn’t match, sorry to say.

32:25 HOST: And also if it did match I’m pretty sure that the DA would have run with that to the hills.

32:30 TAJ: That would have been it. Let me ask you this – why would my uncle subject himself to being photographed naked before settling? He always wanted to fight it. If I am going to settle and get this out of my head I am not going the public to know about it first of all, and the media. But he let them drag him through the mud and then photograph him naked and then settled.

And the settlement was about the civil case. And it never prevented Jordie from testifying in a criminal case, and that’s the thing that they don’t understand.

33:15 SAMAR: Or his family, or his friends. The argument that Michael Jackson paid off and that means that he paid the family and they couldn’t go to trial – no, that’s not what happened. In the settlement that was leaked illegally in 2003 before the 2005 trial, it is explicit that the settlement doesn’t preclude the family from testifying in a trial, any further trials. Hence Jordie’s mother was able to testify in 2005 (no one believed her). There is such a massive misconception, it is such a lie that is perpetuated over and over again. And it is easily disproved. It there is factual, printed in black-and-white evidence to disprove it. But Marina Hyde and all the other pseudo-journalists don’t want to talk about it.

34:10 TAJ: I think also that people are lazy. They don’t want to do the research. A lot of the fights I’ve had on Twitter have been with people who are like “It’s not my job to do this research”. I think that what my documentary is going to do is basically put it out there very easy to digest, in a way that it is so blatantly obvious and so fact-based that there is no disputing it. And this is going to be something different in that way, because a lot of this is on Youtube already, but it requires someone to go click on something and sit there and watch it. And I think the difference is that this is going to have enough noise in a positive way that people actually want to click and watch.

35:05 HOST: They are going to take notice for sure. I want to drop a link to it now.

https://www.gofundme.com/untitled-michael-jackson-documentary-series

I know that you are not good at hyping yourself Taj, but this is a really important aspect of the fight against this. And actually getting facts and evidence which is available already, but we need it to be presented this way. And you can’t do this on your own.

35:50 TAJ: I think we can’t do this on our own, but at the same time from what we’ve seen now which is what I’ve always seen my whole life, we can’t trust the media to put out the truth, and that’s the biggest thing. Everyone says, why you don’t go to this channel and that channel? Every time we’ve gone somewhere they’ve always twisted the truth. When my uncle went on Oprah, she started asking him about plastic surgery and about his skin color. It is like it doesn’t matter who you are, when it comes to the Jackson family you lose all integrity, you lose all journalistic ability.

And the same with Martin Bashir. He had done that documentary on Princess Diane. Sure, that was the reason my uncle wanted to do that documentary with him. He was probably thinking, “He is going to do a brilliant documentary about me.” But there is some kind of a temptation. You think, “This is my big break and I need it to be bigger. This is great, but I need it better than this. And I am going to throw in something that’s not true there.”

And we can’t afford it any more, as Michael’s fans, as family. That has to be something that is 100% factual, because they are going to nip it to death, they are going to go through ten magnifying glass each and try to find one thing faulty in it to discredit everything. And it’s got to be truthful, it’s got to be from people that have known Michael their whole life, people that had worked with my uncle, worked for my uncle. So by the end of it you should know who Michael Jackson was, how incredible he was, but also how much he endured and how much he was tortured in life.

37:45 HOST: And the evidence to prove that all this ridiculous money-making schemes is just that.

37:50 TAJ: Just that, but also planned. And executed. Talking about extortion… that’s why it is going to be a series because you cannot fit it all in one movie. I cannot do him that injustice. For me it is not going to be “We gonna talk about this, we gonna talk about that”. I do get feedback from the fans and I think it is imperative to first start with the 1993 allegations.

38:30 HOST: I know this it something what the fans want from this. They are harping for a great production value and getting this out there. And everyone wants to see someone like Netflix. To what extent are you talking to Michael’s Estate about partnering on this? Are they jumping in to help this out? What’s going on there?

38:45 TAJ: I can’t say much, but I can say that we’ve definitely talked to them and they definitely have said that they want Michael’s name cleared as well in that way, and they are definitely on my side for this and they’ve definitely been supportive in clearing his name. I don’t want to say much because I don’t want to tip off anything. If you asked me a year ago I’d probably would have said I’m happy to have it on my shoulders, but these allegations that have resurfaced have put everyone working together for a common goal which is to expose the truth.

39:30 HOST: Marcos, you are a film maker. Actually in Seville, Spain you are nominated for an award, the pious Spanish film award ceremony this weekend. How easy is it to make a film financially? Can you give us some context of that? You are in the middle right now of filming the Bruce Swedien life story documentary…

39:55 MARCOS: Yes, financing a movie is not easy. Probably it’s one of the hardest parts to get all the money together. For example, in my case I’m making a documentary that costs around 300,000 Euros, it is more or less $280,000 (correction: approximately $342,000). Because it is not just doing the film. You have to distribute the film, you have to do the publicity for the film, you have to tour around the world with the film and you have to make sure that the film gets into Netflix or other platforms.

So it is difficult to get the funding, it is one of the most difficult parts. For example, I started the Bruce Swedien movie with only half of the funding because I wanted to start shooting, so it is like two months ago that I got the other half of the funding. In Spain we have some help from the government. But this is a thing that can take a full year or even two years or even more. It is something slow, getting the funds. It is something real, real difficult.

41:25 HOST: Taj, what can fans do to support you, to support this film and how can fans most constructively combat this online onslaught, caused by this propaganda film?

41:49 TAJ: I feel that the Michael Jackson fandom is the strongest fandom in the world. And I think that what they want us to do is basically go and hide in a cave and being scared and not utter the words ‘Michael Jackson’ ever again. I think, what would counter that and what everyone is doing which I am so thankful for is that everyone is literally wearing their shirts with pride, and that is the key. Letting them know that we are not going anywhere and we want the truth to be out there.

I think that’s when people get scared, the HBO and Channel 4 get scared, when we have a voice and I think that’s the thing. We are getting our voice back, we are all starting to unite. We all start to be vocal and we are hitting them with facts and we are hitting them with the truth.

To my dear fans. I truly miss you all and love you, from the bottom of my heart. In the 1990’s I will promise you the best work I’ve ever done. Always help the children, love them. I love you. Michael Jackson

For me what I need the fans to do besides the documentary, is spreading the word and spreading the truth, because affecting one person can affect another person, and then affecting another person. I can tell you right now, if I didn’t have the support of the fandom I would probably not be able to do what I am doing right now. I feel that Love and I feel that Truth.

43:00 SAMAR: I sent a message to Charlie this morning after having a couple of interactions with some idiot journalists on Twitter this morning. And I said to him – this is quite worrying because this is all of a kind of flat Earth in comparison. Charlie said this is difficult because with so loud noise from the media we look like idiots. The stuff I’ve been called online – oh, you support a pedophile, basically. And that’s really troubling for some of the kids, that people might actually ever think that. I said to Charlie that I am quite worried about that, but then I thought – I have the truth on my side. This is the truth.

And good things will not happen until good people say what’s right and what’s wrong. The radio conversation I had five minutes before coming on this podcast the woman who was a journalist and had reviewed the film – it was like listening to someone talking another language.

When I was aware of all the facts and the background of all the accusations and the accusers, and for her to refer to them as “incredibly credible and I’ve spoken to them and they seem to be very credible”? And I know people who have known Wade Robson for 25 years and who believe he is lying, believe Jimmy Safechuck is lying. You cannot pull wool over our eyes.

The beauty of social media is that the public has a say. That’s why none of the journalists want to respond to my tweets, because they are very happy to caricature Michael Jackson’s fans as crazy, Peter Pan obsessed, bla-bla-bla-bla-bla. And I was perfectly polite and asked very simple questions, and I was still caricatured. And that’s because they don’t want to answer and know that what they are producing and what they are publishing is so easily disproven.

And how can you continue to go to your job and get paid knowing that you are writing nonsense? You have such a responsibility as a journalist in the world. How do you sleep at night knowing that you are just repeating lie after lie after lie? There is no thought about the people that’s related to, the people who are still here.

I’ve been a fan since 1992, so I’ve been through the very, very highs and the very, very lows, and it’s pretty low now and for a while I was really worried and concerned. And then I remembered 1993 when in England there were four TV channels. There was no Internet, the only mass media we had was four channels and all they were doing was blasting allegations and there was literally not a way of response.

That’s not the case now. There are plenty of people with big platforms who are willing to ask the questions whereas in 1993 that wasn’t the case. It was horrifying in 1993. And that’s something that fans who might be listening now need to understand.

Yes, there will be short-term damage. Yes, it will hurt for a while, but ultimately and eventually Michael Jackson’s legacy and art – it is too powerful and too strong. He was that big and that important culturally to people, not just in England, not just in America, but in India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenia, in Iraq and Afganistan – all over the world he is known and is important to all those people. So it hurts for a while and short term but ultimately the truth will come out and he will be redeemed.

47:40 HOST: That’s it. We’ve got the facts, we’ve got the evidence on our side.

Michael Jackson’s message to fans: “I truly love all of you. I am recording tonight, for all of you, you are my true inspiration forever. I am living for you, and the children. Be alive, be free, feel continuous […] God. I love you. Michael Jackson

Taj, you were at Neverland so many times you probably met these particular guys on occasion. Is there any story you want to share about your time at Neverland, what you saw at Neverland yourself when you were sleeping there, when you were living there or interacting with certain people. Is there anything you want to put out today for people?

48:15 TAJ: Yes, sure. The thing is that Neverland was a second home to me in my whole childhood. Growing up I loved Neverland. Still to this day I can close my eyes and walk around the whole property pointing where everything is. It is imprinted in my head and in such an incredible way. It was magic.

And what the media did so ‘brilliantly’ was that they made it seem like it was a scene from Pinocchio and this dark shady thing. The doll house that was so beautiful, all set in with the wrong lighting, looked like a creepy room. But this is the doll room! For me it was one of my favorite rooms and they portrayed it as a creepy room. And that taught me a lot about the media, even though I already knew what they were doing.

When you’ve experienced something and you know what it is … I had a friend who was watching something on cable news and he’d been to Neverland many times for parties or just with us, and he actually stopped listening to this guy. This guy was his hero and he was on Fox News – my friend is more of a conservative, and when this guy started talking about Neverland being creepy and a place that entrapped kids, he was like, wait a minute, I’ve been there millions of times and how dare you paint it this way?

Many people haven’t been there, just like many people didn’t know Michael, so for them it is whatever way they want to paint it. Luckily there have been thousands and thousands of people that have been at Neverland and have thousands and thousands of great memories. It never stuck that Neverland was a creepy place as everyone had a great time there.

But for me Neverland was home. I was there for a long period of time and actually during the trial I saw the Robson family come up to do their testimony. I sat there and had dinner with the Robson family and uncle Michael, and Paris and Prince, and Blanket. And the Barnes family was there as well. And we sat and watched Wade introduce his fiancee at the time to uncle Michael and how excited he was to do that.

And then I see this and I see the hypocrisy and I see the fact that he is claiming that at this point Michael was a child molester – I can’t say those words. That’s what he is claiming. For me it is disgusting.

But I think that at the same time we as fans and family have to be careful not to do – which is so tempting – to jump down possible allies’ throats. Because we will need all the allies we can get.

There are certain celebrities that I’m like, why aren’t you saying something? Or even if they say something and it is not exactly what you want them to say, be careful because those are going to be our allies. We don’t have many. It is the easiest thing to do, trust me, I’ve caught myself many times [wanting] to erase my tweets, but at the same time we need these allies because at the end of the day we don’t want to scare them away even more, to the point when they are like “damned if I do, damned if I don’t”.

There are certain people that I would have loved for them to have said this or to have said it better, but at the the end of the day we are fighting people who are blatantly saying he is a ‘predator’, that he is a ‘molester’. We have to pick and choose where we are focusing this energy.

52:20 HOST: Taj, I also think I should make a note that the family did release a statement. Jermaine has been quite vocal since there was a petition before the film started airing, he posted about the petition. He also went on British TV and you can say that this is really affecting the family a lot. I wanted to give props to uncle Jermaine for speaking out so vocally as well.

But there are also other people speaking in defense of your uncle. We’ve seen a few tweets from Brett Barnes, we’ve seen a young gentleman who was the son of one of Michael’s hair stylists, Talun Zeitoun. Can you tell us about some other people? We should really amplify those voices because I think they are getting drowned out a bit.

53:20 TAJ: I can’t say who privately has reached out to me because a lot of them said that they’ll be part of the documentary and I don’t want to tip anyone off. I think the hard thing for me was to see that the celebrities are so scared to come out and voice their support. Because if they do they get attacked. If they don’t they get attacked. For them, they are almost sitting on the sidelines.

The 2005 trial was more disappointing because I don’t think there was that much of a risk at that point. It wasn’t the same environment. My uncle literally had only his family and a couple of friends, supporting him. It was a very, very lonely time at that point.

But here I’ve been a little more lenient, because I’ve seen people in the times of the #MeToo movement voice something for the person accused. And later it had been found out that the person accused was innocent. As we started this “believe the victims first” mentality. And that’s why you are not going to see many celebrities support – in the public. You can see it behind doors, but you are not going to see it in the public, because to them there is no reward. There is only risk.

55:00 HOST: Taj, there is one thing I feel very strongly about and I think you do as well. These false allegations and claims – just claims as there is literally nothing to back it up at all – it is not only a huge dishonor and disrespect for your uncle, and for your family and his family, but also real victims of abuse. Real survivors of abuse.

This is so disgusting that these people are out there and they are going to make a lot of money out of this. They say they haven’t been paid for the film. This is nothing, there are going to be so many avenues for them to make money. This director is going to sit for life on this film.

So how do you feel as a victim of abuse yourself? What do you think that says about the people who make stuff like this?

56:00 TAJ: I even tweeted at one time to a person (don’t know his name), I said, if you have any questions, please come to me first, because I knew how important these movements can be, especially if you a victim to come out and it can take a long time and a lot of courage. And I’ve been very careful not to attack those movements in a certain way even though they are attacking, in a way, my uncle and his legacy. So for me – I’ve been still tiptoeing around it because I am an actual victim and I take that with… I am very serious about that. And have always been serious about that.

I think that it’s almost like “if we get one wrong, we get one wrong”. No, that’s not how it should work. Because one wrong is too much. Because it destroys life as well, so we have to be careful.

We have a mob mentality now in this world. Just pile it on, pile it on. And I think we have to be careful and sit back and maybe give it 24 hours to learn the truth. But that was not the case with this.

57:25 CHARLES: In my day job for the newspaper I’ve spent the last four years, working on a very in depth investigation into historic child molestation scandal. And I spent a long time now, the best part of the last two years, working directly with these victims, genuine child abuse victims. And the thing that cheeses me off really, one of the most things that upsets me the most about this film, is that I can foresee the damage that this would do to the cases of genuine victims.

Because we actually had it a couple of years ago here in the UK. We had two big simultaneous police investigations. A huge kind of moral panic over historic allegations against celebrities which sparked a massive police investigation called ‘Operation Yewtree” under which a couple of people were convicted, but most of the celebrities who were arrested and not charged were completely exonerated and had their careers destroyed despite being vindicated.

And at the same time we had this huge scandal which lasted a couple of years where there was supposedly a historic pedophile ring operating off the Houses of Parliament. This story ran across pretty much every newspaper in the UK, every national newspaper. And it turned out to be complete bunk, it turned out to be basically rambling by crazy fantasists who were trying to file compensation claims, and stuff.

As a direct result of those two moral panics which resulted in histrionic media coverage for years, ridiculous media coverage and false accusations against lots of people who ended up completely cleared, it did two things. The first thing is that the media stopped engaging with any similar stories, like the story I’ve been working on for the last four years – the national media would not cover it because they don’t want to have anything to do with historic abuse scandals now, because they are not going to get their fingers burnt again. So it silences genuine victims in that sense.

And the other thing it did was actually changed police policy whereby because of the current ridiculous response to these allegations they held an independent inquiry and produced a report which instructed police officers to no longer believe abuse victims when they came forward, to treat them with skepticism.

So when you have these fake allegations it has blowback, it has repercussions because when they expose this fake it turns the tide of public opinion and it has consequences. And those consequences can only be negative for genuine victims. Like the victims I’ve been doing with for the last four years. They can’t get police to take them seriously, they can’t get national media to give them a hearing. It’s all fallout from these fake allegations a couple of years ago.

So I just see this as a continuation of that really. This ‘documentary’, this TV show … I hope somebody does a good job of discrediting it, but even when that happens that is going to have negative consequences for other victims. So the victory for Michael there which is deserved will still have ramifications.

So it is just a complete mess and it is really indefensible. This crap, this rubbish journalism is going to blight and impede genuine abuse victims and that really fucks me off.

1:01:25 HOST: Yes, well said.

Marcos, I want to ask you quickly as well. You’ve seen the film and from your point of view as a film maker, how can we as fans, people on the ground, what can we do to correct the narrative and fight this propaganda piece?

1:01:45 MARCOS: I think, by showing evidence, because I cannot even call it a film – it is a propo film. In that show there is only people talking, talking and talking and it’s one side of the story. So now you as fans, we need to hear the other side of the story, and if you can bring some evidence upfront that’s good, because they have nothing. Seriously. You are going to freak out when you see the movie. It is three hours of two guys talking and that’s it. I can do the same, anyone can do the same. There’s letters but nothing else.

Michael Jackson’s fax to Chantal Robson, Wade’s sister: “I Love you because you’re very kind and sweet. Yesee-weessee”

If you are going to say something so wrong from a person you need to show some evidence that what you are saying is truth. So the way to fight back is to show evidence.

And you are doing it already – you are convincing a lot of people with your tweets and your Youtube videos, showing who these two people are. Now it has to be a bigger voice, and this is maybe Taj’s documentary. I would say to Taj to go to Netflix and get Netflix involved in this series. I’m pretty sure that they will get on board.

1:03:25 HOST: Can I ask before we move on to our next section. Taj, I want to ask you something directly. Your uncle Jermaine gave an interview on “Good morning, Britain” and he mentioned something that sort of surprised me. He said that “Wade dated two of his nieces” meaning two of your cousins. Clearly Wade Robson had a very deep relationship with your family in general and beyond Michael Jackson before these allegations. Do you have anyone in your family that have reached to Robson one on one to just challenge him on this?

1:04:05 TAJ: I don’t think it happened. It happened in the beginning. But I think he is too far deep in it now. He is kind of made his bed and it would be literally a waste of time, and it might be something he might use against us, to be completely honest. Knowing him and not being able to trust him in anything he does and says, I think we have to be careful in that way, you know, whether he recorded us or …

They proved that they will go through any means necessary to make this a truth. I wouldn’t put it past them to change things around, change wording around and manipulate the situations. I don’t think anyone has reached out to him and I know that he is purposely avoided by everyone.

I actually bumped into Chantal for Christmas because one of my friends is mutual friends with her and I can tell you one thing. I said, “Hey” and she had her head down and she walked to her car. And I had no clue why that had happened until I heard about the movie. I said, oh, now I know why she felt shame because she knew something I didn’t know.

I would definitely say we haven’t reached out. We did it in the very beginning because I didn’t believe it in the very beginning. I was like “No, not Wade”. The person that was adamant and that was at Neverland and presented his fiancee to my uncle and showed his short film to my uncle, and was so excited like “I want you to be the first person to see it.” That Wade?

1:05:50 HOST: The same guy who was doing interviews for years after your uncle passed praising him. He did a huge page in the OPUS book, he was saying how excited he was, he wanted to work on Cirque du Soleil show and that was just months before.

1:06:10 TAJ: The same guy that went to the memorial, and was so excited when I contacted him, and was so thankful for being able to go to the Memorial. The same guy who saw the kids after Michael died and seemed enjoyed to see the kids again. There is a lot of stuff that still hasn’t come out that will come out.

I can tell you, we just have to stay positive, keep trying to get through these ignorant people online. A lot of them are ignorant, and it is a sad state that they disbelieve anything that they don’t read or hear. I have hope for a lot of people in that situation. And there are a lot of people who email or tweet me “I’m not even a Michael fan but I did do some research and the more I researched the more I realized how much he was framed. And I don’t believe it”.

I think that’s a good thing, it is reaching people. I can tell you that the 30-minute video on Youtube reached a lot of people. First of all it was super well done. Those kind of videos are very effective.

Or the Razorfist guy, that was super entertaining (laughter). I needed it. It was so well put together. You know, one was very factual and the other was very factual and entertaining in a way that you could sit there and watch it and think “Oh, I didn’t even realize that all that time has passed”.

So I think that those kind of things are super effective. I can tell you I’ve sent it to a lot of my friends, who in their defense always believed in me as well, but I wanted them to see it anyway, because I don’t want a shadow of a doubt.

Macaulay Culkin’s podcast that he did “Inside of you” – that was very big in that way and that was one of the first things that was promoted in defense of Michael. And I thank Michael Rosenbaum for that, whose friendship I really cherish. Luckily we became friends a year ago, which is weird how timing works. And he saw the magic of Michael and it was perfect that they were doing a podcast at that point when the news broke. And I think that in anyone else’s hands [it would have been a little devious], but it was done well.

I do think that everything happens for a reason and I truly believe that this really united the fan base and the family, with the fans. And it even united everyone in a way with the Estate, in terms that we are on the same page on this, which has never happened. And I am excited because we really can once and for all put all these stupid rumors to rest, and not have to discuss it any more.

We talked about flat Earth when it’s proven that it is round. And it’s like, “Okay, now you are the ignorant person, don’t talk to me any more”. And I think that is what I am looking forward to. It’s like “Please, did you see the documentary? Then please don’t talk to me”.

And this is what this is going to do, working it to the point that it can do the opposite. There’s very many documentaries that can really shine a light on the truth.

As much as this stupid movie is trying to destroy my uncle’s legacy, I feel that it has also given us the wings and the strength to counter it. It brought people out of the woodwork that I wouldn’t have been able to interview, because they would have felt there was no need to. And now they are willing to be interviewed for Michael, and for the fans and for the family. And so in a way this is going to be even bigger than what their little mockumentary is.

1:10:55 HOST: We are so happy to hear that, Taj and we are going to do all that we can to get the word out and help contribute to that, and to correct this narrative once again.

Folks, we gonna move into the final part of the episode where we are going to talk about how fans can correct that narrative, how they can amplify the correct voices and get the actual facts and evidence, and also support each other at this time.

Marcos, I know it is late at night. You’ve got an award show and we wish you all the best.

MARCOS: Thank you very much.

HOST: And we can’t wait to learn more about your Bruce Swieden documentary, so I think you’ll be hearing again from Marcos in the future.

Taj, if you need to go – because you have a lot on your plate and you’ve got a young family – we are quite happy to wrap it up for you.

TAJ: Thanks. I am actually doing a Brazilian interview in a couple of hours as well. I’m trying to do more international ones. You know that I haven’t done any American ones yet. I did the Australian one today which went really well.

My uncle had a global fan base, that’s why I am basically doing a lot of international interviews as opposed to domestic interviews because I know how much he was loved there, and how much they are more open to thinking for themselves. I hate to say that and, you know, throw my country under the bus but at the same time there is something about our reality TV based mindset here in the States that everything they see and read they believe.

SAMAR: When you talk about reality TV in America President Trump is reality TV.

TAJ: Exactly my point, and with the 40% rating. That is my point. I used to want to prove to everyone “Why can’t you guys see the truth about my uncle that he is innocent?” But then I realized, seeing polls like 40% of this, 40% of that, I assumed that I am just not going to reach certain people.

HOST: I think this is amazing time to thank Taj and again, please, listeners go to GoFundMe. There are also links on Taj’s page. Share it and get the word out. Thank you for your time and we really appreciate it. Keep the good fight going.

TAJ: Thank you guys for everything and to the fans – BE PROUD. We know the truth. And we are going to get the truth out there.

HOST: Facts and Evidence – that’s what we’ve got on our side.

~

(more to come)

His name is Sterling Van Wagenen, and in the avalanche of information snowballing since the Sudance festival announced a fake documentary about Michael Jackson, we are amazed to learn that back in the 90s the co-founder of the Sundance festival admitted to the police and his religious leader that he had molested a 10-year old boy.

The boy, now a grown-up, comes from a family belonging to the Mormon community in Utah where Sterling Van Wagenen is still playing a prominent role. Currently he is a professor and lecturer at Utah University and is a film producer who also makes videos for the LDS endowment ceremony (LDS is the short for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons).

The amazing news comes from Ryan McKnight, who just several days ago (on February 4, 2019) published his story on The Truth & Transparency Foundation, a website authored by two ex-Mormons who also founded Mormon Leaks.

A short summary of Ryan McKnight’s research is reported by kutv.com. Here are some excerpts from it:

LDS temple video director, Sundance co-founder admits to child molestation, claims website

by Adam Forgie

Tuesday, February 5th 2019

Sterling Van Wagenen. (Photo: IMDB)

(KUTV) — A story published Monday by The Truth & Transparency Foundation, a website founded by two ex-Mormons who also founded Mormon Leaks, claims a co-founder of the Sundance Film Festival and director of two video used in the secretive LDS temple endowment ceremony, admits to molesting a child in the early 1990s.

The abuse allegations are against Sterling Van Wagenen a BYU grad, co-founder of the Sundance Film Festival with Robert Redford, director of the Academy Award winning film “The Trip to Bountiful” and the man who was hired by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to direct new videos for the LDS temple endowment ceremony in 2013.

We learn more about Sterling Van Wagenen and his victim from Ryan McKnight’s website (excerpts):

Director of Mormon Temple Videos and Sundance Festival Co-founder Admits to Child Molestation in Early 90s

Ryan McKnight

Published February 4, 2019 07:02 am PST

…David, whose name has been changed at his request, sought closure and reached out to his perpetrator through Van Wagenen’s children in an attempt to broker a one-on-one meeting. Van Wagenen agreed to meet with him in September 2018. David, not knowing what to expect, decided to record the conversation. What ensued was a candid conversation in which Van Wagenen was open about the incident and what he thinks may have led to it.

In the recording Van Wagenen says that he was called into see Brown a few days after the abuse. Brown, was not only David’s and Van Wagenen’s ecclesiastical leader, but also the commissioner of LDS Social Services, known today as LDS Family Services, a Mormon-owned non-profit providing members with professional counseling.

Because of this, David seemingly hit the jackpot regarding his chances of finding care and understanding after the traumatic experience. However, that was not the case.

Van Wagenen claims he fully confessed to what he did and that a disciplinary council ensued. The result was a two year disfellowshipment from the Church.

Van Wagenen told David he confessed to a detective and never heard from the police again. He did not recall being told why he was never charged with a crime, but that he always assumed it was because David’s parents declined to press charges.

David denies that the contact was only over his clothing and reports it as a stroking motion, rather than a pat. Additionally, in the recording, he repeatedly said he was ten years old when the abuse happened, but dates on the police reports show that he was actually 13.

Who is Sterling Van Wagenen?

Van Wagenen has been involved in the film industry as a producer and director since the 1970s. In 1985, Geraldine Page was awarded the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in Van Wegenen’s film, The Trip to Bountiful. He worked for BYU from 1993 to 1999 as an Adjunct Professor of Film and then again from 2007 to 2011 as the Director of Content for BYU Broadcasting.

According to a profile published by the Deseret News, he was working in 2011 as an Executive Producer for the Mormon Church. He currently works for the University of Utah and, according to his online employee profile, is overseeing an internship class for the current Spring 2019 semester.

But his roots in cinema are much deeper.

Founding Sundance

In 1976 Van Wagenen and a friend decided to organize a film festival in Salt Lake City, Utah to commemorate the bicentennial celebration of the United States. The idea was to put on wide display an overview of American cinema. To his surprise, it was successful and they decided to host the festival again two years later.

Robert Redford caught wind of the plans and contacted Van Wagenen to get involved. The rest, as they say, is history. The two went on to found the Sundance Institute and Van Wagenen served as the first Executive Director.

Life After Abuse

David tells the TTF that he was never contacted by Harold Brown or anyone else from the Mormon Church to check on his well being. No therapy or other assistance was ever offered to him. As he described in the recording, this trauma has greatly affected his life and he has never fully recovered from what happened.

According to an undated press release from the Mormon Church, counselling is offered to victims of abuse and often paid for by the Church. Somehow, that policy was not put into action in David’s case, even when his Stake President was an integral part of the Church’s social services.

When asked why he decided to make this recording public, David told the TTF that there are several motivating factors.

He is surprised that Van Wagenen has not faced any real consequences for his actions and went on to enjoy church employment that many would consider prestigious and privileged.

He wonders if there are other victims who may feel encouraged to come forward and seek much needed healing.

Finally, he feels that sharing his story could provide hope to many who have suffered similar abuse and feel silenced for one reason or another.

David tells the TTF that he does not blame the Mormon Church for the abuse he suffered, but hopes that his case is an exception to the rule and that the Church normally ensures that perpetrators are held accountable and proper counseling is offered to survivors.

If it is not an exception, he hopes that the Church takes proper steps to address the problem, specifically the issue of providing help for the victim.

So the very short of it is that Van Wagenen abused a ten-year boy, the boy revealed the abuse to his parents, the parents went to their local bishop, the bishop forced Van Wagenen to go to the police and admit his crime, after which he was disallowed from church for two years – and that was it.

And in addition to all that we also learn that Van Wagenen has deep roots in the film industry, is involved in making feature and documentary films and lectures at the Film & Media Arts Department of Utah University.

He was also the co-founder of Sundance festival which coincidentally included into their program a film which is not only a complete fake, but is also a sort of a pedophilia visual that desensitizes the public to child abuse ideas by subjecting viewers to three and a half hours of non-stop extremely graphic descriptions of pedophilia acts (that never happened though).

The report of “Truth and Transparency Foundation” also includes the full transcript of the recording Van Wagenen’s genuine victim made with his abuser just half a year ago, in September 2018, where Van Wagenen admits that he indeed molested the child and is trying to “explain” it by a certain “dark period in his life” (“he quarrelled with his wife”, “was depressed due to problems in business” and other crap).

And it is in this transcript that we see some other details which are very much worth thinking about.

The thing that impressed me most is how incredibly easy it is for someone like Robson and Safechuck to go over this text and the accompanying tape, and then apply to themselves the genuine victim’s words, thoughts and feelings while making they fake revelations about Jackson.

Even the transcript manages to convey the pain this boy was going through, which you simply can’t help feeling. So this must be the way the false accusers manage to imitate those emotions and describe those “details” – it is through reading and listening to the accounts of genuine victims that they look so “incredibly credible” as some viewers of the MJ mockumentary claim.

Let me assure you that almost anyone will be able to do the same if they listen to this tape or read the transcript.  

Here are just some excerpts from it. 

The victim talks to Van Wagenen about how painful it was to decide to approach his abuser – the mere idea of it made him sick:

VICTIM: The whole weekend I keep feeling like yeah, let’s just bag it. Every day of the weekend and all weekend, I just felt sick. Why am I doing this to myself, is it really necessary to do this to myself? But it just keeps resurfacing for me.

…I don’t want my past to define me but at the same time, my whole life I’ve wondered. There’s a lot of things I’ve wondered.

..In one sense, it kind of made my childhood from that point forward just changed everything for me.  From that point forward, I started sleeping with a knife at my side. Yeah, a hunting knife. Lots of nightmares, I was always afraid of the dark. I’ve always been afraid of men especially men.

I’ve always been really suspicious of men in the church for some reason, I don’t know if that will make sense. But with what I knew about you being a professor and being a filmmaker and having that kind of notoriety in the church, it always just made me all suspicious of … Not just you, I’ve heard lots of stories about other people….very suspicious for my own kids, anxiety when it comes to my own kids.

His anxiety greatly amplified when he had his own kids:

VICTIM: When my daughter went on the Young Women’s over nighter and I had to talk to every single leader. I had to know who is going to be there and I even had to tell the Bishopric, I don’t want them spending the night up there. Then I can’t sleep. When they’re away from me, you can imagine. Then the emotions range from anger, resentment. Sure. Anxiety…it’s just been an ongoing thing for me.

I think it’s amplified with my own children. … since I’ve had my own kids, it just keeps resurfacing and my kids keep asking me, “Why are you the only dad that’s so paranoid and so suspicious of other people?”

He asks Van Wagenen why the church and police didn’t contact his family:

VICTIM:… You went through one of those church courts. Why do you think my parents were never contacted to hear their side of the story? They never talked to my parents and they never talked to me.

My parents, they said that the police never contacted them, never talked to any police. They said the church never contacted them. Then they said if Sterling had done what you just said he had done, that they would’ve just arrested you on the spot for child sex abuse. They don’t need approval to charge that. If someone goes to the police and says I did such and such to a child, according to my parents, they just arrest you on the spot. Bang. Even if my parents said no, no, no, don’t press charges, it doesn’t matter. [that’s true, the law does not allow for it] Once they know that, by law, they have to.

STERLING: Yeah, I don’t know if the laws were the same 25 years ago as they are now. I understand that now. What came back to me and I don’t remember how it came back to me. But was that your parents had said we’re not going to press charges. So I assumed, maybe wrongly, but I assumed from that that they had been contacted by the police detective. Had said that we’re not going to pursue this. But again, I don’t know that for sure, I just don’t that.

The victim asks why he as an abused child never received support from the church:

VICTIM: I’ve always thought if the church knew that you had done that to me and you did tell them that you’d done that to me, then why would the church not have reached out to me? The stake president, his name was Harold Brown. He said that he was a psychologist and the head of the entire church social service program. So I’m sitting there thinking to myself why did they not offer support for me?

Where was there absolutely no concern for my welfare when you told them what you’d done? Why was there no zero concern for a 10-year-old boy? Well, I’d like to know the answer to that question as well.

VICTIM: But you were forthright when you talked in that court, you told him?

STERLING: Totally.

VICTIM: Yeah, okay.

STERLING: Yeah, totally.

The victim remembers the abuse in minute detail. For false victims like Robson and Safechuck it may be a priceless tutorial:

VICTIM: I’ve got a son that’s my age when this happened to me. My son’s about the same age that I was when that happened to me. So it just causes a lot of emotion when I think about him. When I look at him, he looks like me. So when I look at him, it’s like looking at a 10-year-old picture of myself. That’s got to be a confusing experience too given what you’re carrying. Yeah.

This is a hard one. Hadn’t I not gotten up and rushed to the bathroom and locked myself in the bathroom, what was your intention for me? Do you remember where your mind was going?

STERLING: Yeah, I do. I actually don’t remember you getting up and going into the bathroom, I don’t remember that.

VICTIM: That’s just horrendous to me. Let me tell you what I remember. I remember you coming over and doing that to me. Then I woke up and saw you doing that to me and then I could see what you were doing and I was frozen. You were reaching up over the top of me. So then I started to – stir almost like okay, I’m going to pretend like I’m waking up. So I started to stir and then you stopped. Then I just laid there frozen and then you came back again. If I remember correctly, it was the third time that you came over and started doing that. Then I jumped up and looked at you. You froze and you were standing in the back of the room and you had a remote control in one of your hands. You were looking at a TV with like black and white movie. There was no sound on it at all. So you almost like you stood there, froze and kind of pretended you were watching a movie with no sound on. Then I ran into the bathroom.

When I was in the bathroom, you came to the door, probably three or four different times. Yeah, and were trying to coax me out of the bathroom. You were saying, “Are you okay? Come on out.” I wouldn’t come out and I just kept saying that I felt really sick. Then after probably three or four different times, you tried to coax me out, then I think once you realized I wasn’t coming out is when you finally maybe went back upstairs, whatever it was. So that’s what I recall distinctly.

So I’ve always thought my whole life if I don’t jump up and go to the bathroom, where’s that? Where are we going with that? Where’s that headed? The reason I wonder that Sterling, is because I feel like that was a smart thing for me to do. Was to run and lock myself in that bathroom. I think what if I was a lesser person, what if I was a more timid person, where was that going? You follow where my logic?

STERLING: Yeah, I follow your logic and I’ve never followed that through in my own head and I’ve just had.

VICTIM: I don’t want to make you say this is what I was going to do to you. But as a victim, I don’t know if it’s normal but I’ve always wondered where were we going to? Where were we going? Where was this headed? How bad would this have progressed to if I hadn’t gotten out of there?

It turns out that Van Wagenen did not report himself voluntarily:

VICTIM: … you’ve already answered a lot of these questions that I have. Okay. How can I know you’re telling the truth? You got caught, you were required to report to the church authorities. You didn’t just voluntarily report yourself. My parents asked to report it directly to the stake president who he had relationship with. You were called in by the stake president, right? So there’s a big difference for me between turning oneself in and confession so to speak and being caught.

STERLING: Well, I actually think and my memory’s fuzzy on this. But I think I had had a conversation with- I think….

VICTIM: … mom and dad have continually told me that the church handled it. Back then, it was that’s what was appropriate. It was appropriate to turn to the church, that’s kind of what you did. I know because I’ve done a lot of reading and so forth and with Sam Young and all these testimonials of bishops abusing little kids and all that stuff. I know that back in that day and age, you were actually encouraged not to go to the police, to go to the bishop. Bishop is the one who handles everything. So cultural then that was really wrong in my opinion.

STERLING: I had a long conversation with the bishop. This has been, I don’t know, six or seven years ago. I told him I was in counseling and- was there and we were getting past it. So no church action was taken.

VICTIM: So you didn’t have to go through a court or anything?

STERLING: I didn’t have to go through a court again, yeah.

They even talk about sexual abuse in the film industry and Van Wagenen says that it is  “commonplace” there. “In Hollywood particularly”

VICTIM: Did you have any sexual interactions with any of the collegiate students that you’ve had as a teacher and a professor?

STERLING: No.

VICTIM: So this question kind of was answered for me too. It was when there was an interview where you were asked about Harvey Weinstein. Then you said, about his first accusers and you said, I guarantee is only the tip of the iceberg. That kind of stuff is very …

STERLING: Sexual abuse is commonplace in the film industry. In Hollywood particularly. Yeah, I was asked that question in an interview in South Korea last year.

VICTIM: Then when I read that.

STERLING: You’ve done your research for sure.

VICTIM: Yeah, because I read that and I just want to know who Sterling Van Wagenen is.

… Again, as a victim, you can’t help but wonder if there’s other people out there that are hiding and they’re quiet. They’re too scared that they think people won’t believe them. So I’ve always wondered that same thing.

Sterling, when something like this has happened to you, you form a very strong emotional connection with it. So for whatever reason, I got a lot of people come to me and tell me they were sexually abused as children. Then I have that commonality with them and because it’s just a very prevalent problem.

Then also news media, every time I see it. But I don’t think I read it like a normal person, I don’t. I read it and then I think it makes me wonder, it makes me stir and wonder.

Van Wagenen wonders how his victim found out that he makes films for the Temple:

VICTIM: When I talked to *** he said that you were working on Temple videos.

STERLING: How long did you talk to him?

VICTIM: Two days ago [the conversation was in September 2018]. I just wanted to ask him because I was unclear about how that happened with the stake president getting involved. So I said, “my parents were never contacted by the church, we never got to share their side of the story. *** just in passing said that you were working on the Temple videos.

STERLING: Did he respond to your point about the church never contacting your parents? Did he talk about that at all?

VICTIM: He just kept saying, “I have full faith in Harold Brown and I turned it over to Harold. Reported it.” He said, “I don’t know what came of it.” He said, “I wasn’t involved in that church court.” So he just kind of make seem like he just got the information from my dad. He was told in turn to report it, which he did to Harold Brown. That was pretty much it.

But then he did say in passing that … I said I want to make sure that there’s no other victims and that Sterling isn’t hurting anybody. Then he said, “Well, I would sure hope not because he’s working, right now, he’s doing a Temple videos for the church.” He said that on two different occasions.

VICTIM: So then I’ve always wondered if I was just the tip of the iceberg. If I was the tip of the iceberg, right?

STERLING: No, you’re not.

VICTIM: Yeah, those are all the questions that have been on my mind and really on my mind all these years. That’s it.

Initially it looked to me like Van Wagenen was rather truthful in his answers and even had pangs of conscience about what he had done. But gradually it began to sound more like his own victimhood and “what a hard time he had to cope with it”. And when it came to the matter of Temple films Van Wagenen definitely began interrogating his victim – instead of the other way around – apparently to find out how much he knows about it.

In other words while the victim is absolutely forthright and even trustful of his abuser, Sterling Van Wagenen increasingly looks like a cat playing with a mouse. At the end of it I even began doubting that he is telling the truth about “one victim only” –  however that may be my impression only.

But what is absolutely clear in this utterly shady business is that there is something fishy about this Utah connection.

See what we’ve learned about Sterling Van Wagenen, a ‘devout’ Mormon who admitted to having extramarital affairs with both women and men and molesting at least one boy, and who perfectly got away with it:

1) he is a professional film maker who has very deep roots in the film industry

2) he co-founded the Sundance festival and it was this particular festival which at the last minute included into their program a fake film starring Robson and Safechuck in the role of Michael Jackson’s “victims”

3) even one recorded conversation between the abuser and the genuine victim explains to us how easy it is to coach fake victims about their alleged molestation and give them inspiration and ideas to be later expressed in a film.

And in connection with this “Utah thing” it is also interesting to recall that in 1993 Corey Feldman said in his police interview that his molester Jon Grissom had spent some time in Utah too, before returning to California.

Another incredible touch to the matter is that there was a period in Victor Gutierrez’s life when he also stayed in Utah and his parents are said to be Mormons (the proof of it is not easy to find in my innumerable files, so until further confirmation please don’t regard it as a hard fact).

But it was surely Gutierrez who approached the LA Police with an elaborate story about MJ who was allegedly investigated by a certain Hispanic agent who went by the name of Mormon — however when the police approached the FBI, and the FBI made a thorough search for it they found that no such report ever existed.

From what I’ve read about Mormons their views are all about living a very clean way of life, however no one is immune to occasional freaks among their ranks and since their community is so closed it is easy to hush up the misbehavior of some deviants not to compromise everyone else, and the parents may be prone to rely on their leaders for taking action, as the case of Sterling Van Wagenen shows it.

So I really don’t know what stands behind this Utah thing, but it looks like the concentration of Michael Jackson’s vilifiers there is much higher than in other parts of the US.

With the exception of Hollywood, of course, where according to Van Wagenen sexual abuse is “particularly commonplace” and surprise-surprise, it is exactly these people who are so terribly keen on trashing the innocent Jackson.

These days something new regarding the “Leaving Neverland” mockumentary arrives by the hour, so Howard Weitzman’s superb letter to HBO made on February 7, 2019 is already ‘old news.’

HBO in the US, same as Channel 4 in the UK refused to make any changes in their programme, but there are no surprises here – what else could you expect from those who ordered the show and paid for it in the first place?

The very least their reply did was opening the eyes of many to the true worth of these channels.

But our job is to collect facts and from this point of view Howard Weitzman’s letter is another big step towards getting the real picture. It provides details that were previously unknown or were overlooked by us, so before we examine them let me just reprint the letter in its entirety with an addition of a couple of Brett Barnes’ tweets.

For the sake of history, so to say.

The only comment I will allow myself at the moment is drawing your attention to a point in Mr. Weiztman’s letter where he says that both guys were seeking hundreds of millions of dollars against the Estate, at least at the initial stage of their lawsuits.

Hundreds of millions each.

• Given that they were both seeking hundreds of millions of dollars against the Estate, they had hundreds of millions of reasons for aligning their stories.

These figures are not in the claimants’ civil lawsuits and are not to be found there at all as the sum is usually pronounced by the lawyers for the Plaintiffs. This is just information for those who are wondering why the lawsuits don’t name the sum of $1,5 billion, earlier reported by some media.

The lawsuits don’t mention the hundreds of millions demanded by each guy either.

Please don’t overlook this important point while you are reading the letter from Howard Weitzman, Michael Jackson’s Estate laywer.

February 7, 2019

VIA E-MAIL AND OVERNIGHT DELIVERY

Howard Weitzman

Direct Dial:  (310) 566-9811

Direct Fax:  (310) 566-9871

E-Mail: hweitzman@kwikalaw.com

Richard Plepler

Chief Executive Officer Home Box Office, Inc.

1100 Avenue of the Americas – 15th Floor New York, NY 10036

(212) 512-1960

E-Mail: richard.plepler@hbo.com   

                                                            Re:  Michael Jackson

Dear Mr. Plepler:

We are counsel to the Co-Executors of the Estate of Michael J. Jackson, as well as various wholly-owned entities which own intellectual property and other intangible rights associated with the late Michael Jackson (collectively the “Estate” or the “Jackson Estate”).

We write regarding Leaving Neverland, an admittedly one-sided, sensationalist program—referred to as a “documentary” by HBO and others—that HBO apparently funded and intends to air this Spring. The Estate first learned about this program in early January when its premiere at Sundance was announced in the press. As you must know, contrary to all norms of documentary filmmaking, the Estate was never contacted by the supposed “documentarian,” Dan Reed (or anyone else associated with the program) to provide the Estate’s views on, and responses to, the absolutely false claims that are the subject matter of the program. Likewise, no one else who might offer evidence to contradict the program’s premise was consulted either, as Dan Reed has publicly admitted.

When the program was first announced, HBO and its producing partners did not disclose the identities of the two subjects of the documentary, but referred to them only as “two men.” However, from even the brief descriptions of the “two men” in the announcement, the Estate knew exactly who they were: Wade Robson and James Safechuck. The Estate knew this not because it had any inside “sources” about the documentary—it had none—but because these two men have been peddling their false “story” for years now, most notably in a series of failed legal actions against the Estate. The Estate did not hesitate to advise the media of their identity.

The Estate was one-hundred percent confident that there were no other purported “victims” who this documentary could be about (because, contrary to Robson’s and Safechuck’s lawyers’ predictions when they first filed their lawsuits for hundreds of millions of dollars in 2013, no “flood” of further identifiable “victims” ever came forward beyond these two).

HBO and its producing partners were then forced to acknowledge that the Estate had “guessed right” and that the two subjects of the film were indeed those two admitted perjurers who had filed lawsuits against the Estate, all of which have now been dismissed with prejudice (but as noted below are pending on appeal).

The Estate spent years litigating with Robson and Safechuck, and had four different lawsuits by these two men dismissed with prejudice. (Today, Robson owes the Estate almost seventy thousand dollars in court costs, and Safechuck owes the Estate several thousand dollars as well.) In those litigations, the Estate discovered troves of information about Robson and Safechuck that made it unequivocally clear that they had no credibility whatsoever. We discuss some of that information below, but the information discussed in this letter is just the tip of the iceberg on these two. Had HBO actually complied with the most basic of journalistic ethics—rather than just accept their salacious allegations at face value—it would have discovered so much more long before it ever got involved in this disgraceful project.

Obviously, that is the reason that Dan Reed and HBO’s producing partners initially tried to hide the identities of Robson and Safechuck. This ambush was carried out because Dan Reed knew that Michael Jackson’s family and friends, his Estate, and his millions of fans who are deeply knowledgeable about the case would have discredited Robson and Safechuck before filming began.

HBO Is Being Used As Part of Robson’s and Safechuck’s Litigation Strategy

Robson and Safechuck are pursuing appeals of the judgments against them, appeals that will probably be heard this year.

WHO pays for the appeals, I wonder?

As many other press outlets noted when their lawsuits were still pending in the trial court, Robson, Safechuck, and their shared attorneys have long engaged in a deliberate campaign to try their case in the media, most often through leaks of false information to some of the most salacious online tabloids. Had HBO done any research into this, it would have easily discovered that every year or so while the litigation was pending, before a major issue was to be decided, the tabloids would suddenly be full of false claims being peddled by Robson’s and Safechuck’s attorneys about Michael Jackson.

The trial court never let this avalanche of false claims affect it, and we have no doubt that the Court of Appeal will not be affected by it either. That said, Robson’s and Safechuck’s lawyers will continue attempting to try their cases in the media.

As noted, Robson and Safechuck are now appealing the dismissal of their multi- million dollar lawsuits. Not coincidentally, their appeals are likely to be heard later this year. HBO’s “documentary” is simply just another tool in their litigation playbook, which they are obviously using in a (very misguided) effort to somehow affect their appeals. Sadly, it appears that HBO—a once great and respected network—has now been reduced to the pay television version of Hard Copy (with a little mix of The Jerry Springer Show). Most pathetically, HBO has been reduced to a pawn in part of Robson’s and Safechuck’s attorneys’ litigation strategy.

HBO and Dan Reed Intentionally Chose Not to Interview Anyone Who Would Detract From Their Story

Leaving Neverland rehashes accusations against the late Michael Jackson of committing the most heinous crimes any person can be accused of in modern society. Given the seriousness of those allegations, one would have expected that HBO and its producing partners would contact: (1) the Jackson family; (2) persons who worked with Jackson during the relevant time period; (3) other young men and women who spent time with Jackson as children (including ones mentioned by name in the “documentary”); (4) friends of Michael Jackson who knew him for his whole life; (5) the many persons who know Safechuck and Robson well but do not believe them; (6) Tom Mesereau and his investigator, Scott Ross, who Robson happily met with for hours in 2005 to tell them about his experiences with Michael, with Mesereau finding Robson so credible that he made Robson the first witness for the defense in Jackson’s 2005 trial; and (7) the Estate, who spent years litigating the very claims discussed in the “documentary” by Safechuck and Robson.

Yet, shockingly, HBO and its producing partners never attempted to contact any of these people. The fact that HBO and its producing partners did not even deign to reach out to any of these people to explore the credibility of the false stories Robson and Safechuck told violates all norms and ethics in documentary filmmaking and journalism. It is a disgrace.

In fact, Dan Reed admitted in the question and answer session at Sundance that he never even attempted to contact the many, many other young men and women who spent time with Jackson as children, yet continue to defend him to this very day.

And at least two of these young men are referenced by name in the film with the implications that they “replaced” Robson and Safechuck as Jackson’s “abuse victims.” Both have gone on record since the documentary was announced to explain that they were never abused by Jackson. One of them, who Robson explicitly claimed in the film “replaced” him, has released several “tweets” denouncing the documentary as a work of fiction. Yet neither of them—among the many others who spent time with Jackson as children—were ever approached by Dan Reed and HBO.

In other words, HBO’s “documentary” is based solely on the word of two admitted perjurers. HBO and its partner, Dan Reed, never even attempted to explore whether these two men might not be telling the truth.

We have read reports that these two men are supposedly “credible” in the documentary because they tell their story so fluidly. Yet they have been practicing their stories and rehearsing their lines (which changed throughout the litigation as discussed below) for years now. Thus, it is no surprise that these two men—who have also both acted professionally—tell their false story well. The bottom line is that any halfway skilled filmmaker could make a “documentary” telling any outrageous story about a dead man if they can just find two people willing to tell that story and then not challenge those two at all. That is particularly the case when one of the men—Wade Robson—is a self-described “master of deception”; and his own mother testified under oath that he should “have had an Oscar” given how good a liar he is (as discussed below).

In Interviews, Dan Reed Is Using HBO in Order to Bolster the Credibility of the Program Despite Making Blatantly False Statements in Those Same Interviews

Notably, HBO’s reputation is being used as one of the main reasons that the “documentary” should be taken seriously. The producer of this program, Dan Reed, is telling the media that one of the principal reasons the documentary is credible is because of HBO’s reputation. When asked whether an attorney had vetted the film, he responded, “that’s what happens on every single film I make or, to my knowledge, that anyone makes, certainly for HBO.”¹ The usual checks on filmmakers are ethical and normative ones, such as fact- checking (e.g., are their stories consistent? see below), investigating the motivations of people (e.g., do they have a financial motivation to say what they are saying?), talking to others with knowledge who may have something different to say, etc. But as is apparent from our discussion below, HBO apparently no longer cares about these ethical and normative checks on documentary filmmaking and journalism anymore. If HBO does care about such things, this documentary will never air on HBO.

In the same interviews where he touts HBO’s involvement as a reason for his “documentary’s” supposed “credibility,” Mr. Reed has also made blatantly false statements about Robson and Safechuck in an effort to bolster their credibility. For example, in the same Huffington Post interview discussed above, Mr. Reed agrees with the interviewer that “one of the most impactful things in the documentary is the way [Robson’s and Safechuck’s] stories align … even though they didn’t know each other until now.”

In another interview, Reed “confirms” that “for legal reasons, [Robson and Safechuck] were kept apart, long before you even approached them about making the movie.” Reed expands on that and says that this was done so “they couldn’t exchange stories. Sundance was the first time [as adults] that they’d met. It’s the first time they’ve had any significant time together.”²