Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (64 page)

When terms of Michael's deal leaked
out, many of his fans were horrified. "With
that kind of money at stake, he had to
become a cry baby at that press conference,"
said Terri Carroll. "What a baby! What a
wimp! That kind of money equaled the net
income of some struggling Third World
countries, and he's whimpering. I resign
from the Michael Jackson Fan Club. I can
only conclude that in a starving world, he's
collecting millions for doing practically
nothing-and behaving like a jerk!"

The deal with LA Gear was the sweetest ever made with a celebrity. It
entitled Michael to a royalty on every pair of shoes sold, plus stock options.
At the time of their ill-fated deal with Michael, the company was hauling in
$800 million a year. If, after Michael's involvement, sales of the product
increased, Michael would be entitled to a percentage of all annual sales in
excess of $1 billion.

As part of the LA Gear package, Michael had promised to release an
album-its working title was Decade, which would include some new songs,
as well as cuts from three of his earlier albums, Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad.
For this album, Michael was offered upfront money of nearly $20 million. To
everyone's embarrassment, Michael defaulted and Decade was delayed, postponed, and eventually abandoned altogether.

There were the inevitable lawsuits, LA Gear filing a $10 million lawsuit
against Michael, charging him with fraud and breach of contract. Michael's
lawyers shot back with a $44 million countersuit against LA Gear, making
similar charges against them. The case was eventually resolved out of court,
and the LA Gear campaign with Michael fizzled to an embarrassing death.
Based on Michael's previous litigation with Pepsi and LA Gear, word spread
through the business world that Michael, with his lawsuits, was a dangerous
entertainer to sign contracts with.

"Michael simply didn't get his act together," Papa Joe later said. "If he
had, he could have made millions and millions, not only from LA Gear, but
from the album itself."

That wasn't the only business deal falling flat for Michael. Inspired by
his ownership of copyrights to The Beatles' songs, he also tried to acquire
Motown's catalogue from Berry Gordy Jr. The catalogue, known as "Jobete,"
was for sale for $200 million, but Michael was willing to pay only $135 million.

Michael had dreamed of acquiring the Motown hits of The Supremes
which had starred his sometime friend, Diana Ross. If he could acquire the
catalogue, he'd also control the music of, among others, Stevie Wonder,
Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and Smokey Robinson.

A smart musical entrepreneur like Gordy knew the exact value of his
treasure trove, and he said no to Michael unless he was willing to come up
with the full $200 million. When Gordy wouldn't budge, Branca called
Michael and asked if he could increase his offer. Michael slammed down the
phone, and the potential deal collapsed.

Business deals weren't working out, but by 1990 it seemed that everybody
in the world was honoring Michael Jackson and his gravity-defying dance
moves on music videos.

Even President George Bush wanted to get in on the act, following in the
footsteps of the Reagans. In April of 1990, Bush invited Michael for a return
visit to the White House where he was formally proclaimed "Entertainer of the
Decade."

In the Rose Garden, the ceremony was sponsored by Washington's Capital
Children's Museum, and Michael was being honored for his work with children's welfare.

Lacking Reagan's smoothness and charm, Bush had little to say to
Michael, who showed up in military garb with wide red sashes. Barbara was
more relaxed with the singer, introducing him to her dog Millie and telling
him she wore red shoes for the occasion when her spies told her he'd arrived
at the White House "all trimmed in red." She may have been aiming her sardonic wit at Michael, but he took everything she said at face value. Later, after
Michael's departure from the White House with his entourage and three limousines, Barbara said, "I am underwhelmed."

In their wake, reporters crowded around the President in his pin-striped
suit. One journalist asked Bush if he'd ever heard a Michael Jackson song.
The President did not answer, but asked the reporter a question instead. "Why
does he wear that red arm band and those red stripes on his pants? Was he in
some school marching band?"

Between business endorsements and award ceremonies, Michael took
plenty of time out for pleasure with his "special friends." Peter, the boy who
had figured so prominently into the Bad tour, was replaced by another young
white boy that Michael's publicist, Bob Jones, identified as Damon Patrick.

Instead of thinking that Michael was asexual-perhaps an early opinion-the
publicist concluded in his book that "Michael did indeed have some sort of
sexual drive, and it wasn't the least bit natural."

During her son's sojourn at Neverland, Damon's mother complained that
the security guard often prevented her from seeing him.
And although Michael hired a tutor for the young boy, Damon reportedly
learned very few lessons. Throughout much of his stay, he was locked away
in Michael's bedroom.

According to Bob Jones, the relationship with Damon was short-lived.
But it was rumored that Michael paid out four million dollars when his
involvement with Damon came to an end.

Michael still dreamed of a career in the movies. In this ambition, he was
goaded on by David Geffen, who had a dream of producing a big-budget
musical for the pop superstar.

In many ways, this movie power agent and record industry mogul pursued
power, money, and fame even more than Michael himself. Since Geffen had
launched his own record company in 1980, selling Geffen Records for a huge
profit ten years later, Michael had eagerly followed its progress. Geffen began
spectacularly, signing John Lennon in 1980 in what would become the ex-
Beatle's last recording contract.

Geffen's other achievements included producing Risky Business, the vehicle that made Tom Cruise a star. He was also the man who bankrolled Andrew
Lloyd Webber's Cats.

Over the years Michael had known him casually and was thrilled when
Geffen, along with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, founded
DreamWorks SKG, the first all-new Hollywood studio to be established in
more than half a century.

Michael envied Geffen's success and wanted to hook up with him, each
man vying to become the biggest mogul in the entertainment industry. "If my
role model, Howard Hughes, can do it, so can I," Michael told Geffen among
others.

Geffen flattered Michael, telling him that, "Quincy Jones has taken too
much credit for your own genius. It's time to move on from him."

Michael predicted to Geffen that the 1990s "belong to me. If people
thought I was the most successful artist of all time in the 80s, they ain't seen
nothin' yet. I'll double my success in the 90s, and I'm starting the decade as
the highest-paid artist in the history of the music industry. Not bad."

At the time Michael met Geffen, the entrepreneur was still in the closet,
leading a somewhat heterosexual life. He almost married Cher. Unlike
Michael, however, Geffen would consensually "come out," which he did in
1992, albeit under some degree of pressure.

"I like men, I like women," Geffen declared. "I'm an equal opportunity
seducer." After that announcement, it is estimated that a goodly percentage of
the handsomest actors in Los Angeles sent Geffen their resumes, hoping to
become his next toy boy. Along with another friend of Michael's, Elizabeth
Taylor, Geffen became a champion warrior in the battle against AIDS.

Much of Hollywood thought Geffen already had a toy boy in Michael
himself.

The world in the early 90s wasn't that familiar with Michael's sexual pattern, so rumors swirled through Hollywood parties that the ruthless producer
"who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted" was having an affair with
the ruthless singer/dancer "who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted."

"They should be lovers even if they're not," one producer said. "Even
man and wife, David being the man, of course. Together, this dynamic duo,
wearing Batman and Robin tights, could take over not only Hollywood, but
lay America itself at their feet."

"If David Geffen is not actually plugging Jackson in the ass, he's doing it
spiritually," said an executive at CBS Records who didn't want to be named.
"Before Jackson takes a crap, he calls Geffen to get his OK. Geffen has total
power over Jackson's career. In that little girl voice of his, Jackson calls
Geffen two or three times a day. Jackson wants Geffen's advice on everything.
I hear all the time that Geffen and Jackson are having sex. But Geffen is not
the type of man Jackson would be attracted to. Perhaps if Geffen had been
born in 1980, we could get some action here. Of course, there is the Jewish
question, but I don't want to go into that."

Finding the right script for Michael proved a daunting challenge, even for
Geffen. As head of Geffen Pictures, he offered Michael the script of
Streetdandy, which had been written by Tom Hedley, co-writer of Flashdance.
Michael read the script "but is giving me all this reluctant debutante shit,"
Geffen claimed.

He ultimately despaired of finding a proper script for Michael, telling his
partners, "It's got to be Busby Berkeley meets E. T, with Stars Wars as a backdrop."

As Christmas of 1990 rolled around, Michael could only note that Geffen,
at the age of 47, had risen from a job in the mailroom of the William Morris
Agency to become "the richest man in Hollywood," according to Forbes magazine.

Geffen's good will temporarily soured when Michael failed to show up in
Florida for the opening of the spanking new Universal Studios Theme Park in
Orlando, as Michael had agreed. It was said at the time that Michael Eisner,
the CEO and chairman at Disney, had asked Michael not to appear at the opening of a competing theme park, claiming that if he did, it would "damage the wonderful friendship you have with Disneythreaten it even."

Michael, as he admitted himself, was "caught
between a rock and a hard place." There was a
way out. On June 3, 1990, Michael suffered what
was originally announced in the press as a mild
heart attack. An ambulance rushed him to Saint
John's Hospital in Santa Monica, where he was
booked into a room across the hall from Elizabeth
Taylor. Ironically, she'd been rushed to that same
hospital, suffering respiratory problems.
Although her illness was real, Michael's might
have been faked.

David Geffen

The next morning Elizabeth wheeled herself
into Michael's room carrying a white lily which
Michael added to a vase of black roses ordered
by La Toya from her hotel in London. When Elizabeth left, he spent the day
receiving phone calls from well-wishers. He expected Liza Minnelli to call,
but President Bush?

While in the hospital, and for reasons known only to Michael, he asked
the staff to perform an HIV test on him. These tests are always highly confidential, but someone on staff leaked the results to the press. The test came out
negative. One doctor asked, "If he's the virgin he publicly claims to be-you
know, saving it for marriage-why does he want to be tested for AIDS?"

Except for a young man who was evicted after sneaking into the hospital
with a plan to assassinate Michael, he rested well in his room and miraculously recovered after a week of rest.

Geffen wanted Michael to sever his ties with Branca, his faithful and
sometimes spectacularly successful long-time attorney. Somehow Geffen
managed to convince Michael that the attorney was getting "too much pork,
leaving you with the bone." That wasn't true, of course. To pry Michael away,
Geffen fanned the fires of Michael's jealousy. Geffen reminded him that
Branca's law firm represented not only Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones
but the dreaded Prince, who was still Michael's nemesis.

"Not just Jagger," Michael said. "What about George Michael? The New
Kids on the Block? Branca even represents the Jim Morrison estate. One thing
is for sure: He won't be representing my estate when I die."

"Correction," Geffen said. "If you die. You're going to live forever."

Michael became furious when he learned that the "Steel Wheels" tour of
Jagger and his Stones broke the record set by Bad to become the most successful rock tour in the history of music.

Within days of his release from the hospital, Michael sent Branca word,
"Your services are no longer required." Michael didn't want to face the attorney directly, so he had Richard Sherman, his accountant, deliver the bad news.

Michael fired Branca at the wrong moment, just as the attorney was ready
to consummate a deal with Warner-Chappell for the acquisition of the James
Brown catalogue. "It would be a great triumph for Michael to own the songs
of James Brown," Frank DiLeo once told associates. "Imagine it. Michael had
stood in the wings watching James Brown, his idol, perform at the Apollo
Theater in Harlem. Then, presto, one day he ends up owning the fucker's catalogue. As for those people spreading rumors that Michael is gay, that's bullshit! They don't know what they're talking about. Michael Jackson is definitely not gay!"