Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (82 page)

Two and a half weeks after the Westwood Marquis confrontation, Michael
checked into a luxurious suite at the Hotel Oriental in Bangkok.

News of the child molestation allegations first reached the world when
KNBS in Los Angeles broadcast the revelation of the police raids on
Neverland and on Michael's Century City condo.

"Pop star Michael Jackson is the subject of a criminal investigation by the
Los Angeles Police Department," came the startling news over the radio. At
first listeners didn't know that the investigation was based on a charge of sexual molestation from a young boy. That tantalizing piece of news was actually revealed by Pellicano himself.

The detective went before television floodlights to deny all charges. He
suggested it was part of an extortion attempt. He also noted that this was but
one of some three dozen attempts that cropped up every year to extort money
from Michael. He also claimed that the family of the young boy was attempting to milk $20 million from Michael.

Evan was furious, angrily denying he was a blackmailer. Instead he portrayed himself as a "morally offended parent" who wanted to protect his son
from further sexual advances from Michael.

IS PETER PAN THE PIED PIPER IN DISGUISE? asked one headline.
Newsweek raised another provocative question, IS HE DANGEROUS OR
JUST OFF THE WALL?

Only hours before, the police had raided both Neverland and Michael's
lavish condo in Century City. Armed with search warrants, the police were
looking for evidence that he was a child molester. Accompanying the officers
was a locksmith with instructions to break into Michael's secret playroom at
Neverland where in most cases only his special friends-usually young white boys-were permitted to go.

Police seized evidence, including boxes of photographs and video tapes.
Among the possessions the police hauled away was a picture book, The Boy:
A Photographic Essay, featuring prepubescent boys with their undeveloped
penises exposed.

Within his Bangkok suite, Michael's telephone was urgently ringing. It
was his criminal attorney, Howard Weitzman, calling from Los Angeles with
some very disturbing news.

Michael listened intently in stunned disbelief to the details of the raids on
Neverland and his condo.

"I love children," Michael shouted into the phone at Weitzman. "The
whole world knows that. How could they do this to me?"

After his discussion with Weitzman, Michael went on a rampage, breaking chandeliers and upturning and smashing furniture in his suite, even tossing vases of fresh flowers out the window.

"He came unglued," reported a staff member at the hotel. "When I was
delivering a tray to the room, I spotted the American entertainer running
screaming from room to room. He looked like a crazy man. I put down the tray
and fled from the room. The entire suite was a wreck. I reported it to the manager so he could assess damages."

At first, reporters in Los Angeles rallied to Michael's defense when polls
showed that only twelve percent of the public believed the accusations against
Michael. Most TV viewers felt that he was the victim of extortion.

Shortly thereafter, a staff member of the television show Hard Copy
claimed that a representative of Papa Joe, Michael's father, had approached
the show and asked $150,000 for him to appear before the camera to talk
about Michael's legal troubles. When Hard Copy turned that down, Papa Joe's
staff made a counteroffer of $50,000. But negotiations broke down because
the TV studio wanted Katherine to appear with her husband, and Papa Joe
could not produce his wife.

Eddie Reynoza

One staff member said, "Maybe old Joe
could come on and tell how he used to frighten little Michael by telling him there were bad
men in the audience with guns who would
shoot him onstage if he didn't make the right
moves. I don't know why my boss insisted on
Katherine, who was known for sweeping
everything under the rug and prevaricating."

Jordie's name was initially withheld from
the media because he was a minor.

Even so, everybody who knew Michael Jackson, and many who didn't, seemed to
take to the air waves to deliver their opinions
on radio and TV about Jordie's accusations.
The most sensational charges emerged from
Eddie Reynoza, who charged that "Michael
Jackson raped me when I was 16 years old."
The boy claimed that he was auditioning for
a music video when Michael spotted him. In
his 1993 charges, Eddie claimed that he was
"drugged, dumbed down with alcohol, and
sexually assaulted."

Corey Feldman

Eddie went to the police and the press with
charges of his rape, but some journalists attacked his credibility. Today, Eddie,
an actor, is hoping to see a television movie made of his story, with his alleged
rape by Michael being the centerpiece of the plot.

As a rising young child actor, Corey Feldman, who has appeared in more
than 100 feature films, said that Michael befriended him when he was a young
boy. Feldman claimed that the pop star never molested him or touched him
inappropriately.

But he did reveal in an interview on 20/20 that he felt some of Michael's
actions were questionable. He charged that Michael tried to persuade him to
look at nude magazines.

In a sensational interview, Feldman revealed that he had been one of a
group of child actors in Hollywood who were preyed upon and "molested by
a gang of Hollywood pedophiles." He did not name Michael as part of that
group. The former child star did admit to sleepovers with Michael, including
one in a hotel room when Michael slept on a cot, giving Feldman the bed. "I
was molested as a child but not by Jackson," Feldman said.

Known for his roles in such movies as Gremlins, Feldman ended his
friendship with Michael in 2001. Later he released "Megalo-Man," a song
highly critical of the pop star.

On the verge of a nervous breakdown, Michael managed to get through
his first performance in Bangkok, but he had to lip-sync his way through the
show, much to the disappointment of dozens of fans who realized what he was
doing. "I could have stayed home and listened to my CD instead of seeing him
live," said one disgruntled fan, who demanded that the box office return the
hefty price he'd paid for a ticket.

Just hours before his scheduled second appearance on stage in Bangkok,
Michael canceled the show. A doctor reported that Michael had succumbed to
the heat and humidity prevalent in Thailand. The singer reportedly had
become dehydrated. The doctor ignored the fact that Bangkok was experienc ing unseasonably cool weather, and that the auditorium where Michael was
scheduled to appear was climate controlled.

Within his Thai hotel suite, Michael ingested inordinate amounts of
Valium and Percodan, which were mixed with his regular painkillers. A maid
reported to the press that she'd come upon the star in his bedroom. "He was
crouched in a fetal position," she claimed. "He was actually sucking on his
thumb like a little baby."

In a call to his mother, Katherine, Michael warned her that he'd commit
suicide rather than face arrest. Michael's chief of security in Thailand, retired
police officer, Bill Bray, placed a 24-hour suicide watch on Michael, taking
his threat to kill himself very seriously.

On August 25, 1993, Michael placed a call to Elizabeth Taylor, pleading
for her help. The star told him that she believed he was innocent and begged
him to be strong and not harm himself. She promised to fly to his side.
Significantly, Michael turned to Elizabeth instead of Katherine, his mother.

Having survived an emotionally turbulent relationship with actor
Montgomery Clift, among countless others, Taylor was an old hand at playing
Fairy Godmother and Maternal Savior, taking troubled young men, often
homosexually oriented, and pressing them into the warmth of her ample and
much-photographed bosom.

From Bangkok, Michael flew to Singapore for the continuation of his concert tour, arriving there in a fragile state.

Meanwhile, dressed in a white sweat suit, Larry Fortensky stood by the
side of his bride, Elizabeth, as she spoke to journalists during her long flight
to Singapore. Clad in a sweat suit herself-only hers was baby pinkElizabeth said, "This is the most awful thing that could happen to a man like
Michael who loves children and would never harm one of them. I believe that
Michael will be vindicated." She went on to claim that Michael was "the victim of extortion."

At the Singapore airport, at 2am, Larry and Elizabeth, "with a ton of luggage," were seen getting into a limousine which took them to a penthouse
suite at the Raffles Hotel, one of the ten most famous in the world. Leaving
Larry to sleep off the flight, Elizabeth went at once to see Michael across the
hall.

Elizabeth arrived in Michael's suite at 3:30 that morning. She found him
sucking his thumb "and curled up like a two-year-old boy in his bed."

She dismissed the guards, telling them that "the suicide watch is over. I'll
take charge." She surmised that Michael had taken an overdose of painkillers,
which had caused him to go berserk. He would not be the only friend of this
Golden Age Hollywood star who had done that.

She urged him to fly to the Betty Ford Clinic, where she'd met her pres ent husband, Larry, then an inmate there, too. But Michael told her, "I have no
intention of ever setting foot in Los Angeles again."

He seemed revitalized the following day, his birthday (August 29), when
Elizabeth gave him a party to celebrate his turning thirty-five. She even got
him to eat a piece of birthday cake, as he'd suffered a dramatic weight loss and
was living on cups of vegetable broth.

That night, in front of his Singapore fans at the National Stadium, all
45,000 of them sang "Happy Birthday, Michael." His only reaction was to turn
to one of his managers, "Isn't that song copyrighted? Will I have to pay royalties?"

The following night, he could not go on. Sobbing hysterically and threatening suicide, he fainted and the performance was canceled. In a local hospital, Michael underwent a brain scan to try to determine why he was suffering
"from history's worst case of migraines." No physical cause could be determined by the presiding physicians.

After Singapore, Michael, along with Larry and Elizabeth, flew to
Taiwan. Papa Joe and Katherine, along with Michael's brothers, each having
flown in as a gesture of support for Michael, were waiting to greet their errant
son.

Katherine hosted a family luncheon for Michael, to which she pointedly
did not invite Elizabeth and Larry.

Perhaps feeling rebuffed, the Fortenskys flew back to Los Angeles.
Elizabeth had been angered by remarks that Katherine allegedly told a
reporter when boarding a plane in Los Angeles. "I'm his mother-not
Elizabeth Taylor-and I'm flying to the side of my son, even though I'm not
Cleopatra reincarnate."

Much of tout Hollywood continued to rally behind Michael, including
Sharon Stone speaking at the MTV Awards in Los Angeles. "I firmly believe
that if this family has-or ever hadevidence of abuse, it would have surfaced by now. All I know is that if a
child of mine had been abused, I
would not have been making deals."

Frank Cascio and MJ