Michael Jackson (54 page)

‘“Is this all they do here?” Michael asked me. “They just drink and talk and watch videos?” I wondered what he
thought
people did in bars. As we were sitting there, two men walked in and immediately began kissing each other. When Michael saw
them making out, I could feel him tense up. Finally he said, “Okay, I've seen enough. Let's leave.” So we got up and walked
out. On the way out, Michael said, “I can't believe those two guys kissed one another. How can they do that?”

‘“Maybe they liked each other,” I told him.

‘“Well, if that's what they do in gay bars, then I don't think I'll be going to any more,” Michael decided.’

This same friend remembered the day he and Michael went into Drakes, a novelty store on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood that specializes
in sex toys and pornography. In the back of the shop, behind a gated area, a browser could find gay reading material and photo
magazines.

‘Hey, what's back there?’ Michael wanted to know as soon as he walked in.

‘You don't want to know,’ said his friend.

‘Yeah, I
do
want to know,’ Michael insisted. He then proceeded to go boldly where probably no Jackson had ever gone before.

Thirty seconds later, he came running back. He looked shaken, as if he had just seen a ghost. ‘We gotta go, now,’ he said
nervously.

‘Why?’

‘You don't want to know,’ Michael answered.

The more enigmatic Michael remained, the more people would talk, and even joke, about him. His videographer, Steve Howell,
once asked him about a comedy sketch Eddie Murphy had performed on
Saturday Night Live
in which he played an effeminate and affected Michael as a guest on a fictional talk show,
Guy Talk,
along with an equally fey Liberace played by another actor. The two bragged about their sexual exploits with women; it was
ludicrous and extremely funny.

Michael had smiled. ‘I don't mind it,’ he said softly. ‘The more they make fun of me, the more people are going to wonder
what I really am. I don't care when people call me a fag. No one knows the truth. No one knows who, or what I am.’

‘You don't care what people say about you?’

‘They can say what they want to say, because the bottom line is they don't
know
and everyone is going to continue searching to find out whether I'm gay, straight or whatever,’ Michael explained. ‘It doesn't
bother me, and the longer it takes them to discover this, the more famous I will be.’

Perhaps that's how Michael
sometimes
felt, but he was also a man who told
Rolling Stone
writer Gerri Hirshey that he lives his life with obsessive caution, ‘just like a haemophiliac who can't afford to be scratched
in any way.’

In August 1984, a tabloid alleged that Michael was having an affair with British pop star Boy George, an allegation which
was not true. Michael was livid. His publicist, Norman Winter, recalled, ‘Michael was angry that there were these stories
about him being gay, that little kids who could barely read were hearing about these rumours, maybe from their mothers who
buy the tabloids and talk to others about them. Who knows? The point is that he felt that he was getting a reputation he didn't
want. He told me that he wanted to organize a press conference to refute the stories. I told him I thought it might not be
a good idea. ‘Why give them any credibility? Maybe they'll just blow over,’ he said. ‘No, they just keep getting worse. I
have to do something now.’

‘Frank [Dileo] was against the idea, but Michael is a very strong-minded person. He told me what he wanted to say, I wrote
the text of the statement, he approved it, and we went from there.’

The problem was that Michael decided that he did not want to appear at the press conference; he was too shy to face the press
and discuss such a personal matter.

On 5 September 1984, a major news conference was arranged in a West Hollywood sound studio. Frank Dileo – in dark sunglasses
and with a cigar in his mouth – stepped in front of a podium to announce that he was about to read a two-page statement from
Michael, ‘who, as you all know, has risen to the pinnacle of success in his field.’

In a gruff, tough-guy voice, the burly manager read: ‘For some time now, I have been searching my conscience as to whether
or not I should publicly react to the many falsehoods that have been spread about me. I have decided to make this statement
based on the injustice of these allegations and the far-reaching trauma those who feel close to me are suffering.

‘I feel very fortunate to have been blessed with recognition for my efforts. This recognition also brings with it a responsibility
to one's admirers throughout the world. Performers should always serve as role models who set an example for young people.
It saddens me that many may actually believe the present flurry of false accusations. To this end, and I do mean
END
: NO! I've never taken hormones to maintain my high voice; NO! I've never had my cheekbones altered in any way; NO! I've never
had cosmetic surgery on my eyes. YES! One day in the future I plan to get married and have a family. Any statements to the
contrary are simply untrue.

‘Henceforth, as new fantasies are printed, I have advised my attorneys of my willingness to institute legal action and subsequently
prosecute all guilty to the fullest extent of the law.

‘As noted earlier, I love children. We all know that kids are very impressionable and therefore susceptible to such stories.
I'm certain that some have already been hurt by this terrible slander. In addition to their admiration, I would like to keep
their respect.’

After reading the statement, Frank refused to answer questions from the assemblage of reporters, and left the podium.

No celebrity had ever gone to such lengths to proclaim his or her heterosexuality. The fact that Michael didn't appear in
person dampened his declaration. Also, his statement was full of half-truths. Perhaps he hadn't had surgery on his eyes, as
he claimed, but he certainly had surgery on his nose, and three times. How could he repudiate one story relating to plastic
surgery without admitting the whole truth about work done on his nose? Because of this obvious omission, one was forced to
wonder what else Michael was not revealing. In the end, the press conference backfired; if anything, it raised more questions
than it answered.

While Michael Jackson was on the road with the Victory tour, he made further headlines – this time on the business pages – by
purchasing the ATV Music Publishing Company for an astounding $47.5 million. The purchase, believed to be the biggest publishing
acquisition of its kind ever by an individual, was actually the culmination of ten intense months of negotiation. The seed
of this venture had been planted a few years earlier when Michael was in London to record the number one hit ‘ Say, Say, Say’
with Paul McCartney at Abbey Road Studios. Michael had become friendly with Paul and Linda McCartney during his stay; he ate
most of his meals at their home outside of London. One evening after dinner, Paul displayed a thick booklet of song titles
to which he owned the rights, including most of Buddy Holly's material, and standards such as ‘Autumn Leaves’, ‘Sentimental
Journey’ and ‘Stormy Weather’.

‘This is the way to make big money,’ Paul said. ‘Every time someone records one of these songs, I get paid. Every time someone
plays these songs on the radio, or in live performances, I get paid.’

‘You're kidding me, right?’ Michael said.

‘Do I look like I'm kidding you?’ Paul answered, seriously. In truth, Paul reportedly earns more than forty million dollars
a year from record and song royalties not of his own personal composition.

Michael was intrigued. He owned the publishing rights to his own songs – obtaining that right was one of the reasons he and
his family had left Motown and Berry Gordy's Jobete publishing house – but he always thought of publishing as a tedious business
primarily concerned with collecting royalties and licensing material for other media. Paul explained that the world of publishing
can prove lucrative, especially thanks to the CD explosion and the increased use of popular songs in advertisements, movies
and televisions. Songwriters often lose their copyrights for one reason or another: sometimes they sell them for profit – a
shortsighted thing to do, especially nowadays when so much money is generated in the music industry – and often they lose them
out of ignorance, as in the case of The Beatles, who simply signed away their rights when they were naive and didn't know
any better.

As it happened, Paul McCartney and John Lennon had sold their copyrights to a publisher named Dick James when they were young.
James ended up making a fortune on The Beatles' songs. Then, in the late sixties, while McCarney and Lennon were each on their
respective honeymoons James sold Northern Songs – the company that continued to hold the rights to the Beatles' compositions – to
Sir Lew Grade's ATV Music Limited. ATV's assets were later purchased by Australian businessman Robert Holmes à Court's Bell
Group. McCartney and Lennon's estate split with ATV the songwriting revenue generated by 251 of their songs written between
1964 and 1971 – including ‘Yesterday’, ‘Michelle’, ‘Help’, ‘A Hard Day's Night’, ‘The Long and Winding Road’, ‘Hey Jude’, ‘Let
It Be’, and many others. ATV also held the publishing rights to thousands of other compositions, including songs by The Pointer
Sisters, Pat Benatar and Little Richard (including ‘Tutti Frutti’, ‘Long Tall Sally’, ‘Rip It Up’ and ‘Lucille’).

When Michael told Paul, ‘Maybe someday I'll buy your songs,’ Paul laughed.

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Good joke.’

Michael wasn't joking. Paul would one day regret their conversation.

‘I gave him a lot of free advice,’ he would later say. ‘And you know what? A fish gets caught by opening his mouth.

‘Michael's the kind of guy who picks brains. When we worked together, I don't even think he'd had the cosmetic surgery. [He
actually did have surgery by that time.] I've got photos of me and him at our house, and he looks quite different. He's had
a lot of facial surgery since then. He actually told me he was going to a religious retreat, and I believed him. But he came
out of that religious retreat with a new nose. The power of prayer, I guess.’

Michael and Paul remained somewhat friendly, but Michael also kept his distance. He didn't want Paul to perceive him as being
anything more than an acquaintance, perhaps because he had a plan.

When Michael returned to the United States, he mentioned Paul's book of titles to John Branca and said that he wanted to buy
some copyrights himself, ‘like Paul’. John did his research and presented Michael with a list of songs that were for sale.
Michael's first purchase was the Sly Stone catalogue, including all of Sly's pop classics of the 1970s, such as ‘Everyday
People’, ‘Hot Fun in the Summertime’, and ‘Stand!’ (‘Stand!’ was the song The Jackson 5 performed the first time they appeared
on
The Ed Sullivan Show.
Now, Michael owned it.) For less than a million dollars, Michael also secured a few other titles, including two of Dion's
hits, ‘The Wanderer’ and ‘Runaround Sue’, Len Barry's ‘1-2-3’ and the Soul Survivors' ‘Expressway to Your Heart’.

For the next couple of months, Michael was too preoccupied with the Victory tour to concentrate on any publishing deals. But
then in September 1984, when John Branca flew to Philadelphia to meet with Frank Dileo and Michael about the Victory tour's
problems, John casually mentioned the availability of the ATV catalogue. Michael wasn't sure what kind of music ATV represented.

‘Well, it happens to include a few things you might be interested in,’ John teased.

‘Like?’ Michael asked.

‘Northern Songs.’

Michael became excited. ‘You don't mean
the
Northern Songs, do you?’

‘Yeah, Mike,’ John said. He couldn't contain his enthusiasm. ‘We're talking The Beatles, man.
The Beatles.’

In fact, Paul McCartney had tried to buy ATV in 1981. He asked Yoko Ono to purchase the publishing house with him for twenty
million dollars, ten million each, but she thought that was too much money and declined. Because Paul didn't want to spend
the twenty million dollars himself, the deal fell through.

As Michael skipped about the room, whooping and hollering, John warned him that there would be stiff competition in a bidding
war for such popular songs. ‘I don't care,’ Michael declared. ‘I want those songs. Get me those songs, Branca.’

John said he would see what he could do. He then telephoned John Eastman, Paul McCartney's attorney and brother-in-law, and
asked if Paul was planning to bid on the catalogue. ‘No,’ Eastman said. ‘It's too pricey.’

A few days later, Yoko Ono telephoned John and said that she had heard a rumour that Michael was interested in purchasing
ATV. Then, she spent forty-five minutes trying to make John believe that buying the catalogue was a terrible idea. John discussed
the conversation with Michael. ‘Man, she obviously just wants it for herself,’ Michael said, ‘but doesn't want to spend the
bucks. She's hoping the price will go down if I don't buy it. So, buy it, Branca.’