I dropped my son off at school this morning and all the eight-year-olds were talking about in the playground was the death of the 50-year-old King of Pop.
Last night I stayed up late to watch the curtain fall on Michael Jackson with fascination and bewilderment, largely because of the tiny walk-on part I played in his final tragic act.
I first hit the Jackson trail when he was arrested on the charges of child abuse which now cast a long shadow over his memory. Our editor had asked us to talk to the black community in South Central Los Angeles about the rise and fall of the superstar.
But my abiding memory is driving around the city with the car windows wound down and listening to Jackson’s Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough and rediscovering how fabulous his music was.
We made a film charting the way the TV helicopters hounded Jacko on his way to court, just as they had hounded another black man, OJ Simpson, as he sped down the LA freeways after his wife had been murdered a few years before.
And we looked at the dilemma in the black community of what to make of a pop icon now accused of child abuse, a black icon whose police mugshot made him look like Elizabeth Taylor, an icon whose facial skin seemed to be turning white.
In 2005 I was sent with my team to the courthouse in the little town of Santa Maria, California, to cover the trial, and I look back on that trip as amongst the most bizarre of my reporting career.
Most of the time we watched the court’s proceedings on TV from a “spillover” room next door. Hundreds of pages of sworn affidavits had been leaked on the internet, so we knew pretty much what the prosecution wanted the witnesses to say, and much of it was awful and compelling.
The only dilemma in reporting it was what to leave out. There were tales of secret doors in the Neverland ranch, and of “Jesus Juice” – what Jackson allegedly called the alcohol he was accused of giving children, hidden in cans of Coke.
Then there was Diane Dimond. Feisty and diminutive and – apart from a lady from Vanity Fair magazine – THE expert on the trial, whose live pronouncements for Court TV, day after day and week after week, were considered by many of us the ultimate authority.
The other character you had to know in the media circus was the ringmaster, Peter, a man in a stetson hat who gave out press tickets to sit in court, and who allowed me to sit inside on the day the child testified that Jacko was not just Wacko but far, far worse.
Jackson was found innocent, largely because of the courtroom oratory of his lawyer, a former boxer named Tom Mesereau, but not one reporter I met covering the trial believed the verdict.
Jackson seemed to be wearing a black dinner jacket most days, but one day he turned up late wearing his pyjamas. In court, Michael munched his way through a bowl of peppermints and constantly dabbed at his reconstructed nose with white tissues.
One day I stood next to him and his brother Jermaine as they milled about during a brief adjournment. “How are you, Michael?” I asked him. “Okay,” he said in an unconvincing high-pitched squeak. It was as if the whoops and yelps from Billie Jean had become his speaking voice.
I once interviewed a couple of people close to Howard Hughes. One of his personal assistants recalled how the billionaire spent his final years, watching television in bed in a hotel he had bought in Las Vegas, refusing to go outside and refusing cut his fingernails or hair for months on end.
“He looked like Moses”, the man said. In terms of eccentricity, Jackson was right up there with Hughes and suffered a similar curse; the curse of being ill-advised and unloved, for all his talent and wealth.
Court would often end early, so the jurors could get back to their jobs or children. And then we would head off into the vineyards around Jackson’s home town of Los Olivos and drink Californian pinot noir among the golden hills around Neverland, where the superstar had tried and failed to find happiness. The next day, it was back to court to hear more tales of the grotesque.
As I said, it was a bizarre trip. Michael, RIP.
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MICHAEL JACKSON R.I.P…a tragedy beyond belief…his illness orchestrated by lies, deceitful media scandles, wrongful character deformation and unfounded controversy that ultimately claimed his life..Michael’s truth will be revealed…He survived on medication and pain killers like myself…i have always maintained he had far reaching problems with his skin/health, miss-construed and not believed by millions. Today I come out from “my shell” to confirm I have fought vitiligo for 28 years…it has been hell living with the condition, the abuse and insults I have endured from “narrow focused selfish people amongst communities. I am 80% de-pigmented of which 20% is via Q-Switched Nd:YAG Laser Treatment that removes pigmentation that gives me milky white skin…uniformed…so I could live a near normal life. Through stress and strains, I became a victim and suffered a heart attack just under 2 years ago. i am now registered as suffering from Ischaemic Heart Disease…past 28 years I have suffered numerous physiological issues and immense pain… fighting Sciatica and battling against Spinal Osteoarthritis…my life is equal to hell…day to day i strive to survive with medication and pain killers. This was Michaels life as well…too complex to be true as believed by millions. today I live-on…sadly and very unfortunate, or perhaps lucky for Michael, he his free from torment…I realise now how lucky i am..Michael is free from the burdens of thousands who contributed to his death. Good luck and god bless Michael…may his sole now rest in peace!
I saw a little star last night. twinkling in the sky. I knew that you were looking down. You’ll never say Goodbyee. rip michael.
There will be as much of an industry around MJ’s legacy as there is for Elvis Presley…
Well, I was under the impression that when a court & jury find someone NOT guilty, that means NOT guilty. After reading your blog, I wonder if you are implying that the Courts were wrong, fraudulent or, down right incompetent?
“As helicopters hoover over another black man”…..tell us, what was the relevance of this statement?
And OJ and Michael apart from being high profile cases, where is the relevant parrallel as we hear about Michael’s passing?
Why is somebody from channel 4 not covering the boy whose father first tried to cash in on Michael and we keep hearing snippets that he reported his father for assault whose own mother was against the accusations made by the boy’s father
How superficial and mean can someone be, even after a person’s death? Don’t you have any respect? And why was Dimond “THE expert” during the trial? Just becaus she was the prosecution’s mouth and only said bad things about Michael, forgetting about THE TRUTH? And, finally, why don’t you admit you are ashame of your character and that you now have blood on your hands, seeing that you contributed to Michael’s unhappiness and ultimately to his loss? I hope God forgives you…but will you forgive yourself?
I wonder in doing his “journalistic duty” if the author merely sat in court in judgement day after day, or, like a REAL reporter, did his own research. I believe had he done his homework, he may have come to a very different conclusion.
Also, I’d like to know why not ONE article on either the 1993 charges or the 2003-5 trial asks any of these people, parents, witnesses who claim to have seen MJ doing these things to children, WHY DIDN’T THEY IMMEDIATELY GO TO THE POLICE?
I think we know the answer to that – because it didn’t happen.
MJ was acquitted because jurors had a “reasonable doubt” — that’s what they said immediately after the verdict.
This so-called reporter was there — and doesn’t seem to know that.
Talk about strange!!
It wasn’t because of the defense attorney — it was because of lack of evidence!!!! The jurors said so themselves — that’s how it works in the good ol’ USA judicial system.
You really are a moron.
I’ve been reading up on a lot of this testimony and it is so far-fetched it is beyond belief.
For the rest of the people who stumble on this article (I did because it linked me from Vanity Fair) — the boy in 2003 had been staying with MJ and traveling with him on countless occasions and it was only AFTER the Bashir interview hit the airwaves that the boy claims MJ whisked him away to be fondled and molested — haha — what a disgusting joke!!!!
So — AFTER their are public accusations — and MJ NEVER touched the boy before — MJ suddenly decides NOW is a good time to molest this boy when the public spotlight is on me – - what a freaking joke!
Those people destroyed a beautiful, wonderful artist and a man who truly cared about people, children and the world — and those of us who actually do RESEARCH into all these allegations will NOT allow hack journalists to try to smear his legacy with the continuation of horrid – UNPROVEN allegations.
I’m reading a VF article from 1994 — nearly 10 years BEFORE those creep’s horrid allegations — and his attorney then said that MJ shared his bed innocently with hundreds of children.
Funny how in all that time — it was only two people who said it was a problem – - and both wanted millions.
NO — they didn’t want to stop a suspected pedophile from doing it to other children – they just wanted millions of dollars.
That’s a pretty good clue right there — that nothing ever happened.
RIP MJ….we KNOW you are in heaven now!
This way a bizarre trial of Michael Jackson….And, the coverage was simple useless and nonsense.
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