You Are Not Alone_Michael, Through a Brother’s Eyes

  One. Two. Three. Open the doors. And the silence of a Santa Maria morning was broken by 100 fluttering cameras, the cheers of fans and yelled-out questions from the media as Michael took his composed walk into court.

  THE COURT HAD ALLOCATED SIX SEATS for the family so we supported Michael in shifts.

  When I was there, I sat on the front row behind him, maybe seven feet away, my eyes boring into the back of his head, wondering what he was thinking. I did that with everyone as I scanned the room. I guessed at expressions on different jurors’ faces, and watched when they did or did not make notes. I stared at Judge Melville and wondered if he realised how he wasn’t really presiding over this débâcle: God was. I looked at Mother, who attended every day without fail, poised and beautiful in her vigil to the truth. I don’t think I truly understood her strength until now: she was crushed inside but never showed it. Her pride and belief in her son were evident to all and I have this indelible image of Michael in the corridors, holding out his arm for Mother to link so that she could be steadier as she walked, and yet her very presence every day was his stability. Joseph was also there. Rock-solid in support. His stern, daily frown never gave away his innermost feelings and he was a man of few words privately, too, never voicing anything but his belief that Michael would be freed. It was that kind of certain belief that gave all of us strength, I think.

  I also watched the media who packed into that room as Sneddon’s witnesses provided their lewd testimony – and journalists rushed out of the door to spread the prosecution allegations that Michael plied his ‘victims’ with alcohol, had read porn with them, had touched the boy and kept his family ‘captive’.

  The media rushed to be first to break the latest evidence – and somewhere in the stampede, trampled into the ground, was the truth that Tom Mesereau extracted during the cross-examination. Like when it was revealed that Michael hadn’t plied anyone with alcohol but the boys had known where the wine-cellar key was kept. Or when Gavin Arvizo said, yes, that was the porn magazine Michael had used with him – only for Tom to point out its issue date was August 2003. Or when Janet Arvizo confirmed they were held ‘captive’ at Neverland – only for Tom to prove that they had left and returned on three separate occasions of their own free will. Or when Gavin told the pre-trial Grand Jury that he was molested on 7 February – but the charges at trial related to ‘some time between 20 February and 12 March 2003’.

  But Tom’s greatest coup was to reveal that the Arvizo family had once sued the department store chain J. C. Penney for millions and settled for $150,000 when the mother said she was inappropriately touched by security guards after they had stopped her son for taking an item of clothing. Janet Arvizo was also charged with (and later convicted of) welfare fraud against the Government. I think the jury had this family’s measure after that.

  It was actually on day one when it was obvious Sneddon had no case because his first key witness was Martin Bashir. I couldn’t believe that his warped documentary, which was shown to the jury, was the foundation to the case but, apparently, it demonstrated ‘motive’.

  And people wondered why we called it ‘trial by media’.

  THE COURT CASE DIDN’T JUST IMPACT on Michael’s reputation: it hurt his finances, too. His focus had to be on clearing his name for 18 months, not making music, and that pushed him further into debt, especially after the cancellation of the Invincible tour had cost him at least $100 million. Meanwhile, his bank loan had risen, with interest, to $272 million and Neverland cost $1 million a month to run, which didn’t include payments on a $23 million line of credit taken out against the ranch. It was clear to me that since the Invincible album, Michael had started to feel the squeeze even if matters were not yet at crisis point, because the music catalogue was providing him with a yearly income of $25 million. The problem was that his spending matched what was coming in.

  During the trial, I had to go to Bahrain for a few days. I stayed in touch with Mother and Tom by phone, but didn’t tell anyone I was there to do a deal that would ease Michael’s financial worries. Once he was free of court, I wanted him to be free of debt’s burden, too. That was what I was aiming for as I spent time with Prince Abdullah, the King’s second son. My good friend Ali Qamber had introduced us. He had explained that the Prince was producing a local artist but was keen to expand not only a record label but a leisure entertainment arm, too. Michael had tried to do this with Kingdom Entertainment years earlier and his vision for hotels, theme parks and movies never tired – it represented ‘the next level’ in a direction away from music. Also, after his experience of American justice, he had been talking about finding sanctuary in the East with the children once the trial was over.

  The timing of everything presented an opportunity to bring together the Prince and his wealth and Michael and I as collaborators in not only music but movies. This was a win-win, but more importantly, a chance for him to get back on track.

  When I arrived in the Bahraini capital of Manama, Ali drove me to a little recording studio. He told me that the Prince was ‘excited to meet a member of the Jackson family.’

  ‘That’s a good starting point!’ I joked, thinking he was humouring me. But when I arrived, the Prince rolled out a Jackson 5 poster and asked me to sign it, then started to talk about his musical ambitions and bank-rolling a whole new venture under a new label and company called Two Seas. Next thing I knew, we were sitting in the desert in one of those red royal tents, signing contracts to share the company between him, Michael and me with a 33.3 per cent share each.

  When I returned to California, I put Michael on the phone to Prince Abdullah one morning on the ride to court. They spoke excitedly about plans for the future, exchanged numbers and, from then on, remained in regular contact.

  DURING MY TIME AWAY, IT WAS obvious from looking at Michael that sitting in court listening to lie after lie was a withering experience. It was, for him, the legal equivalent of putting a man in the stocks to have everyone and anyone throw lies at him.

  Often, he returned to the ranch in the evening and locked himself away in his room until the next morning. On security advice he had also started to wear a bulletproof vest – the crowds outside the court were growing, and who knew what kind of nut was out there? The mere fact he was having to wear one did nothing for his spirits.

  His case was the biggest news story in the world. We were told there were 1,800 accredited reporters and producers outside, and the media tents looked like the command centre for a military operation. On another corner of the court premises stood a mass of Michael’s fans, with their banners and flags. And in the middle stood Michael, whose tolerance for the whole circus had long expired. His exasperation had first blown that day in hospital in his pyjamas, but I also remember the day when he was fed up of all the rules and formalities that had dominated his life for almost five months.

  I was sitting behind him when he tentatively raised a hand to the judge, like the kid in class interrupting a lesson to ask a question, only Michael wanted to be excused to go to the restroom. It was more of a raised index finger, held at eye-level, but he seemed unsure whether he could interrupt proceedings or not. When he went unseen, he lowered his hand and waited for another minute or so. Then, he tried again, but Judge Melville never acknowledged his gesture and this must have been a time during Tom’s cross-examination because he wasn’t next to him to ask.

  Fed up at going unnoticed, Michael’s bladder reached the point of not caring, and he quietly got up, turned, and tapped me on the shoulder. I followed him out of the door and, surrounded by his security, we walked down the hallway and up the steps to the restroom. We left the guard at the door and Michael rushed into a stall and peed like a racehorse.

  ‘Can you believe that?!’ he shouted out, ‘I try to get his attention and he just ignores me! What did he want me to do – pee in the courtroom?’ As he washed his hands at the sink, he kept venting to my reflection in the mirror.

  ‘You did the right thing –
don’t let it get to you,’ I said.

  ‘Everything is getting to me! I don’t understand how people can twist things so horribly,’ he said. I could tell this toilet break was as much about respite as anything else and he just stood there, appreciating those briefest moments of being in a room with no eyes on him and no lies being heard; able to speak, able to be heard.

  ‘It takes many people to lie, it takes only one person to tell the truth. Remember that,’ I said. And with that, he straightened himself up in the mirror, took a deep breath, turned on his heels and we headed back for the court room.

  SIXTY-SIX DAYS IS HOW LONG THE justice process took before Michael’s freedom was placed in the hands of the eight women and four men on the jury.

  And God.

  We were all allowed to decamp to Neverland, where we waited in limbo for the next six days as the jury considered the 14 counts: the felonies that would carry a prison term and the misdemeanours that would see him walk free but with an indelible stain.

  As each day came and went, our minds spun: If they’re taking this long, it must be a good sign, right? Or are they taking so long because some are convinced and some are not? What if they can’t decide – will it be a retrial? Waiting for a jury and watching your brother wonder whether he’ll be free to make music again is torturous.

  The authorities had surrounded Neverland with sheriff patrol cars and men in beige police uniforms stood guard at every conceivable entry and exit point. It seemed excessive, but everything about the case had appeared so.

  As I waited, and as a glutton for punishment, I turned on the television news channels in my room. Nancy Grace on CNN was characteristically breathless in her prediction of guilty verdicts. I hopped around different channels but that seemed to be the consensus. So, Sneddon had the media with its shallow examination. All we could hope for was that Tom Mesereau had the jury.

  I was sitting with Tito on the edge of the fountain near the theme park. Every ride, and every memory of fun we’d ever shared, stood still as we shelled peanuts and made them our lunch. We talked, speculated, worried. Above us, two news helicopters kept hovering. For once, I was able to ignore them. Then, from behind us, we heard a speeding car. ‘They have verdicts!’ the driver shouted.

  In the car, we learned that Judge Melville had given the family 45 minutes to get to court. It was now about one o’clock on the afternoon of 13 June 2005.

  We ran to the main house and grabbed our jackets. Everyone was climbing into the convoy of vehicles. Michael, wearing his sunglasses, was already in the car. He was sitting next to Rebbie, who had the Bible in her hand: she was reading from the scriptures. As he listened, he rocked in his seat. ‘Why? Why? Why?’ he kept repeating, beating a fist into his right knee, ‘Why does it have to come to this?’ Rebbie went on reading as Randy climbed in beside her – and she continued to read all the way to court. During the previous weeks, Michael had privately attended two meetings at the local Kingdom Hall, returning to his Jehovah’s Witness roots in his darkest hour. We laughed because both services were in Spanish but I don’t think he had to hear the content, he just needed to feel close to all that he knew, forgiving all that had gone before.

  I was in the car behind them as we set off for court. Around my neck was a gift from the new woman in my life, my future wife: Halima Rashid. We had recently met in line at Starbucks. Destiny’s chess board. King takes Queen.

  Come verdict week, she had given me a gold chain with a Muslim prayer in Arabic inscribed on the medallion: ‘He knows what is before them and what is behind them, they do not comprehend any of his knowledge except what He wills …’ I clutched it in my palm and held it to my lips all the way there. ‘My brother is coming back home to this ranch … my brother is coming back home to this ranch,’ I kept whispering, as we pulled away from Neverland, passing the fans who had remained there the whole time. ‘1000% Innocent!’ said a banner.

  Please, God, let it be a sign.

  THE COURT REFUSED TO ALLOCATE US four extra seats on verdict day. Six seats only for the family. Rules were rules. Janet and I decided to let the others go ahead. Part of me didn’t know if I was capable of watching my brother stand, surrounded by marshals, as the jury foreman read out 14 verdicts.

  My sister and I went to an upstairs room. Just me, her and security in this windowless box, deaf and blind to whatever was playing out in the court room beneath us. We prayed. We hugged. We paced. We waited.

  And then I heard a cheer from outside. Followed by another.

  I rushed out the door, chasing this cheer like it was a missing child that I was desperate to find. Then came another, louder this time.

  Down the hallway, I found a small window all taped up. I ripped it off and pulled the window ajar just enough to see outside. That was when I saw a woman releasing white doves with each cheer. ‘JANET! JANET!’ I screamed and started running back to my sister, who rushed out the doorway. ‘THEY’RE RELEASING DOVES!’

  At that very moment, a lady came bounding up the stairs. ‘He’s freed on all counts! They’ve freed him on all counts!’

  I wish I could convey the elation that I felt in that moment but put me in front of 200,000 people in the biggest venue in the world and it wouldn’t match it.

  We raced downstairs and waited outside the doors until they opened, and out walked Michael, surrounded by the rest of the family and Tom Mesereau. Michael wasn’t smiling, like everyone else: he looked stunned, and we just kept walking. There was no time for hugs. We could do all that back at Neverland. I didn’t even have a chance to enjoy Sneddon’s humiliation. He, with his crack detectives, will go down in history as the team who took on my brother and lost. Twice.

  We walked outside as a family, and were greeted by the biggest cheer. I wanted to find the lady who had released the 14 white doves at each ‘not guilty’ verdict – she had done the greatest thing and we all, even Michael, commented on it. On that walk to freedom beneath his umbrella, he ignored the media and saluted his fans. Just before he got into the SUV, he turned to shake Tom Mesereau’s hand. And then the convoy took us back to Neverland, where Prince, Paris and ‘Blanket’ were waiting with Nanny Grace. Life could finally return to normal, and we honestly thought that the worst was behind us.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Comeback King

  I SAW THE PERFORMER’S GLINT RETURN to Michael’s eyes around the Fall of 2008 – the period when his life was back on track, his health was nearing peak fitness and he was physically preparing for the greatest comeback ever seen. He was, for the first time in a long time, just happy. I wasn’t the only one who observed this rebirth: people who had worked with him for years saw it and they, like me, could detect when the creative flame had started to burn again inside him, lighting him up. The world has read that Michael was reduced to a frail old man in faltering health, forever broken by the trial, a performer physically unable to tour again, whose voice would never be the same, and the tabloid myth that he was slowly being killed by a drug dependency. None of this was true, as borne out by the sweat stains on the walls of his dance studio and the vocals he’d been laying down on sublime, but unfinished tracks.

  The guesswork about his health, especially after his death, summed up the theme of Michael’s life: gossip and wild interpretation warped the true picture. People point to a particular photograph, taken in July 2008, of my brother being pushed in a wheelchair, with captions like ‘too weak to stand, looking frail and in no condition to perform …’ That was exactly what Michael wanted the media and his biographers to write because the man who was forever underestimated was fooling everyone. It was an act. He was in one of his disguises, making everyone think he wasn’t ready or capable. He of all people knew the power of an image, and he was aware that everyone doubted he still had ‘it’. So imagine – just imagine – if he bounced back and surprised the world, going from that state to this; from that ‘before’ shot to this ‘after’. Michael was doing a Willy Wonka, walking out of the chocola
te factory to greet the crowds with a crippling limp as everyone gasps with shock – and then he stumbles … tosses away the cane, does a somersault and everyone cheers. Gotcha. Because no comeback is truly a comeback until the odds seem impossible.

  Michael’s life had long been defined by indelible images that captured a myth: from oxygen chambers to surgical masks, from hotel balconies to ‘whiter’ skin. This was him having the last laugh. I knew it. The people around him – the ones he trusted – knew it. The rest of the world would find out in London. But the clues were always there because he was such a fiercely private man, knowing when to turn on and turn off the PR tap. He never, ever turned out in public unless pristine and immaculately dressed, and he did everything possible to cover his vitiligo, illnesses and self-perceived flaws because he didn’t want the mask to slip; he wanted no one to see any imperfection or doubt his greatness. Yet in Las Vegas that private man chose to go shopping in public, with his children, in a wheelchair, wearing a red baseball cap, slippers and sky-blue pyjama pants? (Remember how mortified he was when forced to show up in court wearing pyjamas?)

  Think about it. Michael was a master manipulator of image, knowing that the media and paparazzi would like to think they’d ‘caught’ him off guard, looking frail, showing no sign of motivation. He wanted the ultimate vindication in the court of the world. The King of Pop turned Comeback King. Restored to the best and the greatest. Silencing every doubter and hater. And here’s a fact to place alongside that wheelchair image: about two months later, he was engaged in a brutal choreography regime for a comeback tour that had not yet been revealed. He was dancing hard in four-hour sessions every day, even tiring out his choreographer LaVelle Smith Junior, whom he’d hired to get him back in shape. LaVelle was a dancer in the video for ‘Smooth Criminal’, who then became my brother’s trusted choreographer, which was why he was booked for private one-on-one sessions in Vegas.