You Are Not Alone_Michael, Through a Brother’s Eyes

  One potential problem with Michael was that only a handful of people were recently used to working with him and I suspect there was little familiarity with his character and particular ways. This probably had something to do with the fact that AEG seemed intent on bringing in some of its own people. Director Kenny Ortega hadn’t worked with my brother in a long time. Musical director Michael Bearden was chosen over Michael’s preferred Greg Phillingains, and choreographer Travis Payne, who last worked with Michael during ‘Dangerous’, was left in charge when my brother’s preferred choice of LaVelle Smith Junior was dismissed. Meanwhile, I don’t think AEG CEO Randy Phillips could have had any idea who or what he was dealing with, except ‘Michael Jackson’. Outside of the dressing room personnel, there was a sense of ‘starting from scratch’ instead of trusting proven practices from the ‘HIStory’ tour. This was important: to get the most from Michael and to alleviate some of the pressure he put on himself, he had always needed to feel comfortable with the set-up around him. He needed people who understood him and how he worked. On ‘This Is It’, I’m not sure he felt that on every level, especially with some of the art direction, costume choices and the musical mixes coming back in his ears. As he confided in someone close to him after rehearsals: ‘Wait until I get to London. I’m changing everything! We’re going to do things my way.’

  Michael’s strategy was to honour the 10 dates he’d agreed to and then he was ‘going to renegotiate the contract’ based on the 40 dates he hadn’t approved, knowing that public demand and the headlines would be behind him. That was what he told people he trusted, and that was why he seemed strangely indifferent at meetings to discuss the concerts. He was biding his time.

  I also know Michael was not happy when AEG brought in his old manager Frank Dileo and then, a week before his death, when his ex-attorney John Branca arrived on the scene (and would later become an executor of Michael’s estate together with our old school friend, John McClain). Michael had dismissed them yet I think AEG clearly felt that it needed familiar faces whose experience could ‘build a wall around him to protect him’, as one person involved with AEG put it. I think there was a sense that Michael needed handling so AEG turned to those with historic, if not recent, knowledge of him. The move seemed more about bringing peace of mind to the promoter than to Michael. John Branca would later say that Michael asked him to come up with an ‘agenda’ of ideas for the future, which seemed odd when a five-year plan was already sketched out. Maybe that was my brother’s way of testing his ex-attorney. Either way, Michael had had a game-plan since 2008, regardless of what he did or didn’t tell John in their seven days of reacquaintance.

  When Frank Dileo showed up, the people Michael had trusted at rehearsals were nudged out and ‘blind’ to his schedule because Frank treated everyone on a need-to-know basis. This was no doubt a protective measure in Frank’s mind, but it bred a feeling of unease in others that Michael seemed to be under the command of someone who couldn’t read him, his habits or his nuances. To illustrate how little Frank knew about the modern-day Michael, he suggested my brother’s moans about the tour going from 10 to 50 dates weren’t relevant because ‘he’d had the contract read to him and knew what was in it.’ But by mid-June there seemed to be bigger concerns than clauses in contracts because Michael’s health inexplicably started to deteriorate. It all seems to have begun when Michael missed rehearsals on 13, 14 and 15 June. Even on the days when he did show, there were occasions when he’d turn up at 8pm for a 2pm start, as if just getting out of the house was a struggle. This coincided with the time when, instead of there being two guards around Michael, his security became 10-strong – and no one seems to know why. I don’t know if it was at Michael’s request or his security, but someone was clearly worried about something to bump up the numbers in this way.

  It was when Michael was at the Forum on 17 June that someone mentioned the noticeable deterioration in his appearance when he took to the stage. ‘That’s not Michael up there – he’s like a ghost. You seen how skinny he’s getting?’

  During the week that followed, further worrying signs stacked up for those who knew how on-point and articulate he normally was. In the routine for ‘Thriller’, he turned left when he knew he had to turn right. That was odd in itself, but then he did it a second time. He also started repeating himself – a sentence or a phrase – like someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder … but he didn’t have OCD. He struggled to finish one song and he sometimes needed a teleprompter for lyrics. Plus, he had to be helped up and down ramps and flights of stairs. This weakness was also apparent in the ‘Thriller’ routine when he was supposed to come out from beneath a giant bug which was made feather-light for him to lift – but he couldn’t push it up without assistance.

  His inner circle started to worry that something was wrong because his behaviour was so disturbingly out of character. In fairness to AEG, maybe its people didn’t observe the same signs as those with a closer proximity? But, even if that was the case, people would still sound the alarm bells to those in authority to actually do something to help.

  Meanwhile, at home, different observations were made. Paris remembers, ‘Daddy was always cold,’ and always slept in front of the fireplace. I know that makeup artist Karen Faye, who knew my brother better than anyone, noticed how cold he was at rehearsals. Even Michael must have been worried because he called a nurse from home, complaining one half of his body was hot, the other cold. It is interesting that he sought the advice of a nurse, not Dr Murray. Why would he reach out to a nurse instead of his personal physician? It doesn’t make sense to me.

  The nurse told Michael to go to a hospital. For whatever reason, he chose not to.

  Meanwhile, back at rehearsals, it was clear that somewhere along the line, patience was running thin with Michael’s absences and lateness. This is where I suspect – based on what I’ve heard from people who were there – that AEG’s people believed Michael’s condition was related to the drug dependency they had presumably read about and believed. I can think of no other reason for the collective blindness that followed.

  Certainly, no one was giving Michael the kid-glove treatment. Instead, I know that he felt belittled on several occasions and he was also yelled at, as witnessed by people who were there. On one occasion, he deliberately spoke into his mic as he walked offstage: ‘I just want someone to be nice to me today …’

  A voice from the floor yelled back: ‘If we could just have a coherent person here today!’

  ‘They wouldn’t speak to me like that if Joseph was here,’ Michael muttered, off mic.

  At times Michael hated the way he was spoken to.

  Whatever assumptions people made about the reasons for his condition, how could anyone have missed his plummeting weight? I know the people around him voiced real concern about his weight, vocally and in writing. On one occasion when someone expressed worry that he wasn’t eating enough, they were told – out of Michael’s earshot – ‘Just get him a bucket of chicken!’

  The thinner Michael became, the colder he got. He began shivering onstage; he was given a thick coat to wear. In fact, he ended up wearing three layers of clothing to keep warm while rehearsing in a place where everyone else was baking. Presumably this was why Kenny Ortega noticed he was ‘chilled’ on 19 June. ‘Chilled’ was his choice of word, but I’ve been given an alternative description by someone else who was there: ‘Michael wasn’t chilled – he was like a block of ice to touch.’

  That was when someone, without any AEG authorisation, placed a discreet call to a doctor whom Michael had consulted in the past. After the symptoms had been explained to him, the doctor said it sounded as if Michael was suffering from ‘toxic poisoning of the brain’ and should get to a hospital. AEG could never have known about this call, but for reasons that remain maddening to me, he didn’t go.

  It is clear to me that something was very wrong. Even taking into account the belief of some people at rehearsals that Michael had a prescriptio
n-drug dependency, the suspected neurological symptoms, the frighteningly low body temperature and drastic loss of weight – which he had never before displayed – don’t line up with the theory of a prescription-drug dependency.

  Not that Dr Murray was giving AEG any sense that there was an emergency. Instead, after Michael was sent home on 19 June, he sent them a fax saying that Michael needed to rest for two days and would return once rehearsals had moved from the Forum to the Staples Center. Some around my brother also said he tried to put on a brave front for AEG and ‘could appear as sharp as a tack’ on occasions in that final week. As one person put it, ‘Michael didn’t want anyone to think anything was wrong.’

  But it’s still hard for me not to worry and wonder in light of his suspicious death. I have lain awake at night wondering what was making him so ill. Was his doctor giving him so much anaesthetic that it was slowly poisoning his system? Could my brother have known how much propofol was being injected into him?

  Whatever was happening to him, those closest to Michael at rehearsals – Karen Faye in Makeup and Michael Bush and Dennis Thompson in Wardrobe – were seen to be frantic with worry, pleading for someone in authority to intervene. It was obvious that something was seriously wrong when in that final week while still at the Forum, Michael was seen being taken out of the building, his arms draped around the shoulders of two bodyguards, looking like someone who had either collapsed or was too weak to stand.

  That was on an afternoon when Travis Payne stepped into Michael’s shoes to do the run-through. But still, to the best of my knowledge, no one thought to get my brother urgent medical attention – presumably they were relying on Dr Murray.

  Had anyone reached out to us – Michael’s family – we would have got him to hospital. It is hard for me to accept that no one called us. But for me the responsibility to act was AEG’s because I cannot escape the strongest sense that it owed him a duty of care and that his welfare lay squarely with AEG.

  I know that most people – and the LAPD investigation – have so far focused on the fatal events of 25 June, but the disturbing incidents and symptoms in the days prior suggest that something was seriously wrong long before that. And yet rehearsals would carry on regardless and switch to the Staples Center in downtown LA.

  If anything, instead of easing up on Michael, the pressure would now increase. As someone involved with AEG told me after witnessing everything backstage: ‘Michael was this great bird with two broken wings standing near the edge of a cliff. And they kept pushing him, and pushing him and pushing him, expecting him to fly and soar … but he would fall.’

  THE MORE I HEAR ABOUT THOSE final rehearsals, the clearer it seems there was a focus on getting to London and hitting that target of 50 concert dates. Somewhere in the pressure that everyone felt, AEG viewed the King of Pop as a performing robot and lost sight of the human being.

  Out of anybody, the director Kenny Ortega was seen at rehearsals doing what he could to help: once sending Michael home to rest, asking on-camera if there was anything anyone could do for him. He also ensured Michael ate something by cutting up his chicken and feeding him and he even gave him a foot massage. It was clear that Kenny felt Michael needed to eat. But I believe AEG should have gone further because it seemed blindingly obvious to anyone that this tour had to be – needed to be, should have been – cancelled, because my brother was in no fit state to continue.

  Instead there seemed to be an attitude of ‘the show must go on’ as different AEG delegations were sent to Michael’s home on 18 and 20 June to discuss his no-shows for rehearsals. The purpose of these summits was not to offer tea and sympathy but to ‘have strong words with Michael’ and remind him of his contractual obligations. It was in one of those meetings that he was ‘read the riot act’ – Michael’s words – and, based on conversations he shared afterwards, he was left in no doubt that if he didn’t step up and start delivering, they would not only pull the plug but he was in danger of ‘losing everything’.

  This was, apparently, the ‘tough love’ my brother needed if the concert was to meet its obligations. ‘Tough love’ was the expression some people used when referring to how Michael should be handled.

  I guess the definition of ‘losing everything’ included his prized music catalogue. His contract with AEG stated that if he failed to perform, he would be liable for all production costs and lost revenue, meaning his assets – and most notably his Sony/ATV catalogue – were collateral up for the taking. In this scenario, with Michael’s 50 per cent share going to AEG by default, Sony would have found itself with an ‘undesirable partner’ and would no doubt have tried to exercise the option rights it had taken out. If Michael failed or was ‘finished’, he would have lost his precious catalogue.

  Whatever he was told during his meeting of 18 June, it was enough to make him show up for rehearsal at 9.30pm. I doubt he was well enough to rehearse but he wanted to show willingness. He did nothing but watch a pyrotechnic show and discuss certain concepts, staying until 2am. That was typical of Michael: not wanting to let anyone down, not wanting to be perceived as a failure, not speaking up for himself when he had clearly felt cajoled into attending. As one person there told me: ‘He tried his best to fulfil his obligations, especially when he felt there would now be consequences if he didn’t step up.’

  Meanwhile, loyal fans who followed him everywhere had started to notice his deterioration, based on the briefest of meetings outside the rehearsal space. As one fan said in an email to Karen Faye: ‘I think there is something wrong with Michael’s health … I think he is at the point where something bad and regrettable could happen to him. Please help him.’

  What the fans couldn’t know was that people like Karen did not just speak up; they were heard forcibly pleading for something to be done. I know that someone went to Kenny Ortega and Frank Dileo, and asked for a doctor and a psychologist to be brought in. This person was assured everything was under control.

  On the final rehearsal day at the Forum, on Saturday 20 June, Kenny Ortega clearly did see something that concerned him when he visited Michael at home because one hour after he left, choreographer Travis Payne received a phone call from Kenny telling him to urgently get to the house, leaving his assistant in charge to do the run-through that day. Whatever happened and whatever was witnessed are known only to those who were present, but that same afternoon the musical director Michael Bearden made a bizarre announcement to dancers and crew on stage, telling them: ‘Everyone needs to pray for Michael and send him good wishes.’ This was four days before Michael died.

  Why would he say such a thing? And why – if we’re at the point of prayers and good wishes – would the tour continue? Yet the show apparently had to go on.

  And then, again bizarrely, everything changed on the final two days of rehearsals, the 23rd and 24th. Michael suddenly showed up at the Staples Center looking upbeat, sharp and reinvigorated. It was this version of my brother that the world saw during the This Is It movie because it was those last two days that were filmed and captured as the best rehearsal footage; the temporary two-day truth for the box office, not the horrible truth of the preceding weeks.

  Not that this sudden transformation was good enough for AEG. Instead, it kept up its pressure, posting a man in a suit inside Michael’s dressing room on 24 June. I cannot imagine how invasive this must have been on what would be the last full day of his life. Presumably, Randy Phillips wanted someone to keep an eye on Michael and maybe this was in the interests of his welfare, but Michael clearly detested this measure: he resorted to holding discussions in the bathroom, away from the stranger posted to monitor him.

  That last night of his life, rehearsals ran late because Michael was preoccupied in the ‘video world’ section, where he signed off on the visuals and computer images that would come up on the big screen behind him during concerts. Meanwhile, a whole bunch of men in suits turned up that night to watch the rehearsal. It seemed an odd formality to those who were there but pres
umably these were corporate clients who were AEG-related, coming to provide some kind of assessment which would have added further pressure on Michael.

  Once Michael was finished in the video world, he went to his dressing room and got prepared for a full dress rehearsal, which he carried out without a hitch, it seems, before he left the Staples Center at just after midnight on 25 June. One of the last people to speak with him that evening said: ‘Michael left looking forward to tomorrow. Apart from his obvious weight loss, there was no obvious sign of anything wrong those final two days and that was something his management, AEG and his inner circle would all agree on.’ Michael told people he’d be in the next day to work on his vocals – the last thing he needed to tie up before the show was ready for London and the tour’s new start date, 13 July. By then, he should have signed, sealed and delivered on his dream home in Vegas. I understand from people at rehearsals that after leaving the Staples Center, he was due to visit Tohme-Tohme to sign the papers. Tohme-Tohme was, apparently, holding the $15 million down-payment in a safe. I don’t know whether Michael went there as intended or simply straight home, but it might explain why his ex-manager was at the hospital the next day. It shows that Michael’s eyes were firmly on his future, should anyone suggest he was tempted to commit suicide.

  When Michael got home, he struggled to sleep, with Dr Murray at his side. Within the next 12 hours, he would be dead. He was found on the left side of the bed, where Dr Murray says he tried to carry out CPR. On the floor, near one of the bed’s feet, there was a tube of toothpaste and a string of wooden beads. His laptop and a pair of glasses were on the bedside table. There was also a urine sample in the room. Next to the bed, a tan sofa was, apparently, Dr Murray’s seat.