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 | La Toya Jackson blasts brother’s aides July 13: In an interview with two London tabloids, Michael Jackson’s sister La Toya reportedly says the pop star’s own entourage “murdered” him out of greed. NBC’s Jeff Rossen reports. Today show |
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Behind the scenes, Jackson’s mental and physical health was rapidly deteriorating. According to a member of his household staff, he was “terrified” at the prospect of the London concerts:
He wasn’t eating, he wasn’t sleeping and when he did sleep, he had nightmares that he was going to be murdered. He was deeply worried that he was going to disappoint his fans. He even said something that made me briefly think he was suicidal. He said he was worried that he was going to end up like Elvis. He was always comparing himself to Elvis as long as I knew him, but there was something in his tone that made me think that he wanted to die, he was tired of life. He gave up. His voice and dance moves weren't there anymore. I think maybe he wanted to die rather than embarrassing himself onstage.
The most obvious comparison between the King of Pop and the King of Rock and Roll was their all-consuming prescription drug habit, which in Jackson’s case had significantly intensified in his final months and is almost certain to be a factor in his death when the autopsy results come in. “He is surrounded by enablers,” said one aide who labeled himself in this category two months before his death. “We should be stopping him before he kills himself, but we just sit by and watch him medicate himself into oblivion.”
Like his long-time idol, Elvis, Jackson could count on an array of doctors to write him prescriptions on a whim with little regard to medical necessity, though Jackson would always cite "pain" as the basis for his drug-taking, which also provided the enabling physicians an excuse not to ask too many questions. Among the many drugs for which he developed a fondness in recent years was OxyContin, often nicknamed "Hillbilly Heroin.” It had become quite fashionable among musicians and Hollywood stars for its instantaneous and powerful high. But, although members of his entourage witnessed Jackson receiving injections from doctors on a regular basis, they all insisted that the singer never used heroin itself or any other illegal drugs.
"He always had a prescription or a doctor giving him what he wanted," said a member of his staff who witnessed Jackson's long-standing addiction escalate since the Arvizo trial. "As far as I know the drugs were always legal, unfortunately."
In fact, in late 2003, shortly after he appeared on 60 Minutes to discuss the Arvizo scandal, Jackson overdosed on prescription drugs and had to be revived by a doctor who had been treating his brother, Randy. The doctor was summoned to Michael's rented Beverly Hills home in the middle of the night. After the doctor revived him, he advised that Jackson should enter a rehab clinic to treat his addiction, advice the singer ignored. On other occasions, the children's nanny, Grace Rwaramba, reportedly had to pump Jackson's stomach on a number of occasions after he took an excessive amount of drugs.
According to the aide, painkillers aren’t the only drugs that Jackson took on a regular basis. “He pops Demerol and morphine, sure, apparently going back to the time when he burned himself during the Pepsi commercial, but there’s also some kind of psychiatric medication, anti-anxiety or something like that. One of his brothers once told me that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was younger, so it may be to treat that.”
His aides apparently weren’t the only ones who recognized that the prospect of a 50-concert run was foolhardy. In May, Jackson himself reportedly addressed a group of fans as he left his Burbank rehearsal studio. “Thank you for your love and support,” he told them. “I want you guys to know I love you very much. I don't know how I'm going to do 50 shows. I'm not a big eater. I need to put some weight on. I’m really angry with them booking me up to do 50 shows. I only wanted to do 10.” One of his former employees was particularly struck by Jackson’s wording that day: “The way he was talking, it’s like he’s not in control over his own life anymore,” she told me in early June. “It sounds like somebody else is pulling his strings and telling him what to do. Someone wants him dead. They keep feeding him pills like candy. They are trying to push him over the edge. He needs serious help. The people around him will kill him.”
"It's like he was being kept away from his family," said an aide. "His family used to be the only people he could trust and I know for a fact that they were very concerned with his health, but it's like he was being kept isolated from them. I think he spoke to his mother occasionally on the phone, but his brothers were being kept at a distance. I think if they had been around and seen what Michael had been reduced to, they would have put a stop to the concerts. Maybe that's why they were being kept away." He revealed that various members of the Nation of Islam seemed to be in control of the singer's affairs and kept a very tight grip over Jackson's every move:
They were scary people, very intimidating. I'm not sure why Michael was so in thrall to the Nation. There were rumors that he had secretly converted to Islam and that he was one of them, but I never saw him praying to Mecca. His brother Jermaine was a devout Muslim, but I never saw any sign that Michael himself had converted. Yet the Nation of Islam seemed to be controlling his life. We couldn't figure it out.
The above echoes charges made by Jackson’s former close friend and publicist, Stuart Backerman, who left the singer’s employ in 2004 after the Nation first entered Jackson’s domain. “They basically took over Michael’s business and isolated everybody,” Backerman complained. As the first London concerts approached, something was clearly wrong. Jackson had vowed to travel to the UK in order to obtain a house and acclimatize himself at least eight weeks before his 50-show residency, but he kept putting it off. First, he said he was worried about Swine Flu. Then, when that abated, a new series of excuses followed. Few who knew him were buying it. "For some reason, he didn't want to leave for England," stated one aide. "The bigwigs were getting nervous that he was going to back out of the London concerts." “To be honest, I never thought Michael would set foot on a concert stage ever again,” said another aide, choking back tears on the evening of his death. “This was not only predictable, this was inevitable.”
Excerpted from "Unmasked" by Ian Halperin. Copyright (c) 2009, reprinted with permission from Simon & Schuster.
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