A virtual family reunion
Michael Jackson’s brothers are considering an offer to revive The Jackson 5 alongside a hologram of their deceased sibling.
Tito, Jackie, Marlon and Jermaine still tour as The Jacksons, and were trying to get Michael to join and reunite the family band’s original five-piece lineup when he died in 2009.
Now, Tito has revealed the brothers hope technology will allow them to perform alongside him again, almost a decade after he died.
“We’ve thrown the hologram idea around and we’ve considered it,” he said. “We’ve been offered a hologram of MJ (Michael) to have with us, so there’s really a great possibility of us featuring that.”
Michael already appears as a hologram in Las Vegas, where the Michael Jackson ONE show, a joint venture between Cirque du Soleil and his estate, opened at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in 2013.
We’ve been offered a hologram of MJ (Michael) to have with us, so there’s really a great possibility of us featuring that.
That depiction of Michael shows him at the height of his solo career in the 1980s, but Daily Express editors report his brothers’ plans would show him in his younger days as a member of the family singing group.
Other artists who have appeared as holograms after their deaths include Tupac Shakur, Roy Orbison and rocker Ronnie James Dio.
The members of ABBA are very much alive but no longer perform together, and are planning a hologram tour next year.
Michael formally left the band after its 1984 album Victory — by then he had become the world’s most popular solo artist.
But his later years were troubled and he was acquitted of child abuse after a 2003 trial. He died at the age of 50 after suffering heart failure brought on by an acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication.
Michael’s personal physician, Conrad Murray, was convicted in 2011 of involuntary manslaughter in the death.