Secret diary of Michael Jackson
Dreams of immortalisation, huge riches and paranoia, astonishing entries in the...
MICHAEL Jackson was fixated on becoming “the first multi-billionaire entertainer-actor-director” shortly before his death, his diary reveals.
An explosive book tells how Jacko, 50, hoped to become a movie star as well as playing concerts in Las Vegas just months before his death in June 2009.
The musings show the performer grappling with his desperation to be “the greatest ever” and “immortalised”, like idols Charlie Chaplin and Walt Disney.
According to the diary, Jackson was hoping to earn $20million a week and listed opportunities including Cirque du Soleil concerts, a deal with athletics brand Nike and Hollywood films.
He had been weeks away from gigs at London’s O2 Arena before his death.
He planned to hire “a merchandising guy” and remake movie classics such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.
“If I don’t concentrate on film, no immortalisation,” he wrote. The journal also shows how the singer was trying to take back control of his assets and cut loose managers and advisers he felt were taking advantage.
“I want to sign all cheques over $5000 now. Hire an accountant I trust now and lawyer. I want to meet him,” he wrote.
Jacko was suspicious of his manager at the time, Tohme R Tohme, and didn’t want him “on plane or in my house”.
His physician, Dr Conrad Murray, who administered the sedatives that killed him, gets a mention. He wrote: “Conrad must practice now, I can’t be tired.”
At the time, Jackson was taking huge doses of painkillers that had no effect on him. He became so immune to his medication, he demanded to be dosed intravenously, which was a fatal mistake.
The book Bad: An Unprecedented Investigation into the Michael Jackson Cover-up was released in the US this
week. Author Dylan Howard pieced together how, by the early 1990s, he was reliant on anxiety meds, painkillers and sleeping pills.
By 1999 he was taking painkiller Demerol intravenously. Three years later he was slurping zombie cocktails of the drug mixed with wine.
Family and friends feared for his safety and many attributed his bizarre behaviour to his addiction, such as the time in 2010 when he dangled his baby son Blanket over the balcony of his fourth-storey Berlin hotel suite.
Photos taken in the LA house where he was living when he died show a pharmacy of medication, such as diazepam, lidocaine and Propofol.
Murray was paid $100,000 a month to obtain and administer his medication. At first the doctor secured “downers” including Xanax, Restoril, Ativan and Versed. Jackson racked up a $100,000 bill at a Beverly Hills pharmacy, and to prepare for his concerts in London’s O2 Arena he had his doctor buy 5000ml of sedative Propofol, which Jackson called “milk”.
It was enough to anaesthetise all the pre-op patients in a hospital for a week and it was this drug, administered intravenously, that killed him.
Darker ramblings in the diary show the sad star had become paranoid.
“I’m afraid someone is trying to kill me,” he scribbled. “Evil people everywhere. They want to destroy me and take my publishing company. The system wants to kill me for my catalogue… I’m not selling it.”
Howard says: “While the facts of Michael’s demise don’t add up to suicide, they certainly reveal overburdened man who slowly killed himself through drug use. “And those who surrounded him took advantage of his helplessness.” The book again raises questions about the singer’s relationship with boys. One video being touted for sale in Hollywood was seen by the author and shows Jackson and two boys playing weird games in his bedroom. In it the older boy is standing on his four-poster bed with his arms wrapped around a beam like a martyr on a cross. Jackson stands in front of him staring while the second child films. Jackson orders him down and the child hurls abuse and begins to pant and roll his eyes. Jackson then grabs the boy by his T-shirt. More swearing follows and the child pretends to spit on the pop star before Jackson walks away.
Howard admits he was unsettled by the video, saying: “The scene was worrying and baffling... the level of foul language and simulated abuse cannot be ignored. Although Michael and the kids were engaging in what was clearly over-the-top theatrics, their preferred subject matter was without a doubt age-inappropriate.
“Even if they were playing out some kind of intense-bordering-ondisgusting role play scene, the words and actions are inexcusable on a certain level but, much like Michael, they are not always what they seem.”
Howard documents how, in November 2003, Santa Barbara County Sheriff officers raided the star’s Neverland home after allegations he had abused children.
They confiscated computers, photographs, secret videotapes, pornographic magazines and medicaan tion. He says: “A multitude of books contained photos of children and young adults in varying stages of undress.
“Authorities believed material like that could have been used by Michael to desensitise kids.”
Police also reportedly seized a Disneyland bag that contained children’s clothes and bloodied linen.
Jackson was cleared of child abuse charges in 2005 but last year two alleged victims, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, appeared in Channel 4’s Leaving Neverland, claiming they were abused over several years.
■ Bad: An Unprecedented Investigation into the Michael Jackson Cover-up by Dylan Howard is published by Skyhorse Publishing in the UK next month, www. badthebook.com