In the years since Michael Jackson made his first national television appearance with his brothers at the age of 11, he has evolved from a singing and dancing soul music prodigy to the solf-proclaimed but widely acknowledged "King of Pop." As a musician, he has ranged from Motown's snappy dance fare and lush ballads to tachno-edged New Jack Swing to work that incorporates both funk rhythms and hard-rock guitar. At his early-'80s zenith, riding the crest of his best-selling album, Thriller, spotlit in his red zippered jacket and single white sequined glove, he was ubiquitous. A superb businessman, Jackson has exerted unparalleled control over his career and has, in effect, managed himself since he and his brothers (sans Jermaine) left Motown for Epic Records in 1975. As a singer, dancer, and writer, Jackson's talent is unassailable.
With the passage of time, however, and especially since 1993, it is Jackson's personality that has dominated headlines formerly dedicated to his prodigious artistic accomplishments and humanitarian efforts. His charity work was enormous and focused always on his highly publicized identification with children. Infatuated with Peter Pan and E.T., Jackson seemed a kind of childlike extraterrestrial : benign (if in an eerie way), either sexless or sexually ambiguous, neither black nor white. Secluded by his celebrity, he appeared to touch down to earth only on stage or videotape; fanatically private, he genereated endless gossip. In 1993, with Jackson facing allegations of child molestation, his career was rocked with scandal as gargantuan as his fame. Not since
Shirley Temple has a child star so entranced the American public and the massive public soul-searching the allegations against Jackson inspired were but one indication of the almost inestimable role he has played in shaping pop culture. Jackson returned to the tabloids in 1994 with the shocking announcement that he had wed Lisa Marie Presley, an act that led to even more speculation about his motives but which undeniably made him, until his divorce two years later, the son-in-law of the late
Elvis Presley.
The Jackson 5's lead singer and focal point, Michael became more popular than the group as the '80s began. He had a string of solo hits in the early '70s ("Got to Be There" [#4, 1971], "Rockin' Robin" [#2, 1972]; "Ben" [#1, 1972]) and played the Scarecrow in the film version of The Wiz in 1978. But it was with veteran producer Quincy Jones, whom he met while filming The Wiz, that Jackson began his amazing rise. In 1979 the team's Off the Wall made him the first solo artist to release four Top 10 hits from a single album, "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" (#1, 1979), "Rock With You" (#1, 1979), "Off the Wall" (#10, 1980), and "She's Out of My Life" (#10, 1980) presented him as a mature artist whose funk rhythms and pop melodies appealed equally to blacks and whites. In the album's wake, the Jacksons' Triumph sold a million copies and prompted a $5.5 million-grossing tour. Even at this early stage, Jackson and his brothers were exploring video, and the short film that accompanied this album's title track was an imaginative, technically advanced effort.
In 1982 Jackson and Jones collaborated on a storytelling record of Steven Spielberg's
E.T. The album, which was hastily withdrawn from the market due to a legal dispute, is now a prime Jackson collectable. That year, Diana Ross, one of Jackson's mentors, scored a #10 hit with Michael's "Muscles." Jackson had also begun an alliance with
Paul McCartney, who had written "Girlfriend" for Off the Wall. The two reconvened to cowrite the duet "The Girl Is Mine" (#2, 1982).
It was 1983 that marked Jackson's complete ascension. With Quincy Jones again producing, Thriller yielded, in addition to "The Girl Is Mine," two ten hit singles by early 1983 - "Billie Jean" (#1, 1983) and "Beat It" (#1, 1983) (with a guitar solo delivered by Eddie Van Halen) - and went on to become the best-selling album in history, with over 45 million copies sold worldwide. Charting at #1 in every Western country, it spent a record 37 weeks at U.S. #1. The first album ever to simultaneously head the singles and albums charts for both R&B and pop, it eventually generated an unprecendented seven Top 10 singles, including "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" (#10, 1983), "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" (#5, 1983), "Human Nature" (#7, 1983), and "Thriller" (#4, 1983). Of its record 12 Grammy nominations, it won eight in 1983, a historical sweep.
Thriller also broke through MTV's de facto color line, where videos by black artists had rarely been shown, Michael's self-choreographed "Beat It," costing $160,000, received extensive play. The "Thriller" video, with a voiceover by horror movie stalwart Vincent Price and state-of-the-art special effects, was directed by John Landis, establishing Jackson's practice of working with notable filmmakers. In May, performing solo and with his brothers on NBC's 25 Years of Motown special, Michael popularized his distinctive "Moonwalk" dance step, and, in performing "Billie Jean," was the only artist featured on the program whose repertoire included a non-Motown song. Later in 1983, while another duet with McCartney - "Say Say Say" from Paul's Pipes of Peace - topped the charts for six weeks, Jackson announced a $5 million sponsorship deal with Pepsi-Cola.
In 1984, while filming a Pepsi commercial Jackson was seriously injured when a pyrotechnic effect went awry, setting his hair on fire. The singer underwent surgery for scalp burns, he later received facial laser surgery. Rumors about other reconstructive work began shortly before the release of Thriller and would build in coming years. Among the procedures he has been rumored to have undergone are facelifts, a purported six nose surgeries, and the lightening of his skin with chemicals (it was also alleged that he took female hormones to maintain his falsetto).
After receiving a Presidential Award from
Ronald Reagan in June 1984, Jackson joined his brothers on a supporting tour for the Jacksons' Victory (from which Michael's duet with Mick Jagger, "State of Shock," reached #3). The highly publicized tour, which Jackson undertook reluctantly, was plagued by mismanagement (boxing promoter Don King was in charge, much to Jackson's displeasure, and his parents were coproducers), internal strife (at one point, several of the Jackson brothers, their parents, and numerous other parties had each retained their own lawyers), and general mismanagement (the method of selling tickets prompted a public outcry). A disillusioned Jackson donated his revenues to children's charities. Noenetheless, the shows were considered spectacular, brimming with high-tech special effects. Jackson ended the year by receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 1985 Jackson cowrote with Lionel Richie "We Are the World," the theme song for USA for Africa. It reached #1 and embellished Michael's reputation as a humanitarian. Jackson's relationship with Paul McCartney soured later that year as, bidding against both McCartney and Yoko Ono, he secured the ATV music publishing catalogue for $47.5 million: among ATV's holding, more than 250 Lennon/McCartney songs. (Jackson has long been known inside the industry for his almost encyclopedic command of the details of his business dealings.)
Shortly after signing a second contract with Pepsi in 1986 for $15 million, Jackson released Bad, the biggest-shipping album of all time, in 1987. Its 17-minute title track video was directed by Martin Scorsese. Bad generated five #1s in 1987-88: "Just Can't Stop Loving You," "Bad," "The Way You Make Me Feel," "Man in the Mirror," and "Dirty Diana." The Bad tour - over a year long - became the biggest-grossing tour in history and one of the most expensive (Jackson's entourage included 250 people).
With 1988 came Jackson's long-awaited, heavily illustrated, and brief autobiography, Moonwalk, in which he claimed that his father, Joseph Jackson, had hit him as a child. Generally, however, the book (edited by Jacqueline Onassis) was considered unrevealing. (A second volume of his writing, Dancing the Dream, was published in 1992 to less enthusiastic response.)
By the end of the '80s, Jackson had moved from the Encino, California, family home to Neverland, an estimated $28 million, 2700-acre California ranch complete with ferris wheel, an exotic menagerie, a movie theater, and a security staff of 40. There Jackson - famous for clean-living (he never smoked, drank, nor used frugs, and was rarely seen in the company of a woman) - hosted an endless series of parties for children, many of them disabled, critically ill, or under-privileged.
His popularity seemingly unassailable, Jackson signed a $28-million deal with L.A. Gear sportswear to be the spokesperson, but the idea proved a failure and Jackson was dropped after one commercial. At the start of the '90s, however, Jackson's popularity was massive enough to land him the biggest contract ever awarded an entertainer. Jackson signed a $65-million deal with Sony Corporation in 1991 that promised him an unprecedented share of the profits from his next six albums, his own record label, a role in developing video software products, and a chance to star in movies. Reportedly he would receive more than $120 million an album if each could match the sales of Thriller. Sony reported that it expected revenues of $1 billion from the partnership. By 1991, Jackson's celebrity status was unquestioned - he'd hosted Elizabeth Taylor's eighth wedding at Neverland and been publicly praised by such Hollywood establishment figures as Fred Astaire, Jane Fonda, and
Katharine Hepburn - and he seemed unstoppable.
In 1991, at a recording cost of $10 million, Dangerous was released. Coproduced by New Jack Swing creator Teddy Riley, the album featured material ("Heal the World," "Who is It") that recalled his work with Quincy Jones, with whom he had parted ways shortly after Bad. Riley, however, toughened and updated Jackson's sound, stripping off some of the smooth studio gloss of his previous works. With the $1.2 million video for the single "Black or White," Jackson demanded that MTV and Black Entertainment Television (BET) announce him as "the King of Pop" (a fact he would later deny in a live televised interview with
Oprah Winfrey). Hoping to outdistance Bad's over $20 million in sales, he prepared for a spectacular world tour. Also in 1992, he embarked on a five-nation African tour; there, however, he was widely criticized for his aloof behavior. That same year, with his personal fortune estimated at $200 million, Jackson established the Heal the World Foundation to raise awareness of children-related issues, including abuse.
With 1993 came Jackson's crisis. The year, however, began auspiciously. Appearing in January at the NAACP Image Awards, the American Music Awards, and the pre-Inaugural gala for President Bill Clinton, he also reached 91 million viewers in his half-time performance at Super Bowl XXVII, the most widely viewed, - and many said, boring - entertainment event in TV history. And he announced the start of a $1.25 million program to provide drug prevention and counseling services to L.A. children following that city's riots. In a February TV interview with a less than incisive Oprah Winfrey, he revealed that he suffered from vitiligo, a disease he maintained discolored his skin, and that he was a victim of abuse at the hands of his father, Joseph. He tried to dispel such long-standing tabloid rumors as the one that he once tried to buy the bones of the Elephant Man or had slept in a hyperbaric chamber. He also said that he was dating movie actress Brooke Shields, who had been a companion during the Thriller period. The interview was one of the most-watched television programs in history. In March he formed Michael Jackson Productions Inc., an independent film company that would give a share of its profits to his Heal the World Foundation. In June he debuted his MJJ/Epic record label, releasing the Free Willy soundtrack.
But scandal erupted on August 17 when a Beverly Hills psychiatrist approached the L.A. Police after a 13-year-old patient claimed that Jackson had fondled him. Later, specific charges brought by the boy's father claimed that Jackson had sexually abused the boy at his house earlier in the year. After the father obtained a ruling to deny Jackson contact with the son, the police raided Neverland, seizing videotapes and other possible evidence (nothing incriminating turned up). While traveling to Bangkok for the Dangerous tour, Jackson denied the charges, his security consultant maintaining that the boy's father had attempted to extort $20 million to start a production company (he added that Jackson received at least 25 such extortion threats a year). With Pepsi supporting him and his retinue denying a suicide attempt, Jackson turned 35 at the end of August. Shortly thereafter, Jackson canceled his second Singapore show, claiming migraine headaches.
In September Jackson's sister, La Toya, reported that he used to spend the night with young boys in his room, and two former employees, who maintained that Jackson owed them $500,000 in wages, asserted that they'd witnessed Jackson's sexual involvement with several young boys. Jackson then pulled out of a deal to contribute the title track to the movie Addams Family Values. After Jackson's alleged victim filed a civil suit for seduction and sex abuse, the singer canceled the rest of the Dangerous tour, maintaining that pressure from the charges had left him addicted to painkillers. Pepsi then ended its 10-year partnership with the star. In November five former Neverland guards sued Jackson for firing them, allegedly because they knew about his relationships with minors. Toward the end of the year, business continued, with Sony announcing that Dangerous sales had topped 20 million and Jackson signing a $70-million, five-year deal with EMI Music to administer his ATV catalogue. But in December, back in the U.S., Jackson in a four-minute cable TV broadcast confronted his accusers and decried the extensive examination of his body that the police had conducted as part of their investigation.
On January 25, 1994, lawyers for Jackson and the alleged victim announced a private settlement of the boy's case, despite the fact that Jackson resolutely continued to deny wrongdoing. While terms were not disclosed, estimates of Jackson's payment reached as high as $26 million. One day earlier, following a criminal investigation into Jackson's claims that the boy's father was part of an extortion plot against him, the D.A. declined to file charges. The L.S. district attorney also investigated the claims of a second boy that Jackson had shared a bed with him, even while the boy alleged no impropriety on the singer's part. The district attorney, also finding no evidence of wrongdoing, concluded the investigation. In August a statement issued by MJJ Productions verified two months of rumors that Jackson had married 26-year-old Lisa Marie Presley, who had been estranged from her husband, with whom she had two children.
Jackson and his bride appeared on television with Diane Sawyer to discuss the marriage. It would be a short-lived one, as the couple divorced in 1996. Jackson later married Debbie Rowe, a nurse he'd met in the early '80s when undergoing treatment for vitiligo. A boy, Prince, and a girl, Paris, resulted from the union.
In 1995, ushered in with a $30-million marketing campaign, the largest in history, Jackson's HIStory, a double-album of hits and new material, was released. Featuring "Scream," a duet with his sister
Janet, the album dropped out of the Top 10 after only a few weeks. The song "They Don't Care About Us" including the lyric "Jew me/sue me" provoked charges of anti-Semitism even from such stalwart Jackson supporters as Steven Spielberg. In 1997 a followup, Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix (#24), also fared poorly (by Jackson's admittedly remarkable standards).
In 1997 Jackson was found innocent by Milanese authorities of plagiarism for his song "Will You Be There" (from Dangerous and used in the film Free Willy). Italian singer/songwriter Albano Carrisi had accused Jackson of copying his 1986 song "I Cigni Di Balaka." In 1999, after several appeals courts had continued to rule in Jackson's favor, a criminal court in Rome found Jackson guilty of plagiarism, but the approximately $3,000 fine was suspended. Since then, Jackson's lawyers have appealed the ruling in an attempt to remove the judgment against him. Jackson was slated to star as the famed writer in a film entitled The Nightmares of Edgar Allan Poe, and was reportedly working on a new album. Also, in England, he enjoyed a kind of vicarious revivial, with British dance-music artists recording a number of hits featuring Jackson samples.
Six years after his last studio album and after spending much of the late 1990s out of the public eye, Jackson released Invincible in October 2001 to much anticipation. To help promote the album, a special 30th Anniversary celebration at Madison Square Garden occurred in September 2001 to mark the singer's 30th year as a solo artist. Jackson appeared onstage alongside his brothers for the first time since 1984. The show also featured performances by Mýa,
Usher,
Whitney Houston, 'N Sync, and Slash, among other artists. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Jackson helped organize the United We Stand: What More Can I Give benefit concert at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. The concert was aired on October 21, 2001, and included performances from dozens of major artists, including Jackson, who performed his song "What More Can I Give" as the finale. Invincible was a commercial success, debuting atop the charts in 13 countries and going on to sell approximately 10 million copies worldwide. It received double-platinum certification in the US. However, the sales for Invincible were notably low compared to his previous releases, due in part to a diminishing pop music industry, the lack of promotion, no supporting world tour and the label dispute. The album spawned three singles, "You Rock My World", "Cry" and "Butterflies", the latter without a music video.
Jackson's third child, Prince Michael Jackson II (also known as Blanket) was born in 2002. The mother's identity was never released by Jackson, but he has said the child was the result of artificial insemination from a surrogate mother and his own sperm cells. In November of that year, Jackson brought his newborn son onto the balcony of his hotel room in Berlin, as fans stood below. Holding him in his right arm, with a cloth loosely draped over the baby's face, Jackson briefly extended the baby over the railing of the balcony, four stories above ground level, causing widespread criticism in the media. Jackson later apologized for the incident, calling it "a terrible mistake".
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Thriller, Jackson issued Thriller 25, comprising original material from the album, re-mixes, the previously unreleased song "For All Time" and a DVD. Two singles were released to moderate success: "The Girl Is Mine 2008" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' 2008". Thriller 25 was a commercial success, having done particularly well as a re-issue, peaking at number one in eight countries and Europe. It reached number three in the UK and top 10 on over 30 national charts. It was ineligible for the Billboard 200 chart as a re-release, but entered atop the Pop Catalog chart, where it stayed for 11 non-consecutive weeks and had the best sales on that chart since December 1996. In 12 weeks Thriller 25 sold over three million copies worldwide. As of November 2008, U.S. sales of Thriller 25 stood at 688,000 copies, making it the best-selling catalog album of 2008. To date, it sold 774,000 copies in the US.
To celebrate Jackson's 50th birthday, Sony BMG released a compilation album called King of Pop in various countries. These albums included tracks from Jackson's group and solo career, all voted for by fans. The albums had different tracklists, according to how the fans of each nation voted. Although it was not released in the US, King of Pop did reach the top 10 in the vast majority of countries where it was issued. It also charted in other countries, albeit lower, from imported sales.
Fortress Investments considered a foreclosure sale of Neverland Ranch to service a loan Jackson owed on the property, but ultimately sold the loan to Colony Capital LLC. In November, Jackson transferred the title of Neverland Ranch to Sycamore Valley Ranch Company LLC. At the time of his death, Jackson still owned an unknown stake in the property; Sycamore Valley Ranch was a joint venture between Jackson and Colony Capital LLC. The loan Jackson owed was cleared, and he acquired $35 million in the venture.
Jackson had been scheduled to perform 50 sold-out concerts to over one million people, at London's O2 arena, from July 13, 2009, to March 6, 2010. Following this residency, Jackson also planned to tour Europe, Asia, Australia and North America. During a publicity press conference, he had made suggestions of possible retirement. Randy Phillips, president and chief executive of AEG Live, had stated that the first 10 dates alone would have earned the singer approximately £50 million. Phillips said that the promotion company had a three-and-a-half year plan to work with Jackson, including a possible world tour, the release of new music and a 3D film based on Thriller.
Jackson made a music video, currently known as "Dome Project", in early June 2009. The video is scheduled to finish post-production in mid-July 2009.
On June 25, 2009, Jackson collapsed at his rented mansion at 100 North Carolwood Drive in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles. Attempts at resuscitating him by his personal physician were unsuccessful. Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics received a 911 call at 12:22 p.m. (PDT), arriving three minutes and seventeen seconds later at Jackson's location. He was reportedly not breathing and CPR was performed. Resuscitation efforts continued both en route to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, and for an hour further after arriving at approximately 1:13 p.m. (20:13 UTC). He was noted to have been in cardiac arrest by the paramedics who attended him at his house. Jackson was pronounced dead at approximately 2:25 p.m. local time (21:25 UTC). Rumors and news of Jackson's death broke web records, triggering a cyberspace traffic jam and creating severe traffic spikes to websites such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia. Vigils were held by members of the general public after the death.
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