How Michael travels with his son, Blanket Jackson
Today, fallen star, Michael Jackson is renting a house in Las Vegas, ruined by scandal, his millions squandered on a lavish lifestyle despite increasingly poor album sales. After being found innocent of charges of child molestation in 2005, he spent nearly two years wandering the globe, where he was seen in a women’s public lavatory in Dubai in full drag, complete with a waist bracelet.
His downfall began in 1992 when he befriended the 12-year-old Jordy Chandler. He moved into the Chandler home so he could be near his young friend. After allegations of molestation went public in 1993, there was a $22 million dollar settlement, which, if anything, increased Jackson’s feeling of invincibility. His egomania reached a peak when a giant statue of himself sailed down the Thames to promote the album HIStory in 1995.
His career was further damaged when his obsession with his detractors took over his life: in 1997 he made a disturbing short feature film, Ghosts, in which he assumed the role of the overweight, white, fiftysomething District Attorney intent on prosecuting him for being a pedophile. His 2005 court case also took its toll.
As one onlooker put it: “He smelt of mothballs, of death.”
He might be poised to make a comeback in Vegas, but Jackson will never resume his position as the King of Pop, not even with the forthcoming 25th anniversary reissue of the 47-million-selling Thriller, with its four unreleased tracks and Kanye West and Will.I.Am. remixes.
