Regards, Ivan
Posted on 06/13/2005 10:25:51 PM PDT by MadIvan
OF ALL the incredible pieces of evidence emerging from the California courtroom, none was perhaps as genuinely startling as the threadbare state of the singer's finances.
Put simply, Michael Jackson, once among the pop world's royalty, appeared far closer to pauper than prince than anyone realised.
During the trial, it emerged that at one point in February 2003, Jackson had just over £20,000 in the bank while his debts amounted to nearly £160 million.
Accountant John O'Bryan was asked by prosecutors to study Jackson's financial records between 1999 and 2004. The upshot was that between 1999 and 2003 the star was spending up to £15 million a year more than he was earning.
Jackson was the victim of "an ongoing cash crisis simply because there was not enough cash to pay bills", revealed Mr O'Bryan.
The pop industry is littered with cases of performers who, badly managed, ended their careers with no personal wealth and huge bills owing to the taxman.
But this, after all, was the overdraft of one of the most famous men on the planet. How can the man who made Thriller, who sold 100 million records and who has made millions from the rights to a string of Beatles hits be in financial trouble?
Like any artist or ordinary Joe Bloggs, Jackson's wealth is calculated on his assets. In Jackson's case, there are three main sources of money - the rights to his own songs, called the Mijac catalogue, his half-share in the Sony/ATV song catalogue which numbers nearly all of the Beatles' hits, and his Neverland ranch.
A snapshot of Jackson's finances in June 2002 revealed these assets being worth £68 million while he had debts of just under £220 million. These assets were listed at their cost value, not their market rate, so in effect were worth more.
But the pattern of bad financial management has remained one of the recurring themes throughout Jackson's unstable personal life - he spends more than he earns.
And that is some feat considering the eye-watering sums his investments bring in. Jackson bought the Beatles' song catalogue for £26.1 million in 1985, a musical treasure trove which includes 250 songs. In 1995, he sold half of that stake to Sony. The Sony/ATV catalogue, which also includes some Elvis Presley songs, generates anything up to £40 million a year in royalties. Jackson's own songs in Mijac also generate royalties, though with an absence of hits in recent years, that value has fallen.
Jackson used his stake in the Beatles' goldmine as collateral to borrow around £110 million from the Bank of America in 2001. The court was told that loan and other charges meant Jackson now owes the bank £129 million.
Jackson could, of course, simply sell his share in the Beatles songbook and the rights to his own songs. But he would incur large tax liabilities for doing so and, at a stroke, remove his principal source of income.
His daily expenses border on the baroque. Or, to quote prosecuting lawyer Gordon Auchincloss: "Michael Jackson has a billionaire's spending habit but a millionaire's budget."
Jackson is reportedly burning through £1.1 million a month to maintain Neverland and up to 100 personal employees on his payroll. That outlay is just to stand still, before taking account of the singer's taste for travel and shopping splurges.
His court costs were apparently unending. They kicked off spectacularly in 1993 when Jackson paid teenager Jordy Chandler a reported £14 million to stop child abuse allegations going to court. Jackson pays top dollar for leading lawyers, and his three in Santa Maria are said to be on retainers of more than £1 million each.
The expenditure underlines the fact it is a long way down from the pinnacle of pop success in 1982 when Jackson released the Thriller album, which went on to sell 47 million copies, won seven Grammy Awards and established the singer's place in popular history.
The albums Bad (1987) and Dangerous (1991) sold well - if not as spectacularly as Thriller - but for much of the 1990s, the morass of allegations about his private life appeared to have taken his mind off the job of releasing successful pop records. The 1995 double-disc set HISstory was mauled by critics and achieved lacklustre sales.
Jackson released the album Invincible in 2001 - his first collection of original material in nearly a decade - which cost £21 million to make. Unfortunately for Jackson, the album sold only two million copies, his fans now either growing up or becoming disillusioned as the singer became better known for lurid allegations about his private life than his music.
The usual drivers of a pop career are completely absent in Jackson's case. There are no new records and no money-spinning tours to promote the releases and make huge margins from T-shirts and other merchandise.
Jackson's comeback appearance at New York's Madison Square Gardens in 2001 was sarcastically dubbed "Michael Aid", and some fans greeted him with a slow handclap.
UK record industry experts believe Jackson's career was, ironically enough, beginning to revive, with a greatest hits compilation in November 2003 when the Martin Bashir documentary appeared.
Artists like Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake were beginning to reference Jackson as an influence, arguably rehabilitating him for an audience which either didn't remember his heyday or knew only of the sleazy headlines swirling around him.
However, as the controversy showed no signs of receding, Sony, his record label, was seen as reluctant to back his records with major TV marketing.
The music giant HMV said sales of Jackson's classic back catalogue were "ticking over", driven by regular inclusion in the three-for-£20 types of offers common in many record shops.
A spokesman for the chain, Gennaro Castaldo, said before the verdict: "UK music-buyers seem able to differentiate between Jackson the artist, who has produced these brilliant records, and Jackson the man they see facing charges. They are less likely to jump to extremes than an American audience.
"Jackson's career problem has been that he is 46 and can't pretend to be an 18-year-old any more. His 1980s contemporaries like Madonna and Bruce Springsteen seemed to be able to reinvent themselves, but Jackson hasn't."
Perhaps one of the most succinct descriptions of Jackson's career came from the unlikely source of business magazine Forbes in 2003, when it dubbed the singer "a franchise in decline".
For Jackson the fallen star, it is unlikely there can ever be business as usual again.
Troubled singer dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct with boys for more than a decade
• 1993 - A civil lawsuit is filed claiming that Jackson sexually molested 13-year-old Jordan Chandler. Evidence is gathered, but the singer agrees to pay an undisclosed sum to settle the case before it goes to court.
• May 1994 - Jackson marries Lisa Marie Presley - daughter of Elvis. The union lasted 19 months.
• September 1994 - Santa Barbara District Attorney, Tom Sneddon, says two other boys had also claimed they were abused by Jackson, but neither would testify against him.
• 1996 - Jackson marries second wife, 37-year-old Debbie Rowe.
• 1999 - Rowe files for divorce, leaving him with custody of their son and daughter, Prince Michael jnr and Paris Michael Katherine.
• August 2002 - It emerges that Jackson has a third child, Prince Michael II, born to a mystery surrogate mother six months previously.
• November 2002 - The singer admits making a "terrible mistake" after dangling Prince Michael II from a fifth-floor balcony in Berlin.
• February 3, 2003 - Living With Michael Jackson, a documentary by Martin Bashir is aired. In it the singer confesses to sleeping in the same bed as other people's children, adding: "It's very loving. What's wrong with sharing a love?"
• February 12, 2003 - Jackson retaliates to what he sees as the documentary's unfair portrayal by releasing a video taken behind the scenes by his own cameramen.
• November 2003 - More than 70 officers descend on Jackson's Neverland ranch hunting for evidence that he had sex with 13-year-old cancer sufferer Gavin Arvizo. The singer is arrested on suspicion of committing "lewd or lascivious acts" with a child under 14.
• December 2003 - Sneddon announces that Jackson has been charged with seven accounts of child molestation and two counts of administering an intoxicating alcohol to a child for the purpose of committing a felony.
• January 2004 - The singer formally enters not guilty pleas at a court in Santa Maria.
• April 2004 - A Santa Barbara grand jury decides Jackson should stand trial on a total of ten charges.
• September 2004 - Further allegations surface that Jackson paid over £1 million to another young boy who claimed he was molested in 1993.
• January 31, 2005 - Jury selection begins in Santa Maria.
• February 15, 2005 - Jackson is rushed to hospital suffering from flu, and the trial is put back for a week.
• February 28 - Trial gets under way. Opening the prosecution case, Mr Sneddon says Jackson "manipulated and exploited" Arvizo.
• May 11 - Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin rejects any suggestion he was molested by the star.
• May 24 - Comedian Jay Leno tells the jury he was suspicious of the singer's accuser when they spoke on the phone.
• June 3 - Jurors start considering their verdicts.
• June 13 - Jackson cleared.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
He's "not guilty," Fergus. There's a difference between that and "innocent."
Time will tell.
Considering his sexual preferences, the moniker "fairy tale" is apt.
Regards, Ivan
And interesting choice of words.
Given certain situations, I try to choose words to fit the topic. Some, as in this case, are just too easy.
He will be back on top.
The music industry glorifies this stuff.
I'll grant you that.
Bart.
He can always be the headlining entertainment for NAMBLA conventions. Yuck!
Ok, we'll remember that if you are ever found "non-guilty" in a court of law.
"OF ALL the incredible pieces of evidence emerging from the California courtroom, none was perhaps as genuinely startling as the threadbare state of the singer's finances."
And I'm at a total loss as to what evidentiary value the dunce prosecutor felt this added to his case.
They followed the "rule of law" to the letter of it!!! They had their instructions from the judge and they followed them precisely!!!
Well the perv does say he's "Peter Pan". Is that not a fairy?
Very true.
I think he can rebound.
Jackson's attorney Tom Mesereau: "Neverland are belong to me now."
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