After a chance meeting as a young fan, Stacy Brown became friends with the bizarre family of Michael Jackson. For 25 years, he hung out at their Hayvenhurst estate in Encino, Calif., and even ghostwrote their memoirs. He previously wrote about Katherine Jackson’s letters to her son and Jermaine’s jealousy of Michael. In the final entry from his three-part series about life with the Jacksons, he talks about how Michael loomed over — and sabotaged — so much of his family’s plans.
Just before Michael Jackson’s 2001 concerts at Madison Square Garden to celebrate 30 years in show business, Jacko and Jermaine engaged in one of their bitter battles.
Jermaine criticized Michael for high ticket prices and for excluding certain acts. Jacko told Jermaine to beat it — he was off the show.
Jermaine and Michael’s parents, Katherine and Joseph, drove the two-and-a-half hours from Encino to Neverland to resolve the dispute. They were stopped at the gate.
“Mother is tired, she needs water and she has to use the bathroom and Michael has ordered security not to let us in,” Jermaine said over the phone. He had called hoping someone could appeal to Michael’s people.
The standoff went on for two hours.
Finally, Jacko sent word — his mother could use the bathroom in the first guest house, but that was it. They had to be on their way.
“He won’t see us. His own mother,” Joseph protested. “He probably is on those drugs. Or something.”
Life at Neverland
What drugs, what something, no one knew — Michael Jackson was a mystery even to his family.
They had attempted no less than a half-dozen interventions, with no luck. Three months after the 2001 concerts, at a hotel in New York, Janet, Randy, and others attempted to rid him of dependence.
“Leave me alone, mind your business, I’ll be dead in one year anyway,” Jacko told them.
Michael had cut them off, one by one. He preferred to stay locked inside his rooms, watching the world through cameras.
My family and I were invited to stay at Neverland once, in 1997, and over four days we never saw Michael. But I’m sure he saw us.
Michael made all guests at Neverland, including his family, sign waivers every time they visited. The waivers allowed Michael to eavesdrop on telephone calls, videotape comings and goings and simply spy on those on the grounds.
Jackson siblings warned me to cover my bedroom and bathroom walls with sheets because you likely were being filmed, even if you were naked.
For some, Neverland was the ultimate paradise. It’s a ranch with several buildings, including a main house, Indian Tee-Pees, an amusement park, a state-of-the-art movie theater that houses a collection of films to make any public or private theater owner jealous, and a library with a collection of more than 10,000 books.
To others, though, Neverland is an enormously expensive lure for unsuspecting child victims, the ultimate candy from a stranger.
There was a specialized alarm system that sounded anytime anyone went near Jacko’s bedroom. We’d sometimes test it and, sure enough, a security guard would come inside to make sure that no one was near the quarters.
The zoo on the property rivaled those in the Bronx, Baltimore and other places. “Pet the lion, its OK, Stacy,” Jacko said to me on another visit. I refused.
From time to time, snakes would slither across the grass, frightening horse drawn carriages. A ride on a golf cart and passed the zoo had to be met with caution, particularly when passing cages that contained Patrick the orangutan, who replaced the famous Bubbles the chimp, and whose displeasure for strangers was evident in his spitting about 40 yards at those who would come into his view.
Sabotaging the Family
Despite his isolation, Michael maintained his control over the family.
At one point he demanded that sister Janet, who had become almost as famous as him, stop using their surname. He wanted to be the only superstar named Jackson.
Other family members protested that Michael derailed their careers.
“That’s the problem I have with him,” Jermaine said. “OK, so he doesn’t want to do anything with us, but he doesn’t’ want us to make our own money, either. He wants us to depend upon him to provide and we’re adults.”
Rebbie, whom Michael had gifted her only hit, the 1985 single “Centipede,” also was stifled by her little brother. When she recorded her most recent album, 1997’s “Yours Faithfully,” she admitted to making a big mistake. “I did it for Michael’s label,” she told me.
Rebbie had done a lot press in support of the CD, which included the duet, “Fly Away,” with Jacko. She appeared on Regis and Kathy Lee, BET and other shows. After the first single was released, the CD disappeared from stores.
She alleged that Michael campaigned to kill the careers of his family members, even paying off A&R and radio executives to not play his brother’s and sister’s music.
“Michael did it again, he dangles the carrot and we’re supposed to jump,” Rebbie said.
It wasn’t that Michael couldn’t be generous. When Rebbie and her husband Nathaniel wanted to buy a house in Las Vegas, Jackson ponied up $100,000 towards the $300,000-plus price tag.
But even that seemed to have an ulterior motive.
Michael had become aware that Grace Rwarmba, the children’s nanny had been visiting Rebbie in Vegas and she had expressed concerns over Jacko’s drug dependency. Jacko’s divorce from Lisa Marie Presley was also, in part, because Presley had sought advice from Rebbie about Jacko, something Jacko detested.
“Don’t go to my family for anything, stay away from them,” he ordered Presley.
Remoras on Jacko
Jackson’s paranoia grew over the years. He thought his siblings were plotting together. He was convinced his ideas were being stolen, even by Steven Spielberg.
“Look at the logo for Neverland,” he told me once. “It’s the little boy in the moon with a fishing pole. Now, look at what those Jews have for DreamWorks. A boy inside the moon, fishing!”
As for his belief that people were out to get him, well authorities were — because of the increasingly compelling accusations of molestation.
I had ghost-written a book with Bob Jones, Michael’s long-time publicist, called “The Man Behind the Mask,” which detailed Jones disgust at much of what he witnessed.
Jones, who is gay, told me angrily: “When I’m horny, I call another man. When King Michael gets horny, he’s on the phone with some little boy.”
During the 2005 trial, I was called as a witness for the prosecution, to back up some of the things Jones said.
Michael approached me before I testified and handed me a Bible. “Stacy, is this yours?” he said, pretending I had somehow dropped it on the ground. I just wished him well.
Most of the family didn’t care if Michael was guilty or innocent. They just worried about two things: the collapsing Jackson legacy and the money Michael would lose if he went to prison.
They defended him to the end, even those who suspected, because the Jacksons were dependent on him — a situation he encouraged. He owned the Encino estate; he funded, or more often refused to fund, their tours.
Over the years, I have written about the Jacksons, but many continued to talk to me — because they so often did not talk to each other.
In December 2005, several family members called me, worried about rumors that Michael had died of a drug overdose in Bahrain. Four years later, they called me again. “Is it really true this time?” Rebbie asked. Yes, I said. She put her husband on the phone.
“He probably had a needle in his arm,” Nathaniel said. “That selfish jerk.”