Rick Chandler
Mar 16, 2011, 11:36 AM EDT
1 Comment
People stand in front of a 12-metre-high statue of late pop icon Michael Jackson in Regensdorf near Zurich
If you know me, then you know I think there aren’t enough statues of pop icons near Premiere League soccer stadiums. Fulham F.C. in London has taken steps to remedy this, announcing today that they will plop a statue of Michael Jackson at Craven Cottage on April 3. The unveiling is at noon, to be exact. Bring he kids and a sack lunch and make a day of it.
This was all the idea of Fulham’s chairman, Mohamed Al Fayed, noted Egyptian businessman and publicity hound. Al Fayed first invited Jackson to watch a game at Fulham in 1999. He said he felt an affinity for the pop star, and the two remained friends until Jackson’s death in 2009.
The statue was originally planned to be erected outside Harrods in London, which Al Fayed also owned. But following its sale last year, the site was switched to a spot adjacent to the Riverside and Hammersmith Stands at the Fulham stadium.
“Michael Jackson was truly a legend, a term used too often in this modern world saturated in the hyperbole surrounding celebrity,” said Fayed.
“He was my friend, a man with whom I shared many happy memories and who died a tragic and untimely death. He left behind a legacy of music so vast it takes one’s breath away; from a precocious talent to an ingenuity and ground breaking modernity that shall never be repeated.”
Technically though, you wouldn’t use the past tense here, would you? “Michael Jackson was truly a legend” means that he no longer is. Correct: “Michael Jackson is truly a legend,” or “You’ve gone way overboard with the plastic surgery, Rupert” (pick one
