ENROLLING DR. ARNIE KLEIN'S HELP & RELOCATING AGAIN: By now MJ has everything thoroughly planned. JL –who has already perfected his impersonator skills in terms of voice and gestures- only needs a few more cosmetic procedures to be a perfect MJ and there is only one doctor that has the ability and talent to do so: Dr. Arnie Klein. Although he's officially a dermatologist, his inner circle knows he can do some facial plastic surgery on the side for the right price, of course.
MJ rents a house in Los Angeles to be close to the Doctor he trusts the most and convinces AEG to carry out all audition, rehearsal and production in California.
Just for fun, he demands to train with The Hulk and they agree. Hehe!
For the most part, things are going great. But JL is getting a bit out of control demanding more and more pain medication. MJ doesn't have the heart to say no. After all, the man will be dying in his place. To keep a closer grip on things, MJ knows that at some point JL will move in with them and he has to make sure they won't be caught together in the same room or the hoax plan will go down the drain. He decides that the whole top floor of this house is off limits for the staff. Only he and his children will be allowed to go upstairs, no exceptions.
THE O2 PRESS CONFERENCE: I'll let you in on a little secret... IT WAS MICHAEL AT THE O2 PRESS CONFERENCE!!!
One thing is to plan a death hoax and another is to carry it out. For MJ the truth sank in on March 5th 2009. "This is really it" (I'm hoaxing my death) "This is it"... He couldn't believe the words that came out of his mouth.
He was sooooo nervous, he felt so weird. It actually was an out of body experience for him. He couldn't even speak like himself. The teleprompter was off (d*mn AEG and their sloppiness!) and all MJ could do was say "This is it" and hope that the wrong words didn't come out of his mouth next...
To make matters worse, AEG hired the worst photo and video editors in the world. They decided to Photoshop all the footage and pictures and ended with MJ looking like an impostor... ironic maybe?
50 CONCERTS? WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?: MJ and AEG had signed a contract for 30 something shows. They coyly advertised 10, just in case MJ had a lukewarm welcome from fans. When tickets sold in record time, AEG folks went bonkers. Even with their hasty work and amateur O2 announcement, MJ was selling tickets like in the Thriller era. They HAD to book more shows.
MJ loved the idea. He could make another Guinness record. He could beat Prince (the artist, not his son). But he had one worry. He didn't know if JL would last that long and that made him uneasy. He couldn't let him die at the hotel room while he was onstage. What if a hotel maid found him? It would be a scandal! Thus, with the excuse of not wanting to be hotel-bound for such a long period of time, he demanded AEG rented a house in London for him and his children. This way it'd be easier for him to hide and control JL.
By the way, let me tell you now that it was part of MJ's original plan to perform in London. He was to relocate in the UK from the end of June until JL died (hopefully giving him the chance to be at least halfway through his concerts dates). He figured that with the hassle involved in flying his dead body overseas there would be little interest in looking into the death itself, which after all was going to be from natural causes, so no police force would be involved.
Once "dead" he could lay low for a while in disguise all over the old continent (he has a lot of friends he can trust in several European countries) while the media went crazy over the landing of the body, the burial, the will... "OMG! The will, I forgot to update the will, I'm such a dork!" thought Michael. "Ok, I won't worry too much... When JL becomes really ill, I'll call some lawyers and pretend I'm exhausted and about to die and I'll ask them for help in updating my will because I feel my life slipping through my fingers"
In the meantime, Jack London was in more and more pain and sometimes behaving bizarrely. This wasn't something MJ could handle by himself anymore. To make matters worse, Dr. AK messed up a nose surgery on JL and had to rebuild the tip with part of his ear. Now JL had a mangled ear and the nose job wasn't looking great...
JL was falling apart. He needed close medical supervision. Where could MJ find a doctor willing to give up his practice to nurse a crazy dying man and not ask many questions?
CHANGES IN THE HOUSE: As we all know by now, Jack London is getting out of control. It's not the just gay-sexcapades that Ian Halperin later describes in his tell all book, but the increasing drug abuse, failing health and paranoia. He starts to tell people... "They are going to kill me, please help me".
MJ knows this is the time to move JL into his house full time. But nobody (or almost nobody) has to know JL is not MJ...
Around May 2009 he carries out these moves. He fires his staff, gets JL in the house, hires the staff back and tells them the whole top floor is off limits with absolutely no exceptions.
He knows he can't keep an eye on JL all the time on his own so he confides in one person: Alberto "Tippy" Alvarez, his personal bodyguard. Bodyguards are one of the coolest people in the world. They are willing to risk their lives to protect others and they sure as h*ll know how to keep a secret. Tippy is shocked. He can't believe he was fooled in the past and took JL for rides and shopping trips. Because he loves his boss and now admires him more than ever, he agrees to fully cooperate. Whatever is needed from him, no questions asked
The children already knew about JL, but MJ starts preparing them for the future. Prince and Paris are old enough to understand. Prince, as any preadolescent boy, doesn't care too much about anything. He just plays along to make MJ content but dismisses the whole thing as one of dad's weird antics. Paris is daddy's little girl. She is MJ's sidekick. She has his back and she'll do anything in her power to protect this secret. Blanket is very young to understand the whole picture. MJ explains to him that daddy is going to bring JL home because he's very ill and daddy promised to look after him, but he MUST keep the secret ("Cross your heart, hope to die" they say with a secret handshake). He also explains that in the near future daddy will go on holidays on his own for a little while.
"When will that be, daddy?"- Blanket asks.
"I don't know that yet"- MJ replies.
"Will you be back soon, daddy?"
"Of course! But you must always remember how much I love you all."
Shortly after JL moves in with them, he manages to wander off the property one afternoon and encounters "The Followers". JL is sick, thin and frail. He's also high, so he doesn't really know what he's doing. "The Followers" can't believe their eyes. And neither can MJ, who is seeing it all through his bedroom window. He sends Tippy to "rescue" JL a.s.a.p. and realizes he needs a tighter grip on everything. He asks his bodyguards to keep "The Followers" at arms length. He fires more people and hires different ones all the time (Tohme Tohme, Leonard Rowe, Frank DiLeo, Joe Jackson). It becomes a revolving door of people in and out of his life. He also makes the painful decision to keep his family away as well. He hadn't told them about the hoax yet and he can't afford to let them see JL now. It's too risky. He knows La Toya, Tito, Jermaine and Joe could never keep their mouths shut.
These are stressful times for Michael...
DR. MURRAY COMES IN THE PICTURE: Another thing that needed to be addressed fast was 24/7 medical care for JL. A Doctor who doesn't ask many questions and is willing to give up his practice to provide medical care for a sick, paranoid, dying man is needed. Given JL drug abuse spiraling, MJ doesn't want an enabling doctor at his side but needs somebody that can be easily convinced of certain "unorthodox" practices.
MJ remembered a doctor he had met a couple of years ago, while living in Las Vegas. Paris had a cold. MJ, as always when it comes to his children, overreacted and rushed her to the first private practice physician he could find, Dr. Conrad Murray. (Keep in mind that he can't just take his children to a public hospital because people go insane every time he steps out the door undisguised).
What he liked the most about Dr. Murray was that he asked no indiscreet questions. He didn't seem star struck, yet he seemed very respectful and bit fearful in MJ's presence.
MJ was thankful that this random Dr. didn't sell the story "I treated Michael Jackson's daughter" to the yellow press.
In the following couple of years they kept a little bit in touch. MJ called Murray once in while. Sometimes, MJ gets really lonely and just needs to talk to somebody. In one of these conversations, Murray told MJ about his money problems.
Keeping this in mind, MJ calls Dr. Murray and makes him an offer he can't refuse. He will be his personal doctor for a U$D 150.000 a month. Murray, desperate for money and going nowhere with his career can't believe his luck. He says YES without hesitation.
Obviously, MJ can't let him know that he will actually be caring for JL. So he tells Dr. Murray with his little sweet innocent voice: "mmm... well, you know... I'll be a bit of a challenge... I have trouble sleeping some times and I have a bit of a pain management problem... I hope uh uh... that you don't have a problem working with me on that... I'm really worried and I need you to be as discreet as possible because sometimes I'm not really myself..."
At that point Dr. Murray was so excited about the offer he would have said yes to anything. He agrees to help him with his little drug problem and promises to wean him off.
MJ is on a roll now. He found a doctor that would look after JL and keep him at bay with his addiction issues. Best part of all? He'll make AEG foot the bill. This will make things less suspicious when he "dies" because he will be pronounced dead by a doctor appointed by a third party.
Little did Dr. Murray know that he was actually going to be caring for JL. Eventually that became a lot more than he bargained for, but there was no turning back for him. He had already announced he was leaving his practice and he seriously needed the money...
LIVING LA VIDA LOCA – MICHAEL: Now we are in June 2009. Michael's life is frantic. He's keeping the biggest secret of his life while getting ready for the comeback shows. He's a nervous wreck, he doesn't eat much and pops a Xanax or two once in a while. Sometimes he just has to miss rehearsals. It's just too much, too soon.
Many people start to notice this. "The Followers" are on mission and follow him everywhere. He asks his bodyguards and AEG to keep them at bay but they are relentless. They slip notes and letters through Karen Faye, who shares their feelings. This breaks his heart and annoys him at the same time.
He feels he's about to go mad. One moment his insanely happy anticipating what his life is going to be 2 or 3 years from now and the next is about to burst into tears from all the pressure building up everywhere.
AEG and Frank DiLeo can see that something is going on with him, although they have absolutely no idea about Jack London and they've never actually seen him. They go into "business man" mode and decide to do whatever it takes to keep MJ working.
Kenny Ortega adores MJ and pampers him to no end. When he sees Michael getting thinner, he follows him everywhere with chicken and broccoli and makes the silly airplane routine to get him to eat.
By mid June MJ decides it's too dangerous to stay at home during the night. While he's sleeping somebody might creep in on the top floor and realize there are two MJs staying in the house. He decides to spend the nights in an undisclosed location and sneak back in the house in time to have lunch with his children.
More aliases and more disguises. Good thing this is going to be over soon. By the end of June he'll be flying to London. If it wasn't for these incompetent people at AEG that couldn't get production ready for the 8th of July opening show, he'd already be in the UK...
Who said hoaxing your death was easy?
LIVING LA VIDA LOCA – JACK: Poor Jack is not doing any better. He needs oxygen support to sleep at night. He is in more pain everyday and begs for drugs. He's almost bed ridden. He's increasingly paranoid. He talks a lot about getting murdered. Reads the Bible, prays all the time and writes bizarre phrases on the wall. Sometimes, in his delirium, he thinks he is MJ. After all, he's been playing the part for years now. He talks a lot about the children in the world and how sweet and innocent they are.
Almost everyday Dr. Murray spends the night caring for him and adjusting his medication. In the morning, he takes him breakfast and JL hardly ever touches it. After breakfast, Dr. Murray normally leaves the house, but stays on call in case he's needed.
Dr. Murray can't understand how the man he's looking after can have the energy to rehearse all day long. All he sees is frail, sick, old man. In fact, he didn't expect this at all, but he is a discreet and mellow man. He's not the complaining type. He has God on his side and he gets his strength from Him.
_________________
ONE LAST NOSE SURGERY & DIPRIVAN: As you know, JL's most recent nose surgery didn't go as expected. Dr. Klein messed up and now needs to fix it. That nose has to look right by the time JL will be boarding the plane to London.
AK tells MJ he won't perform the surgery in his office. He can't risk having the paparazzi or anybody else finding out what he is doing. He convinces MJ to perform the surgery at his house. MJ is not too thrilled with the idea, but reluctantly accepts.
AK has one more request. He won't prescribe the necessary drugs because he doesn't want to be linked with this surgery and wants to eliminate the "paper trail" associated with it. MJ will have to get the drugs from another source, but he doesn't really know exactly how.
AK explains to MJ that he can use any other enabling Hollywood doctor. He describes how Propofol is illegally used in the medical field and helps him write the "script". He tells him that he should ask for Propofol to be used as a sleeping aid, he should explain he already used it back in the day, during the Germany leg of his 1997 tour and he should talk a lot about his insomnia problems.
MJ doesn't have the courage to call a doctor at first. He tests the waters with Nurse Cherylin Lee. She refuses to collaborate but offers her services and leaves her business cards behind. One night JL was feeling really sick, hot on one side cold on the other, one bodyguard found her card and gave her a call to ask if she could do something. She wasn't in California, so she couldn't help much.
Finally MJ, through a net of shady enabling doctors and Dr. Murray himself (who is on a verge of a nervous breakdown, but agrees to anything and everything MJ / JL ask him to do) gets all the medication AK asked for:
- Midazolan
- Diazepam
- Lidocaine
- Propofol / Diprivan
In fact, just to make sure everything was going to work out ok, he orders insane amounts of each drug. He doesn't want AK not performing the surgery because he ran out of one drug. He wouldn't tolerate another setback. The pressure is too high.
JUNE 25TH: At around 01:30 a.m. rehearsals were wrapped for the day. MJ didn't go home that night.
Back at the house, Dr. Murray was asked not to spend the night and CCTV cameras were disabled. All this was groundwork for JL's final nose procedure.
JL was fully prepared for the event. He had an empty stomach and had taken a couple of diazepam to reduce his anxiety. Dr. AK was to perform the surgery at the break of dawn. Dr. Murray would arrive shortly after the procedure was finished to fulfill his daily activities.
Although Dr. Murray wasn't fully explained of what was going to happen that night, he was warned that Dr. Klein might be doing some restoration work on "MJ's" face at one point or another.
Around 06:00 a.m. Dr. AK sneaked in the house and went upstairs. He knew exactly where to go, he had detailed instructions of JL's whereabouts in the mansion. He promptly set the surgical space. The procedure wasn't at all complicated so he wasn't too worried about the fact that he had been up all night having some drinks with a very handsome fellow.
Dr. AK asked JL what drugs he had already taken. "Just a couple of Diazepam, as you told me to", he replied. He conveniently left out that he had been binging on drugs for the past couple of days and that he had a cold he'd been keeping at bay with ephedrine based cold medicines.
Dr. AK gave him some Midazolam first to produce drowsiness and began mixing Propofol and Lidocaine in the IV bag. At this exact moment something went TERRIBLY WRONG. Dr. AK got distracted for a split second and messed up the dosage. As soon as the substance went into JL's body, he went into cardiac arrest. Dr. AK tried everything in his power to bring JL back, CPR, injections to his heart, etc. but everything failed.
After a while, an overwhelming fear took over him. His career would be over if anybody found out about this... He would go to jail... He had to protect himself! So, he covered his tracks as best as he could, wiped all his fingerprints, gathered all his equipment and took off making sure nobody saw him.
Dr. Murray was about to arrive a few minutes later...
DR. MURRAY ARRIVES: Dr. Murray arrives at approximately 10:00 a.m. without knowing what was about to unravel. He greets the staff and goes upstairs where he finds a lifeless JL.
At first, he doesn't realize JL was gone. He thought he was unconscious from drug abuse. At closer inspection, he realizes he's dead, gone, departed, deceased... He can't believe it. He can't accept it. The body is already cold. THE KING OF POP IS DEAD AND THERE'S NOTHING HE CAN DO!!!!!!
Freaking out, he decides to cover his *ss. He knows he's going to take the fall. He's his personal physician after all. He cranks up the heater. He calls his assistants and requests them to destroy all the medical records he has in storage. He calls Dr. Klein and asks "What did you doo? Tell me da troot!!" Dr. AK adamantly denies any implication with the situation and refuses to carry on with the conversation. He hangs up shaking... Dr. Murray is now a loose end...
Back in the mansion, Dr. Murray continues to freak out. Two hours go by like two minutes. He needs to make a decision. It's too late to say he found "MJ" dead. He starts calling out people, at this point he wants witnesses. "Go get Prince", "Get security", whoever, he doesn't care. He's not thinking straight.
He starts a fake CPR maneuver the minute Alberto Alvarez walks in the room. Tippy knows the body is JL, but he's shocked to see he is dead. He didn't expect that. Not so soon. Something about Dr. Murray's demeanor makes him suspicious. He's too out of control. He's a cardiologist. He's supposed to remain calm in a situation like this. Yet, he's freaking out. Tippy calls 911. He remains as calm as possible but he is tense. He cautiously chooses to say "Gentleman".
When paramedics arrive they find a body that's been dead for hours. At first they refuse to continue or initiate any resuscitation maneuvers. They don't even realize the body is "MJ". All they see is a sick, frail, emaciated, old man with a mangled ear and a botched nose tip.
A hysterical Dr. Murray orders them to work on the body. He pulls rank, he says he's a cardiologist and they should listen to him. When everything fails, he tells them they are working on "MICHAEL FREAKING JACKSON, THE KING OF POP, THE ENTERTAINER OF THE CENTURY!!! For f*cks sake, you have to do something!!!"
Paramedics agree to work on the body and carry him to the ambulance in a half *ssed attempt to make it look like there's hope. The ambulance backs slowly (no need to rush with a dead body) and a paparazzo gets the chance of a lifetime and shoots the last picture of "MJ".
Once in UCLA everything is done to protect "MJ's" privacy. As well, everything is done to pretend there's hope. After a futile hour, "MJ" is pronounced. UCLA doctors aren't stupid. They know they've worked on a dead body for an hour just for show. They don't want to be involved any further than necessary so they refuse to release an official statement or give a press conference. Let Jermaine do it, let the janitor do it. They don't care. They just don't want to be involved. They want to get rid of the body as quickly as possible, by helicopter if necessary.
The crowd is gathering around the Hospital. People are hysterical, sobbing, screaming. UCLA doesn't want this hot potato. A fanatical mob is a serious threat. They fly the body out of UCLA as soon as possible. They leave it to the Coroner the task of determining the cause of death.