Michael Jackson: DAVID GEFFEN SANK MY CAREER

In the face of a new slander campaign against Michael Jackson that is still going strong even ten years after his death, let us try to find out who is most probably behind it, who started it in the first place and who was so much intent on ruining Michael Jackson’s career according to Michael himself.

And if we are to listen to what Michael said about it, the person who ruined Michael was David Geffen.

Yes, Michael Jackson believed that the person who sank his career was David Geffen.

THE FOE

The information that Michael Jackson ‘hated’ Geffen is still available on the web, however nothing is said about Geffen’s hatred for Michael Jackson. But even if the required information is not easily accessible to us, there can’t be any doubt that Geffen was indeed Michael Jackson’s foe.

This conclusion follows from David Geffen’s notorious reputation of a person horrendously vindictive towards anyone who has ever crossed his path. And there needn’t to be a valid reason for turning Geffen into your most implacable foe  – an ugly feud may start with no reason at all, just after a chance remark or a joke perceived by Geffen as a slight. Even his friends refuse to speak about Geffen for fear that they may accidentally drop something that may not be to his liking.

‘The Daily Beast’ reporter Nicole LaPorte says about it:

“Geffen is famous for his decades-long, and very ugly, feuds. … When I called a friend of Geffen’s and asked him if he’d speak to me, I was met with a heavy silence on the other end of the line. And then a deep-throated growl: ‘The last person who wrote a book about David Geffen is dead! And he was young. And healthy. And now he’s dead!’ Click.”

It seems that Geffen’s friends are so afraid of their ‘friend’ that they even think him capable of killing. But whether true or not, his unique vindictiveness allows us to read the statement about MJ’s hate for Geffen the other way around – if even the amiable Michael hated Geffen, the vindictive Geffen hated Michael even more, like no other person on the planet would, though he certainly never showed it in public as was his usual custom (Geffen usually shrugs off any unwelcome truth about himself as ‘Hollywood silliness’).

Many of you have probably heard of the so-called enemy list of Michael Jackson’s which was mentioned in the media with a sneer and chuckle, but no one ever explained why David Geffen was said to be on the top of that list.

Indeed, why on earth would Michael hate Geffen if the latter had been ‘advising him on his career’ for more than a decade and was said to be his ‘friend’ all along? Without at least some explanation of this rumor any information about Michael’s hate looked like an absurd and preposterous whim on the part of a ‘weirdo’ star.

And it was meant to look that way, which is why all traces about the reason for a falling out between Michael and Geffen were thoroughly erased from the web.

However despite all the effort some traces of it still remain and these traces explain to us that Michael Jackson hated David Geffen because a closely-knit group of people in Hollywood headed by Geffen had sunk his career, and Michael was perfectly aware of it.

Here is one of the pieces that contains this truly priceless information:

“… Jackson reportedly hates Geffen for being a part of what he calls Hollywood’s “Gay Mafia,” which he believes sank his career.”

Hollywood Gay Mafia? And this was said by Michael Jackson? The focus in this statement shouldn’t of course be on the word ‘gay’ as Michael never had anything against gays and was life-long friends with many of them, like Arnold Klein, for example.

The focus in this statement should be on the word ‘mafia’ because this is how Michael perceived the closely-knit group of extremely powerful people in Hollywood who are relentless in pursuing their goals and are not above destroying other people’s careers, reputation and even lives.

Specifically, Michael pointed at David Geffen and his Hollywood friends, many of whom were non-gays but were very close to him and shared his ways and means.

So now that we’ve learned that Michael considered Geffen and his people to be directly responsible for destroying him, there is another question – where does the above statement come from and can we believe it?

TRACES

This statement comes from a source you both know and don’t know.

You know it because it comes from the Vanity Fair article by Maureen Orth called “Losing his grip” published in the April 2003 issue of the magazine (though it was released a month earlier, on March 3 for some reason).

And you don’t know about it because since the initial publication Maureen Orth has changed the text and removed this precious detail, so it is no longer there in the online version of the article.

The deliberate removal of this paragraph is an extremely telling point, and we still need to look into its significance a little later. In the meantime let us see what traces of the original information are still available to us and how far this information initially spread.

The Vanity Fair article must have been redacted almost immediately after its release as Michael’s reasons for hating Geffen were copy pasted by a very limited number of media outlets, the traces of which remained in only two of them – in the New York Post and on a Fox News page which functioned until recently, but is no longer there and is now displaying a 404 sign.

In fact, if Michael’s words hadn’t remained in the New York Post we wouldn’t have learned that he ever said them and that they were part of the original Vanity Fair text.

Here is the NY Post piece, complete with Maureen Orth’s ridiculous voodoo story.

JACKO’S VOODOO CURSES

By Bill Hoffmann

March 4, 2003 | 5:00am

Just when you thought Wacko Jacko could not get any more bizarre, a new report says Michael Jackson hired an African voodoo chief to put a death curse on Steven Spielberg and David Geffen.

And the King of Pop sealed the deal by bathing in sheep’s blood and having dozens of cows slaughtered, according to a story in the April issue of Vanity Fair.

Jackson began his quest for revenge by forking over $150,000 to a witch doctor named Baba, who put a hex on the Hollywood bigs three years ago in Switzerland, the mag says.

“David Geffen be gone! Steven Spielberg be gone!” chanted Baba, who assured the Gloved One that Geffen – who heads DreamWorks Pictures with Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg – would be dead within one week.

To strengthen the curse, the report says, Jackson went to another witch doctor and “paid six figures for a ritual cleansing using sheep’s blood” and the slaughter of 42 cows. For his money, he also reportedly got the “blood of a number of small animals for yet another slaughter.”

Some of the cash was paid to a go-between, a mysterious woman named Samia, who came to Jackson with a letter of greeting from a Saudi prince who is now the kingdom’s chief of intelligence, Vanity Fair says.

Spielberg and Geffen were two of 25 people on Jackson’s “enemies list,” the mag reported. Jackson reportedly hates Geffen for being a part of what he calls Hollywood’s “Gay Mafia,” which he believes sank his career. And he’s mad at Spielberg for nixing a deal to star him in a new version of “Peter Pan.”

Neither Geffen or Spielberg could be reached for comment. Jackson’s company, MJJ Productions, did not return a call. [ ]

https://nypost.com/2003/03/04/jackos-voodoo-curses/

The point about Michael being mad at Spielberg is correct. In 1990 Michael was involved in a certain secret Project M where a little-known scriptwriter Darlene Craviotto was hired by Geffen’s friend Jeffrey Katzenberg of Disney to write a script for a Peter Pan movie in collaboration with the enthusiastic Michael Jackson who was supposed to play the main part. And Ms. Craviotto said that the movie was to be directed by Steven Spielberg.

But after she recently wrote a book about it we found out that Disney had no rights for producing the film, so the project was doomed from the start and when it naturally went nowhere, all the blame for its failure was placed on Spielberg – by those who masterminded the sham project, of course.

Spielberg was a suitable scapegoat as he was about to make ‘Hook’ at Columbia Pictures which did have rights to a Peter Pan story. The overall situation brought us to a conclusion that both Michael Jackson and Steven Spielberg fell victims to a scam, and that Michael could be even deliberately alienated from Spielberg (see this series for details, please).

As usual, the scammers stayed behind the scene, however the few remaining trails are invariably leading us in the same direction – to the above mentioned group of David Geffen’s friends, Katzenberg and probably even Geffen himself, who as Michael said destroyed his career.

Besides the NY Post the reference to Michael’s statement about Geffen and his ‘mafia’ can also be found in some forum chats, and judging by what people say there this information was even reported on Fox TV News as one of the chat participants saw it on TV.

In their discussion taking place two days after the publication, on March 5, 2003, some people assume that all of it could be just some tabloid stuff, but upon learning that it was reported by Fox News take the information seriously.

“I saw this reported on Fox News yesterday. Now, it might have been during some type of light, celeb-rumor type segment … wasn’t paying that much attention… but still… not exactly a tabloid.”

Besides these few remaining online traces, the original text with Michael Jackson’s words about David Geffen and his Hollywood ‘gay mafia’ ruining his career, is probably still in the physical copy of the Vanity Fair April 2003 issue which is sold online.

The April 2003 issue of Vanity Fair had a “special investigation by Maureen Orth”: “Michael Jackson: You Cannot Make This Stuff Up. New details on the boys, the business, the bizarre blood rituals”. The article went online on March 3, 2003

It can be bought by anyone who is willing to check it up  – unless this particular copy was really printed in April and not in March when this news first appeared but was later removed.

THE CLOSELY GUARDED SECRET

But is the alleged Michael’s statement credible? Indeed, how do we know that the words attributed to Michael Jackson were what he really thought and said?

In my opinion, the very fact that the telling paragraph disappeared from the article leaving almost no trace behind it serves as the best proof that this particular point in Maureen Orth’s narration is the most credible of all.

The thing is that the bulk of Maureen Orth’s article is a terrible mishmash of vile gossip, lies, half-truths about MJ and their biased interpretation, up to quoting Victor Gutierrez and gleefully repeating his stories. And all of it is what Maureen Orth wanted us to know.

But what she and others didn’t want us to know was initially mentioned there through an oversight and was then quickly removed so that no one ever learned about it.

So this disappearance act alone is in and of itself proof enough that while the remaining text may be full of lies in their many variations, Michael Jackson’s removed statement that David Geffen and his “Gay Mafia” at Hollywood ruined his career is true and Michael really thought and said it.

Those who initiated Maureen Orth’s long story and guided her in her writing surely didn’t want anyone to even consider the option that David Geffen could be the root of Michael Jackson’s problems, so the mere mentioning of it, even in the ridiculous voodoo context highly negative to Michael, was erased by them from the original, with all references to it in other media outlets removed too.

Only imagine how significant that point was if they eliminated all traces of the original statement even in the copy-pasted material in the other media!

And how deep should be Geffen’s media connections if he and his people managed to suppress this information even after its release and kept it a secret for so long!

And how closely guarded should this secret be if we are learning about it only 16 years later and quite by chance too, by coming across its remnants that miraculously survived someone’s thorough job of cleaning the web!

Incidentally, here is a short piece that describes the power of Geffen over the media. It was published in 2006 when there was some talk about Geffen’s plans to buy the Los Angeles Times. Another Vanity Fair journalist Kim Masters (Geffen’s pal) said about it the following:

“I’ve heard from multiple sources in L.A., including an editor at the Times, that Geffen told a Timesman that were he to succeed in buying the paper, his first order of business would be firing a reporter in the business section who had crossed him.

Those who have dealt with Geffen while covering this business should find that obvious. Geffen is famously vindictive. One reporter now at the Times once called me in tears after an encounter with him on the phone (one truly has to be on the receiving end of his verbal savagery to appreciate it). And does anyone think he’ll tolerate articles that annoy him or his friends? And he has lots of friends—from Hollywood to Washington, from Steven Spielberg to Hillary Clinton.”

So does anyone still doubt that Geffen has every opportunity to pull down any unwanted material and freely promote his own agenda in the media?

THE CONTEXT

To see the context for Maureen Orth’s article let us go back to the moment when the so-called ‘April’ issue of the Vanity Fair magazine was released on March 3, 2003.

It was the time of a huge public outcry over the disastrous Martin Bashir’s film “Living with Michael Jackson” that aired in Britain on February 3 and three days later in the US.

On the same day the film aired in America an anonymous source leaked to the press the text of Jordan Chandler’s declaration made in 1993 with graphic descriptions of the alleged sex acts – which naturally added a ton of more fuel to the fire. Previously the public had read those reports only in their media interpretation as all documents of the civil case were sealed as part of the settlement agreement, and now all of a sudden the full text of the declaration saw the light of day. Jordan Chandler’s lawyer Larry Feldman was adamant that he had nothing to do with the release. “You can say that categorically we did not release the complaint,” he said.

In short all of it looked like too much of a coincidence and as a well-orchestrated effort to smear Michael Jackson of which Maureen Orth was also a part. In her extremely long Vanity Fair article Orth refreshed every scrap of the allegations and gossip told about MJ for 10 years prior to that, adding to them the novel rumors about the alleged voodoo rituals which painted Michael both as a cold manipulator and a ‘weirdo’.

Those juicy details were provided to Maureen Orth by Michael’s former business advisor Myung Ho Lee who at that moment was suing MJ for the fee he claimed for the failed projects he initiated and invested Michael’s money in. The claim was countered by Michael’s complaint that Myung Ho Lee had embezzled some of his funds.

In his book “MJ: The genius of Michael Jackson”  Steve Knopper provides us with some details of the above:

In the late nineties, Michael had turned to Korean-born and University of Chicago–trained lawyer Myung-Ho Lee, who ran a Seoul company called Union Finance and Investment Corporation. Lee set to ruthlessly overhaul Michael’s finances.

“Michael gave him all kinds of ability and authority and power, and he exercised it to push John [Branca] out, any way he could, and push me out,” says Zia Modabber, one of Michael’s longtime lawyers, who had defended him in a number of cases after the Chandler settlement turned Michael into a legal punching bag.

Lee became close enough to Michael’s business affairs to realize the singer was “cash poor.” Michael had exhausted a $90 million loan in 1998; through Bank of America, Lee secured new loans for a total of $200 million over the next two years.

With Lee’s help, Michael paid $7.4 million to MJ Net, a German entertainment-memorabilia company, for use of his likeness on products, including a state-of-the-art audio speaker system with photos of Michael on the front panels. He invested $2 million in a fuel-cell technology company. He was “extremely interested” in a company that had engineered a magnetic motor, for use as a high-efficiency generator, and attempted to invest $10 million before reducing his stake to $2 million.

For all these deals, Lee took a 2.5 percent fee. Eventually, Lee sued Michael, divulging juicy details in his complaint: Michael had wired $150,000 to a Mali bank to pay Baba, a voodoo chief who ritually sacrificed forty cows in a ceremony designed to curse Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. By way of response, Jackson’s attorneys accused Lee of using Michael’s assets to enrich himself in elaborate ways: he paid for his sister’s $50,000 Lexus and the rent on two Century City condos, including furnishings, utilities, and cable bills.”

It’s interesting that by the late 90s John Branca had been back on Michael’s team, but the new advisor who seemed to emerge from nowhere, exercised all his power to push Branca out again, same as Michael’s lawyer Zia Modabber who handled the partially successful Michael’s lawsuit against Diane Dimond and Victor Guttierrez (Diane Dimond wasn’t found liable but Guttierrez was and was to pay over $2 mln for his lies, but fled to Chili instead).

As to Branca, this was his second dismissal – the first time was in 1990 when he was fired on David Geffen’s insistence. He reentered the scene in 1993 when “some lawyer” on Michael’s team advised him to sell the ATV catalog.  Branca reacted with “Are you crazy, Michael?” and made a deal with Sony instead, equipping Michael with an additional $90 million.

It’s also interesting that one of the characters from Orth’s article, the woman named Samia, is mentioned by Steve Knopper too, so it seems that this person did indeed approach Michael Jackson (or was sent to him by someone) with a promise to help him buy a villa and a yacht.

Steve Knopper:

“At one point, Michael met a woman named “Samia,” who claimed to be a personal adviser to a Saudi Arabian prince. While Lee’s people were investigating Samia, Michael communicated with her directly, believing promises she would buy him a $40 million villa and a yacht.

The same was presented by Maureen Orth in a much more sensational manner:

“David Geffen, be gone! Steven Spielberg, be gone!” The witch doctor cursing Michael Jackson’s enemies and blessing the tarnished King of Pop himself in a voodoo ritual in Switzerland in the summer of 2000 had promised that the 25 people on Jackson’s enemies list, some of whom had worked with him for years, would soon expire. The voodoo man later assured one close observer of the scene that David Geffen, who headed the list, would die within the week. But Geffen’s demise did not come cheap. Jackson had ordered his then business adviser, Myung-Ho Lee, a U.S.-educated Korean lawyer based in Seoul, to wire $150,000 to a bank in Mali for a voodoo chief named Baba, who then had 42 cows ritually sacrificed for the ceremony.

The pop star, who is said to be $240 million in debt, had paid six figures for a ritual cleansing using sheep blood to another voodoo doctor and a mysterious Egyptian woman named Samia, who came to him with a letter of greeting from a high-ranking Saudi prince, purportedly Nawaf Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, now the chief of intelligence of Saudi Arabia. She had taken an eager Jackson to her basement in Geneva, where, he later told associates, he saw with his own eyes piles of $100 bills which Samia said totaled $300 million. It was “free money,” she said; he could have it, and she could also get him a villa and a yacht.”

The $150,000 wire to Mali is mentioned by both authors and may be correct too, though whether Michael wired the money for a voodoo ritual or contributed it to some African charity fund we don’t know.

However one more precious detail we learn from Maureen Orth’s article is that Michael allegedly wanted to ‘curse’ Geffen in 2000, and this means that Michael shared his thoughts with Myung Ho Lee three years prior to Orth’s article and therefore considered Geffen responsible for sinking his career sometime in the 1990s.

The period Michael referred to must have been between 1991 and the summer of 1995 when a row over the song “They Don’t Care About Us” broke out and soon thereafter Michael stopped all communication with his then manager Sandy Gallin and friend David Geffen due to their lack of support over the song’s unfortunate lyrics (see this post for details please).

Though of course it doesn’t rule out that Geffen could work on ruining Michael’s career well after they parted ways too.

So the essential question now is what point in time was regarded by Michael as the moment when his career sank, which will also explain to us when Geffen and his ‘mafia’ started working against Jackson, at least according to Michael’s perception of it.

WHEN DID IT HAPPEN?

The photo of Michael Jackson attending David Geffen’s birthday party together with Madonna comes from Geffen’s Instagram and dates back to February 21, 1991. This was the peak of their relationship – by that moment Michael had completely replaced his management team with people advised to him by Geffen and was about to sign with Sony a new contract (in March 1991), the biggest attraction of which was an agreement to involve Michael in feature films.

davidgeffen Instagram: My birthday 1991. Posted on May 13, 2016  (David Geffen’s birthday is on February 21)

In this photo Michael is happy and full of hopes for a bright new future ahead of him and a stellar career in Hollywood promised to him by Geffen who had his own movie company, was friends with every big Hollywood boss and who persuaded Michael to hire his friend Sandy Gallin as a new manager who had all the necessary movie connections and experience.

This moment in Michael’s life seems to be a watershed between his earlier steady success and strange and unpredictable events that began to take place soon thereafter. The year 1991 is also noteworthy for a sharp contrast between the way Michael Jackson’s cooperation with David Geffen was reflected in the media before and after that.

Prior to 1991 the media was full of reports about Geffen and his friends being extremely helpful to Michael Jackson. Given that virtually nothing is said about their cooperation now, you will be amazed that at that time Geffen was part and parcel of almost every article that mentioned Michael Jackson’s business plans. Here are just a few examples:

1985:

“Perhaps most anticipated is his upcoming feature film for David Geffen`s Geffen Films Co. …Even with the delays, Geffen Films is still gung-ho on the project”

1985:

“Anyone in Hollywood would love to be in business with Michael Jackson, but Geffen got him because he said ”Let’s make a movie” three years ago [1982], before Jackson’s ”Thriller” sold 20 million albums.

1986:

“In 1985, Michael Jackson could be anything he wanted — and he wanted to be a movie star. His adviser, record executive David Geffen, suggested the singer meet with Disney.”

1986

“Michael Jackson, a huge Disney fan, was still enjoying the fame and notoriety of his hit album Thriller when his financial adviser, David Geffen, suggested Jackson make a movie for Disney. Geffen called his long-time friend, Jeffrey Katzenberg (then head of the studio), with the idea. Katzenberg and Eisner countered with creating a 3-D movie/rock video for Disneyland. Most of the project was supervised by Katzenberg.

1989:

“Having set records for the largest grossing tour in history and the largest paid attendance Jackson plans to focus on recordings and films…Finding the right property for a specialized talent like Jackson has proved to be a challenge….Even multimedia producer David Geffen was unable to find the right project when he was retained by the singer around the time of the Jacksons’ 1984 “Victory” tour.

“I couldn’t come up with anything,” Geffen acknowledged in a separate interview Thursday. “It’s my failure, not his. I just wasn’t interested in doing a bad movie. …”Don’t bet against him,” Geffen cautioned. “He’s very single-minded and he’s a very hard worker. He’ll get it done.”

Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, is among the top producers who is reportedly trying to develop a film project for Jackson.

1989:

“It’s time to do something else.” Industry bets are on a movie career. “He won’t suffer at all,” says producer and longtime Jackson friend David Geffen. “He just bought a ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley, which he probably wants to enjoy. And he wants to make records and movies.” Though Geffen has tried and failed to come up with a film project for Michael, he believes the star will find a script.

“Michael’s very specific in his tastes. You can’t just cast him in anything,” says Geffen. “But he’s a hard worker, and his talent is a given. Michael’s not the sort you’d bet against”

18th August 1990

It is announced that Michael has hired Sandy Gallin as his new personal manager.

In March 1991 Michael signed a new contract with Sony with the help of two new lawyers advised to him by Geffen – Bert Fields and Allen Grubman. At the time Geffen was still mentioned as a ‘longtime friend’ and ‘a confidante in the talks.’

March 1991:

“In Michael’s contract, the change of administration at Sony during the negotiations added to Jackson’s bargaining power,” says Bertram Fields, one of the attorneys who represented Jackson in the Sony negotiations. The Jackson pact was so complex that it took a year to complete. Negotiations were started by Jackson’s then-lawyer John Branca, and concluded by attorneys Fields and Grubman.

Geffen, a longtime friend of the singer, also served as a confidante during the talks.

Geffen says Jackson commanded the record figures because he is the biggest-selling recording artist in history. “Michael is a unique artist, and therefore his contract is unique.”

November 1991 does not sound that glorious but Geffen is still presented as someone who has ‘close ties to MJ but no business relationship’:

“…the consensus in the entertainment industry is that “Dangerous” will be an overwhelming success, even if it does not match the stratospheric sales of “Thriller.” “The times may have changed but he’s changed with them,” said David Geffen, the pop-music impresario, who has close ties to Mr. Jackson but no business relationship. “Remember that he’s been doing this since he was 6 years old, and he’s stayed on the money for a long time.”

But friends say Michael Jackson feels more in control of his life than he has since his days as a child star. Over the last several years he has replaced his old management team with Mr. Gallin and Mr. Fields, and is said to be taking a more active role in his business dealings.  Mr. Jackson’s supporters believe the possibilities for him are virtually limitless. “The only question,” said Mr. Geffen, “is where does he want to put his time.”

The year 1992 seems to have nothing about Geffen-Michael Jackson’s ‘friendship’, and 1993 brings a crash to Michael’s career during which Geffen is simply never mentioned. The most that can be considered as a reference to David Geffen is a vague impression that he is one of those well-informed sources who speak to the media ‘on conditions of anonymity’ only.

1993:

“… Mr. Jackson now faces a professional and personal crisis unusual even by the garish, high-profile standards of Hollywood. Some of the entertainment world’s most formidable figures who know Mr. Jackson said privately today that the current situation seems nothing less than tragic for the shy, reclusive and childlike entertainer, who has, by all accounts, few close friends. His future seems unpredictable.

Prominent executives and others who have worked with Mr. Jackson in recent months have expressed concern about his apparently fragile emotional state, even before the recent allegations. At a private dinner several months ago to discuss Mr. Jackson’s film career, some of the biggest players in Hollywood joined the superstar. Several people who attended the dinner said that while the discussion was going on, Mr. Jackson, inexplicably, placed his head on the table and began to cry uncontrollably. The dinner reportedly broke up soon after.

So even several months prior to the allegations (made in August 1993) Michael had already been totally frustrated by lack of any progress in his film career. And when the scandal broke out his last hopes for a better future crashed with a bang – his reputation sustained a fatal blow and even his financial standing was gravely shattered too.

“The numerous cancellations and postponements on the expensive tour so far, and its abrupt halt more than a month to go, would result in multi-million-dollar losses of income to Mr. Jackson, as well as losses to the tour sponsors. At the same time, the singer recently backed out of a video and song for the new Paramount film “Addams Family Values.” As a result, Mr. Jackson paid back the studio an estimated $5 million, said one executive who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Rusty Lemorande recalled how Michael’s career in Hollywood came to an end even before it started. The scandal hit right at the moment when their two movie projects were well on the way and then ‘suddenly, nobody wanted to touch him’.

“One was set up at Warners. And the other was set up at Turner – who owned the remake rights. And everything was going great. Fantastic!  And then the first scandal hit.” 

“Suddenly, nobody wanted to touch him… It was quite sad that it never happened, because it was very important for Michael to be in movies.

He also said:

“That really killed his movie career.”

Actually, November 1991 was the last time we heard about any cooperation between Geffen and Michael Jackson.

In October 1994 Geffen announced the creation of DreamWorks together with Katzenberg and Spielberg which delivered Michael another blow – he was said to be deeply offended by the fact that they stole from him the boy-on-the moon logo.

And in the summer of 1995 it was all over. Amidst the media row started by the ‘anti-Semite’ lyrics leaked by Bernard Weinraub (Geffen’s pal) from the yet unreleased song, Geffen appeared in the media once again presenting his best and last act of support for Jackson by saying that the latter was genuinely sorry and was just naïve.

“At worst, sometimes he’s naive, and I think to the degree that anybody is bothered or offended, he’s genuinely sorry”, said Geffen who is Jewish.

Michael asked him and his manager Sandy Gallin to be more vocal and explain that he wasn’t an anti-Semite, especially since they had heard the song well in advance and never objected to its lyrics, but they refused, leaving Michael to his own devices, after which all communication between them ceased.

Since that moment nothing has been heard about the relations between David Geffen and Michael Jackson, and even after Michael’s death Geffen refused to give any interviews about him. He declined to be interviewed even for Zack Greenburg’s book about Michael’s business affairs though there was a time when he called himself Michael Jackson’s closest business advisor.

Instead, Geffen sent Greenburg an email: “I don’t want to talk about MJ. All too sad”.

ALL TOO SAD

Indeed, all of it is too sad.

If I were to determine the moment in Michael’s life when his career sank, I would single out the year 1993 when Michael’s career suffered a disastrous downfall triggered off by the worst accusations possible.

And if Michael Jackson were alive now he would probably agree that this was the moment his career sank. His music began to be taken off the radio, his endorsement deals were cut and were never again, the several movie projects Michael planned with his friends were dead with no prospect of revival, the Dangerous tour was cancelled resulting in $20million damages, and this in addition to the settlement sum with the Chandlers.

And to crown it all someone on his team advised him to also sell his ATV catalog, which didn’t happen only thanks to Branca’s intervention. The catalog remained a good source of income for Michael for years ahead, but we can easily imagine what would have happened if he had followed that advice – without his most valuable assets Michael could have easily gone bankrupt almost immediately afterwards.

So whichever way you look at the events in 1993 it was indeed the breaking point in Michael’s career.

But if this was the moment which Michael meant when he spoke about his career ruined by Geffen and his Hollywood ‘gay mafia’, the question arises how they did it.

Because if the child abuse allegations were the main reason for his career wreckage, it means that the Hollywood mafia wrecked it by putting their hand to those allegations. 

Indeed, there are many details to that disaster that still remain a mystery and are suggestive of foul play.

For example, no one can explain why the graphic details of the allegations were regularly leaked to the press and why the Santa Barbara authorities were keen on hunting down Michael Jackson only, ignoring complaints from genuine victims of child abuse like Corey Feldman.

Corey was molested by several people in Hollywood and it was exactly Corey Feldman’s molester to whom the police spoke in advance and who sent the detectives after Michael Jackson, while he himself was never arrested (back in 1993 Sergeant Deborah Linden even laughed about it in Corey’s face: “If we run across him, we’ll let you know. Hahaha”).

Another mystery never explained is what Evan Chandler meant when he said in a telephone conversation with his son’s stepfather Dave Schwartz that ‘the plan was not just his’ and that ‘there were other people involved’.

“Everything is going according to a certain plan that isn’t just mine. There’s other people involved –“ Evan Chandler 

Or what his son Jordan meant when he refused to participate in the 2005 Arvizo trial and replied to the authorities that ‘he had done his part.’ What part was Jordan playing and was the whole thing a game?

Similarly it is absolutely unclear how the photo albums by certain authors with a questionable past appeared in Michael Jackson’s home. One book was sent by a fan called “Rhonda” with many love signs on its cover and the second one was autographed by Michael (saying that he hoped his children had the same happy childhood as the kids in those photos) and was meant to be given back to the one who presented it. But instead both books found their way into Michael’s locked file cabinet, the only key to which was kept by Michael’s maid Blanca Francia who left Neverland in 1991 and was summoned by the police to open it in 1993. Can anyone explain to me why the former maid kept the key and for two years too, and how the police knew whom to ask for it?

Another strange occurrence is that the 1993 media witch-hunt started when the young journalist Diane Dimond was approached by someone in the street and this person provided her with a ready-made file on Michael’s so-called ‘victims’. Victor Gutierrez, the author of the file, had been making rounds of all Michael’s child friends for several years prior to that, and though he was a self-admitted attendee of a boylover NAMBLA assembly he nevertheless became Diane Dimond’s right hand and ‘best source’ in their crushing campaign against Jackson.

Diane Dimond’s other source was a certain Rodney Allen who tried to frame up Michael Jackson in Canada but the plot was uncovered by the Canadian police, after which it turned out that Rodney Allen was a pedophile. However it didn’t prevent Tom Sneddon, the Santa Barbara District Attorney, from using his services in the 1993 Michael Jackson case. In which capacity? We still don’t know it.

Another young journalist, Maureen Orth who joined the Vanity Fair staff exactly in 1993 also started her career with writing an article about Jackson called “Nightmare in Neverland” in July 1994  – when a year long criminal investigation was close to its end with no charges made – and continued with a series of articles which even according to Randall Sullivan of the Rolling Stone “drew largely on anonymous or pseudonymous sources to portray Jackson in a light as lurid as anything the tabloids had ever cast upon him.”

For our convenience the Vanity Fair collected all her articles on a single page devoted to Michael Jackson’s death in 2009 under the title “MICHAEL JACKSON IS GONE, BUT THE SAD FACTS REMAIN” and for some reason this nasty anthology ends with a big photo of …. David Geffen and an appeal to follow news about him. Here is the beginning of it:

The anthology of Maureen Orth’s articles is dedicated to Michael Jackson’s death

The middle part of it:

Orth’s first article “Nightmare in Neverland” came in July 1994 when the year-long ciriminal investigation was already drawing to an end (no charges were made)

And here is the end:

The list of articles about Michael Jackson ends with a photo of David Geffen as if it were a tribute to HIM

Isn’t it funny to have David Geffen’s photo right after the articles where Michael Jackson named him as the person who ruined his career? Oh, I forget that no one knows about it as the news about it has been removed…

But even though now we know that Michael blamed Geffen and his Hollywood ‘mafia’ for what they did to him, many questions still remain unanswered.

Especially now that a slanderous movie about Michael Jackson called “Leaving Neverland” and based on Robson’s and Safechuck’s groundless allegations is planned to soon premiere at the Sundance film festival.

Why did this respected film festival decide to present a film about two obvious liars who testified to Michael’s innocence twice and then made a sudden turnabout?

Why are they given so much media attention and preferential treatment despite their vague stories, while no one listens to the genuine victims of child abuse and their voices are barely heard?

Why is there so much money to back these two guys? Who are those ‘selfless’ sponsors who seem to provide them with unlimited funds to keep their legal teams busy with several lawsuits and 6 years of litigation, while the genuine victims with credible stories have to resort to crowd-funding to be able to get justice for themselves?

And where is this justice? Have you seen it? For Corey Feldman and Corey Haim, for example? Where is a stream of good investigative journalism to promote their cases against the Hollywood molesters, especially since some perpetrators are already known, but are still going on with their activities?

And is it possible that Geffen and the Hollywood ‘mafia’ who sank Michael Jackson’s career in the 1990s are still at it even today? And that they are not only after Jackson and ruining his name, but they are also there to obstruct justice in real crimes against youngsters?

The only good of the film to be soon presented at the Sundance film festival is that it gives people a chance to ask these and many other similar questions and demand immediate answers to them NOW.