The fact that Jackson managed to fritter away the majority of the money he earned beggars belief. He could never make up what he had lost through a new record deal, not with the music business in such reduced circumstances and his value to sponsors diminished by his court appearances. Therefore the only route open to him was the hardest one, the concert stage.
Just as his hits were the biggest ones, his disasters weren’t modest either. He never had the strong management figure that stars depend on to tell them something approaching the truth. There was something heavy-handed and needy about his demands, like his latter-day refusal to do anything unless he could be billed as “King of Pop”, a title surely cooked up in a marketing meeting. Having his giant effigy towed down the Thames on a barge in 1995 was the kind of thing a smart handler would have vetoed.
Everything he did had to be the most extreme, the most expensive and the most likely to expose him to ridicule if it went wrong. A strong manager would have suggested that there were better ways to feel your way back into live work than a 50-night residency at a London venue. There was smart money on saying that the ridiculously ambitious run of physically demanding shows was never going to happen, that the postponement was going to turn into a cancellation, probably pursued by lawyers. It didn’t turn out that way.
Michael was a child emotionally. This made him as an “adult” egocentric, vulnerable and gullible. He was a great performer but was used by others. He was insulated and isolated and reminds me somewhat of Howard Hughes. Performing was his reason for being and it is sad that he will never perform and entertain again. I will never understand his multiple surgeries that transformed a good looking young man into something less than that. May God have mercy on him.