Posted: Monday, 29 June 2009 10:31AM
Look Closely At The Man In The Mirror
Steve Corbett Reporting
Monday, June 29, 2009
The faces in Michael Jackson’s inner circle always changed.
Back in 2002 I watched two main bodyguards and a woman assistant accompany him to court in Santa Maria, California, for a civil trial involving a contract dispute with one of the world’s biggest concert promoters.
Michael didn’t need the army that turned up a few years later for his child molestation trial that turned the agricultural city on the Central Coast into the center of the media universe.
The world press largely ignored the first trial.
One day I was the only member of the press in the courtroom, listening to testimony and exchanging pleasantries with the famous concert promoter like he was just another guy I had met in a diner and got to know from the neighborhood.
That’s because Jackson was not in court that day the way he was every day in 2005 when he refused to take the witness stand.
By then the two bodyguards were gone. So was the replacement body guard who turned up when one of the burly duo stopped coming to the trial and holding the black umbrella over Michael’s head.
The day court officials arraigned Michael in preparation for his second trial dozens of huge Black Muslim bodyguards from the Nation of Islam lined Miller Street as Michael’s SUV made its way up the street after the proceeding.
I got assaulted by a Santa Maria cop that day as I held my press pass in my hand and jogged behind the vehicle at a safe distance. But the city cop lacked the intellect to handle the job and didn’t know how to react. So he lashed out, slamming me twice in the chest as I did my job as a journalist in a free society.
By the time Michael showed up in court again, the faces again had changed.
Different bodyguards appeared. Different lawyers appeared. Different members of the press appeared.
No wonder Michael had trouble trusting people as his most trusted advisors were here one day and gone the next.
And, of course, we had trouble trusting Michael.
Disturbing accusations continue to hound Michael even after his death. Expect more allegations to follow as people battle for money that might no longer be forthcoming.
Television celebrity Geraldo Rivera has even gone so far as to speculate that somebody murdered Michael.
Doctors with prescription pads comprise the usual suspects.
When I hear the rumors about rampant prescription drug abuse, I have to wonder if all the faces that surrounded Michael during his last 20 years might have to shoulder some of the blame for his death.
That includes Geraldo who possessed a huge media platform from which he could have called for help for Michael.
The superstar’s problems were that obvious. Anybody who was around him even for a short time had to wonder of he was using and abusing drugs.
But few people dared to inquire for fear of losing access.
I watched Geraldo cozy up to Michael’s publicist – even going so far as letting her sit on his lap in the little train at Neverland. I was sitting in the seat in front of them as he tried for the fawning interview that he eventually got.
Geraldo constantly defended Michael in a way that embarrassed Geraldo and does to this day.
I tried my best to bring attention to Michael’s physical and mental health.
One day during the first trial a physician showed up with Michael. Dressed in rumpled evening wear and looking like he had been out all night clubbing on the Sunset Strip, the doctor refused to talk with me as I approached and asked some questions about Michael’s condition.
Then the strange doctor also disappeared.
I wonder where he is today.
And I wonder if we’ll ever know whom to blame for Michael’s death.
I also wonder where all the people were who now surface to defend and pour accolades on Michael. Where were they when he needed them most? They didn’t show up at his trial. And they surely didn’t show up to intervene when he was in his most dire straits in life.
Just as Michael sang about being the man in the mirror, so, too, are the leeches that surrounded him and took far more than they ever gave ghostly reflections of another time and another place.
Now that he’s gone all those faces from the past should look into the dirty, cracked mirror of yesterday. If they’re honest, they’ll dread what they see. If they tell the truth, they’ll know that every time they ignored a warning sign that they helped kill the man whom they all claimed to love.
For those living blood-suckers that ghastly legacy should really be way too much to bear.
Those sad facts of life and death will never change.
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Corbett
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