Michael Jackson is facing bankruptcy, according to the people he hired five years ago to take care of his financial affairs. But the singer’s lawyers claim that Jackson is not suffering so much from financial woes as an illness caused by a surfeit of lawsuits.
Jackson has received around 1 500 lawsuits during his long career in pop music. Lawyers acting in the latest one, to be heard in court Los Angeles next month, claim that ”the day of reckoning is near”.
Papers filed in the Los Angeles county superior court claim that he is a ”ticking financial timebomb waiting to explode”.
There have been so many lawsuits in recent months, according to his lawyer, Brian Oxman, that they are making Jackson physically ill. Last week, when the latest one arrived in Indianapolis, Jackson was taken for treatment to hospital, suffering from what Oxman described as ”reaction to lawsuits”.
”He has, on some occasions in the past, not eaten when he should,” Oxman said. ”He can become very concerned and nervous at depositions. He doesn’t like lawsuits, and it makes him ill to have to cope with litigation that people seem to heap on him … This is the kind of life that Michael leads. No one wants to be reasonable. Everyone wants to be crazy. He is tired of being sued.”
Many of the lawsuits have been brought by people who know that sometimes it is simpler and cheaper to settle an action than go through the long and publicity-fuelled process of fighting it in court.
In this, Jackson has been a victim, like many others of similar fame and wealth, of disgruntled people in the business with lawyers who know they will get 40% of whatever their client happens to win and that Jackson may settle rather than go through more legal bother.
What is different about the latest suit is that it has been brought by the people Jackson brought in to try to regularise his financial affairs. The lawsuit claims that Jackson owes the Union Finance and Investment Corporation of South Korea $12-million in unpaid fees and expenses.
According to the company, which filed the claim in LA, they were hired by Jackson to sort out his money matters in 1998 but had not been aware of what they described as his extravagant lifestyle at the time of the deal. They now claim he has only two months of available funding left and for that reason they are seeking what they claim they are owed.
”For whatever reason, Michael Jackson is not paying his debts,” said attorney Pierce O’Donnell. ”He has little or no means of income. He lives off a line of credit. The day of reckoning is near.”
The latest suit may sound ominous but reports of Michael Jackson’s impending financial demise have often been exaggerated and arrive as regularly as the seasons. The more vulnerable someone seems in the public eye, the more allegations and lawsuits they tend to attract.
”Just because you read it in a magazine or see it on a television screen, don’t make it factual, actual,” has been the singer’s response to the thousands of stories that have floated around him and were reignited when he gave his recent interview to Martin Bashir about his life.
”I see no signs of this impending disaster, I cannot say it for 100% sure because nobody knows his financial statements,” said Brian Oxman. ”But I can say it for a reasonable certainty.” He said Union Finance had already been paid for the work they had done for Jackson.
Union Finance, which launched the lawsuit a year ago and says it took depositions from Jackson in Beverly Hills last week, claims that the singer’s financial situation is indeed serious. Jackson’s record sales have failed to keep pace with his increasingly lavish tastes.
The 44-year-old has earned an estimated £350-million in his career. He made £70-million from 1982’s Thriller alone, which shifted 50-million copies and remains the biggest-selling album of all time.
But the cost of his albums has soared while their sales have plummeted. His last release, Invincible, cost £18-million to produce yet sold less than 7-million copies.
A report by the business magazine Forbes last year estimated his net worth at £200-million, but warned that he had incurred big debts and that his spending seemed to be out of control. Forbes found that his main income after record sales came from touring (£60-million) although he had also made £60-million from merchandise, endorsements, videos and films.
His staff’s indiscretion adds to his coffers: in 2001 five former employees paid him £1-million for breaching privacy agreements. Penalties for disclosure of information include £30 000 per person spoken to and £3-million per broadcast made on US network television. Fines for derogatory remarks start at £6 000 per person spoken to in private conversation.
The star, or his advisers, have made some canny investments. But he has had to use his £275-million publishing holdings — which include most of the Beatles’ titles and 300 000 other songs — as collateral against a £120-million loan.
He recently put his 2 600-acre ranch, Neverland, on the market for £15-million. Visitors say its petting zoo and theme park have been run down, slashing annual maintenance bills to £2-million from a peak of £6-million. But Jackson spends millions on other properties and hotels: a brief jaunt to New York cost him £60 000.
In February, Martin Bashir’s documentary showed the star splurging £4-million in minutes at a Las Vegas furnishing store.
But Jackson is nothing if not generous. He recently gave his friend Elizabeth Taylor a $10 000 bottle of perfume.
And, notoriously, hundreds of children visit Neverland at his expense each year. One trip cost him a reported £12-million, when he settled allegations of sexual abuse out of court in 1993.
He owes £6-million to a concert promoter after cancelling tour dates, and faces lawsuits from two former managers. Sotheby’s last week announced that he had settled the £1-million lawsuit it launched when he changed his mind after buying two paintings.
His brief marriage to Debbie Rowe also proved expensive: divorce cost him around £11-million.
Last week’s other legal action which had laid Jackson low in hospital in Indian apolis was a claim against Jackson as a former member of the Jackson Five over a dispute that goes back to the 60s. The judge in the case ordered that Jackson return to give a deposition within three weeks once he has recovered.
Last week in the small Californian town of Solvang, the offices of congressman, Elton Gallegly, had a visit from a local constituent. The visitor, who wore a Spiderman mask, had a complaint.
”How come Solvang doesn’t have any fast-food restaurants?” he asked before removing his mask, introducing himself, apologising politely for the interruption and heading off in a black Bentley to patronise a Taco Bell in another less fastidious town.
The constituent was Michael Jackson whose Neverland ranch is nearby. Demonstrating, perhaps, that as long as you’ve got your Bentley to collect your taco takeaway, those lawsuits can be kept in perspective. – Guardian Unlimited Â