'I'm better off dead. I'm done': How Michael Jackson predicted his death

[spjunkies]

If they would have let him perform next month it would've been a true travesty and his leechers should be ashamed of themselves.

'I'm better off dead. I'm done': How Michael Jackson predicted his death six months ago

By Ian Halperin

Last updated at 2:08 AM on 28th June 2009

* Genetic condition had ruined his lungs and left him unable to sing

* He became so skeletal, doctors believed he was anorexic

* He had nightmares about being murdered – and wanted to die

* He used swine flu as an excuse to avoid coming to England

* He thought he was agreeing to 10 concerts – it was 50

Whatever the final autopsy results reveal, it was greed that killed Michael Jackson. Had he not been driven – by a cabal of bankers, agents, doctors and advisers – to commit to the gruelling 50 concerts in London’s O2 Arena, I believe he would still be alive today.

During the last weeks and months of his life, Jackson made desperate attempts to prepare for the concert series scheduled for next month – a series that would have earned millions for the singer and his entourage, but which he could never have completed, not mentally, and not physically.

Michael knew it and his advisers knew it. Anyone who caught even a fleeting glimpse of the frail old man hiding beneath the costumes and cosmetics would have understood that the London tour was madness. For Michael Jackson, it was fatal.

I had more than a glimpse of the real Michael; as an award-winning freelance journalist and film-maker, I spent more than five years inside his ‘camp’.

Many in his entourage spoke frankly to me – and that made it possible for me to write authoritatively last December that Michael had six months to live, a claim that, at the time, his official spokesman, Dr Tohme Tohme, called a ‘complete fabrication’. The singer, he told the world, was in ‘fine health’. Six months and one day later, Jackson was dead.

Some liked to s****** at his public image, and it is true that flamboyant clothes and bizarre make-up made for a comic grotesque; yet without them, his appearance was distressing; with skin blemishes, thinning hair and discoloured fingernails.

I had established beyond doubt, for example, that Jackson relied on an extensive collection of wigs to hide his greying hair. Shorn of their luxuriance, the Peter Pan of Neverland cut a skeletal figure.

More...

* 24hr 'sober coach' was hired for Michael Jackson as desperate family brought in controversial 'Doc Hollywood' to save star

* Doctor: I saved Jackson from morphine overdose after TV interview in US

* Michael Jackson was due to move into 32-bed Kent manor house this weekend

It was clear that he was in no condition to do a single concert, let alone 50. He could no longer sing, for a start. On some days he could barely talk. He could no longer dance. Disaster was looming in London and, in the opinion of his closest confidantes, he was feeling suicidal.

To understand why a singer of Jackson’s fragility would even think about travelling to London, we need to go back to June 13, 2005, when my involvement in his story began.

As a breaking news alert flashed on CNN announcing that the jury had reached a verdict in Jackson’s trial for allegedly molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo at his Neverland Ranch in California, I knew that history had been made but that Michael Jackson had been broken – irrevocably so, as it proved.

Nor was it the first time that Michael had been accused of impropriety with young boys. Little more than a decade earlier, another 13-year-old, Jordan Chandler, made similar accusations in a case that was eventually settled before trial – but not before the damage had been done to Jackson’s reputation.

Mods please forgive me if you think this thread should be merged with the other MJ thread, but I think this well written article should be seen.

[Enter Apotheosis]

That article paints a pretty grim picture on top of a picture that was already grim.

[Captain Wiggles]

I feared from the moment I heard the news that this would be the case. A Howard Hughes meets Elvis ending. That's what happens when you're surrounded by Ticks and Leeches.

[FedExFielder]

As strange and bizarre as he was, no one deserved the kind of life he had in the last fifteen years, what a tragic ending to what should have been the most celebrated musical career of all time.