Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (76 page)

Back in Africa, Michael told Bob Jones that the African tour was evolving into a disaster. He cancelled a safari-"I wanted to see the wild ani-
mals"-and also sent his regrets to Kenya. Instead, he and Brett flew back to
London.

Even though Michael fled Africa, Amon N'Djafolk, who'd crowned him
King of the Sanwis, paid a surprise visit to Michael to Los Angeles three years
later at the time of his marriage to Lisa Marie Presley. The exalted ruler had
called Michael the "prodigal child of the Bible" before placing a crown of
gold upon his head.

"King N'Djafolk is more than a symbol," Michael said in Los Angeles.
"He is the spirit of his people and the father of his subjects. His person is
sacred and inviolate."

For some reason, Michael arranged a meeting between the King and attorney Johnnie Cochran, who had not only represented Michael during charges
of child molestation, but achieved world fame as the chief defense attorney for
O.J. Simpson. The purpose of the Cochran/N'Djafolk meeting was never
revealed, but it may have been an attempt to get the attorney to convince
Michael to invest his millions into the economy of the emerging nation.

En route to London after the 1992 African trip, Michael received a disturbing report. For every legitimate sale-say, 30,000 copies-of his album
Dangerous, piracy sales amounted to 800,000 copies. In Thailand alone, piracy sales comprised 98 percent of his record market.

Once in London, speculation about Michael's nose reached a crescendo.
In addition to those six rhinoplasties, plus the chin cleft, a virtual laundry list
of Michael's other surgeries was being published in the press. He was rumored
to have had his upper lip "thinned." Before-and-after pictures of Michael were run, more or less confirming that this was true.

He also was said to have had several face-lifts, although "God only knows
why" Joan Rivers said on TV. "It's yours truly who needed the massive facelift-not Michael Jackson."

He was thought to be trying to replicate the image of Marlene Dietrich in
the reconstruction of the contours of his face, which included everything from
a "lifting" of the skin covering his forehead to bone grafts on his cheeks and
jaw.

He was even rumored to have had several surgeries to remove crow's feet
and bags from around his eyes. Why at this relatively young age he needed
such massive surgery-more suited to a seventy-year-old-was not reported.

Even though it was believed that he'd gone under the knife any number of
times, the press might have grossly exaggerated the extent of the work done
on his face.

Michael became particularly outraged when he played to nearly 375,000
fans at London's Wembley Stadium. The Daily Mirror was delivered to him
at his suite at the Dorchester. The more he read about himself, the more
enraged he became. In an article by Rich Syke, Michael was called "Scarface"
and a "cruelly disfigured phantom." The article also made the claim of a hole
in Michael's nose-"like an extra nostril"-and asserted that one of Michael's
cheeks was higher than the other. "Michael now looks like a grotesque burn
victim," the article said. "His nose is so deformed it looks like misshapen plastic." Michael ordered his new attorney, the hotshot legal ace Bert Fields, to sue
for libel.

In addition to the conventional press, several highly visible websites distributed trenchant comments about the rapidly evolving saga of Michael's
fast-changing face. Anomalies-unlimited.com posted the most authentic history of Michael's face. Their "blithering, yet witty commentary" (their description) suggested that in 1987 Michael's face had "gone from a beautiful cocoa
bronze to fish belly white-on his nose he now sports little teeny triangles for
nostrils and a sharp razor ridge you could grate cheese on." The website suggested that by 1993 Michael's current color-subject to change, of coursewas "toilet paper pink" and that his massive plastic surgery could be interpreted as "self-mutilation."

Fans took notice that by 1997 Michael's Kirk Douglas cleft chin had disappeared to be replaced with a fake chin implant. "The sides of his face are
stretched taut, his nose isn't pointing north any more, and it's anyone's guess
what the hell he did to his skin this time. He's getting his face done at the local
morgue. He's a ghoul and seems to be a sick puppy with all this stuff he's done
to himself."

By 1999, as Michael turned 41, his fans once again noted a dramatic change in his appearance. Anomalites-
unlimited.com now compared Michael
to "The Joker," Batman's arch-enemy.
"New chin again. Nose again. New
cheeks. Smaller jaw. The gaunt look is
replaced by rounder fluff. Rumor has it
he transplanted some pubic hair to make
a goatee in an attempt to butch up, but
the thought is too repulsive to dwell on."

Sporting the Kirk Douglas cleft

At the turn of the millennium,
Michael had yet another face, again duly
noted on the web. "Oh, this isn't looking
good . . . a goatee! Ack! Is that pubic
hair? Suddenly, his jaw is an inch longer.
He got his eyes pulled so tight he looks
Oriental, and they've ceased to line up properly. His lips have a hint of that
lizard-lock smile you see on people who have overdone the facelifts. Good
thing Japanese Anime cartoons are taking America by storm, so this is kind of
fashionable."

By the time Michael turned 42, former admirers were posting on the web
news of his "wrecked face." Anomalies-unlimited.com described a "fakenose-tip prosthesis hanging off as well as scars. The pink little beak nose of
1997 seems to have expanded once again."

The shocking photographs the world saw of Michael, appearing without
makeup (could that have been true?) gave him eyes as wide as Joan Crawford.
But it wasn't Crawford that Michael was compared to, but her nemesis, Bette
Davis, as she looked in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Finally, in 2004, a year before his trial on a charge of child molestation,
Anomalies-unlimited.com concluded that Michael had gotten a new nose,
thanks to the brilliant carving technique of a German plastic surgeon, Dr.
Werner Mang. Michael was alleged to have gotten a new nose constructed
from cartilage from his ear.

A former publicist, refusing to be named, said, "For a while, Michael didn't really have a nose. It was in 1999 that Dr. Steve Hoefflin, who had done
Michael's earlier plastic surgeries, refused to touch up his nose again. In true
Jackson style, Michael refused to take no for an answer and went to Europe to
get his nose jobs there. Eventually with all of the cauterizing of the blood vessels, there was no circulation to the tip. The tip of the nose eventually turned
sort of a black color and began to fall off. He later had a waxy kind of prosthesis made that attached on the end. However, he eventually found a doctor
who was able to take some cartilage from his ear and re-sculpt his nose. Some people still believe he has a prosthetic tip, but it's all sculpted now."

As late as Michael's trial in 2005, plastic surgeons around the world were
still giving their opinions to the press about the ethics of too much plastic surgery.

While testifying in his defense during a court trial in Santa Monica,
Michael removed the surgical mask he routinely wore. He revealed that the tip
of nose was scarred and discolored, the skin tissue dangling from it.

"It appears to me that he's had numerous surgeries on his nose, and it
appears he's had something to widen his chin, perhaps a chin implant," a leading New York plastic surgeon, Thomas Loeb, told UPI. Dr. Loeb had performed reconstructive surgery on many celebrities, even notorious ones, such
as Paula Jones.

On the question of "When is there too much plastic surgery?" both the
American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Society of Aesthetic
Plastic Surgery have refused to discuss the ethics of cosmetic procedures.
"The position of the medical profession has been that everything the customer
agrees to is fair game so long as the risks are fairly presented," said Steve
Miles, a professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota's Center for
Bioethics.

Dr. Robert Kotler, who at 61 had performed more than 5,000 procedures
during 27 years of practice, wrote a book called "Secrets of a Beverly Hills
Cosmetic Surgeon." He was the most outspoken critic of Michael's nasal cosmetic surgery. He boldly stated that, "You can't take a black person and make
him white." He went on, "there was a point with Michael where the work
looked great. After the second operation it looked good, a marvelous result. If
he, in his mind, was unhappy and wanted to continue, no doctor had to go
along with a misguided adventure. Jackson was in the wrong in wanting to go
beyond what was reasonable, and the doctors who went along with his
request, I think didn't exercise their best judgment."

The original Kirk Douglas cleft

Dr. Kotler not only claimed that Michael
Jackson "has gone way too far, but Marie
Osmond looks perpetually surprised, her eyebrows are a bit high. I think Joan Rivers has
reached the limit as to what is reasonable or has
gone just a step beyond."

In spite of overwhelming evidence to the
contrary and the posting of pictures of Michael's
changing face over the years, he was still maintaining, post-millennium, that "I've had two procedures done on my nose-nothing more, noth ing less."

Joan Crawford and Bette Davis in
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Many members of
the press were calling
Michael's new appearance the "wet shaggy
dog look." Strings of
wet-looking black hair
hung down over his
eyes. "In those WWII
movies, Veronica Lake
adopted the peek-a-boo
look with a bang covering her eyes," wrote
Betty Fielding.
"Michael wouldn't settle for that. He must spend an hour before the mirror each morning getting all
that gel just right to make those strings of hair hang just so. His new hair
design must have been the creation in Los Angeles of the Queen of All
Hairdressers. Or could the stylist have been Michael himself? Bizarre. What's
next for Michael? He bleaches his face. Why not go all the way and bleach his
hair as well?"

His new look was the most obvious when he showed up at the 1993 Soul
Train Awards in Los Angeles to accept three awards. Eddie Murphy greeted
him backstage and was astonished to see him in a wheelchair. He told Murphy
that he had sprained his ankle while dancing but was going on anyway. On
stage he performed his "Remember the Time" song as dancers pranced around
him.

Michael walked away with three awards, which he accepted to thunderous applause. "At least he didn't show up in a surgical mask," Murphy told
reporters backstage. One journalist claimed that after the ceremony he saw
Michael, in the back of the theater, get up out of his wheelchair and walk without a limp to a waiting limousine. That sighting could not be confirmed by
other reporters.

Since his face wasn't being worked over and in the process of healing,
Michael began to make more appearances, showing up at the Grammy Awards
in 1993 to accept a Lifetime Achievement Award. The honor was presented to
him by Janet Jackson. Plastic surgery had made her look more and more like
her brother. Aware of this, Michael moved in close to her and announced to
the audience, "See, me and Janet are really two different people."