Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (80 page)

After the plane landed in Nice, the Jackson party flew by helicopter to
Monaco where a stretch limousine took them to their $2,500-a-night suite at
the Hotel de Paris. Jordie was installed in Michael's quarters, called the Sir
Winston Churchill Suite. The next day Michael took Jordie to meet Prince
Albert at the palace, with its memories of Grace Kelly. A French newspaper
tabloid, perhaps falsely, speculated that Michael asked to purchase some of
the wardrobe left by the prince's mother, the late Grace Kelly who'd died in
an auto accident in 1982. His offer was politely refused.

Throughout most of the trip,
Michael stayed locked away in
his hotel suite with Jordie. The
staff at the Hotel de Paris referred
to Michael and Jordie as "the honeymoon couple." Michael
instructed his aides to take June
on as many carte blanche shopping expeditions as she wanted.

The royals of Monaco:
Caroline, Albert, and Stephanie

At the actual awards ceremony, Michael was to be seated
between Prince Albert and the actress Linda Evans. At the last moment,
Michael insisted that Linda be moved and Jordie given her seat. Actually
Jordie didn't need a seat, as he spent most of the ceremony sitting on
Michael's lap in front of 500 million TV viewers around the world. Michael
planted frequent kisses on the boy's head. Bob Jones reported that at the actual awards ceremony he heard guests saying, "Did we miss the wedding?"

Reporters in Monaco claimed that Michael, even though in public view,
could hardly keep his hands off young Jordan, even running his right hand up
and down the boy's leg. An aide to Prince Albert found the "spectacle disgusting!" But Grace Kelly's son had seen it all and didn't indicate the least surprise, at least not publicly.

Princess Stephanie was overheard saying, "Jackson is out of his mind." As
the world looked on, Michael and Jordie giggled; they nuzzled each other's
noses, and Michael stroked the boy's hand. At one point Michael's hand
moved dangerously close to the boy's crotch.

They were attired in matching outfits, both of them in Johnny Cash black
with red armbands like Chinese soldiers. Not only that, but both of them wore
mirrored sunglasses.

Jordie was thirteen at the time but looked no more than ten years old. If
fans had been aware the boy was actually thirteen, and that he had at least a
six-inch penis, Michael's behavior would have been beyond outrageous.

Princess Caroline invited Michael as the guest of honor at a banquet at the
palace. Michael did not show up for the dinner, which infuriated her Royal
Highness. The daughter of the late Princess Grace was not used to being treated with such lack of respect. At her royal banquet, Caroline vowed that
"Michael Jackson is off my guest list forever!" She settled for entertaining
Luciano Pavarotti, instead.

While this dinner was taking place, Michael and Jordie remained within
their hotel suite. It was later learned that Michael bathed naked with Jordie.
This was the first time that either of them had seen the other nude. "Michael Jackson named certain of his young friends who
masturbated in front of him," Jordie later testified. "Michael Jackson then masturbated in front
of me. He told me that when I was ready, he
would do it for me. While we were in bed,
Michael Jackson put his hand underneath my
underpants. He then masturbated me to climax.
After that, Michael Jackson masturbated me
many times both with his hand and with his
mouth. Michael Jackson told me that I should
not tell anyone what had happened. He said this
was a secret."

Jordie

According to Jordie's later testimony, Michael would orally copulate the
boy. Or, in Jordie's words, "Michael masturbated me with his mouth." He also
testified that Michael "ate my semen."

After Monaco, Michael and the Chandlers flew to Paris for a visit to Euro
Disney. Not getting enough of Disney in France, they flew to Orlando, visiting The Magic Kingdom. Later Jordie reported that Michael asked him to
"suck on one of his nipples and twist the other one while he masturbated."

In his later testimony, Jordie also claimed that Michael tried "to make me
hate my mom and dad." Gradually Michael began to say to Jordie, "I love
you." He got Jordie to reply, "I love you, too."

He also got the boy to recite vows such as "Live at Neverland with me forever." Another very revelatory "wish" that Michael got Jordie to recite was
"never grow up."

Following June's divorce of Evan in 1985, she received custody of Jordie.
Both June and Evan later remarried, not successfully. When Evan began hearing reports of Michael befriending his son, he at first was flattered. There were
rumors that he "wanted in on the action," meaning he hoped to benefit financially from Jordie's involvement with Michael. Evan also had a secret wish
that Michael, with his MJJ Productions, might help him in his fledgling screen
career. Instead of extracting teeth, Evan wanted to write screenplays, as did
many other people in Hollywood.

He'd already sold one script to Mel Brooks, the comedy director. Jordie
had given his father the idea for Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which was filmed
as a spoof of Errol Flynn's successful 1938 version of The Adventures of
Robin Hood. The film that Evan wrote bombed at the box office, but nonetheless, the dentist still clung to his dream.

As stipulated within his custody arrangement with June, Jordie eventually showed up to spend a week with his father. To Evan's surprise, his son was
accompanied by Michael.

Evan was shocked when Michael announced that he was going to share
Jordie's bed. Against his better judgment, and although he found it troubling,
the father did not object to this. He later said, "What father in his right mind
wouldn't suspect something?"

During his visit, Evan quizzed his son when Michael went to take a shower, asking him if there had been any intimate contact between Michael and
himself. Jordie denied that his relationship with the star was sexual, but Evan
suspected that his son was concealing the truth.

On the morning of the third sleepover, Evan discovered his clothed son
sleeping with a pajama-clad Michael whose left hand rested on his son's covered crotch.

That day Jordie and Michael, even in the presence of Evan, showed
extreme familiarity with each other. Jordie had never been that affectionate
with his own father. But Evan wondered if it were more than affection as he
watched the man and boy play together like children. Evan asked himself a
painful question: "Is Jordie in love with Michael?"

Even so, Evan did not move to put an end to the relationship, as he
allegedly viewed Michael as a "cash cow." He even asked Michael to build an
extension onto his home. When the zoning board would not allow that, Evan
asked Michael to buy him a larger house. Michael indicated that he might do
that.

But in the days and weeks that followed, Michael stopped showing up at
Evan's house with Jordie. In fact, an entire month went by that Jordie did not
even call his father.

Evan was growing despondent and troubled over Michael's intimate relationship with his son. In his diary he wrote that he felt "alienated, sad and
frightened" about his son, especially when he learned that Jordie had made
several unsupervised visits to Neverland.

Disturbing news reached Evan that June was going to withdraw Jordie
from St. Matthew's School and allow him to accompany Michael on the second lap of the Dangerous
tour that autumn. Feeling cut off from Michael, who
had ceased to visit and call, as well as from Jordie,
Evan decided to battle June for custody rights.
Perhaps he hoped that would get Michael to pay him
some attention and listen more attentively to his
requests, especially about his screenwriting career.

Geraldine Hughes

Evan called a famous attorney in Century City,
Los Angeles, Barry Rothman, who did not specialize in custody issues. A well-known entertainment
lawyer, Rothman specialized in making deals for rock groups or even rock stars. His legal secretary, Geraldine Hughes, later
wrote a pro-Michael Jackson book called Redemption, published in 1997. In
her revelations, she was highly critical of her former boss. "Although I have
never met a real-life demon straight out of the pits of hell," she wrote, "after
encountering Mr. Rothman I knew what it would feel like."

In Redemption, Geraldine claims that Evan "admitted to hiring Mr.
Rothman because of his unethical business dealings. He [meaning Dr.
Chandler] needed someone that did not mind bending and/or breaking the
rules."

Somehow Michael learned that Evan was consulting a lawyer. Michael
knew of Rothman's reputation in the music industry, and feared having to deal
with him on a confrontational basis.

Michael called his lawyer, Bert Fields, to alert him that there might be
trouble ahead and to warn him to stand by "to put out brush fires." To an
increasing degree, Michael was relying on this Harvard-educated celebrity
attorney who had represented many stars, including The Beatles, Warren
Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, John Travolta, and Tom Cruise.

After the warning, Fields did what many a movie star did when he or she
gets into trouble. He hired the notorious Anthony Pellicano.

Pellicano had been L.A.'s favorite celebrity detective for years. "When
the stars need a wise-guy to leave a dead fish and a rose on somebody's windshield, allegedly, they know who to call," wrote Bob Sheffield in L.A.
Confidential. As a Sunset Boulevard gumshoe, no one came near topping the
behind-the-scenes chicanery of Pellicano.

Michael viewed him as "just the man" to deal with Evan. Over the years
Tom Cruise would call Pellicano for his services, as would Sylvester Stallone,
Rosanne Barr, Kevin Costner, and Farrah Fawcett. Other clients would
include "bloody glove" cop Mark Fuhrman of the O.J. Simpson murder case
and Michael's future mother-in-law, Priscilla Presley.

Pellicano had been involved in everything from the
investigation of the JFK assassination to Steven
Seagal's alleged mob ties. He made a reputation for
himself as one of Richard Nixon's tape experts during
the Watergate trials. If someone in Hollywood threatened to sue a star, Pellicano was called in to dig up dirt
on the accuser.

Anthony Pellicano