In the summer of 2002, I got a call from a top publicist asking if I was interested in representing Michael Jackson’s autobiography. At that point, I’d been a literary agent for 16 years, and I had represented everyone from Pope John Paul II to Britney Spears. But this was something special. Michael was a transcendent performer, and the prospect of working with such a brilliant artist could be a career highlight. And, of course, there was the appeal of a large payday.
At the time, Jackson was in precarious financial shape. Nine years earlier, he had been accused of sexually abusing 13-year-old Jordan Chandler and paid a rumored $20 million settlement. Shortly thereafter, Jackson proposed to Lisa Marie Presley. They quickly married and divorced. Michael maintained a wildly expensive and reclusive lifestyle he could not afford. He had not toured for three years, and his biggest asset, ATV Music publishing, was heavily leveraged.
The allegations of child sexual abuse were well known, but so was the withdrawal of the complaint and a richly funded public relations onslaught that framed the incident as a shakedown. The issue of whether Michael was a predator had been jumbled, and I didn’t pause to carefully consider the authenticity of the allegations. In short, I didn’t know back then what has now become so clearly, damningly, obvious.
