During 6 months in 2009, Michael Jackson had three different managers. The fact that his manager changed that often within a such short space of time, tells me that something was wrong.
The first manager was Tohme Tohme. He came onto the scene when Michael was refinancing in early 2008, and he states that he came in to sort of the mess that was Michael’s finances at that time. By September 2008, Michael was having problems with this manager. There is a recorded ‘phone conversation with June Gatlin where Michael says he was afraid of Tohme, that Tohme was signing checks and was keeping Michael from talking to his own lawyer and accountant. Michael did not know what was going on with his business at this time. By March 2009, I believe that things had come to a head. In August 2008, Julien’s Auction House had been tasked with clearing all the items from Neverland and cataloguing them. This took 3 months. Allegedly, they were told to take anything that wasn’t bolted down and even to remove the famous Neverland sign over the front gates. So this would include many personal items belonging to Michael and his children. After leaving Neverland in 2005, Michael did not have permanent home, and so would be limited as to the amount of items he could take with him. He had been moving around a lot, living in Bahrain, Ireland and Las Vegas in the 4 years since 2005. The story is that at some point (date unknown) Michael came in and took all the personal items he wanted, and that the agreement was that the rest could go into auction. By February 2009 there are reports that an associate of Tohme threatened Julien’s to stop the auction. Julien’s seemed to believe that they had got the go ahead from Michael, so later in the month the auction is announced, and Julien’s displayed the items in an empty department store (yes, they filled an empty department store). I later read a post on Facebook from someone who purported to be an ex-Michael employee, that said that they saw Fathers’ Day gifts from Michael’s children in the Julien’s pre-auction display. If that is true, I cannot believe that Michael would have knowingly agreed to these items being sold at auction. Fast forward to March, and Michael makes the O2 concert announcement. The same Facebook person says that they thought Michael looked angry that day. I can imagine why: he just had to file a lawsuit against Julien’s because ‘his manager’ had agreed to auction off all his possessions! Michael announces 10 shows. 6 days later, another 20 shows are added, and then another 20, totalling 50. Michael is later reported to say he went to bed knowing he was doing 10 shows, and woke up to find he was doing 50. So who authorised the increase? The AEG contract for the This Is IT concerts (if genuine) has been circulated on the internet, and states a maximum of 31 shows. I speculate that Tohme agreed to the first increase of 20 shows, because, as we know from the taped telephone conversation mentioned earlier, Tohme had the authority to do this. Do I think he checked with Michael first? No, I don’t. I think he saw the opportunity to make big bucks out of Michael Jackson. When those shows sold out in hours, Randy Philips of AEG rang Michael to ask if he could add a further 20 shows. So am I surprised that Tohme was sacked later that month? Reading between the lines, I’m speculating that Tohme (who was president of MJJ Productions) orchestrated the initial AEG contract, and did not make sure that Michael understood the implications, and when Tohme handled the Juliens’s arrangements, again the implications weren’t explained to Michael. When Michael realised what was happening, he filed a lawsuit against Julien’s and Tohme was fired.
Leonard Rowe took over as manager on 25th March 2009. Leonard had managed the Jackson 5 in 1979, so he had worked with Michael before. Things don’t start off well. Michael asks Rowe to re-schedule some of the concert dates for This Is It with AEG – Rowe speaks to Randy Philips who flatly refuses. Michael comes to an undisclosed financial agreement with Julien’s on April 14, and the auction of the items from Neverland is cancelled, and the items are put into storage. Interestingly, Tohme is named in the joint statement about this, not Rowe. So at this point he may still be president for MJJ Productions. A letter dated 5th May is sent to Tohme, preventing him from representing Michael Jackson. Tohme denies receiving the letter. By 15th May, Michael may have become aware of the lawsuits taken out against Rowe by R Kelly and Ne-Yo in 2008, and Michael asks his old manager Frank DiLeo to fire Rowe. The letter is dated 20th May , but Rowe denies receiving the letter (I’m seeing a pattern here).
So when did Frank DiLeo come back on board? We don’t know the exact date at this point, but DiLeo says Michael asked him back, and apparently he came on board but worked in the background, so I speculate this was around April/May. DiLeo had been Michael’s manager during the Golden Years of the ‘Bad’ tour and ‘Moonwalker’ film, but was fired in 1989. As soon as he replaced Rowe, DiLeo negotiated moving some This Is It concert dates into 2010, and put a call into John Branca, a lawyer that Michael employed for many years until 2006 (or 2003, depending which article you read!) .
So I think Michael was getting his dream team back together. In my second post Reading between The Lines I have already gone into detail as to why I think this was.
But if I had been Michael, and had had to change my manager this often after the AEG contract was signed, I would be feeling pretty fed up. After everything Michael had been through in the past 9 years with the dispute against Tommy Mottola, the Bashir fiasco, the trial, he was now finally on the cusp of reigniting his career, and he cannot even rely on his own managers. If I had been Michael I would have thought ‘Why am I bothering?’. It must have been hard enough when people outside his camp attacked him and tried to benefit from him, but when the people inside his group started to do the same, he must have felt completely betrayed. Added to that, Raymone Bain, another former manager, was suing him for $44 million in May 2009. If he was having problems with AEG, as I speculated in my previous post, it must have felt like everything was imploding in on him. Hardly a joyous comeback. Hardly an atmosphere in which to engage with dancers and musicians and work on a spectacular show.
It’s enough to make anyone want to jack the whole lot in and walk away.
