Sunday 26 May 2013

A sixth person warned of Michael's deteriorating health.

Michael tours Harrods 1999
Last week, Michael Jackson's ' This Is It' stage manager, John Hougdahl, testified that he was concerned and warned AEG Live that Michael's health was deteriorating before his death in 2009.

According to new evidence, John Hougdahl warned promoters that the Michael's health was rapidly deteriorating, and he advised them to hire a psychiatrist and a personal trainer to help him, according to website RadarOnline.com.

In the email, which was sent to AEG executive Randy Philips, on June 19, 2009, John wrote:

"I have watched him deteriorate in front of my eyes over the last eight weeks.
"My laymen's degree tells me he needs a shrink to get mentally prepared to get on stage and then a trainer to get him in physical shape. He used to do multiple 360 spins back in April. He'd fall on his ass if he tried now."

So that's six people now:

16th June 2009, the show's musical director Michael Bearden warned Kenny Ortega in an email that Michael could not sing and dance at the same time.
19th June 2009 associate producer Alif Sankey warned Kenny Ortega in a 'phone call that Michael might die.
19th June 2009 John Hougdahl emailed Randy Phillips about Michael's declining health.
20th June 2009 Michael's make-up artist Karen Faye contacted his manager Frank Dileo in an email, expressing concerns following Michael's relapse the previous day. She also expressed her concerns to Randy Phillips.
Travis Payne, the choreographer, also expressed his concerns to Kenny Ortega.
Terry Harvey, concert promoter, spoke to Tohme Tohme and Frank Dileo about Michael's frail state.

Yet. Yet. In this article from 27 June 2009, everyone, including Ortega, paints a very different picture:



"Ortega said he had no knowledge of the singer's taking any drugs or medication. He also denied that Jackson had overextended himself by working out four hours a day, six days a week in preparation for the tour.

"He was dancing, training, working every day with our choreographer Travis [Payne]," Ortega said. "Michael has always been slight. That was his fighting weight. He was getting rest time, coming in and working with the band, guiding the singers, working on orchestrations. He was enthusiastically involved in every creative aspect of this production."

Randy Phillips, chief executive of AEG Live, the concert promoter that will forfeit the more than $20 million it put into staging Jackson's comeback, was also at Staples on Wednesday. He recalled Jackson being in ebullient spirits.

"It was fantastic, he was so great. I got goose bumps," Phillips said. "It made me realize why I got into this business.

"I take great solace in the pride and confidence he exhibited during production rehearsals on Wednesday night. That is the memory I will cherish for the rest of my life," Phillips said.

Ken Ehrlich, the longtime executive producer of the Grammy Awards who staged televised performances by Jackson half a dozen times, met with the performer at Staples on Wednesday to discuss a television project. "He was very warm and funny. He was having a good time," Ehrlich said.

After the meeting, the singer invited Ehrlich to stay and watch him rehearse.

The show was still a work in progress, with props that Ehrlich recalled as "looking pretty magical" strewn about the venue's floor.

"What I saw that night was a person who was still in the process of learning the show," Ehrlich said. "I watched Kenny Ortega walk him through some stage directions. I know [Michael's] method, and there's a certain reticence when he's not in full make-up and wardrobe to 'give it.' He would have been ready by the time he got to London."

Ehrlich said Jackson showed his pervasive influence: "The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I wasn't watching Justin Timberlake or Chris Brown or Usher or any of the hundreds of acts that have taken from Michael. The modern inheritors of his art. It was him."

Jackson hired Ed Alonzo -- a concert magician-comedian known as "the Misfit of Magic," who also worked on Britney Spears' "Circus" tour -- to create two set-piece illusions for his London shows. One illusion set to the opening number involved an illuminated sphere that would have floated around the singer's body, flown out above the audience and then landed back in Jackson's hand before immolating in a blaze of light.

Alonzo recalled that the singer arrived at Staples around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday but did not begin rehearsing until 9, complaining -- perhaps facetiously, the magician said -- of laryngitis.

"He looked great and had great energy. He wasn't singing at full level, but it was as beautiful as ever," Alonzo said. "He went from one number to the other. 'Let's do that again.' He wanted to look at props for the 'Thriller' number, a gigantic spider. He was dancing, singing, joking with the crew. If he was having any aches or pains, nobody knew about it that night."

Frank DiLeo, Jackson's manager, said the singer seemed upbeat and ready for the challenges of mounting a comeback that he had hoped would restore his superstardom -- reinstating his cultural relevance, erasing part of his massive debt and finally allowing his three children to understand why fans worldwide herald him as the King of Pop.

"He just told me how happy he was and that things were working out the way he wanted," DiLeo said.
"

In his testimony for Dr Murray's trial in 2011, Ortega says he knew something was wrong with Michael after the 19th June episode. He wrote an email at 2:04 the next morning (after the rehearsal ended) to Randy Phillips about it.
During questioning in 2011, Ortega was asked:

On any occasion, during rehearsals for 'This Is It' did it ever strike you that Michael Jackson might have been on drugs?
Ortega replied "Yes."

I accept that none of the people around Michael at this time could have known that Michael was having Propofol administered to him 5 nights a week. Only the children, Dr Murray and the cleaner were allowed upstairs in Michael's rented home, and Michael asked Murray to clear away all the IV paraphernalia in the morning, before the children woke up. So I accept that people would not know exactly what was affecting Michael. But the truth is they all concealed the fact that they knew he was unwell, until Murray's trial in 2011 - that's two years of these people lying. Having been lied to for two years and then hearing Ortega's testimony was like being stabbed in the heart.
So they did know Michael Jackson was unwell, and they suspected drugs of some kind were involved. 

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