Michael Jackson years of life. Michael Jackson: creative life and biography

Even 8 years after his death, Michael Jackson is still the most successful pop artist in the history of the music industry. The total number of albums, compilations and singles sold by the singer is one billion copies. Through his work, the artist has made an invaluable contribution to world development video clips, music, choreography and fashion. In addition, Michael Jackson in his youth took part in the film adaptation of the musical "Viz", the feature films "Miss Robinson", "Moonwalk" and "Men in Black 2".

Childhood

The boy, who was born on August 29, 1958 in the family of Katherine, decided to name Michael. The future musician was born in the town of Gary. In 2003, his father publicly admitted to the moral and physical humiliation on his part, which faced all ten of his children, including Michael Jackson. The child suffered beatings, intimidation and insults, which turned into nightmares. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Michael said that interacting with Joseph made him vomit and cry from feelings of helplessness and loneliness. Despite this, the singer tried to justify his father's cruel actions by saying that he wanted to accustom his son to discipline, which helped him become the best of the best.

In 1964, the brothers of the future artist created the musical group The Jackson 5. The guys performed in the genre of disco, soul and rock and roll and played the tambourine and congo. Some time later in the same year, Michael Jackson also joined the group. The child had little experience of performing at Christmas concerts in front of his classmates. Later, Michael tried himself as a dancer and backing vocalist.

The youth of the artist

Since 1966, Jackson has been actively touring with his brothers in the Midwest. Four years later, The Jackson 5 singles top the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Despite the fact that Michael was the youngest in the group, it was to him that the attention of the public was riveted due to dance moves and manner of performance unusual for that time.

While he was involved with The Jackson 5, the singer managed to release four solo albums. Michael Jackson in his youth has achieved stunning results in the world of music. The ballad Ben from the second album, which he dedicated to his pet rat, took first place in the charts in the early 70s.

personal life, religion

The amazing talent of the artist brought him hundreds of awards, including 15 Grammy statuettes. Jackson is listed in the Guinness Book of Records 25 times. The artist was on friendly terms with many celebrities, including Whitney Houston, Macaulay Culkin, Elton John and Princess Diana of Wales.

Michael was married to Elvis Presley's daughter Lisa-Marie from 1994 to 1996. After the divorce, they remained good friends, as evidenced by the HIStory tour, in which a woman accompanied the singer, despite the fact that he was married to Debbie Rowe. From his second marriage, the artist has a daughter and a son - Paris and Prince.

Michael Jackson was a Jehovah's Witness in his youth. As a child, his mother Katherine encouraged him to study the Bible and attend sermons. In protest, Jackson refused to celebrate Christmas, Easter and his own birthday. The singer's brother, Jermain, is a supporter of Islam. He often gave Michael books about his religion in the hope that the faith would make it easier for him to fight many diseases.

Solo career of the King of Pop

The Thriller album is the best-selling album in the history of music. The album included such hits as Billie Jean, P.Y.T., as well as the song The Girl Is Mine, which was worked on by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson. Albums Bad and Dangerous became almost as successful as Thriller.

At the end of January 1984, Michael took part in the filming of Pepsi commercials. During this process, the artist's hair caught fire from pyrotechnic devices. He received 3rd degree burns. The horrific case was the impetus for the development of vitiligo. Michael Jackson, whose black skin color was one of his many features, began to partially turn white. But, despite the next life difficulties, he continued to do the work of his life.

After his death, the artist's family signed a contract with the Sony label for the release of ten records, the songwriter of which was Michael Jackson. Albums Michael (2010) and Xscape (2014) turned out much better than fans expected. The last disc included the composition Love Never Felt So Good, recorded in two versions: solo and in a duet with Justin Timberlake.

Scandals

Michael Jackson provoked negative comments about music videos in his youth with his explicit dance moves. Some time later former reason for a stormy scandal has become a feature and an integral part of the singer's choreography.

In 1993, Michael was accused of sexual misconduct against thirteen-year-old Jordan Chandler. The situation was resolved with $22 million, which Jackson paid to the boy's family. After 10 years, the parents of thirteen-year-old Gavin Arvizo accused the artist of drugging and feeling children. In 2005, the court acquitted Jackson, as it was proved that the accusers sought to quickly get rich at the expense of the singer. After the death of the artist, Jordan Chandler said that his father forced him to slander Michael for the sake of huge compensation. By the way, after the failed deception, the negligent parent committed suicide.

Appearance and plastic surgery

Many problems with physical and mental health experienced Michael Jackson. The black color of the skin became pale due to the disease vitiligo, which was diagnosed in 1986. The disease forced the artist to hide from sunlight with the help of layered clothing, umbrellas and masks.

According to the singer's autobiography, apart from a rhinoplasty and adding a dimple to his chin, he did nothing else. Nevertheless, surgeons claim that Michael Jackson in his youth, before the operation, had a different shape of his forehead, lips and cheekbones. The artist's mother asked her son to stop adjusting his appearance and believed that he was addicted to plastic surgery. Michael himself explained the changes in facial features by weight loss, puberty and a change in hairstyle.

Exhausting vegetarian diets brought Jackson's weight to 48 kg with a height of 175 cm. By the end of the 80s, the artist recovered a little, but in 1993, due to worries about the unfair accusation of child molestation, he practically stopped eating and lost even more weight. Two years later, he was hospitalized due to a panic attack, an abnormal heart rhythm, inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, dehydration, and malfunctioning of the liver and kidneys. It should be noted that none of Jackson's doctors found drugs in his blood.

The musician lived his last years with an addiction to painkillers, could not speak clearly and could barely remember the names of loved ones and the titles of his recent albums.

Singer's death and funeral

The favorite of millions died on June 25, 2009. As it was established by the investigation, death occurred due to an overdose of Propofol. Attempts to revive Michael lasted more than an hour and were unsuccessful. A post-mortem autopsy showed that Jackson had a strong heart and a normal weight for his height. The most serious problem turned out to be chronic pneumonia, although this was not the cause of death. Zeev Kane, a UCLA doctor, reviewed the autopsy and said that his health was generally within normal limits.

On the eve of the death of the artist, Christopher Rogers, who was the head of a group of forensic experts, claimed that in recent times Jackson's health was good, and he was named a murder victim. The funeral ceremony took place on September 3, 2009 at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Michael Joseph Jackson - american singer and a dancer who began his career performing in the family band The Jacksons. Since 1972, he devoted himself to a solo career, quickly achieving unrivaled success. His sixth studio album, Thriller, has been the best-selling album of all time for more than 30 years, and Michael Jackson has become a pop legend.

Childhood of Michael Jackson. Humiliation and first glory

The boy, later recognized as the King of Pop, was born in the town of Gary, Indiana. The boy's parents, Joseph Jackson and Katherine Vinta, married in November 1949. They were brought together by a love of music: the future father of the family was a bluesman, played the guitar, and his mother, half Indian, half mulatto, a native of the rural outback, was obsessed with country music.

19-year-old Catherine quickly realized that family life was by no means as rosy as in her fantasies. Joseph proved himself to be a real person, turning out to be an unsociable and even cruel person.

When Michael was born in 1958, there were already seven children in the Jackson family. Joseph's strict disciplinarian approach to raising children was harsh: he humiliated his children both morally and physically. The singer's brother Marlon said that his father dissolved his hands for the slightest offense. In an effort to accustom children to order, at night he put on a terrible mask, sneaked up under the windows of the nursery and roared in different ways (later Michael admitted that he was constantly tormented by nightmares as a child). The mother, on the other hand, forced her sons to study the Bible and took them to meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Only in 1993, Michael Jackson told Oprah Winfrey in the studio that in those years he constantly cried and felt lonely, he was literally sick of communicating with his father.

In 1964, the brothers formed The Jacksons. The original line-up consisted of the elders Tito, Jeremy and Jackie, while Michael and Marlon were backup musicians, playing tambourine and congo. Later, Michael took the place of the backing vocalist, and also accompanied each performance with dancing. The strict father watched the band's rehearsals with a belt in his hands and used leather weapons if he didn't like something.

In 1966, it was decided to rename the group to "Jackson 5" ("Jackson's Five"), and Michael became the lead singer. The young musicians won the city talent competition with the song "I Got You (I Feel Good)", after which they went on tour in the Midwest, which lasted until 1968. Michael and his brothers performed in strip clubs for "blacks", warming up the audience before the start of the show.

In 1970, the Jackson Brothers came out on national level- Their first singles climbed to the top of the US Billboard chart. Even then, Michael riveted the attention of the public with eccentric dances, which he copied from Jackie Wilson and James Brown.

"Jackson 5" at the show "American Bandstand", 1970

The beginning of Michael Jackson's solo career

In 1973, the Jackson 5 became involved in a conflict with their record label, Motown Records. This did not prevent Michael from releasing 4 solo albums in collaboration with the label: the debut "Got to Be There" (1972), which sold over five million copies, "Ben" (1972), "Music & Me" (1973), and, finally, "Forever , Michael" (1975).

In 1976, the Jacksons signed a contract with CBS Records, after which they had to return the name "The Jacksons" - Motown retained the rights to "Jackson's Five" for themselves.

Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz

In 1978, Michael Jackson took part in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with Diana Ross. Set brought him together with music director Quincy Jones, who took talented singer, who played the role of the Scarecrow, under his wing.

The first fruits of cooperation made themselves felt in 1979, when Michael Jackson presented the public with his fifth solo album "Off the Wall" (translated into Russian - "Alien to Conventions"). With the recording of the album, the musician was helped by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. Four singles from the record hit the first lines of the Billboard Hot charts: "Don't Stop "Til You Get Enough", "Rock with You", "She's Out of My Life" and "Off the Wall". sold 20 million copies of the album.

The heyday of Michael Jackson's career. King of pop music

By the beginning of the 80s, Michael Jackson had already achieved phenomenal success, and ahead of the fans was waiting new album, Thriller. Work on it was carried out for 8 months; The album included 9 tracks, 4 of which Michael wrote on his own.

The record was released in November 1982, and in just a year received the status of the best-selling album in history, keeping it for several decades. In the US alone, fans of the black singer have bought 26 million copies, and in the world this figure has exceeded 109 million. The album topped the Billboard 200 for 37 weeks and stayed on the list for two years.

The album was a breakthrough in music and, in addition, broke the latest racial stereotypes in the pop industry: three videos of Michael Jackson ("Thriller", "Billie Jean", "Beat It") got into MTV rotation, and the musician was invited to the White House meeting with Ronald Reagan.

Michael Jackson demonstrates "moonwalk" for the first time

In 1983, on the 25th anniversary of Motown Records, Michael Jackson debuted his famous "moonwalk" performance of "Billie Jean" for the first time, as well as a 14-minute clip for the song "Thriller", which set new music video standards.

Michael Jackson - "Thriller" Full Clip

In 1984, Michael's work was again at the top of the charts. This time the single "Say Say Say", recorded together with Paul McCartney, got there. The following year, Jackson bought out a controlling stake in ATV Music Publishing, which owns the rights to most of The Beatles' songs, which caused a quarrel with McCartney, who also claims securities.

In March 1985, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie recorded "We Are the World". All commercial proceeds, which exceeded $61 million, were given to help the starving children of Africa.

Michael Jackson's seventh studio album ("Bad", 1987) did not repeat the phenomenal success of the previous album, but still stayed on the first line of the Billboard 200 for 6 weeks, sold 29 million copies and gave the world several hits, including the composition " I Just Can't Stop Loving You", "Bad", "The Way You Make Me Feel", "Dirty Diana", "Smooth Criminal" and "Man in the Mirror".

Immediately after the release of the album, Michael Jackson went on his first international solo tour "Bad Tour", visiting 15 countries with 123 concerts over the next three years. Jackson turned each performance into a brilliant show: he demonstrated crazy dance steps, communicated with the audience. During one of the London concerts, he got into the Guinness Book of Records - a record half a million spectators came to the performance.

In 1989, Elizabeth Taylor called Michael Jackson "the real king of pop, rock and soul music" during the Soul Train Music Awards. Fans shortened her phrase - "King of Pop", and this nickname stuck with Michael forever.

In 1991, Michael delighted fans with new material by releasing his eighth solo album Dangerous. The release was preceded by the premiere of the video for the song "Black or White", which topped the charts for 5 weeks.

Michael Jackson - "Black or White", 1991

Michael Jackson in Russia

In September 1993, Jackson visited Russia for the first time. The concert took place at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow in the pouring rain. After that, the Dessa company, which spent a million dollars on organizing the event, went bankrupt, and the stadium was closed for repairs.

Michael Jackson in Moscow 1996 ORT

In 1995, the double album HIStory: Past, Present and Future - Book I, a collection of the musician's greatest hits, which included 15 new songs, went on sale. Among them was the sad ballad Stranger in Moscow. When the fans asked why the song turned out so sad, did he really not like it in Moscow, Michael replied that the audience at the Moscow concert was almost the most welcoming in his memory, but at that moment he was shackled by a feeling of "all-consuming loneliness and cold."

The second time the king of pop visited Moscow in September 1996 - he gave a concert at the Dynamo stadium, met with Yuri Luzhkov and Igor Krutoy.

Further career of Michael Jackson

The next studio album ("Invincible") Michael Jackson released only in 2001. It consists of 16 tracks, which were collaborated with Michael by Notorious B.I.G. (composition "Unbreakable"), Chris Tucker ("You Rock My World") and Carlos Santana ("Whatever Happens").

The musician dedicated the album to the tragic events in Oslo - on January 26, 2001, 16-year-old Afro-Norwegian Benjamin Hermansen was killed by neo-Nazis. A close friend of the deceased, Omer Bhatti, was also a good friend of Michael Jackson, so the musician took the death of a teenager especially hard.

After the release of the album, Michael Jackson organized a performance dedicated to the 30th anniversary of his solo career at Madison Square Garden. For the first time since 1984, he took to the stage with the former "Jackson Five", and also sang along with Britney Spears, Whitney Houston, N'Sync and Usher.

In 2003, Michael released a hits collection, Number Ones, which included several previously unreleased tracks, including the brand new track " one more Chance.

At this time, Michael was accused of child molestation, and although the musician was acquitted, due to the hype that arose in the press, many celebrities refused to collaborate with Jackson to record a charity song in memory of the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The composition "I Have This Dream" was eventually recorded, but never appeared on sale.

In 2004, a five-disc set "Michael Jackson: The Ultimate Collection" Box Set" was released with 13 previously unreleased songs, and in August 2008, a collection of hits "King of Pop", dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson planned to release his eleventh studio album in 2009.

Michael Jackson's personal life

Michael Jackson has been married twice. The first wife of the musician was the daughter of the King of Rock and Roll - Elvis Presley. Jackson first met Lisa Marie Presley in 1975 at an MGM Grand Hotel event in Las Vegas, but at that time she was only 8 years old.

The next meeting took place in 1993. After that, they began to chat and quickly became best friends; Lisa supported him during a period when it seemed that everyone turned their backs on Jackson. One day he asked a girl on the phone: "If I asked you to marry me, would you do it?" Six months later, they secretly got married in the Dominican Republic. In 1996, their marriage broke up, but the former spouses remained friends.

Michael was going through a divorce very hard, which made his disease [vitiligo] worse. During a visit to personal dermatologist Arnold Klein, he met his assistant, Debbie Rowe. They started talking, and Debbie asked Michael what made him sad the most about the situation. The musician replied that he deeply regretted that he had not acquired common children with Lisa. Then the woman invited Jackson to bear his child so that he could experience the happiness of fatherhood.

Michael happily agreed. The woman gave birth to two children - the son of Prince Michael Joseph Jackson and the daughter of Paris-Michael Katherine Jackson. In 1999, Debbie considered mission accomplished and filed for divorce, relinquishing all parental rights.

In 2002, Michael Jackson had a second son, Prince Michael Joseph Jackson II. The musician kept the name of the surrogate mother who carried the child a secret.

Michael Jackson with his son on the balcony of a hotel in Berlin

During the artist's tour in Berlin, one journalist managed to shoot a video of Michael Jackson standing on the hotel balcony and holding his youngest son in his hand. The press made a real scandal out of the video, accusing the singer of careless handling of the child. After this incident, the artist began to be wary of the press and hide all the details from his personal life, and if the Jacksons appeared in public together, the faces of the children were hidden by masks.

Michael Jackson and allegations of pedophilia

In 1988, Michael purchased 112 hectares of land in California, near the town of Santa Barbara. In this place, the musician who retired from general attention could finally be himself. He rebuilt the ranch, turning it into the dream of every child: a mansion resembling a fairy-tale palace, a miniature railway, carousels, a zoo, a huge variety of colorful sculptures ... He called the created amusement park "Neverland", after the book about Peter Pan, the boy who never will not become an adult.

In 1993, the singer was accused of molesting thirteen-year-old Jordan Chandler, who was a fan of the artist and frequent guest at Neverland Ranch. The son admitted to his father, Evan Chandler, that during the visits, Jackson forced the boy to touch his genitals. During the investigation, Michael even had to demonstrate his "dignity" so that the jury could compare the boy's descriptions with reality.

As a result, a settlement was concluded: the Chandlers withdrew the lawsuit, and Michael paid the family $ 22 million in compensation. In 2003, Michael Jackson was again brought to trial on charges of a similar crime. The new "victim" was thirteen-year-old Gavin Arvizo, who told the press that Michael got him drunk and masturbated with him together.

Authorities raided the Jackson estate and arrested the singer, but released him on bail a day later. During the investigation, the artist claimed that the Arvizo family decided to repeat the example of the Chandlers and was engaged in heinous extortion. Litigation lasted two years, in the end Michael Jackson was fully acquitted. Unfortunately, the very fact of being accused of pedophilia had a very negative impact on the reputation and career of the singer.

In 2005, Michael Jackson left Neverland Ranch for good, moving to a mansion in Holmby Hills.

After the singer's death in 2009, Jordan Chandler admitted that all the words about molestation were lies from beginning to end, and said that his father forced him to tell the truth. In November of that year, the elder Chandler shot himself.

Plastic surgery and Michael Jackson's illness

In 1987, after the release of the video for the title track of the album "Bad", fans noticed changes in the face of the idol, and with each subsequent performance, the singer became even paler and thinner.

The media paid too much attention to the artist's haggard appearance: journalists built the most unexpected hypotheses why Michael Jackson bleached his skin and changed the contours of his face, going as far as accusing him of dysmorphophobia - hatred of his own body.

In the early 90s, Michael put an end to gossip by admitting that in 1986 he was diagnosed with two rare diseases - vitiligo and lupus. And if vitiligo affected only the pigmentation of the skin, covered with light spots due to the disease (hence the deathly white complexion of Michael - this is a thick layer of cosmetics that hid the difference between healthy and affected areas of the skin), then lupus, a dangerous autoimmune disease that damages the connective tissue tissue, led to the failure of the cheekbones and a general deformity of the face. In addition, powerful drugs prescribed to Michael by a doctor during a relapse of lupus led to the musician's addiction to painkillers.

As for the number of Michael Jackson's plastic surgeries, experts who closely followed the gradual transformation of the artist concluded that there were multiple surgical interventions. According to them, he operated on his nose several times, changed the shape of his lips, reshaped his cheeks and eyelids, and also made a dimple in his chin. Michael's mom confirmed that her son, in her opinion, was addicted to plastic surgery. The artist himself stated that he had only done rhinoplasty twice. Doctors failed to resuscitate Michael Jackson

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the way to the medical center of the University of California and in the center did not help - the death of Michael Jackson was ascertained at 14:26. The news of the death of Michael Jackson spread around the world in a few minutes.

The police immediately launched an investigation into the incident. The first to be interviewed was the singer's personal doctor, Conrad Murray. He said that he found the lifeless Jackson in bed, but managed to distinguish the pulse and tried to give him cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and when he realized that all attempts to resurrect the singer were unsuccessful, he called an ambulance. The following fact played an important role here - Michael rented a mansion, so Conrad did not know the exact address. While he was figuring out the coordinates, a whole half hour passed, which turned out to be fatal for Jackson.

This was the version of Conrad Murray, but the coroners continued the investigation. It turned out that one of the producers of the Emmy Award, Ken Erlich, saw the singer the day before his death - and he seemed to him very energetic and provocative.

An autopsy showed that the singer was in the extreme stage of exhaustion - with an increase of 178 centimeters, his weight was only 51 kilograms. Not a single hint of food was found in the stomach, but a decent amount of painkillers was found. On August 24, a forensic examination established the true cause of Michael's death - an overdose of the anesthetic propofol, administered intravenously. Michael Jackson's death certificate lists the cause as "murder".

In November 2011, Murray was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 4 years in prison.

Funeral of Michael Jackson

On July 7, 2009, a closed farewell ceremony was held for the idol of millions. Jackson's closest friends came to the Forest Lawn Cemetery Memorial Park in Los Angeles. Messages from Diana Ross, Nelson Mandela, Queen Latifah, Stevie Wonder, children of Martin Luther King Jr. were read. The farewell ended with a speech by Paris Jackson. Without holding back her tears, the girl said: “He was the best father which could only be…”.

In December 2010, the world heard the first posthumous album by Michael Jackson. The record, called "Michael", consisted of 10 tracks, recorded with the participation of Lenny Kravitz, 50 Cent and Tarill Jackson. The release of the album divided the singer's fans into two camps: some believed that publishing songs deliberately hidden by the author "on the table" was blasphemy, which had a strictly commercial purpose. Others, on the contrary, were glad that even after his death, the idol continues to delight fans with new creations. Numerous celebrities, including Michael's brother Randy Jackson, referred to the album as "raw" and "unfinished".

Michael Jackson died on the night of June 25-26, 2009 in Los Angeles. The news of his untimely death instantly spread throughout the world, shocking not only fans, but also envious people. The name of Jackson by that time had long become a legend, and, despite numerous reports of illnesses, no one expected such a sudden death.

Despite the years of musical silence, in the memory of bloggers, the singer remains a true legend, the king of pop music, the author of numerous hits, spectacular video clips and the famous “moonwalk”, without which few people can imagine the bygone era of the 1980s and their young years.

On the morning of June 25, 2009, Michael collapsed while in a house he was renting in Holmby Hills, West Los Angeles. Jackson's personal physician, cardiologist Conrad Murray, later reported through his lawyer that he went up to the second floor and found Jackson in bed, no longer breathing, but with a weak pulse in the femoral artery. Murray began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). After 5-10 minutes, Murray decided to make a phone call, but there was no landline in the bedroom, and Murray did not want to call on a cell phone, because he did not know the address of Jackson's house. While Murray was looking for a security guard to use his phone to call emergency services, 30 minutes passed. At 12:21 p.m. local time, a 911 call was recorded. It was not Murray who called, but a home security worker. Here is a recording of that historic call.

Arriving 3 minutes and 17 seconds after the call, the doctors found Jackson no longer breathing with a cardiac arrest and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation for 42 minutes. According to Murray's lawyer, a UCLA doctor ordered the medical team to give a direct injection of adrenaline into Jackson's heart. The lawyer noted that all the time while Jackson was at home, he still had a pulse. Efforts to bring Jackson back to life continued along the way and for an hour after arriving at the University of California Medical Center (UCLA) at 1:14 p.m. The effect was not achieved. Death was pronounced at 14:26 local time.

Thousands of fans of the singer immediately gathered near the hospital. They literally surrounded the porch, filling it with soft toys and flowers and filling everything around with photographs of the singer and candles. Fans also turned out to mourn at the empty home in Gary, Indiana, where Jackson spent his childhood, and at the huge central square Times Square in New York.

Most people did not learn the exciting news from the newspapers. People called each other, sent messages, wrote blogs. In terms of the scale of the tragedy, Jackson's death can only be compared with the death of Princess Diana or the assassination of President Kennedy.

Michael Joseph Jackson was born on August 29, 1958. He was the seventh of nine children in the Jackson family. At the age of four, Michael was already on stage. A little later, he began performing with his older brothers Jackie, Tito, German and Marlon in the group "The Jackson 5", which was invented by their father Joseph. And although Michael was the youngest, it was he who attracted the most attention, sang, danced best of all, knew how to charm the audience and eventually became a real star of the team.

In the late 1960s, The Jackson 5 signed with Motown Records and began to release hot hits one after another throughout the next decade. Simultaneously with the work in the family band, Michael did successful solo projects.

Active Michael was always just not enough. So, in 1978, he starred with the young Diana Ross in feature film The Wizard, an African-American remake of The Wizard of Oz. The film did not become a classic of American cinema, but it was of great importance for Michael, because on the set he met the great music producer Quincy Jones, who worked on musical accompaniment movie.

It was Quincy who helped Michael Jackson get his next album, 1979's Off The Wall, multi-platinum, turning a singing black handsome boy into a popular music superstar. The album included the hits Don "t Stop" Til You Get Enough and Rock With You, the disc sold 10 million copies.

In 1982, Jackson broke not only his own record, but also set an unattainable bar for subsequent generations. The Thriller album did not have time to re-release, it sold more than 50 million copies worldwide. Michael Jackson received seven Grammy Awards for this album. Another world record for Thriller is a 37-week chart lead that no one has yet surpassed.

Thriller's sensational success lay in never-before-seen, enchanting and amazingly beautiful music videos for "Billie Jean", "Beat It" and "Thriller". Jackson was the first to make a small film out of a clip, to make video a means of transferring music, to spit on the laws of the genre, setting his own. Michael broke any stereotypes that got in his way. Jackson became the first black guy on American MTV.

Having passed the peak, Michael continued to hold on to a huge height of popularity. The Bad album in 1987 sold 25 million copies, and in 1991 Dangerous sold 23 million copies.

In 1993, Michael became famous on the Oprah Winfrey show, which was filmed at his home - at the Land of Eternal Childhood ranch in Santa Yanez, California. The interview lasted 1.5 hours and attracted almost 100 million viewers, becoming the most watched show of the year.

In 1995, Michael released the ambitious and ingenious double album HIStory Past, Present and Future Book I, consisting of 15 greatest hits of the past years and 15 new songs, which are still considered his most touching and soulful compositions. During the year, the album became platinum six times in the United States and is still successfully sold, being the most sought-after double album in the world.

Jackson easily masters new musical genres and techniques, creating a wave ahead of time. In subsequent years, he released the albums "Blood On The Dance floor: HIStory In The Mix", "Invincible", "Number 1 "s", which includes reissued old songs and new compositions, as well as a 44-minute DVD "Michael Jackson - The One" featuring footage from the CBS archives, including his concerts, off-stage footage, and footage from the HIStory tour.

In 1996, Jackson marries nurse Debbie Rowe, who gives him two sons (born in 1997 and 2002) and a daughter (born in 1998). Jackson says that fatherhood is the main dream of his life.

From 2003 to 2005, the whole world is discussing a high-profile court case: Michael Jackson is accused of child molestation. After long meetings and trials, Michael is found not guilty on all counts, but a long tense lawsuit undermines the singer's health, so after the trial he leaves for the island of Bahrain and becomes a hermit.

In March 2009, Michael announced that he was going to play the last series of concerts in London called This is it Tour. A series of 10 concerts at The O2 arena, with a capacity of 20 thousand people, was supposed to start on July 13, 2009 and end on March 6, 2010. However, the demand for tickets exceeded all expectations, and the organizers planned additional performances.

According to the doctors who examined Jackson, the singer's health completely allowed him to conduct such a difficult tour ...

The day after Jackson's death, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) began investigating an unusual and high-profile case. We started talking about new version the cause of the singer's death is murder.

On July 1, 2009, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) joined the investigation. The DEA, having the power to investigate issues normally protected by doctor-patient privilege, could examine all of Jackson's prescription medications. California Attorney General Jerry Brown said the DEA used CURES, a prescription database containing information about all prescribed drugs, doctors, doses and patients, to investigate. On July 9, William Bratton, LAPD chief, said the investigation was focused on murder or accidental overdose, but that full toxicology reports from the coroners should be awaited.

On August 24, 2009, the conclusions of a forensic medical examination were made public - death was due to an overdose of the potent anesthetic propofol. A number of other potent substances (lorazepam, diazepam, midazolam) were also found in the blood.

On August 28, the Los Angeles coroner announced that Michael Jackson's death would be qualified as a homicide. Cardiologist Conrad Murray, Michael's personal physician, was charged with manslaughter.

The case is still gathering new details. According to the latest testimony, when the singer's heart stopped, Murray interrupted the initial resuscitation procedure he had begun in order to hide the drugs that he illegally injected celebrities.

However, what difference does it make now ... Michael Jackson still cannot be revived with new details about his death.

“In the end, the most important thing is to be honest with yourself and your loved ones and work hard. What is now will not be tomorrow. Dare. Fight. Improve and cultivate your talent. Be the best at what you do. Learn more about your occupation than anyone alive. Use the tools to present yourself - be it books, or the floor to dance, or water to swim. Wherever it is, it's yours. That's what I always try to remember."

Michael Jackson

short biography Name: Michael Joseph Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson
Date of Birth: August 29, 1958
Place of Birth: Gary, Indiana, USA
Date of death: June 25, 2009
A place of death: Los Angeles, California, USA

Genres: Pop

Biography Michael Joseph Jackson (born Michael Joseph Jackson; August 29, 1958 - June 25, 2009) was an American pop singer, dancer, songwriter, philanthropist, King of Pop, and entrepreneur. One of the most successful performers in history, winner of 19 Grammy awards and dozens of other awards. 2 times listed in the Guinness Book of Records; Around 750 million copies of Jackson's albums have been sold worldwide. Michael Jackson has made a significant contribution to the development of popular music, video clips, dance and fashion.

Not only creativity, but also Jackson's personal life attracted the attention of the press: vitiligo disease, as a result of which Michael's skin became light; his plastic surgery; trials during which he was accused of child molestation but acquitted. Jackson died in 2009 as a result of a drug overdose, propofol in particular.

Childhood and The Jackson 5

Michael Jackson was born to Joseph and Katherine in Gary, Indiana. He was the seventh of nine children. Jackson claimed that his father repeatedly humiliated him mentally and physically. However, he respected his father's strict discipline, which played a large part in Jackson's success. In one of the confrontations with his father, described by Michael's older brother Marlon, his father, holding him upside down, struck on his back and buttocks. One night, while Michael was sleeping, his father snuck into his room through the window. He was in a frightening mask, piercingly screamed and roared. Joseph explained his action by saying that he wanted to teach his children to close the window before going to bed. Four years later, Michael admitted that he suffered from nightmares in which he was kidnapped from his bedroom. In 2003, Joseph admitted to the BBC that he had beaten Michael when he was a child.

Jackson first spoke openly about the humiliation he had to endure as a child in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 1993. He said that in childhood he often cried from the feeling of loneliness and vomited after talking with his father. In another high-profile interview, Living with Michael Jackson (2003), while talking about childhood abuse, the singer covered his face with his hand and began to cry. Jackson recalled that Joseph sat in a chair with a belt in his hand when he rehearsed with his brothers, and that "if you did something wrong, he will bring you to tears, really get you."

Jackson performed in front of classmates at Christmas concerts from the age of five. In 1964, Michael and Marlon joined The Jacksons, a band formed by their brothers Jackie, Tito and Jermaine, as understudies, playing conga and tambourine, respectively. Jackson later began performing as a backing vocalist and dancer; at the age of eight, he and Jermaine became the main vocalists and the group was renamed The Jackson 5. The group toured extensively in the Midwest from 1966 to 1968. Often they performed in a number of "black" clubs and places known as the "Chitlin" circuit, often warming up the audience for a striptease. In 1966, they won a local talent competition, performing hits from Motown and "I Got You (I Feel Good) by James Brown with Michael as the main vocalist.

The Jacksons soon rose to the national level, and in 1970 their first four singles were on the first line of the American Billboard Hot 100 chart. Gradually, Michael stood out as the frontman of the children's quintet, in fact, it was he who got the main solo parts. He drew attention to himself with his unusual manner of dancing and behavior on stage, which he copied from his idols - James Brown, Jackie Wilson and others.

The beginning of a solo career

In 1973, the success of the family project began to decline, the record company limited their financial possibilities, and in 1976 they signed a contract with another company, as a result of which they had to change their name again to The Jacksons. From 1976 to 1984 they released 6 more albums, traveling around the country on tour. Meanwhile, Jackson released four solo albums and a string of successful solo singles, including "Got to Be There", "Rockin' Robin" and the 1972 chart-topper "Ben" (a ballad dedicated to his pet rat).

In 1978, Michael starred with Diana Ross in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical The Wiz (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz). On the set, he met music director Quincy Jones, who would go on to produce his most famous albums. The first of these, "Off the Wall", was released in 1979. The disco hit "Don't Stop "Til You Get Enough" and the slower track "Rock With You" topped the charts, and the album sold more than 20 million copies. Many music critics consider "Off the Wall" the last peak of a fleeting era disco music.

Thriller

The album "Thriller" went down in history as the best-selling album in the world. Regarding this album, producer Quincy Jones stated in an interview with Time magazine:

““Black” music has been forced to play second fiddle for a long time, but its spirit is a whole driving force in the pop music that Michael connected to every soul in the world."

Released in November 1982, Thriller gave America seven singles:
"The Girl Is Mine" (No. 2, duet with Paul McCartney),
"Billie Jean" (No. 1, Grammy Award, the biggest hit of Jackson's entire career and one of the most sampled tracks in funk music),
"Beat It" (No. 1, another Grammy)
"Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" (No. 5),
"Human Nature" (No. 7),
P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" (No. 10),
"Thriller" (No. 4).

Thriller topped the Billboard 200 for nine months (37 weeks) and stayed on the chart for over two years (122 weeks). For this album, Jackson received eight Grammy Awards (including Best Album of the Year) and seven American Music Awards (American Music Awards). In 1985, the album was declared by the Guinness Book of Records to be "the best-selling album of all time". As of July 2001, the album has sold 26 million copies in the US, making it the second highest selling album in American history behind The Eagles' The Greatest Hits (27 million). Thriller has sold a record 109 million copies worldwide.

Jackson and his producers capitalized on the burgeoning music television: his groundbreaking videos were among the first in constant rotation on MTV, which was only a year old at the time of the album's release. The disc's popularity was boosted, among many other reasons, by Jackson's March 1983 performance at Motown's 25th Anniversary, where he presented the world with a 14-minute horror-inspired music video for "Thriller". At the same concert, during the performance of "Billie Jean", Jackson first demonstrated his famous "moonwalk" - a dance move in which the dancer moves his feet forward, but at the same time moves back

eighties

Jackson and his entourage used the media attention to Michael for financial gain. In 1983, Michael signed a contract with Pepsi-Cola, under which he was supposed to star in their commercial. During filming, an accident occurred, due to which Jackson received a burn to the back of his head.

In 1984, Jackson again led the American charts, this time with the song "Say Say Say" recorded in a duet with Paul McCartney. The following year, Michael bought up most of the shares in ATV Music Publishing, which owned the rights to most of The Beatles' songs, which caused a quarrel with McCartney, who himself dreamed of buying these shares. Michael Jackson also worked with, having made several test recordings with him, but the collaboration did not take place due to the employment of both musicians.

During the preparation of the new album, Jackson first engaged in charity project. Together with Lionel Richie, he wrote the song "We Are the World" (We are the World), which was recorded with the participation of numerous pop stars, and also covered on German punk rock mother Nina Hagen in 1987. The money from the sale of the single was transferred to help disadvantaged children in Africa.

The Jackson-Quincy tandem's third and final album, Bad, topped the Billboard 200 for six weeks and gave the world seven more hits, five of which climbed to the top of the Billboard Hot 100: Bad, I Just Can 't Stop Loving You", "The Way You Make Me Feel", "Man in the Mirror" and "Dirty Diana". On Bad, Jackson and Quincy tried to follow the previous album's recipe for success (using stylish beats, smooth funky jazz and electric guitar), but on a much bigger scale. The album was sold with a circulation of 29 million copies.

Michael then embarked on his first tour as a solo artist, in support of Bad, through 15 countries, which took up most of 1988. In 1987, Jackson starred in the 3D film Captain EO. The latter, with a budget of between $17 million and $30 million, was only 17 minutes long and at the time was the highest-grossing film in terms of length. This was Jackson's first appearance on the big screen.

In the 18-minute video for the album's title track, "Bad," it was easy to see the change in the singer's appearance. Despite the fact that his skin color was black throughout childhood, from 1982 he began to lighten, and became light brown. It became so noticeable that the whole press began to write about it, and not only the yellow ones. Jackson attributed this to the rare disease vitiligo and dispelled rumors that it was the result of intentional actions. In addition to lightening the skin, another reason for the change in the appearance of the singer was plastic surgery.

The nineties

Due to the increased attention to his person, Jackson spent most of his time in seclusion at his strictly guarded Neverland Ranch. Few friends visited him there, including Elizabeth Taylor. Children also lived on the ranch, to whom the singer was always partial. In 1991, he wrote two singles for The Simpsons, of which he was a fan. However, due to contract restrictions, his name was not mentioned in the credits. In 1993, he was charged with corrupting an underage boy, but at that time the case was settled out of court and the parents withdrew the civil lawsuit.

In 1991, "Dangerous" was released, which was preceded by the premiere of a large-scale video clip for the single "Black or White" ("Black or White"). The video was allowed to air on MTV only after the exclusion of scenes in which Jackson breaks windows and imitates masturbation. For five weeks, "Black or White" was at the top of the charts and became Jackson's biggest hit since "Billie Jean". As with previous albums, seven singles were released from this album. In addition to "Black or White" they included "Remember the Time", "In the Closet" and "Will You Be There". "Remember the Time" was filmed with a multimillion-dollar CGI video featuring Eddie Murphy and top model Iman as the pharaoh of Egypt and his wife.

Throughout the 1990s, Jackson's face changed dramatically, and his skin became completely white.

In 1995, the double album HIStory: Past, Present and Future - Book I was released, which combined a disc of 15 new songs with a disc of the biggest hits. It was supposed to be the first part of a trilogy. In order to return the shaken popularity, the first single was released "Scream" - a duet of the singer with his sister, Janet Jackson, who also became a popular solo singer by that time. The song was accompanied by a futuristic music video that cost over seven million dollars to film.

The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and sold 7 million copies in the US (15 million worldwide). Many new songs from it were released as singles, among them a ballad about Moscow ("Stranger in Moscow"; Jackson promised to record a song about the Russian capital when he first visited here in 1993), an ecological composition "Earth Song" and a composition in the style of a modern R&B "You Are Not Alone", written and produced for him by R. Kelly. In the video for "You Are Not Alone," Michael appeared semi-nude with his then-wife, Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley.

In 1997, an album of dance remixes for tracks from "HIStory" - "Blood on the Dance floor" was released. Reviews for this disc were mostly positive, with the title track topping the sales charts in many countries, including the UK. In the US, the album went largely unnoticed and did not reach number one on the charts.

Performances in Russia

Michael Jackson first came to Moscow in September 1993. His concert was organized by the firm "Dessa" and cost her $ 1,000,000. The organizer of the tour is Samvel Gasparov. The concert took place on September 15 in an open area - the Big Sports Arena of the Luzhniki Stadium in heavy rain. Shortly after the concert, the company ceased to exist due to financial problems and the stadium was closed for renovations. During the concert it was pouring rain, the puddles of which were removed service staff right during the performance of Michael Jackson. In his Moscow hotel room, Jackson wrote a ballad about loneliness - Stranger in Moscow, which was included in the 1995 album History and was released as a single. During a 1993 visit, Jackson stayed at the Metropol Hotel.
Jackson's second performance in Russia took place on September 17, 1996 at the Dynamo Stadium in Moscow. During the visit, Michael Jackson met with the former mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, the head of the security service of the President of the Russian Federation, Korzhakov, and composer Igor Krutoy. During a 1996 visit, Jackson stayed at the Baltschug Kempinski Hotel.

Album Invincible

Jackson's next studio album was recorded only six years later, its release was repeatedly postponed. The Sony label was reluctant to invest millions of dollars in the protracted process of recording and subsequent promotion of the album, which ultimately led to a falling out between the singer and the recording giant. "Invincible" (Invincible), released in October 2001, contained 16 tracks, including the single "You Rock My World", which starred famous actors Marlon Brando and Chris Tucker in the video. The album was met with a mixed critical reception, and its sales figures were half that of "HIStory".

The song Invincible is dedicated to a 15-year-old Afro-Norwegian boy named Benjamin Hermansen, who was killed by a group of neo-Nazis in Oslo (Norway, January 26, 2001). Omer Bhatti, a close friend of Jackson, was a good friend of Benjamin Hermansen. Michael Jackson writes in a message:

“This album is dedicated to Benny Germansen. We must remember that a person can be judged not by the color of his skin, but by his personal qualities. Benjamin, we love you. Rest in peace".

To promote the album, a special celebration of the 30th anniversary of Michael Jackson's solo career was organized at Madison Square Garden in September 2001. Jackson appeared on stage alongside his brothers for the first time since 1984. The show also included performances by Britney Spears, Mya, Usher, Whitney Houston, Tamia, Slash, Aaron Carter. The album spawned three singles, "You Rock My World", "Cry" and "Butterflys", the latter of which had no music video. "Unbreakable" was supposed to be released as a single, but due to several funding issues, Sony refused to release it.

In November 2003, Jackson released the hits collection Number Ones. The 18 tracks included in the collection included 16 previously released hits, a live performance of the song "Ben" and the new single "One More Chance". By the end of 2004, Number Ones had sold over 6 million copies worldwide.

Late 2000s

In 2003, Jackson had to stand trial on charges of child molestation. After a lengthy trial, the musician was acquitted. After the trial, Michael Jackson retired from journalists in Bahrain and began preparing a recording of a charity single in memory of the victims of Hurricane Katrina. It soon became clear that not all the invited musicians wanted to participate in the project led by Jackson. Although the song "I Have This Dream" was recorded, it was never released as a single due to unclear circumstances.

On November 16, 2004, Michael Jackson released "Michael Jackson: The Ultimate Collection" Box Set" - a 5-disc set - containing 57 tracks and 13 previously unreleased recordings, covering the period from 1969 to 2004, plus a previously unreleased 1992 live concert on DVD.

In the summer of 2008, Sony BMG launched a global campaign in which people in more than 20 countries voted for their favorite songs of Michael Jackson, and thus took part in compiling the collection of hits of the "King of Pop" in their country. 122 tracks were presented to the fans. The album, which became unique in each country, included about 17-18 tracks on each disc (there were 1 or 2 in total, depending on the country).

In addition, Michael Jackson recorded his new solo album, which was scheduled for release in 2009. The album featured rappers Will.I.Am, Kanye West and R'n'B singer Akon.

In November 2008, the son of the King of Bahrain, Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Khalifa, at whose invitation the singer was in this country, filed a lawsuit against Michael Jackson for failure to fulfill contractual obligations. The sheikh demanded payment of seven million dollars to him.

In March 2009, Michael announced that he was going to give last episode concerts in London under the name "This Is It Tour". The concerts were scheduled to begin on July 13, 2009 and end on March 6, 2010. When Jackson announced his return to the stage at a special press conference on March 5, 2009, it was about 10 concerts at The O2 arena, which seats 20,000 people. However, the demand for tickets was so high that 40 more performances had to be scheduled. The concert tour never took place due to the death of the singer.

Sony signed a contract with Michael's family for the release of ten new Jackson albums. These will include re-releases of some of the older albums and compilations of never-before-released songs. The release of the first album called Michael is scheduled for December 14, 2010. It will consist of ten unreleased songs, including those recorded by Michael shortly before his death.

There will also be a game called "Michael Jackson the experience" and the entire videography of "Michael Jackson vision". Release date November 22-23, 2010

Personal life

A family

Michael Jackson has been married twice. From 1994 to 1996 he was married to Lisa-Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley. They first met in 1975 during one of the celebrations at the MGM Grand Hotel, in the casino. Through a mutual friend, they met again in early 1993, and their relationship became serious. Every day they called up.

When Jackson was accused of child molestation and it became public, Jackson became dependent on Presley: he needed emotional support, and she was concerned about his health and addiction to relaxing drugs. Presley explained: “I believed that he did nothing wrong and that he was innocent, I became closer to him. I wanted to save him. I felt I could do it". She soon persuaded him to settle the charges out of court, as well as the need for rehabilitation to restore health. In October 1993, Jackson proposed to Presley over the phone: “If I asked you to marry me, would you do it?” They got married in the Dominican Republic in secret, denying it for almost two months. Jackson and Presley divorced less than two years later, but remained friends. In 1997, Presley accompanied Michael, who was married to Debbie Rowe, on the HIStory tour.

In November 1996, after divorcing her, Jackson married Debbie Rowe (a former nurse), with whom he has two children: a son, Prince Michael Joseph Jackson Sr. (born February 13, 1997) and a daughter, Paris-Michael Katherine Jackson ( born April 3, 1998). Debbie Rowe and Michael Jackson divorced in 1999. The second son - Prince Michael Jackson II (born February 21, 2002) was born from a surrogate mother, whose identity is unknown. A scandalous story is connected with this child, when Michael, showing photographers on Prince Street, almost dropped him from a height of 50 feet. After that, Jackson tried to hide his family from the press and fans: when they appeared in public, the children wore masks. Custody of the children after Jackson's death was taken by his mother, Katherine Jackson.

In life, good friends of Michael Jackson were: Diana Ross, Brooke Shields, Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Eddie Murphy, Chris Tucker, Macaulay Culkin, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Omer Bhatti.

Health and appearance

Michael's childhood was difficult. He and some of his siblings said they were abused and abused by their father. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Jackson's appearance began to change dramatically. He lost weight, his skin brightened, his nose and facial contours changed. The initial causes of skin lightening are vitiligo and systemic lupus erythematosus (which were diagnosed in Jackson in 1986), as well as the singer's use of cosmetics to mask skin blemishes. Surgeons believe he has had a rhinoplasty, forehead lift, cheekbone surgery, and thinned lips.

Mental health experts claimed he had the mind of a ten-year-old, while other doctors thought he suffered from body dysmorphic disorder. Deepak Chopra, a doctor and friend of Jackson's for 20 years, said: “The reason that he subjected himself to plastic surgery was the craving for self-mutilation and complete disrespect for himself”.

During the 1990s, it seemed that Jackson became dependent on prescription drugs, mainly painkillers and powerful sedatives, and his health began to deteriorate rapidly. He went into rehab in 1993 with the help of Elizabeth Taylor and Elton John, but the addiction remained.

Childhood and mental health

Jackson and some of his siblings have stated that they were physically and mentally abused from a young age by their father Joseph, which included continuous rehearsals, insults, and the use of derogatory names such as "big nose" for Michael; this treatment influenced the rest of Jackson's life. During one of the trials, Marlon Jackson recalled how Joseph held Michael by one leg upside down and inflicted many blows with his hand on the back and buttocks. Joseph often tripped the boys and pushed them. One night, when Michael was sleeping, Joseph went up to his room through the window. He put on a scary mask, entered the room and screamed. Joseph explained that this was how he taught the children not to leave the windows open at night. For years to come, Jackson had nightmares about being kidnapped from his bedroom. By the early 1980s, he was deeply unhappy; Jackson said: “Even at home I am lonely. I sometimes sit in my room and cry. It's so hard to find friends... I sometimes leave the house at night, only to find someone to talk to. But it all ends with me returning home.”

Jackson recalled how Joseph sat in a chair during rehearsal, holding his belt in his hand. And if the children did something wrong, then he beat them with this belt. In 2003, the father admitted that he beat his children. In November 2010, he confirmed this, but stated the following: “I don't think Michael was afraid of me. If he was afraid, it was that he might do something wrong, and I would reprimand him, but not that I would beat him. I never beat him, as many media wrote.

Michael Jackson was convicted of child molestation in 2003 and acquitted two years later. During the investigation, Jackson's biography was studied by Stan Katz, a professional psychologist, who also spent several hours with the accuser. According to John Randy Taraborrelli, Katz concluded that Jackson was stuck at the level of mental development of a ten-year-old child. Some doctors have publicly expressed the opinion that the singer had body dysmorphophobia, a psychological disorder in which a person is overly concerned and preoccupied with a minor defect or feature of his body.

Vitiligo and lupus, treatment and consequences

Jackson's skin was swarthy in his youth, but from the mid-1980s, it became increasingly pale; this was, as many believed, due to the fact that Michael deliberately bleached his skin and changed facial features to look like a European. All this was widely covered in the media. According to John Randy Taraborrelli's biographical book, Jackson was diagnosed with vitiligo and lupus in 1986. Vitiligo partially lightened his skin and made him sensitive to sunlight. The lupus was in remission, but sunlight may have aggravated it. To combat these diseases, Jackson used solaquine, tretinoin, and benoquine. He also used hydroxychloroquine, which was regularly injected directly into the scalp. Medicines with which he fought these diseases; cosmetics to hide blemishes on the skin - because of all this, he seemed very pale.

In February 1993, Jackson gave an unusually candid hour and a half interview with Oprah Winfrey, which was his first televised interview since 1979. During this interview, he stated that he never bleached his skin on purpose, publicly announcing for the first time that he suffers from vitiligo disease and is forced to use powerful cosmetics to even out skin color. The interview was viewed by 68 million Americans. After that, active public discussions began on the topic of an unknown disease at that time. An autopsy performed after Jackson's death confirmed that he suffered from vitiligo.

During the Australian leg of the HIStory World Tour, Jackson married his dermatologist's nurse, Debbie Rowe. They first met in the mid-1980s when Jackson was diagnosed with vitiligo. Over the years, she treated his illness and provided emotional support, and the two formed a strong friendship before their relationship became romantic. The couple divorced in 1999, but they remained friends.

plastic surgery

The outlines of his face also changed; some surgeons believe that he underwent numerous surgeries to change his nose, forehead, lips, and cheekbones. According to Taraborrelli, in 1979 Jackson had his first rhinoplasty after breaking his nose while performing a difficult dance element. However, the operation was not entirely successful, and Michael complained of difficulty breathing. He was sent to Stephen Hofflin who gave him a second rhinoplasty in 1980. However, in a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, Jackson's mother revealed that Michael deliberately and purposefully got his first nose job done. “One day he just got up and decided that he wanted to redo his nose, considering it too big. He left as soon as he decided to do so. When I asked where Michael was, it turned out that he was fixing his nose. Katherine Jackson said In his 1988 autobiography, Moonwalk, Jackson wrote that in addition to nose surgery, he also had a dimple in his chin and never had any more surgeries. However, his mother said that Michael had more than two plastic surgeries, but he was very shy about it: “I heard that people are addicted to plastic. I think that's exactly what happened to him. I told him that there were enough operations already and asked why he couldn't stop. I even talked to him plastic surgeon and asked that when Michael comes, he only pretended to change something in his face.. Also, since 1986, Jackson has been a regular client of Arnold Klein, a dermatologist who specializes in skin injections and non-surgical cosmetic procedures.

In his book, Jackson attributed the changes to his face to puberty, a strict vegetarian diet, weight loss, hair changes, and stage lighting. He refuted the opinions of many that he had an operation on his eyelids. By 1990, the changes that were happening to Michael were already widely discussed by the public; relatives of the singer reported that by that time he had undergone about ten operations on his face. In June 1992, The Daily Mirror ran a front-page image of what was believed to be Michael Jackson's face, which was described as "horribly disfigured" by plastic surgery. Jackson sued the tabloid and they reached a settlement in 1998. In the highest court, the former editor of the publication said that there were no traces of plastic surgery on Jackson's face and publicly apologized to him.

Weight and drug dependence

Part of the reason for the changes in his face were periods of significant weight loss. Jackson lost weight in the early 1980s due to a change in diet and a desire to have a "dancer's body". By 1984, Jackson had lost 9 kilograms, bringing his weight to 48 kilograms with a height of 175 cm - at that time he had the smallest weight in his entire life. adulthood. Witnesses reported that Jackson often experienced dizziness, and it is believed that he suffered from anorexia nervosa. In subsequent years, the musician recovered a little, but after being accused of child molestation in 1993, Jackson stopped eating, again losing a lot of weight. In late 1995, he was rushed to the hospital after collapsing while rehearsing for a television performance (which was later cancelled); an independent writer claims that the incident was caused by a stress-related panic attack, while doctors cited abnormal heart rhythms, gastrointestinal inflammation, dehydration, and malfunctioning of the kidneys and liver; In none of the hospitalizations, including this one, drugs were found in Jackson's system. The BBC reported that during his trial in 2005, the singer also suffered from stress-related illnesses and serious weight loss.

The biographer claims that in 1993, the artist agreed to the use of analgesics, diazepam, alprazolam and lorazepam, to deal with the stress caused by the allegation of child molestation brought against him. A few months later, according to the news, Jackson lost approximately 4.5 kg of weight and stopped eating. During the deposition in court, Jackson was very drowsy, unable to concentrate, and spoke indistinctly. He couldn't remember the release dates of his previous albums or the names of the people he worked with. It took him a few minutes to name some of his recent albums.

Jackson's health deteriorated to the point that he canceled the last leg of his world tour and flew with his girlfriend Elizabeth Taylor and her husband to London. At the airport, two friends supported him to keep him from falling; he was rushed to Elton John's manager's house and then to a clinic. At the entrance, he was searched for drugs; medicine bottles were found in the suitcase. He was placed on the fourth floor of the hospital in an intravenous ward to reduce his dependence on painkillers. A rep for the singer then told reporters that Jackson could barely move or talk. At the clinic, Jackson underwent group and individual therapy sessions. According to Taraborrelli, in January 2004, when the trial ended, Jackson became addicted to morphine and demerol.

After Jackson's death, a police investigation, directed primarily against Jackson's personal physician Conrad Murray, found that Dr. Jackson had used 19 different aliases, including "Omar Arnold", "Josephine Baker", "Fernand Diaz", "Paul Farance", "Peter Madonie, Faheem Muhammad, Roselyn Muhammad, Blanca Nicholas, Jimmy Nicholas, Bryan Singleton, and Frank Tyson while prescribing medication for Jackson. He, in turn, received doctor's prescriptions under the pseudonyms "Prince", "Michael Amir" and "Kai Chase" - these are the names of one of his sons, a representative and a former personal chef, respectively. Police during a search in Las Vegas of the home and office of Conrad Murray found a CD that mentioned the pseudonym "Omar Arnold". The use of pseudonyms by celebrity doctors is a common practice: it is done to keep the patient's medical history confidential and does not necessarily indicate drug addiction.

Child molestation allegations

Michael's fans held demonstrations in support of him during the allegations
Michael Jackson has been tried twice on charges of child molestation, both times boys.
In 1993, he was accused of molesting 13-year-old Jordan Chandler. Jordan was a fan of Jackson and often visited him at Neverland Ranch. According to the boy's father, the son confessed to him that the singer forced him to touch his genitals. The police investigated these allegations, during which Michael had to show his genitals to compare with what the boy described. As a result, the parties entered into a settlement: Jackson paid the Chandler family $ 22 million, and they withdrew the application.

Ten years later, in 2003, Michael was again charged with a similar charge. This time, the singer was accused of molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo, also a regular guest at the Neverland Ranch. During their stay at the ranch, the children often slept in the same room as Jackson, and even on his bed. According to the prosecution, Jackson allegedly got Gavin drunk, which is already a crime under US law, and then masturbated with him. In addition, he allegedly often groped Gavin and other children.
On December 18, the police raided the Neverland Jackson estate, and on the 20th, the singer was arrested and released on bail a few hours later. Like the previous time, Jackson vehemently denied the accusation, stating that the Arvizo family was simply trying to engage in extortion. Michael's trial lasted from February to May 2005. More than 2,200 media outlets from around the world have accredited their journalists to cover the scandalous trial. The jury ruled that there was not enough evidence and Jackson was innocent.
Constant litigation led to the deterioration of Jackson's health, he even began to use painkillers to cope with stress. In addition, the court served to completely empty bank accounts: the services of the best lawyers in the United States cost more than $ 100,000,000.
After the singer's death in 2009, Jordan Chandler admitted that he slandered Michael Jackson, his father Evan Chandler (who later committed suicide) forced him to do this for the sake of money.

Religious views

Michael Jackson was not an open follower of any church, but showed interest in the religion of various denominations.
The Jackson family belonged to the Jehovah's Witnesses, and Michael was brought up in this organization. However, his relationship with the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses did not work out because of the strict rules that it imposes on its members. Jehovah's Witnesses condemned his defiant behavior on stage and his Thriller video, which were unacceptable to the organization's followers. Soon, Michael's sister La Toya Jackson was expelled from the organization for not attending their meetings. Michael, like all members of the organization, was forbidden to communicate with her, which was a blow to him. Michael violated the prohibition of the congregation elders and himself stopped attending the meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses. In 1987, it was announced that the Jehovah's Witnesses no longer considered Michael a member.
In recent years, Jackson began to take an interest in Islam. Michael's brother, Jermaine Jackson, is an open Muslim and often gave his brother books about the religion. Germain hoped that the passion for religion would protect Michael from nervous breakdowns and bad habits. In addition, Michael had connections with the African-American Nation of Islam. According to the former nanny of his children, Jackson often met with the leader of this organization, Louis Farrakhan.
On November 21, 2008, The Sun tabloid reported that Jackson allegedly changed his name to Mikael in a ceremony of shahada, "a promise to be faithful to the Quran", as a sign of his conversion to Islam, while visiting composer Steve Porcaro in Los Angeles. This information has never been confirmed by Jackson himself. Jackson's lawyer Londell McMillan denied the report, saying of him that "this is bullshit. This is a complete lie".
Jackson was also close to Andre Crouch, a Christian musician and gospel singer. Shortly before his death, the singer visited a Christian church with Crouch and sang several Christian songs. According to Crouch and his sister, Jackson asked them about Christian customs and commandments, but said nothing about wanting to be baptized himself.

Death, farewell ceremony and funeral

Michael Jackson's death on June 25, 2009 at 21:26 UTC (14:26 local summer Pacific time, 1:26 Moscow time) occurred after he collapsed in a rented house in Los Angeles.
As the death of an icon of an entire era, it caused a huge reaction from Michael's fans around the world, influenced the work of many major sites and caused an explosion in sales of Jackson's albums.
On the morning of June 25, 2009, Michael collapsed while in a house he was renting in Holmby Hills, West Los Angeles. Jackson's personal physician, cardiologist Conrad Murray, later reported through his lawyer that he went up to the second floor and found Jackson in bed, no longer breathing, but with a weak pulse in the femoral artery. Murray began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation. After 5-10 minutes, Murray decided to make a phone call, but there was no landline in the bedroom, and Murray did not want to call on a cell phone, because he did not know the address of Jackson's house. While Murray was looking for a security guard to use his phone to call emergency services, 30 minutes passed. At 12:21 p.m. local time, a 911 call was recorded. It was not Murray who called, but a home security worker.
Arriving 3 minutes and 17 seconds after the call, the doctors found Jackson no longer breathing with a cardiac arrest and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation for 42 minutes. According to Murray's lawyer, a UCLA doctor ordered the medical team to give a direct injection of adrenaline into Jackson's heart. The lawyer noted that all the time while Jackson was at home, he still had a pulse. Efforts to bring Jackson back to life continued along the way and for an hour after arriving at the UCLA Medical Center at 1:14 p.m. The effect was not achieved. Death was pronounced at 14:26 local time

Stacy Brown, Jackson's biographer, said that Jackson became "very weak, very, very underweight" and that the family was very worried about it. Another biographer, Randy Taraborrelli, who knew Jackson for 40 years, said that Jackson had been addicted to painkillers for decades. Arnold Klein, Jackson's dermatologist, confirmed the fact that Jackson abused prescription drugs. At the same time, Klein examined Jackson three days before his death and, according to Klein, the singer “He was in very good physical condition. He danced for my patients. He was in a good psychological tone when we examined him, and in a very good mood..

Investigation

The coroners were investigating the cause of death. Michael's body was transported by helicopter to Boyle Heights, home of the Los Angeles coroner's office. An autopsy was performed on June 26 in the evening, after which the body was given to the family. However, the cause of death was not established. To clarify it, additional toxicological tests were required, which could take from 6 to 8 weeks. At the same time, the coroner noted that there were no signs of violence or signs of murder during the autopsy. The Jackson family later performed a second autopsy.
Despite the fact that initially there was no suspicion of a murder, the day after Jackson's death, the Los Angeles Police Department began investigating an unusual and high-profile case. Because the LAPD did not restrict access to Jackson's home and it was freely visited by his relatives, some observers, such as lawyer Brown Harland, have criticized the actions of the police, believing that, due to the free access of unauthorized persons, the chain of custody could be broken.
On July 1, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) joined the investigation. The DEA, with the power to investigate issues normally protected by doctor-patient privilege, could examine all of Jackson's prescription medications. California Attorney General Jerry Brown said the DEA used CURES, a prescription database containing information about all prescribed drugs, doctors, doses and patients, to investigate. On July 9, William Bratton, LAPD chief, said the investigation was focused on murder or accidental overdose, but that full toxicology reports from the coroners should be awaited.
On August 24, the conclusions of a forensic medical examination were made public - death was due to an overdose of the potent anesthetic propofol. A number of other potent substances (lorazepam, diazepam, midazolam) were also found in the blood.
On August 28, the Los Angeles coroner announced that Michael Jackson's death would be qualified as a homicide.

Jackson's personal physician, cardiologist Conrad Murray, was born in 1953 in Grenada, lived for a long time in Trinidad and Tobago, emigrated to the United States in the 1960s. A 1989 graduate of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. Not certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine. In 1992, his firm went bankrupt, and later several lawsuits were filed against him for a total of $790,000. According to the Telegraph, Murray met Jackson in 2008 in Las Vegas, where Murray was treating his cold. According to People, the acquaintance happened in 2006, when Murray treated Jackson's children. Jackson insisted that AEG Live - the organizer of Jackson's planned concerts - hire Murray, and Murray lived with Jackson for two weeks preparing him for the concert program. Murray was supposed to accompany Jackson on his trip to the UK and was supposed to be paid $150,000 a month, but the contract required Jackson's signature and was never signed by him.
Doubts were raised about the quality of Murray's CPR - Murray performed it not on the floor or other hard surface, but on a bed. As soon as the 9-1-1 operator heard that CPR was being performed on the bed, he immediately requested that the patient be moved to the floor. In response, Murray, through a lawyer, stated that the bed was very hard, in addition, he put his hand under Jackson's back. In addition, the lawyer stated that when the ambulance arrived, Jackson's blood was still circulating, there was a pulse, which means CPR was successful. A professor of cardiology at the Indiana University School of Medicine stated that “it is very difficult, if not impossible, to perform CPR on a bed. There is no leverage, no firm support, no neck extension.”. The professor also noted that it is impossible to support the back of the patient with one hand while performing CPR with the other hand, since "Even for an emaciated 50 kg person, you need two hands" to achieve the desired compression.
On July 29, 2009, the confession of a personal doctor became known that shortly before his death he injected Michael Jackson with the powerful painkiller propofol.

Michael Jackson is survived by a son and daughter from his marriage to Debbie Rowe - Prince Michael Joseph Jackson (b. 1997) and Paris Michael Katherine Jackson (b. 1998), as well as a son, Prince Michael Jackson II, born in 2002 year from an unknown surrogate mother.

He was also survived by brothers - Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, Randy; sisters - Rebbie, Janet and Latoya; parents - Joseph and Katherine Jackson. On June 27, the Jackson family released a joint statement:
In one of the darkest moments of our lives, we find it hard to find words worthy of this sudden tragedy that we all face. Our beloved son, brother and father of three children left so unexpectedly, so tragically and so fast. This leaves us, his family, speechless and devastated to the point where communication with the outside world seems almost impossible at times.

We lost Michael forever, our pain cannot be expressed in words. But Michael wouldn't want us to give up now. So we want to say thank you to all of his loyal supporters and fans around the world, you are the ones that Michael loved so much. Please do not fall into despair, because Michael will live in each of you. Keep carrying his word, because that's exactly what he would like you to do. Keep going and his legacy will live forever.

Press and public gathered around UC Medical Center on June 25

The news of Jackson's death was first reported by TMZ.com, a Los Angeles-based celebrity tabloid. Jackson's death was pronounced at 2:26 pm, and 18 minutes later, at 2:44 pm, the website reported that "Michael Jackson died today at the age of 50." For more than an hour, TMZ.com alone reported on Jackson's death, and magazines and television were wary of reprinting this information for fear of spreading false information. Jackson's death was first confirmed by The Los Angeles Times at 3:15 pm PDT. Due to the large influx of visitors, the sites TMZ.com and The Los Angeles Times worked intermittently.
Immediately after the news of Jackson's death, MTV and BET began to broadcast only Michael Jackson clips and programs dedicated to Jackson. On MTV, the uninterrupted marathon of Jackson's clips continued for two days. Each clip was followed by a live broadcast from a makeshift studio in Times Square, where famous people in the pop industry called and expressed their condolences. American channels ABC, CBS, NBC released in prime time on June 25 special programs commemorating the deaths of Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. On June 29, TIME magazine published a special memorial issue about Jackson, which was the first such memorial issue since the September 11, 2001, issue.

On June 25 and 26, Michael Jackson's death was devoted to 60% of all news releases in the United States. This detailed media coverage of Jackson's death has been criticized. The head of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, said that CNN paid more attention to the death of Jackson than to the political crisis in Honduras, and called such a news policy "deplorable". 70% of whites and 36% of blacks polled by the Pew Research Center felt that press coverage of Jackson's death was too detailed, and only three percent felt that coverage of Jackson's death was insufficient. The BBC has received more than 700 complaints from viewers complaining about being too big number news about Jackson.

Within hours of Jackson's death, sales of his records skyrocketed. His album Thriller climbed to number one on the US iTunes chart, while his other eight albums climbed to the top 40. In the UK, 14 of the top twenty spots on the Amazon.com chart were Jackson albums, with Off The Wall at number one. Sales of all Michael Jackson CDs and MP3s on Amazon.com increased 721 times on June 26. According to the vice president of Amazon.com, the online store sold out all the available discs of Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 in a matter of minutes after the news of Jackson's death.

In total, 415,000 Michael Jackson albums were sold in the United States in a week, which is 40% more than in the entire year before his death.

On the day of his death, condolences from the heads of Sony Corporation are posted on the official website. This appeal was on the site on June 25 and 26, then it was replaced with a bulletin board where everyone could post their message.

Jackson's death caused bitterness among his fans, who began to gather around the UC Medical Center and Michael's home in Holmby Hills. Fans also approached the Apollo Theater in New York. A small group of fans, including the mayor, crowded into Gary around the house where Jackson spent his childhood. Fans also gathered on the Hollywood Walk of Fame around Michael Jackson's radio commentator's star, as Michael Jackson's own star was unavailable due to the premiere of Bruno. In Russia, Jackson fans gathered outside the US Embassy in Moscow, attaching flowers and photographs to the embassy's fence.
Gary Taylor, head of Jackson's MJJcommunity fan club, said 12 fans committed suicide following the news of Michael's death.

US President Barack Obama, in a conversation with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, called Michael Jackson a "musical icon", expressed condolences to the singer's family and fans, and also sent a letter to Jackson's family. In the US House of Representatives, Jackson was honored with a minute of silence.
Many celebrities reacted to Jackson's death. , who wanted to participate in one of Jackson's concerts in London, said she "couldn't stop crying" over Jackson's death. Elizabeth Taylor, a longtime friend of Jackson's, said her "heart and mind are broken" and that she "can't imagine life without him." Paul McCartney posted a message on his website saying that “It was an honor to spend time and work with Michael. He was a very talented guy gentle soul. His music will be remembered forever, and my memories of the time spent with him will be happy.". Their condolences on the death of Michael Jackson on the official website Queen expressed Brian May. Lisa Marie Presley, ex-wife of Michael Jackson, said she was extremely amazed that exactly the same thing happened to Jackson that happened to her father Elvis Presley in 1977, as Michael himself predicted.

The news of Jackson's death quickly spread across the Internet, causing problems for many websites. Thus, the Google search engine perceived a large number of search queries for "Michael Jackson" as a hacker attack and from 14:40 to 15:15 PDT issued a warning to users that their "query looks like queries automatically sent by viruses and spyware." The number of messages about Jackson in the Twitter microblogging service rose to 100,000 per hour on June 25, as a result of which the service was temporarily unavailable. AIM, America Online's instant messaging service, has been unavailable for 40 minutes. America Online issued a special press release naming the day of Jackson and Farrah Fawcett's death "nodal day in the history of the Internet" and noted that they "never seen anything like it in scale or depth". The online encyclopedia Wikipedia was temporarily unavailable at approximately 3:15 pm PDT due to an influx of readers and active editing of articles. According to Keynote's calculations, the average download time for a 3-hour news post has doubled from four seconds to nine.

For many sites, the day of Jackson's death was a record in attendance. News michael jackson rushed to hospital on Yahoo! visited a record 800 thousand times in the first 10 minutes, and in general Yahoo! News was viewed by 16.4 million unique visitors in a single day, surpassing the previous US Election Day record of 15.1 million visitors. On June 26, Michael Jackson's article on the English-language Wikipedia was shown 5.9 million times, which was the most hit in the history of the encyclopedia.

The funeral

The farewell ceremony was held on July 7 at the Los Angeles Staples Center with a capacity of 20,000 people. 17,500 free tickets were randomly drawn among those who wished. The page on which they were accepted was shown 4 million times and an additional server was installed to process the requests. A total of 1.6 million fan submissions were accepted. On July 5, the computer selected 8750 people from the registrants, each of whom received two tickets. 11,000 ticket holders were allowed inside the Staples Center, while the remaining 6,500 people watched the ceremony from large outdoor screens. 3,200 police officers were assigned to keep order, the ceremony cost the budget of the city of Los Angeles from 1.5 to 4 million dollars.

A private farewell ceremony for Michael Jackson was held on July 7 at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. The coffin was later moved to the Staples Center, where a public ceremony was to take place.

Smokey Robinson began the service at 17:10 UTC after reading messages from Diana Ross and Nelson Mandela. While the gospel choir sang "Soon and Very Soon" by Andre Crouch, Jackson's coffin was brought into the hall. This was followed by a speech by Pastor Lucius Smith. Mariah Carey and Trey Lorenz sang I "ll Be There, the Jackson 5 single, after which Queen Latifah said her word. Lionel Richie, Jackson's friend and co-author of "We Are the World", performed the song "Jesus is Love" by The Commodores. Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records, the record company where Jackson and his brothers began their career, gave a speech in which he called Jackson "the greatest worker in the entertainment industry that ever lived". These words were met with a standing ovation.

Then Stevie Wonder spoke and performed the song "Never Dreamed You "d Leave in Summer" and "They Won't Go When I Go". Kobe Bryant spoke about Jackson's humanitarian work, and Magic Johnson, who appeared in the episode in the video "Remember the Time ", talked about his relationship with Jackson. John Mayer played the song "Human Nature" on the guitar from the album Thriller. Brooke Shields spoke about the time spent with Jackson, read excerpts from little prince and noticed that Jackson's favorite song was "Smile" by Charlie Chaplin, which was immediately performed by Jermaine, Jackson's older brother.

Martin Luther King's children, Martin Luther King III and Bernays King, said that Michael Jackson was the best at what he did. Sheila Jackson-Lee, member of the US House of Representatives from Texas, spoke about Jackson's "American history" and announced her intention to have him declared an international humanitarian through the House of Representatives. Asher approached the coffin and sang the song "Gone Too Soon", which Jackson himself sang in memory of Ryan White, a schoolboy who died of AIDS in 1990. After Usher, a clip from The Ed Sullivan Show of 1969 was shown, in which the Jackson 5 performed Smokey Robinson's Who's Loving You. After the video was shown, Smokey Robinson himself spoke about this performance of his song. After Robinson's story, this song was performed 12-year-old Shaheen Jafargoli of Britain's Got Talent Kenny Ortega was the next to mention Jackson, then several guests, along with the singers, including Michael Jackson's family and children, performed "We Are the World" and "Heal the World" .
After the concert, the Jackson brothers, Marlon and Jermaine, made small speeches and hugged. The concert ended with Michael Jackson's daughter, Paris Katherine Jackson, who tearfully said she loved her father, adding that he was "the best father you can imagine". The family removed the coffin from the stadium as "Man in the Mirror" began to play. During the performance, the spotlight illuminated the microphone stand, which was empty. Pastor Lucius Smith closed the service with a prayer at 19:48 UTC.

The farewell ceremony was broadcast in many countries of the world. In the United States, the farewell ceremony was broadcast by 19 television channels, and was also shown in 37 cinemas. In Russia, the live broadcast was made on the channels of Muz-TV, Euronews and MTV-Russia. The total global audience of the ceremony prior to the broadcast was estimated at 300 million to 1 billion people. These predictions turned out to be grossly overestimated. In total, 31 million people watched television broadcasts in the United States. By comparison, 33 million Americans watched Princess Diana's funeral, 23 million watched Ronald Reagan's, and 68 million watched Bill Clinton's August 1998 apology to the nation. In the UK, the total audience of the broadcast was 6.5 million people - 4.5 million viewers watched the broadcast on BBC Two (20% of the total audience of this timeslot), 1.2 million on Five and 900 thousand on Sky News. For Sky News, the broadcast audience was the largest since the early days of the Iraq War.

In addition to television, the ceremony was also broadcast on the Internet. The CNN website transmitted 9.7 million video streams on July 7, down from the record 27 million video streams on Barack Obama's inauguration day. UStream transmitted 4.6 million and MSNBC 3 million video streams. On the BBC website, the broadcast was watched by 8.2 million global unique visitors, which was the second most watched event for the BBC Online service after the inauguration of Obama.

There were reports that Michael Jackson was secretly buried on August 8 or 9, 2009 at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles, but later it was reported that he would not be buried until September.

The King of Pop's final funeral took place on Thursday, September 3 at Glendale Forest Lawn Cemetery in suburban Los Angeles. The death certificate lists "murder" in the "cause" column.

On July 1, 2009, Michael Jackson's will, drawn up on July 7, 2002, was made public. According to the document, the entire fortune, estimated at that time at $500 million and almost entirely consisting of "non-cash, illiquid assets primarily from interest on the publishing rights catalog currently managed by Sony ATV and other interest"
2010 -

Filmography

1978 - Wizard / The Wiz - "Scarecrow" (first film role)
1986 - "Captain IO / Captain EO" - in the title role of Captain IO
1988 - "Moon Wanderer / Moonwalker" - plays himself
1996 - "Ghosts / Ghosts" - played five different roles (thanks to makeup); In 2006, this film was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest video.
2002 - "Men in Black 2" - "Agent Em"
2004 - "Miss Robinson / Miss Cast Away" - Michael Jackson again plays a cameo role in this film, which lasts no more than 10 minutes
2009 - "That's it / This is it" - a musical documentary film directed by Kenny Ortega, created with the full support of the Jackson family.

listen)) is an American entertainer, songwriter, dancer, composer, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. The most successful performer in the history of pop music, over 260 million albums sold worldwide, not counting singles, winner of 15 Grammy awards and hundreds of other awards. 13 times listed in the Guinness Book of Records; Around a billion copies of Jackson's albums have been sold worldwide. In 2009, he was officially recognized as an American Legend and Music Icon. Michael Jackson has made a significant contribution to the development of popular music, music videos, dance and fashion. Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 as a result of an overdose of drugs, in particular, propofol.

Biography

Childhood and The Jackson 5

Michael Jackson was born to Joseph and Katherine in Gary, Indiana. He was the seventh of nine children. Jackson claimed that his father repeatedly humiliated him mentally and physically. However, he respected his father's strict discipline, which played a large part in Jackson's success. In one of the confrontations with his father, described by Michael's older brother Marlon, his father held him upside down and hit him on the back and buttocks. One night, while Michael was sleeping, his father snuck into his room through the window. He was in a frightening mask, piercingly screamed and roared. Joseph explained his action by saying that he wanted to teach his children to close the window before going to bed. Four years later, Michael confessed to suffering from nightmares in which he was kidnapped from his bedroom. In 2003, Joseph admitted to the BBC that he had beaten Michael when he was a child.

Jackson first spoke openly about the humiliation he endured as a child in a 1993 interview with Oprah Winfrey. He said that in childhood he often cried from a feeling of loneliness and vomited after talking with his father. In another high-profile interview, Living with Michael Jackson (2003), while talking about childhood abuse, the singer covered his face with his hand and began to cry. Jackson recalled that Joseph sat in a chair with a belt in his hand when he rehearsed with his brothers, and that "if you did something wrong, he will bring you to tears, really get you."

Jackson has been performing in front of classmates at Christmas concerts since the age of five. In 1964, Michael and Marlon joined The Jacksons, a band formed by their brothers Jackie, Tito and Jermaine, as understudies, playing congo and tambourine, respectively. Jackson later began performing as a backing vocalist and dancer; at the age of eight, he and Jermaine became the main vocalists and the group was renamed The Jackson 5. The band toured extensively in the Midwest from 1968 to 1968. Often they performed in a number of "black" clubs and places known as " Chitlin" circuit”, Often warming up the audience before a striptease. In 1966, they won a local talent competition, performing with hits from Motown Records and “I Got You (I Feel Good ) » by James Brown with Michael as the main vocalist .

The Jacksons soon rose to the national level, and in 1970 their first four singles hit number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Gradually, Michael stood out as the frontman of the children's quintet, in fact, it was he who got the main solo parts. He drew attention to himself with his unusual manner of dancing and behavior on stage, which he copied from his idols - James Brown, Jackie Wilson and others.

The beginning of a solo career

Thriller

Jackson in 1988

"Black music has been forced to play second fiddle for a long time, but its spirit is the whole driving force in pop music that Michael connected with every soul in the world"

• "The Girl Is Mine" (No. 2, duet with Paul McCartney).
• "Billie Jean" (No. 1, Grammy Award, the biggest hit of Jackson's entire career and one of the most sampled tracks in funk music).
• "Beat It" (No. 1, another Grammy).
• "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin"" (No. 5).
• "Human Nature" (No. 7).
• P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" (No. 10).
• "Thriller" (No. 4).
• "Baby Be Mine".
• "The Lady in My Life".

October 29, 1988 is released musical film"MoonWalker", which was a success at the box office and earned $ 67 million, and then published on video in the amount of 800 thousand copies (for 1989). In 1989, at the Soul Train Heritage Award ceremony, actress Elizabeth Taylor in her speech called Michael Jackson "the true king of pop, rock and soul", that is, "the real king of pop, rock and soul music", and the unofficial title " the king of pop" stuck with Michael Jackson forever.

However, the 80s were marked not only by achievements and records. January 27, 1984 - the day that changed a lot in the life of Michael Jackson. Michael and his brothers starred in Pepsi commercials. At the request of the director, he lingered dangerously close to pyrotechnic devices. His hair caught fire and Michael suffered 3rd degree burns to his scalp. . While in the hospital, Michael visited a children's burn unit, and after that he decided, instead of receiving a multimillion-dollar compensation from Pepsi, to open a children's burn center with the help of Pepsi in his name. This was the beginning of Michael's charitable activities, which he did not stop until the end of his days. At the opening of the same burn center, Michael was asked to pose in an oxygen pressure chamber for patients with extensive body burns. Michael posed lying on his back, and then turned on his side and pretended to be asleep. Thus was born the most famous myth in show business. In fact, this was the only time that Michael Jackson "sleep" in a pressure chamber. Another consequence of the burn was that the stress transferred by the body provoked the development of "vitiligo", a disease that was transmitted to Michael through the maternal line, and violates the pigmentation of the skin. This led to the need to apply heavy make-up and avoid sunlight. Another consequence: Jackson never recovered from this injury, and the pain did not leave Michael for the rest of his life, and he was forced to start taking painkillers regularly. In addition, after the burn, Michael first became acquainted with plastic surgery, when he restored damaged skin and scalp. After that, he decided to have nose and chin surgery. All this, combined with the transition to a vegetarian diet, and weight loss led to significant changes in the appearance of the singer, which was constantly fodder for discussion in the press. .

The nineties

Due to the increased attention to his person, Jackson spent most of his time in seclusion at his strictly guarded Neverland Ranch. Few friends visited him there, including Elizabeth Taylor. Children also lived on the ranch, to whom the singer was always partial. In 1991, he wrote two singles for The Simpsons, of which he was a fan. However, due to restrictions imposed by the contract, his name was not mentioned in the credits.

On November 26, 1991, the album "Dangerous" was released, the release of which was preceded by the premiere of a large-scale video clip for the single "Black or White" ("Black or White"). For five weeks, "Black or White" was at the top of the charts and became Jackson's biggest hit since "Billie Jean". As with previous albums, seven singles were released from this album. In addition to "Black or White" (No. 1), they included "Remember the Time" (No. 3), "In the Closet" (No. 6) and "Will You Be There" (No. 7). For "Remember the Time", a multi-million dollar budget video with CGI was filmed, in which the pharaoh of Egypt and his consort were portrayed by Eddie Murphy and top model Iman.

Throughout the 1990s, Jackson's face changed a lot, and his skin became completely white.

On June 16, 1995, the double album "HIStory: Past, Present and Future - Book I" was released: on the first disc - a collection of greatest hits, on the second - 15 new songs. It was supposed to be the first part of a trilogy. The first single released was "Scream", a duet between the singer and his sister, Janet Jackson. The song was accompanied by a futuristic music video that cost over seven million dollars to film.

The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and sold over 20 million copies (7 million copies in the US). Many new songs from it were released as singles, among them a ballad about Moscow (“Stranger in Moscow”; Jackson promised to record a song about the Russian capital when he first visited here in 1993), an environmental composition “Earth Song” (five weeks on the first place in the UK) and the modern rhythm and blues composition "You Are Not Alone" (his thirteenth "number one" on the Billboard Hot 100), written and produced for him by R. Kelly. In the video for "You Are Not Alone", Michael appeared half-naked along with his first wife - Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley.

In 1997, the album "Blood on the Dance floor" was released: the soundtrack to the film "Ghosts" and a collection of dance remixes for tracks from "HIStory". Reviews for this disc were mostly positive, with the title track topping the sales charts in many countries, including the UK. In the US, the album went largely unnoticed and did not reach number one on the charts.

Performances in Russia

Album Invincible

Jackson's next studio album was recorded only six years later, its release was repeatedly postponed. The Sony label was reluctant to invest millions of dollars in the protracted process of recording and subsequent promotion of the album, which ultimately led to a falling out between the singer and the recording giant. "Invincible" (Invincible), released in October 2001, contained 16 tracks, including the single "You Rock My World", which featured famous actors Marlon Brando and Chris Tucker in the video. The album was met with a mixed critical reception, and its sales figures were half that of "HIStory".

The song Invincible is dedicated to a 15-year-old Afro-Norwegian boy named Benjamin Hermansen, who was killed by a group of neo-Nazis in Oslo (Norway, January 26, 2001). Omer Bhatti, a close friend of Jackson, was a good friend of Benjamin Hermansen. Michael Jackson writes in a message:

“This album is dedicated to Benny Germansen. We must remember that a person can be judged not by the color of his skin, but by his personal qualities. Benjamin, we love you. Rest in peace".

To promote the album, a special celebration of the 30th anniversary of Michael Jackson's solo career was organized at Madison Square Garden in September. Jackson appeared on stage alongside his brothers for the first time since 1984. The show also included performances by Britney Spears, Mýa, Usher, Whitney Houston, Tamia, "N Sync, Slash, Aaron Carter. A world tour was also planned in support of the album, but due to the September 11 attacks, the tour was canceled. The album spawned three singles," You Rock My World", "Cry" and "Butterflies", the latter of which did not have a music video. "Unbreakable" was to be released as a single, but due to a number of funding issues, Sony declined to release it.

In March 2009, Michael announced that he was going to play the last series of concerts in London called "This Is It Tour". The concerts were scheduled to start on July 13, 2009 and end on March 6, 2010. When Jackson announced his return to the stage at a special press conference on March 5, 2009, it was 10 stadium shows.

Clips and choreography

Jackson is also called the King of the music video. Steve Hay of Allmusic watched as Jackson turned the clip into a work of art through complex storylines, dancing, special effects and celebrity cameo appearances while breaking down racial barriers. Prior to Thriller, Jackson tried in vain to break into MTV, allegedly because he was African American. Pressure from CBS Records convinced MTV to start showing "Billie Jean" and then "Beat It", leading to a long-term partnership with Jackson and also helping other black musicians gain recognition. MTV staff denied racism in their shows or pressure to change their stance. MTV claims they played rock music regardless of race. The popularity of his videos on MTV helped put the relatively young channel on the line; Attention on MTV shifted towards pop and R&B. His performance on Motown: Yesterday, Today, Forever changed the scope of the live show on stage; "The fact that Jackson performed "Billie Jean" in sync is not extraordinary in itself, but the fact that it didn't change the impression of performing extraordinary, whether it was live or in sync, doesn't affect the audience," thus creating an era in which the artists recreate the imagery of the music video on stage. Short films like Thriller mostly remained unique to Jackson, while the dance group dance in "Beat It" was repeatedly imitated. Thriller's choreography has become part of global pop culture, being copied everywhere from Indian films to prison in the Philippines. The short film Thriller is marked by an increase in the level music videos and was named the most successful music video ever to enter the Guinness Book of Records.

In the 19-minute video for the song "Bad" - directed by Martin Scorsese - Jackson began to use sexual imagery and choreography not seen before in his work. From time to time he grabbed or touched the chest, torso and crotch. Asked by Oprah in an interview in 1993 about why he grabs his crotch, he replied, "I think it happens subconsciously," and he described it as something that wasn't planned, but rather like something that was forced by the music. "Bad" received a mixed reception from fans and critics, with Time magazine calling it "infamous". The film also features Wesley Snipes, and future Jackson videos will often feature celebrity cameos. For "Smooth Criminal", Jackson experimented with an innovative "anti-gravity tilt" in his performances. This maneuver requires special shoes, for which he received US Patent No. 5255452. Although the video for the song "Leave Me Alone" was not officially released in the US, it was nominated for three Billboard Music Video Awards in 1989; he received the Golden Lion award the same year for the quality of the special effects used in his productions. In 1990, "Leave Me Alone" won a Grammy for Best Music Video, Short Form.

He received the MTV Video Vanguard Award in 1988 and the MTV Video Vanguard Artist of the Decade Award in 1990 to honor his artistic accomplishments in the 1980s, and in 1991 the first award was renamed in his honor. "Black or White" was accompanied by a controversial music video, which premiered on November 14, 1991, simultaneously in 27 countries to an estimated audience of 500 million, the largest ever watched music video. The scenes shown have been interpreted as being sexual in nature, as well as depicting violence. The offending scenes in the final section of the 14-minute version were edited to prevent the video from being banned, and Jackson apologized. Along with Jackson, the video featured Macaulay Culkinn, Peggy Lipton and George Wendt. This work helped introduce morphing as an important technology in music videos.

Personal life

A family

Michael (under an umbrella) and his two children wearing masks

Michael Jackson has been married twice. From 1996 to 1996 he was married to Lisa-Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley. They first met in 1975 during one of the celebrations at the MGM Grand Hotel, in the casino. Through a mutual friend, they met again in early 1993, and their relationship became serious. Every day they called up.

When Jackson was accused of child molestation and it became public, Jackson became addicted to Presley: he was chasing after her, he needed emotional support, and she was preoccupied with his health and addiction to relaxing drugs. Presley explained:

“I believed that he did nothing wrong and that he was innocent, I became closer to him. I wanted to save him. I felt I could do it"

She soon persuaded him to settle the charges out of court, as well as the need for rehabilitation to restore health. In October 1993, Jackson proposed to Presley over the phone, "If I asked you to marry me, would you?" They married on May 26, 1994 in the Dominican Republic in secret, denying it for nearly two months. The marriage took place at the home of local judge Hugo Alvarez Pérez in the city of Santo Domingo. The wedding took place in the church of St. Stanislaus in the town of Altos de Chavon. The marriage has been called "semi-fictitious" because, under the laws of the Dominican Republic, no woman can remarry unless three months have passed since the divorce. And Lisa Maria in those days only divorced her ex-husband. Jackson and Presley divorced less than two years later, but remained friends. In 1997, Presley accompanied Michael, who was married to Debbie Rowe, on the HIStory tour.

He was on good friendly terms with Princess Diana.

Health

Since the mid-1980s, Michael Jackson's appearance has changed markedly. His skin was getting lighter. As Jackson himself said, the reason for his "whiteness" is a rare genetic disease of vitiligo, and there is a lot of evidence for this in photographs showing white milk spots on Michael's body. These changes were hidden with makeup. Jackson categorically denied the rumors that he was deliberately trying to turn into a white man.

According to some doctors, he underwent several nose surgeries, as well as forehead lifts, lip thinning, cheek surgeries, eyelid surgeries, and chin dimples. The singer himself stated that he only changed the shape of his nose 2 times, and also made a dimple on his chin. He categorically denied everything else, explaining the changes in appearance by growing up, a strict vegetarian diet. In the future, Jackson experienced problems associated with the consequences of operations.

In the early 2000s, Michael briefly appeared in public wearing a medical mask. Rumors began to circulate that Jackson's nose was collapsing and that he had to undergo plastic surgery to repair his nose. Later, Jackson appeared in public with a band-aid on his nose. The performer himself said that it was an anesthetic patch that he put on because of an allergy. Surgeon Arnold Klein subsequently confirmed that he operated on the singer's nose to restore Michael's ability to breathe.

Child molestation allegations

Michael's fans held demonstrations in support of him during the allegations. The inscription on the poster - "Michael is innocent"

Michael Jackson has been tried twice on charges of child molestation, both times boys.

In 1993, he was accused of molesting 13-year-old Jordan Chandler. Jordan was a fan of Jackson and often visited him at Neverland Ranch. According to the boy's father, the son confessed to him that the singer forced him to touch his genitals. The police investigated these allegations, during which Michael had to show his genitals to compare with what the boy described. As a result, the parties entered into a settlement: Jackson paid the Chandler family $ 22 million, and Jordan refused to testify against Michael.

Ten years later, in 2003, Michael was again charged with a similar charge. This time, the singer was accused of molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo, also a regular guest at the Neverland Ranch. During their stay at the ranch, the children often slept in the same room with Jackson and even on his bed. According to the prosecution, Jackson allegedly got Gavin drunk, which is already a crime under US law, and then masturbated with him. In addition, he allegedly often groped Gavin and other children.

On December 18, the police raided Neverland Jackson Manor, and on the 20th, the singer was arrested and released on bail a day later. Like the previous time, Jackson vehemently denied the accusation, stating that the Arvizo family was simply trying to engage in extortion. Michael's trial lasted from February to May 2005. More than 2,200 media outlets from around the world have accredited their journalists to cover the scandalous trial. The jury ruled that there was not enough evidence and Jackson was innocent.

Constant litigation led to the deterioration of Jackson's health, he even began to use painkillers to cope with stress. In addition, the court led to the complete devastation of bank accounts: the services of the best lawyers in the United States cost more than 100,000,000.

After the singer's death in 2009, Jordan Chandler admitted that he slandered Michael Jackson, his father Evan Chandler (who later committed suicide) forced him to do this for the sake of money.

Religious views

Michael Jackson was not an open follower of any church, but showed interest in the religion of various denominations.

Katherine Jackson (Michael's mother) was christened in 1963 when Michael was five years old. The mother tried to raise Michael as a Jehovah's Witness and encouraged him to study the Bible, attend Christian meetings in Kingdom Halls, and preach. However, his relationship with the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses did not work out. Jehovah's Witnesses were shocked by his defiant behavior on stage and his video Thriller unacceptable to members of the organization.

By 1984, despite his immense fame, Michael Jackson continued to preach as a Jehovah's Witness, twice a week, maybe an hour or two. He also attended Christian meetings at the Kingdom Hall with his mother four times a week when he was in the city. He refused to eat blood, to celebrate Easter and Christmas, which he regarded as "pagan holidays", from celebrating his own birthday.

However, in 1987, Jackson left the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses in response to disapproving reviews about the Thriller video. This, in particular, was facilitated by the fact that Michael's sister La Toya Jackson was expelled from the organization around the same time. Michael, like all other members of the organization, was forbidden to communicate with her on spiritual topics (you can talk about everyday topics in a forced situation), which was a blow to him. Michael violated this principle and, as a result, stopped attending meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses himself. In 1987, it was announced that Michael Jackson was no longer a Jehovah's Witness.

Michael's brother, Jermaine Jackson, is an open Muslim, and often gave his brother books about the religion. Germain hoped that his passion for religion would protect Michael from nervous breakdowns and bad habits.

Jackson was also intimately acquainted with Andre Crouch, a Christian musician and gospel singer. Shortly before his death, the singer visited a Christian church with Crouch and sang several Christian songs. According to Crouch and his sister, Jackson asked about their customs but said nothing about wanting to join their denomination.

Death, farewell ceremony and funeral

There were reports that Michael Jackson was secretly buried on August 8 or 9, 2009 at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles, but later it was reported that he would not be buried until September. Jackson's final funeral took place on Thursday, September 3 at Forest Lawn Cemetery in suburban Los Angeles.

Authorities in Los Angeles, meanwhile, are investigating the death of Michael Jackson. The Los Angeles coroner qualified the doctors' actions as murder and did not rule out a trial against them. In November 2011, Conrad Murray was found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced to 4 years in prison. He also lost his license to practice medicine.

After death

Flash mobs (fan mobs)

Michael Jackson flash mob (fan mob)(English) michael jackson flash mob) - flash mobs in memory of Michael Jackson, arose after the death of Michael. Flash mobs in memory of Jackson, with their scale and frequency of conduction, went beyond the usual fan mobs and began a completely new, unique movement. These flash mobs are different from the usual ones, they do not correspond to the rules of the classic mob, just like the fan mob, the participants of this mob are dressed in Jackson's attributes and clothes, thereby copying his style. All choreography and movements copy the movements of Michael Jackson. The music of this flash mob must be selected from Michael's repertoire. Basically the choreography of this mob is taken from Jackson's original choreography, but is sometimes lightened or simply changed, as it is very difficult for non-professionals to repeat it.

Jackson was also awarded the Outstanding Contribution to World Culture Award for contributions of hundreds of millions of dollars to 39 charities he supported and his own foundation. Heal the World .

Awarded (posthumously) at the "Muz-TV 2010 Prize" for a huge contribution to the world music industry. The prize was awarded to the sister of the singer Jackson, La Toya (LaToya Jackson).

In total, the singer has 395 awards.

Discography

Studio albums

Filmography

1. 1978 - Scarecrow / The Wiz
2. 1986 - "Captain IO / Captain EO"
3. 1988 - Moonwalker
4. 1996 - "Ghosts / Ghosts"
5. 2002 - "People in Black 2" - "Agent Em" (uncredited)
6. 2004 - "Miss Robinson / Miss Cast Away"
7. 2009 - "That's it / This is it"
8. 2011 - "Michael Jackson: The Life of a Pop Icon / Michael Jackson: The Life of an Icon"

Books

• Michael Jackson "Moonwalk" Publisher: William Heinemann, London, 2009
• Michael Jackson "Dancing the Dream" Publisher: DoubleDay, 1992

Literature

• N. Ya. Nadezhdin. Michael Jackson: "Thriller": Biographical stories. Moscow: Mayor, Osipenko, 2012. 192 p., Informal Biographies Series, 2000 copies, ISBN 978-5-98551-200-7

Michael Jackson in philately

Postage stamps and other philatelic materials from the British Virgin Islands, Saint Vincent Island, Angola, Burundi, Burkina Faso, Guinea and other countries are dedicated to Michael Jackson.

see also

• Hollywood Walk of Fame - list of honorees for contributions to the recording industry
• Mesoparapylocheles michaeljacksoni- extinct hermit crab, named after the singer in 2012

Notes

Links

	Michael Jackson at Wikimedia Commons
	Michael Jackson at Wikinews

• Official site (English)
• Official site (Russian)
• Michael Jackson video channel on a video hosting service