The Years 1989 to 1994
On November 24, 1993, Michael Jackson’s music catalog department, MTV Music, was transferred from MCA Music to EMI. This was the biggest deal in the history of music publishing and it brought Michael Jackson 200 million dollars, of which he received 100 million dollars as an advance payment.
On December 10, 1993, after returning to the United States, Michael proved to everyone who doubted his return that they were wrong.
On December 22, Michael sent a program over radio waves to defend himself. This was the first time he personally released a statement via television.
CNN, CBS, NBC, and ABC networks broadcast his statement live from Neverland.
Michael: “I was forced earlier this week to submit to an inhuman and insulting body examination by the Santa Barbara judicial authorities and the Los Angeles Police Department. They handed me a written order for a body examination, which allowed them to examine my body in addition to my genital area, my seat, my lower body, my thighs, and any part they wanted—and to take pictures... This order also forced me to cooperate with the doctor they required for all examinations, so that he could properly examine my skin condition and see whether I have vitiligo or any other skin disease. [Michael had previously spoken about his skin disease in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. After examinations by a forensic doctor, Michael’s affliction with this disease was officially confirmed. The complainant had claimed that signs of this disease also existed on Michael’s genital area]... Throughout my life, I have only tried to help thousands and thousands of children so they can have happy lives. When I see a child suffering, I cry... Don’t treat me like a criminal. Because I am innocent.”
[Michael Jackson at Neverland]
On January 26, 1994, after five months of intense negotiations, the lawyers for both sides reached agreements. The out-of-court settlement that both parties had been working to achieve was made for an amount that was never disclosed.
Michael’s nightmare was over!
The next day, on January 27, Reuters reported that the photos taken of Michael’s genital area did not match the descriptions the complainant had provided to the police.
This very important news had very little reflection in the media. Meanwhile, they had spared no effort for months to destroy Michael’s international image.
Liza D. Campbell, in a book titled “Michael Jackson: The Darkest Hours of the King of Pop,” published in 1994, wrote:
[... In 1993, Michael Jackson began trying to change the image that the media had created of him and appeared even more in public. He performed in the halftime show of the “Super Bowl,” and attended an unprecedented ninety-minute interview with Oprah Winfrey, and in the same year he received the Grammy award for Contemporary Legendary Artist. In fact, people saw more of him than what Michael had shown them over the years.
But the media’s muffled voices gradually became like the sounds of wild predators whose noses had caught the scent of blood.
August 17, 1993.... [after turning over the Jackson house and taking several boxes containing photos and video tapes]... One source from the police department told a reporter from the Los Angeles Times: “There is no medical evidence or recorded tape. This search did not involve finding evidence that would show that a crime had occurred.”
Since no evidence was found by searching Michael’s house, the child sexual abuse investigators—who were leading the investigation into this case—focused on questioning other boys who were said to have had a friendship relationship with Michael, hoping that one of them would confirm the complainant’s story. The thirteen-year-old complainant provided the police officers with the names of four other boys whom he believed had been sexually abused by Jackson. These four boys, one of whom was Macaulay Culkin, were well-known friends of Michael. During the interrogations, these four boys denied any wrongdoing by Michael Jackson.
J. Randy Taraborrelli, who wrote the biography book of Jackson, Magic and Madness, had consistently—and surprisingly—supported Michael and called these allegations extortion. In an interview with Time magazine, he said: “I have witnessed many extortion attempts by the Jackson team, and they never led to anything. When I was busy writing Michael’s biography, each of those damned servants, servants, chauffeurs, and head chefs would tell me that if I wanted to obtain information about Michael’s private life, they could help—on the condition that I pay them one hundred thousand dollars.
I wrote books about Diana Ross, Cher, Carl Barnett, and Razin Arnold, but I didn’t have such an experience with any of those books. I was only a writer, and they wanted money from me. Now imagine what it would be like for Michael with his millions of dollars...]
Liza D. Campbell also writes about the complainant’s family and how the allegations were presented in this book:
[... The complainant’s father (Evan Chandler) worked as a dentist in the Beverly Hills area, but he had screenwriting ambitions in his mind. At that time, a film had recently been made based on one of his screenplays, which he had written based on an idea from his son.
The complainant’s parents married in 1974 and separated in 1985. The result of this marriage was a daughter and a son (Jordy Chandler — the complainant), whose custody was handled by their mother. At the time the allegations were raised against Jackson, both of them had remarried and were fighting with each other over custody of their son. Evan Chandler also had not been able to keep up with paying his son’s monthly support of sixty-eight thousand four hundred dollars.
The complainant’s mother, who accompanied her son in all meetings with Michael, first became aware of the allegations through the police—not through her former husband and son. Completely shocked, she said she had no information about the possibility of such an unfortunate event.
Multiple experts in child abuse and family legal issues have pointed out that in family wars of this kind, one of the parties often raises a charge of sexual abuse of the child in order to achieve a result. In Jordy Chandler’s case, his father tried, by raising these allegations, to make the mother—who had custody of his son—appear incompetent, and thereby take custody of his child for himself.... In order for Jordy to spend more time in Neverland [Michael’s home], he broke his weekly appointments with his father.
One expert in this field believes that some physiotherapists in their interviews with children who are claimed to have been sexually abused refer to certain matters themselves; so that the children’s minds are directed toward that specific topic and they actually say what they have heard. Also, according to a lawyer, the complainant is a thirteen-year-old boy trapped in a family war. These categories of children are the least reliable people. Because they are forced to behave in a way that satisfies both parents. They try to protect themselves. Sometimes they take the side of one of their parents and say things that parent wants.
But what doesn’t match here is that the complainant kept choosing to go to Neverland during his visits with his father.
In an interview with Anthony Pellicano, the investigator of the case, Jordy complains that his father had always forced him to stay at home and write scripts for him, and that the only thing he wanted was money.
It was said that Evan Chandler, the complainant’s father, had asked Michael to do something so that he could earn twenty million dollars by having several film projects at his disposal over four years with an annual income of five million dollars. Otherwise, he would raise the charge of sexual abuse. When Michael rejected Chandler’s request, he became very angry.
Chandler had asked Michael to allow his son to meet him on July 11. At the end of that same week, Chandler refused to hand the boy over to his mother. The mother’s lawyer filed a petition on her behalf to have her son returned. The judge ordered Chandler to return the boy to his mother at 6 p.m. on August 17.
On the morning of the day the boy was supposed to be handed over to his mother, his father took him to a physiotherapist. There, he claimed that Jackson had sexually abused his son. He also described the details of this relationship. But he had no intention of suing Michael and making these allegations public