Michael’s Former Chief of Security in Critical Condition

According to Roger Friedman — Fox News: Michael Jackson is known for his desire to heal the world and help children, but now the oldest employee and keeper of his secrets is alone in a hospital bed. Bill Bray, the man who served as Michael’s chief of security for the longest time in his career, is now lying in a hospital bed and is in critical condition. For five years now, none of the Jackson family members has seen him or heard anything from them. Although he has remained loyal to them. Bill Bray began his career in 1968 at the Motown music company, and then in 1971 Joseph Jackson, Michael’s father, hired him as the head of security for the Jackson Five, and immediately gave him his assignment: “Protect Michael from trouble and dangerous situations.” Bray did this for two and a half decades. When the Jackson Five left Motown, he did the same, and continued working for Michael, who had become a solo artist. In his memoir “MoonWalk,” published in 1988, Michael wrote: “Bill is very careful and extremely professional in his work. But he doesn’t worry about things that have already happened and are too late to prevent. He travels with me everywhere, and sometimes he is the only companion I have on short trips. I can’t imagine life without Bill. He’s warm and funny, and he definitely loves life. He’s a great man.” Now, at age 79, Bill is in a dangerous condition and is under the care of a foundation for elderly people, using health insurance benefits. According to his 64-year-old wife, all of these expenses are covered by the Michael Jackson office. When I went to Los Angeles a few weeks ago to visit Bray, he was lying in bed in a small rented apartment. He has cancer and has also suffered a stroke. He spends most of the day lying in bed and watching old John Wayne movies. Sometimes his memory is poor and he has trouble speaking. Although in the days when he worked for Jackson he earned good money, those days are over. I told his wife, Gail, that anyone who has known Bill since the late 1960s and is involved in Michael Jackson’s recent accusations is asking: where is Bill Bray? If he had been there, he would never have let this happen to Michael. Gail told me: “Michael and Bill were very close. For Michael, he was like a father. When Michael finished his performance on stage, he would come down from the stage and run to Bill and get into his arms.” Bill had devoted himself to Michael and the Jackson Five, and this most of the time upset Gail: “Whenever I needed him, he would come back and stay away from me for a day. Then he had to go back to Michael again.” In fact, Bill’s name is listed as Michael’s chief of security on his major world tours in the 1980s and 1990s: “Victory, Bad, Dangerous, History.” But things have changed. Now it has been more than a year since Jackson has been dealing with accusations of sexual abuse of a young boy, and before that he was involved in many other rumors. Gail said she had called the company MJJ Production many times, but they never responded: “I had the nerve to tell Bill that he should be careful. Because many people were jealous of his relationship with Michael and wanted to get rid of him.” In her comments, Gail mentioned Norma Staikos, Michael’s secretary, and Wayne Nagin, his bodyguard—who, after the 1993 accusations, had cut off their relationship with Michael: “The issue isn’t that Bill wants money from Michael.” Unlike Bob Jones, an old Jackson employee who was recently fired, Bill Bray has no intention of writing a book about Jackson or suing him. Gail said that Bray only wants Michael to come see him. And that’s the point. Despite all these events, Bill has remained loyal to Michael. Bill told me: “I don’t want to say anything that would upset Michael.” When I asked him whether it’s possible that Michael had an older son and that nobody knew about it (as Jackson himself had told his friends, and I also wrote about it recently in my column), Bill set aside his caution for the first time during this meeting. He laughed out loud and said: “If Michael said something like that, then he’s a big liar. If he said he has a secret son, he’s not telling the truth.” Source: eMJey / Fox News