Jackson’s next album, Bad, released in 1987, sold 8 million copies and produced five No. 1 singles and another state-of-the-art video, this one directed by Martin Scorsese. It was a huge hit by almost anyone else’s standards, but an inevitable letdown after Thriller.
It was at this point that Jackson’s bizarre private life began to overshadow his music. He would release several more albums and occasionally stage elaborate concert tours. And he would never be too far from the public eye. But it would never again be his music that kept him there.
Even with the millions Jackson earned, his eccentric lifestyle took a severe financial toll. In 1987 Jackson paid about US$17 million for a 1,052-hectare ranch in Los Olivos, 200km northwest of Los Angeles. Calling it Neverland after the mythical island of Peter Pan, he outfitted the property with amusement-park rides, a zoo and a 50-seat theater, at a cost of US$35 million, according to reports, and the ranch became his sanctum.
But Neverland, and Jackson’s lifestyle, were expensive to maintain. A forensic accountant who testified at Jackson’s molestation trial in 2005 said that Jackson’s annual budget in 1999 included US$7.5 million for personal expenses and US$5 million to maintain Neverland. By at least the late 1990s, he began to take out huge loans to support himself and pay debts.
Last year Neverland narrowly escaped foreclosure after Jackson defaulted on US$24.5 million he owed on the property. A real estate investment company bought the note and put the title for the property into a joint venture with Jackson.
The child molestation trial attracted media from around the world to watch as Jackson, wearing a different costume each day, appeared in a small courtroom in Santa Maria, California, to listen as a parade of witnesses spun a sometimes-incredible tale.
The case ultimately turned on the credibility of Jackson’s accuser, a 15-year-old who said the defendant had gotten him drunk and molested him several times. The boy’s younger brother testified that he had seen Jackson fondling his brother on two other occasions.
After weeks of testimony, the jury returned not-guilty verdicts on all 14 counts against Jackson: four charges of child molesting, one charge of attempted child molesting, one conspiracy charge and eight possible counts of providing alcohol to minors.
After his trial, Jackson largely left America for Bahrain, where he was the guest of a royal family member. He remained in Bahrain, Dubai and Ireland for the next several years, managing his increasingly unstable finances.
By early this year, Jackson was living in a US$100,000-a-month mansion in Bel Air, to be closer to “where all the action is” in the entertainment business, his manager at the time, Tohme Tohme, told the Los Angeles Times.
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