Michael Jackson’s doctor is more than US$770,000 in debt and his luxury resort home in Las Vegas faces foreclosure, court documents filed in Nevada have revealed.
Conrad Murray — whose home and office in Nevada were raided by authorities on Tuesday — began working for Jackson in May, after creditors went to court to recoup more than US$363,000 he owed for office equipment.
He also had been ordered to pay US$71,000 in overdue student loans, documents revealed. The doctor also faces likely foreclosure on his home in a gated community in Las Vegas after missing over US$100,000 in mortgage payments.
The mountain of debts could explain why Murray abandoned his own practice in Las Vegas to accept a US$150,000 a month job as Jackson’s personal doctor ahead of the singer’s 50-date comeback concert series in London.
Jackson died on June 25, and authorities are probing whether his death was a criminal act, with Murray the center of investigators’ attention.
Documents unsealed on Thursday showed that authorities searched Murray’s property seeking evidence of manslaughter, unprofessional conduct, “prescribing or treating an addict” and excessive prescribing.
In a disclosure of a more spiritual nature, pop diva Madonna recounted to Israelis the long search that led her to the Jewish mystic religion Kabbalah, in an article published on Friday by Israel’s largest newspaper.
Madonna, who will be in Israel in September as part of her Sticky and Sweet tour, said she had traveled the world many times over, dined with state leaders and achieved a high level of success but still felt that something was missing from her life.
“I was raised a Catholic and my father was very religious, but none of my questions ever got answered,” she wrote in the article that appeared in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper in English and Hebrew.
The Queen of Pop’s spiritual search led her to practice yoga, study Buddhism, Taoism and read about the early Christians.
“I learned a lot and I was very inspired, but I still could not connect the dots and find a way to take this knowledge and apply it to my daily life.
“I was looking for an answer,” the 50-year-old pop icon said.
She said her quest was over after she turned to the Kabbalah, an ancient Jewish mystic tradition.
In 2004, Madonna took the Hebrew name Esther but has not converted to Judaism.
British actor Jude Law is to be a father for the fourth time after being informed that a partner from a previous relationship is expecting, his publicists said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Oscar-nominated star of The Talented Mr Ripley already has three children with his ex-wife Sadie Frost. No information about the mother of his fourth child
was released.
“Jude Law can confirm that, following a relationship last year, he has been advised that he is to be the father of a child due in the fall of this year,” a statement said.
“Mr Law is no longer in a relationship with the individual concerned but he intends to be a fully supportive part of the child’s life. This is an entirely private matter and no other statements will be made.”
Law, 36, is currently single. He will next appear in director Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, in which he plays the Victorian sleuth’s trusty sidekick Dr Watson.
Joining Law is former world number one tennis player Boris Becker, who revealed on Saturday that he too is set to become a father for the fourth time.
“It’s true, we’re going to become parents,” the three-time Wimbledon champion told the Germany daily Bild.
The 41-year-old Becker married his 33-year-old Dutch wife Lilly Kerssenberg in St Moritz, Switzerland, on June 12.
Becker already has three children — two with his former wife Barbara Feltus and one with Russian model Angela Ermakova.
Ang Lee (李安) is in upstate New York for the first of several US screenings of his upcoming movie Taking Woodstock. Lee and screenwriter/producer James Schamus attended a benefit screening of the movie on Thursday night in rural Columbia County, near where some scenes for the movie were filmed last year.
Taking Woodstock is based on a memoir by Elliot Tiber and chronicles the lead-up to the festival that drew half a million people to a farm in the Catskills.
Woodstock’s 40th anniversary falls on Aug. 15.
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