June 29th, 2009

Michael Jackson’s death may have overshadowed Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen as the top entertainment story of the weekend, but it didn’t hamper its box-office performance. After opening to an astounding $60.6 million on Wednesday, the PG-13 rated robot mash-up has grossed an estimated $201 million over its first five days, second only to The Dark Knight’s 5-day opening of $203 million. Its Friday-Sunday total reached $112 million, the best three-day opening this summer. IMAX screens accounted for $14.4 million. Continue

While his is an end long foretold, it will nevertheless receive and, by tabloid rules require, obsessive explanation and a search for both evil parties and an appropriately squalid back story.

The New York Post and cable news stations were out in front with the drug-related version of events: injections and Demerol and possible other dangerous combinations. The British tabloids were nearly you-are-there in descriptions of the slowing pace of his faltering breathing until the final quiet end.

“People close to the Jackson family said he had been given an injection of a powerful narcotic shortly before he collapsed, and they hinted that his relatives had grown increasingly concerned about the people around him lately,” reported the Post, in a sentence that you would not actually have had to pick up the phone to write. Of course that is what happened. And if family members had not been concerned before—and one would fairly assume family members had long ago tired of their concerns about Michael—they are now.

Such concern is partly to deflect responsibility, but also because people know their roles in such a story. Their role is to dramatize and embroider it.

“If you think the case with Anna Nicole Smith was an abuse, it’s nothing in comparison to what we have seen taking place in Michael Jackson’s life,” said someone identified as a “Jackson family lawyer.”
It will be the war between the factions of retainers and underlings and advisers and family who surrounded him in life, joined by those who, having escaped, want back in after death. We’re present at the creation of a tabloid industry: the Jackson death.

And, in fact, it’s hard not to be interested.

Has there ever been a person who has come apart so publicly and for so long as Michael Jackson? Is there a stranger, more inexplicable, tale? Inquiring minds want to know.

Did plastic surgeons kill him? His family? The prosecutor in Santa Barbara County? His debts? His revolving-door business managers? The Media? Demons known and unknown? What was it?

 Forget Anna Nicole Smith. Even Elvis is not going to be at the level we’re talking here. Actually, this could be the biggest death in history.

It’s a comeback.

Michael Jackson continues to cover magazines, this time with a special collector’s edition of TV Guide.

The 50-year-old legendary singer, dancer and entertainer shares the cover with “An Angel Remebered” Farrah Fawcett.

The publication is “A Tribute To the King of Pop”, 1958-2009.

For additional coverage of the Michael Jackson story, visit TVGuideMagazine.com for news, photos and videos.

 Three days after his son Michael Jackson death, 80-year-old Joe Jackson hits the red carpet the 2009 BET Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium on Sunday (June 28) in Los Angeles.Towards the end of his interview with CNN, Joe took the opportunity to promote his new business venture, a record label. Watch the interview below! The record label talk starts around the 3:15 mark.

And here is the statement one of the family’s publicists read during the interview: “Our beloved son Michael Jackson loved you all. Michael’s children are our first priority. We will have further announcements to discuss our plans going forward. Until such time, however, we have the personal and legal authority to act, and solely Katherine and I have authority for our son and his children. We wish to handle his memory and legacy with dignity. The attorney for the Jacksons is L. Londell McMillan and no one has the authority to speak on behalf of the Jackson family at this time.”