Probably the one thing that hardcore Michael Jackson fans hated to admit or even talk about in the last years of his life were the constant rumors that he broke. Now, as a result of his wrongful death trial, it appears the rumors were dead on accurate.
On Wednesday, AEG head man Randy Phillips told the jury about an emotional meeting he had with Jackson around Halloween, 2008. Phillips said a tearful Jackson told him his 3 kids were living “like vagabonds” — shuttling from a Las Vegas rental to the Bel Air Hotel in L.A.
In the final months of his life, one of the biggest motivators for doing the London shows was just to make enough money to buy his own home where he could raise his children.
Phillips recalled an emotional Halloween meeting with Jackson at the hotel, with the pop star’s three children running in and out of the room.
“I felt incredibly bad that this incredible star was at this point where he just couldn’t buy a house with all this money he made,” Phillips testified. “It just didn’t make sense.”
Phillips said it was the “first time Michael really told me why he wanted to go back to work.”
“He actually broke down and I broke down — we both broke down,” he told the court.
Phillips says The King of Pop was eager to have a permanent address he almost bought a “gigantic,” 40,000-square-foot house with a $93-million price tag in Bel-Air. But Phillips said he told Jackson the house was too much: “you’ll put every dime you make into this house,” he recalled telling the singer.
In the end, Jackson finally settled for life as a renter, and he and his family moved into a $100,000-a-month Holmby Hills estate he paid for using a multimillion-dollar advance he received from AEG.
