Yahoo USA Top Latest News - When my cousins called me over and handed this book to me — telling me my whole Michael Jackson fan-life was preparing me for THIS book and this moment — I shifted to major side-eye mode. My fandom had prepared me for a Thriller or Smooth Criminal dance-off in the NPR newsroom, not a book by two former security guards for Michael Jackson. The story begins in December 2006, when Michael and his three kids, Prince, Paris and Blanket, return to the States after a long stint in Bahrain, and settle in Las Vegas for several months.
Younger brother Randy Jackson rammed the security gate with his car because Michael wouldn't see him, and then cussed everybody out and refused to leave for hours until dad Joe Jackson came over and made him leave. Michael's business and financial affairs were messy, and he distrusted everyone around him. (Human Nature?)
Michael had few friends. If it's the rich life, I don't want it
Give me the simple life
Remember The Time describes a lonely man whose life — and the lives of his children — was severely limited because of his fame.
Just a year and a half before his death, I conducted what ended up being the last major interview with the reclusive Jackson in his suite at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City. "Let's face it. I give my all at work. Michael Jackson was dead.
It was indeed his children -- Prince, now 17, Paris, now 16, and Blanket, now 12 -- who gave us those dozen or so extra years of Michael Jackson's life.
Jackson was a true father, and those kids were his heart. He lived for them. They gave his later life meaning. Never mind those images of a newborn Prince Michael II dangling from that hotel balcony in Berlin, or pictures of the kids wearing masks while being shuttled around by their dad. -- "Xscape," a new album of never-before-released Michael Jackson songs reproduced by executive producer L.A. Reid debuted at No. 2 on the worldwide charts last month.
-- "Michael Jackson One," a Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil extravaganza featuring his music and dance moves, and "The Immortal World Tour," a slick companion show that is now traveling the country, with more than 500 performances so far.
Numerous books, documentaries and the film "This Is It" have tried to capture Jackson's life. The latest book, "Remember the Time: Protecting Michael Jackson in His Final Days," by two of his bodyguards, just hit bookstores.
Michael Jackson's legacy: Music, family and 'What if?'
Even a makeup-stained chair, allegedly from Jackson's rented Holmby Hills mansion where he died, just went on sale on eBay with a starting price of $30,000.
In death, everybody still wants to get paid by Michael Jackson.
In the past five years there have been lawsuits -- his mother, Katherine Jackson, sued promoter AEG Live, claiming more than $1 billion in damages. There have been tragedies -- Michael Jackson's daughter, Paris, who took his death the hardest, found herself in a hospital bed last year after reportedly trying to slit her wrists. Jackson's personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, was convicted on involuntary manslaughter charges for causing the star's death as a result of an overdose of the powerful surgical anesthetic propofol. "To escape death I attempt to bind my soul to my work."
Michael Jackson, through his work, wanted to live forever.
