It’s late so I’m going to do a quick story tonight and more tomorrow.
The Michael Jackson estate has filed suit against Frank Cascio for extortion. This is Earth-shattering but it’s been coming for a while.
Cascio, 45, is part of the family closest to Michael especially before he had children. Dominic Cascio, the father, met Michael at New York’s Helmsley Palace Hotel in the 1990s. As he and wife Connie had children, they made Michael part of the family.
The five Cascio children are Frank, Eddie, Dominic Jr., Aldo, and Marie Nicole.
The Estate says that in 2020 it quietly paid off Frank and his siblings to the tune of $15 million after Frank alleged abuse. The Estate was in the middle of doing deals to enrich itself. Rather than get in a public fight they acquiesced. Only they say that Frank turned around and demanded more money — $213 million. Now they’ve gone public against Frank and the Cascios as — they claim — Frank is threatening to release damaging information.
It’s a horrible, tragic mess.
Michael lavished the Cascios with gifts and trips. They took him in the summer of 2007 when Michael arrived with his kids in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. During that time, Eddie Cascio said Michael added vocals to songs Eddie had written. Michael died in June 2009. In June 2010, I broke the story that the songs existed.
In fact, earlier I’d heard the demos without Michael’s voice. They were sung by a James Porte, who is now the husband of Marie Nicole Cascio.
Sony and the Estate accepted the songs as Michael’s and put three of them on his posthumous “Victory.” Die hard Jackson fans refused to believe the vocals were Michael’s. They boycotted the release, and filed a class action lawsuit against Sony and the estate.
Frank went to work for Michael when he was 18. I met him officially when he was about 20. There was a gathering in 2000 at the home of prominent PR maven Howard Rubenstein. Frank was there with Michael, I was there, and that was when we connected.
Three years later, Michael was accused of molesting Gavin Arvizo and kidnapping his family. The alleged kidnapper was Frank, carrying out Michael’s wishes.
But Frank had another story. He came to me with a suitcase full of actual paper receipts showing that he’d simply entertained the Arvizo’s. Nothing had happened to the children. Frank’s evidence was a key factor in Michael being acquitted in 2005.
Because Michael died with an old will, the Cascios were not left anything. They had been a solid foundation for Michael, but they had no financial reward. Dominic Cascio — I reported exclusively — had borrowed $600,000 from Michael a decade earlier to build a restaurant. Eventually, Il Michelangelo went into business, but not for a long time. It’s unclear how much more money Michael gave the Cascios.
When Michael was arrested in 2003, part of a story came out. Michael had earlier flown to Miami to meet financier Al Malnik. Among the people in his group were Marie Nicole and young Aldo. They all returned to Los Angeles together.
Aldo was 12 going on 13 at the time. His nickname in the Jackson-Cascio group, given to him by Michael, was “Baby Rubba.” He went to Miami and other places with Michael, with sister Marie Nicole two years older. Later, it came out that Marie Nicole felt like a third wheel. She wrote to Michael:
“I am stupied (sic) and I don’t think I deserve to be in your Applehead Club. Those are all the reasons I get this way. I am very sad because I am a faget (sic). I know that you don’t really like me because I am a girl. You don’t like me because I get this way. I get in this (sic) for many reasons. One reason is because I am a girl and I know you don’t like girls as much as boys. Baby Rubba, Dom, Angel, Frank were all your babies and since I am a girl I can’t be. They get whatever they want whenever they want. Golf carts quads they all got to sleep with you and I never did. Face it I know I am not liked by you all.(Applehead Club) Maybe I should not come on any trips so I can make everyone happy. Not even my brothers like me instead they just talk about me and assume I won’t care. But I do! I’m sensitive and I have to run away or something. I am so ugly and nobody likes me. Please don’t tell anyone because if you do I will be really upset. I do have 1 question that I want to ask you. Well I hope this tells you why I get this way and will probably never get out of it.
Remember I first reported all of this in real time. There was barely an internet and no social media. On many occasions over the last 20 or so years, I asked Frank point blank, Did anything happen between Michael and him or any of his brothers? He was adamant: No. He even wrote a book praising Jackson called “Michael and Me.” He was paid a $300,000 advance, which we then discussed as his “inheritance.”
You can read my 2011 story about the book by clicking here.
There’s a lot more, this is only the tip of the iceberg as I know it. Tomorrow I will address some of that material. Suffice to say, if Frank and the Cascios are lying, it’s a terrible story. Is this a shakedown? If Michael did do something to them, the tragedy is overwhelming.
More on the actual lawsuit filed by the Estate here.
