Flashback: I published the following column on March 7, 2006. Now that this story of Jermaine Jackson being undermined by Michael Jackson has come out–and everyone’s writing comments in here– I thought I’d republish it. At the time, Michael had been in Bahrain for nine months following his child molestation acquittal. Jermaine discussed with Larry King his book proposal for “Legacy,” which was never published.
also: http://www.showbiz411.com/2013/02/19/clive-davis-responds-to-kelly-clarkson-an-accurate-depiction-of-our-time-together
From March 7, 2006:
On “Larry King Live” last night, Jermaine Jackson, Michael Jackson‘s older brother, protested about a book proposal he’d written with Stacy Brown which had surfaced in the New York Daily News on Sunday.
Jermaine acted like he’d never heard of such a proposal. He said he thought he might file a lawsuit. He said the book proposal Michelle Caruso cited, written by Brown, was a fake.
But in the CNN transcript archives, Jermaine told King on Jan. 9, 2003, that he was writing such a book.
KING: Are you working on a book?
JERMAINE JACKSON: Yes. “Legacy: Surviving the Best and Worst.” Looking — meeting with certain publishers seeing can we go that extra mile. Seeing who’s willing to support a book tour worldwide and things like that. It’s about growing up. Growing up in Gary and our childhood and things that…
Brown told me this morning that he reminded Larry King’s producers of the exchange, and they ignored it.
(Jermaine, by the way, asked Brown to sign a confidentiality agreement with boilerplate language. Luckily, Brown never signed the agreement, which came from something called Earthvision, LLC — a mostly non-existent entity belonging to Jermaine.)
Last night, Jermaine told King he had the “real” book proposal. Of course, he didn’t bother to show it to King and King didn’t ask him for it, either.
That’s because there’s only one. It was indeed shopped to publishers, including Hyperion Books. At the time, Jermaine and Brown used a respected New York literary agent, Laurie Liss, who sent the proposal to three publishers: Hyperion, St. Martin’s Press and HarperCollins.
Now Jermaine will have to explain this to his brother Michael. At the time he shopped the proposal, by the way, Jermaine had virtually no contact with Michael, one reason why he was so angry with him.
Unable to make money, Jermaine had little choice but to sell Michael out for what he hoped would be millions. And what a good time it was: only a few weeks earlier, Michael had made international headlines by dangling his baby son Blanket from a German hotel window.
I was so interested in Jermaine’s 2003 proposal that I called around to find the actual document. Sure enough, there still were copies to be found.
Here are excerpts from it, in Jermaine’s own voice. I have no idea where he is right now, but my guess is that if Michael has found out about this, Jermaine is on his way to a place much farther away than Bahrain:
“My brother is a superstar, yes. My brother is wealthy. He owns shares in Sony music. He drinks, he does drugs, he lies, he cheats, he changed his skin color and mostly, he’s human. He attracts gay men and wards off women like the plague.”
“He married a woman because she was pregnant and he was doing business with Muslims (which I am a Muslim) and Muslims won’t do business with someone who is engaged in having children without being married.
“He paid this woman, who nobody would ever look twice at, several million dollars. My brother purchased children. It is like a sanctioned black market. He is very powerful; he picked the sperm donor by using information provided by a sperm bank. Now, who can do that? Michael Jackson, that’s who, my brother.
“I have maintained my residence by my mother’s side at the family’s Hayvenhurst estate in Encino, California because I know how much I am needed there. Michael counts on me to be there as does the rest of my family.”
[Columnist note: this would verify the long-held belief that Katherine and Joseph Jackson, who have filed for divorce in the past, do not live together. Joseph’s fathering of an illegitimate child, reported and documented in several places, could have contributed to this.]
“It was my little brother, he conceived the whole idea behind DreamWorks. The logo is still proudly the official logo of Neverland. Unfortunately, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen all stole the idea from him. That’s one reason why Michael hates Jewish people so much. But he plays the game with them. There is a game that all in Hollywood play. But the Jews are the powerful ones and they have done a lot to put my brother in his place….just another nigger. That’s what Don King told Michael at the start of the “Victory” tour. No matter what Michael, you’re just another nigger.
“My brother doesn’t always learn the valuable lessons life teaches. He is stubborn, hard-headed and, at times, harsh. He is cold, calculating and devious. The blood of his father runs freely through him. We were all afraid that the blood of Joseph Jackson would eventually contaminate all of us.
“But this is still my family and I love every one of them and I won’t sit by and let my brother go to prison. Prison would kill him. I’ve thought about doing the time for him, if he’s convicted. Michael wouldn’t survive in prison for one day. He’d commit suicide.
“Joseph did some disgusting things to Latoya and Rebbie, especially. If it weren’t for Mother’s loyalty to him, he’d probably be in prison for what he did to our sisters.”
Jermaine has used King in the past to promote whatever ridiculous thing is passing through his febrile mind. Previous go-rounds have included Jermaine promoting non-existent charities.
Twice in 2003 and at least once in 2001, Jermaine told King he was behind something called EarthVision International. The organization does not exist, except maybe in Jermaine’s imagination.
King has never questioned him about it on Jermaine’s numerous appearances. There is an Earth Care International in Arizona, but they claim no knowledge of Jermaine Jackson.
Back on Sept. 8, 1997, Jermaine told Larry that the Jackson 5 was getting back together for a benefit extravaganza called Earthvision ’98. He said the 90-minute program would benefit a group he named as the Sunshine Foundation of Feasterville, Pa.
Jackson announced that the small group that grants wishes for ill children would get money by honoring “Muhammad Ali, Sophia Loren, Stevie Wonder and Bishop Desmond Tutu for their humanitarian achievements.”
Jermaine said Earthvision ’98 would be broadcast live July 2, 1998, from the Heridon Theater in Athens, Greece.
The whole thing never materialized. Jermaine lives at home with his mother despite being the father — as he says — of about 10 children.
You get the idea.
Larry did ask him how Michael was, and where Michael was. Jermaine lied, and said Michael was in Bahrain (he’s in London).
Since Jermaine holds himself out as one of Michael’s spokesmen, Larry did not bother to ask him how his brother’s employees were supposed to function without paychecks or health insurance, how the family would pay off a $2.2 million mortgage on their home in Encino or what Michael would do now that his own note holder could foreclose at any moment on $270 million worth of loans.
