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.

Most readers will go straight to the Whitney Houston section of record mogul Clive Davis’s autobiography, “The Soundtrack of My Life,” published today by Simon & Schuster. It’s heartbreaking when you realize how much Davis did to try and help Houston. Davis includes letters he sent Whitney from the beginning of her career to the morning after her shockingly thin appearance – a result of her drug addiction– in September 2001 at Michael Jackson’s 30th anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden.

He wrote: “Dearest Whitney: When I saw you last night at the Michael Jackson concert, I gasped. When I got home I cried. My dear, dear Whitney. The time has come.” He implored her to get help quickly. She didn’t listen.

Read the full letter here: http://www.showbiz411.com/2013/02/19/clive-daviss-pleading-letter-to-whitney-houston-september-2011

Clive brought Whitney and her entourage to his home in Westchester County, New York, as a kind of intervention. It wasn’t to make money. It was to save her life. But she wouldn’t listen when he spoke to her with urgency about her problems. “She was in complete denial,” Davis writer. “I knew that if an addict does not want to get help, there ultimately is very little that anyone else can do.”

www.showbiz411.com/2013/02/19/clive-davis-responds-to-kelly-clarkson-an-accurate-depiction-of-our-time-together

There were at least two other interventions and rehab stints that Davis supported but didn’t engineer. But there is just so much you can do: when Whitney got into a fight with a flight attendant on her way to Detroit to shoot “Sparkle,” it made headlines. This reporter was the one who mentioned it to Clive, and suggested trouble was brewing. The disappointment on his face was palpable. It hurt him to hear she might be suffering again.

Davis got the call that Whitney died as he was dressing for his annual pre-Grammy dinner. She had just been in his hotel suite that week. He writes: “There are moments when time stands still, and you feel as if you can’t even begin to comprehend the words that are being spoken to you. That’s how I felt right then.”

Exclusive: Clive Davis has signed hundreds of stars over the years to record contracts.But the two he says slipped away: Jackson Browne– Davis was called away during his audition– and John Mellencamp. But Clive signed plenty. Janis Joplin offered to “ball” him to seal their record contract, sight unseen. He declined. Davis– father of four, grandfather to five, married twice, and the youngest 80 year old you’ll ever meet– tells all in his sensational and engrossing memoir, “The Soundtrack of My Life,” published officially today. Included is a rare personal view revealing Davis’s journey to bisexuality—elegantly told but unsurprising to friends and family. The book is written with Anthony DeCurtis. I couldn’t put it down, frankly.

Davis’s stories are about the history of the American record industry from when he arrived on the scene in  the early 1960s. And while people often accuse Davis of simplifying the truth, or take too much credit, “Soundtrack” lays it all out there—it take 600 pages to name everyone who helped, recall who was where and when, and how it all happened.

Even I was surprised because I know a lot of this stuff—Clive gives a hugely candid and frank account of his interactions with all the execs, and all the artists he was involved with – from Whitney Houston (see my separate story) and Puff Daddy to Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Santana, Chicago, and Earth Wind & Fire. He turns out to have been a very good observer and an excellent listener.

Davis left Columbia Records in a huge scandal in 1974. But now he sets the record straight: his sudden dismissal was attributed in the press to paying personal expenses—including for his son’s bar mitzvah—from company funds. But it was a set-up, of course, fueled by politics at Columbia/CBS designed to oust him. A second scandal erupted, prompting a government investigation of payola. Six charges were filed against Davis; five were ultimately dropped. He wound up paying a meager fine of $10,000. When the judge in the case wrote the final order, he apologized to Davis for all the unnecessary bad publicity.

Davis—a self -made Harvard man— was exonerated but things got so out of hand that his license to practice law was suspended. Here’s a revelation: he re-applied in 1996, took the New York state bar exam, and passed with high marks. This was, mind you, at the height of his success running Arista Records.  Now, that is amazing. And to make it even sweeter: as chief creative consultant and house legend, Davis now commands an office with stunning views on the top floor of the Sony Music building—high atop Columbia Records. So there.

Another chess move: Clive almost joined Robert Stigwood to run his record company after leaving Columbia and before starting Arista. This would have been right before “Saturday Night Fever” and the BeeGees broke out. But Ahmet Ertegun killed the deal, Davis says. The backstage conference room stuff in “Soundtrack” is not to be missed.

There are tons of great stories. Some will be disputed, but I doubt Clive was going to include key anecdotes about rock stars he aided if he thought they would contradict him. And it’s the little things that resonate. For instance: he blithely—and without much thought of creating a legend per se—advised Bruce Springsteen on how to use the expanse of a large stage one afternoon. Clive worried that Bruce—who was used to playing guitar by himself—would feel dwarfed at Los Angeles’ Ahmanson Theater opening for Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. “He was very daunted by the size of the stage,” Davis recalls. “I actually took him by the hand and walked him all the way from one side of the stage to the other, demonstrating  how I believed he needed to move in order to put his incredible songs across in a setting like that.”

A couple of years later, the Boss invited Davis to see him at the Bottom Line. “So Clive,” he said, laughing, “did I move around enough for you tonight?”

You can pretty much dip into “Soundtrack” anywhere. There are numerous jewels here about everyone: Aretha, Dionne, Carly, the Grateful Dead, you name it. I loved the chapter on Milli Vanilli. It starts with a line Mia Farrow says in “The Purple Rose of Cairo”: “I just met a wonderful new man. He’s fictional but you can’t have everything.”  Davis says was he “shocked” when he learned that the German singers they met were not the vocalists on Milli Vanilli’s records. Still, he says, with some pride, the records hold up no matter who sang on them. That’s a true music man.

One thing Davis did that is undisputed: he extended the careers of several legends who almost didn’t have second or third acts: Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Rod Stewart, Carlos Santana, even Barry Manilow, as well as The Kinks, The Grateful Dead, and Hall & Oates. Manilow was on Broadway at the start of his career, and he’s there now, 35 years later. And Clive is preparing to make a new record with Aretha Franklin this year.

Clive also cultivated many “American Idol” stars. Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Chris Daughtry, Clay Aiken, Ruben Studdard, and more impactfully, Jennifer Hudson, all grew from Davis’s foresight to make a deal with Simon Cowell when the show began its run.

On another note, which I mentioned on Sunday: Clive had an ear for edgy punk and New Wave rock almost before anyone. He wanted to release Ian Dury’s “Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll” as a single. His radio people advised him against it. This was in 1978, mind you. Now no one would care. Instead they went with Dury’s “Wake Up and Make Love to Me.” Says Clive dryly: “[it] also promoted sex, but at least kept drugs out of the equation.”

PS Clive will ring the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange this afternoon to launch “Soundtrack.” We’ll watch him on CNBC. 

As the Oscar season draws to a close, there are a few big winners. One is actor Scoot McNairy, who turned up in three movies– “Argo,” “Killing Them Softly,” and “Promised Land.” Scoot–I’ll run an interview with him this week–came out of Oscar season very hot and in demand with casting directors. But the true overnight stars of the season were the untrained actors from “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” That would be nine year old Quvenzhané Wallis and the man who plays her father, Dwight Henry.

Henry may not act in a movie again, but he’s capitalized on his fame beautifully. He’s going to open a branch of his New Orleans bakery in Harlem this spring. Henry’s gone into business with Nobu’s Richie Notar to have a Buttermilk Drop Bakery and Cafe open right next to the famed Lenox Lounge. Notar, who’s first opening Harlow on East 56th St. and Park Avenue, plans to unveil a revived Lenox Lounge in mid to late March. Buttermilk will bake for the Lenox and for customers.

Henry told me the other night at the Harlow tasting–where Matt Lauer and wife Annette were the first guests through the door– that he’s also fielding offers for a cookbook. “What should I call it?” he asked me. I did not hesitate: “Feasts of the Southern Wild,” I replied. Henry promised me free desserts forever. Just what I need!

Meantime, get over to Harlow. It’s opening shortly, and will be a celeb hang most definitely.