Message From The Estate Of Michael Jackson Re: Channel 5 Autopsy Program

[Lil]

First thing that came to mind when hearing about this was Michael on that Oprah interview saying 'I don't want to go into my medical history, because that is PRIVATE'.. and that was about something obvious like him having vitiligo. I don't wanna think about how much he would have hated this Seems like they just never want to give him the respect he deserves..:no:

 

[Ashtanga]

*big sigh*

 

[HIStoric]

Did anyone here actually watch the program? If so, could they share specifically what they said about Michael?

The reason why I'm asking is because I've seen comments on Facebook saying that the doctors talked about how he was in good shape and that they didn't really portray him in a bad light at all. Therefore I'm curious as to what they actually said about him in the documentary itself.

Thanks.

 

[Petrarose]

Does anyone know if Whitney's family, especially her mom made any objections about this program?

 

[dam2040]

They said Michael was literally always using drugs, did infact bleach his skin, had an addiction to Demerol, used drugs to get energetic for rehearsals, incorrectly labelled TII rehearsal footage dates, he had a destroyed/non existent nose, bald, vitiligo, lupus, alcohol, painkillers etc. Basically everything MJ did was pop pills and he could only do 30-40 mins of rehearsals a day as well as 1000000 uses of the death pics that were made clearer to fully show the dead Michael Jackson. It was absolutely disgusting. He had a good weight, that was about it. Bunch of morons.

 

[Petrarose]

Michael was literally always using drugs, did infact bleach his skin, had an addiction to Demerol, used drugs to get energetic for rehearsals, incorrectly labelled TII rehearsal footage dates, he had a destroyed/non existent nose, bald, vitiligo, lupus, alcohol, painkillers etc. Basically everything MJ did was pop pills and he could only do 30-40 mins of rehearsals a day as well as 1000000 uses of the death pics that were made clearer to fully show the dead Michael Jackson. It was absolutely disgusting. He had a good weight, that was about it. Bunch of morons.

Well I hope not too many people looked at it to get facts, and all this is supposed to be from his autopsy.

 

[myosotis]

I thought they would use 'maximum tabloid' tactics in this programme, and they did. It started out 'looking' as if the pathologist was actually in an autopsy room, with a cadaver, with 'shadows' of him using implements on the body. It ended with a 'reconstruction' of Murray's last hours with Michael, but mostly portrayed these from Murray's point of view...the short period out of the room using the phone after Michael fell asleep, the possibility that Michael woke up and helped himself to more medication.

Terry Harvey, a music promoter and apparent friend of the family said Michael was manipulative and always got what he wanted. Jason Pfeiffer (Klein's assistant) was interviewed at some length, and said that in the run up to TII, MJ would appear at Klein's clinic asking for demerol, and would sometimes pass out ( or be tired or loopy) while the children were playing in Klein's office.

The film mentioned MJ's ongoing pain issues (and use of pain meds) in the context of the Pepsi recording burns incident. It mentioned the autopsy arthritis and showed film of the concert bridge collapse. It mentioned his lung inflammation and scarring, and mentioned his lupus. It said that his only 'secret from the public' was that he wore a wig following the burns to his scalp. It mentioned almost every element from the autopsy, including the facial tattoos eg around his lips.

a fair amount of footage from TII was shown, with many mentions of MJ being ' 400 million in debt'. Ian Halperin was one of the contributors as regards MJs' views about TII (at first wanting to do do it, but also having to because of his financial situation) The voiceover relating to the Murray trial mentioned that 'traces of Propofol were never found in the IV line above the port, 'but that didn't sway the Jury, who found Murray guilty'.

The last words of the pathologist- the closing words of the programme - were that 'in some ways it was a miracle that he lasted as long as he did'.

I learned nothing new (I did not expect to), and I found the programme to be exactly the tabloid presentation I would expect...it was just a 'Daily Mirror or Daily Star article on TV, presentationally. The words of the pathologist were of course very factual, as regards the autopsy, but the background and method of presentation was extremely distasteful, and most of the contributors were people who presumably were involved 'for the money' and for maximum 'tabloid' effect.

 

[HIStoric]

^^^Thank you for that.

 

[HIStory]

he had a destroyed/non existent nose

So despite of the autopsy absolutely NOT saying that they still insist on this "he had no nose" crap?

 

[HIStory]

, the possibility that Michael woke up and helped himself to more medication.

The voiceover relating to the Murray trial mentioned that 'traces of Propofol were never found in the IV line above the port, 'but that didn't sway the Jury, who found Murray guilty'.

So they basically suggested Michael self-injected without mentioning the trial testimonies by experts about how that's virtually impossible?

 

[jimbean]

They seem to blame everything on him owing $400 million and made him out to be desperate so he wouldn't be homeless, it was stupid.

 

[Bubs]

Question, how come this morbid program was allowed to use TII footage?


About that family friend Terry Harvey. This is the same man who went to UK tabloids selling out his "friend", and said MJ likes to pee on front of the people :*****:


Autopsy: Michael Jackson’s Last Hours revealed how ill the star really was

TV review: Autopsy: Michael Jackson’s Last Hours (C5)

SHOULD there be such a thing as tastefully picking over the bones of a dead pop icon’s corpse, then Autopsy: Michael Jackson’s Last Hours (Channel 5) just about pulled it off. ‘There are celebrities on the mortuary slab,’ was the calling card of forensic pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd as he set about analysing *****’s autopsy report.

What emerged was an odd mixture of whitewash and exposé, Shepherd scotching the idea that Jackson whitened his skin – the autopsy findings supported the oft scoffed-at skin condition claims – while listing the alarming catalogue of ailments the King Of Pop had tried to keep from the public.

As he prepared for the much-hyped This Is It tour that hastened his demise, Jackson was fighting osteoarthritis, lupus and a dependency on a dizzying list of sleeping potions. And, just for good measure, he was sleeping with a catheter thanks to an enlarged prostate. That’s bad. No, that’s really bad.

Shepherd backed the jury who found Jackson’s physician, Dr Conrad Murray, guilty of involuntary manslaughter. But it was just a matter of time. Shepherd’s ultimate verdict on *****’s tortured body? ‘It’s a miracle that he lasted as long as he did.’

 

[HIStory]

As he prepared for the much-hyped This Is It tour that hastened his demise, Jackson was fighting osteoarthritis, lupus and a dependency on a dizzying list of sleeping potions. And, just for good measure, he was sleeping with a catheter thanks to an enlarged prostate. That’s bad. No, that’s really bad.

Shepherd’s ultimate verdict on *****’s tortured body? ‘It’s a miracle that he lasted as long as he did.’

They dramatize things like arthritis or prostate enlargement as if it's cancer and as if things like that are not present in most people at his age. And the catheter was there because he was sedated obviously.

 

[Bubs]

So they basically suggested Michael self-injected without mentioning the trial testimonies by experts about how that's virtually impossible?

Apparently they interviewed Terry Harvey for this program as he might have said them the same as what he told to NOTW interview in 2009.
""But in recent years it spiralled out of control and he was even self-injecting.
“By the end he knew how to administer these drugs himself as he had so much medical knowledge."

Here is the full interview with TH and it comes with warning that it might cause you to want to puke.
http://rashmanly.com/2009/07/20/michael-jacksons-death-to-lead-to-murder-charges-within-days/

TH actually is Tito and Joe Jackson's friend, but seemingly once somebody presents themselves as Mike's friend, it is accepted no questions asked.

 

[HIStory]

I heard the film had This Is It footage and Michael's music. So if the Estate was so against it then why did they grant them the rights to use those? Or if they didn't then they should sue them on that basis.

 

[Ferrari]

^^ I wondered the same thing...

 

[Bubs]

^^ I asked the same question?
I would like to hear the estate's explanation whether they allowed it or if this program used it without permission.

At first, the only thing that I found merely positive out of this was when they mentioned that he had in fact had Vitiligo, which many people have just refused to believe for years.....but then they couldn't leave it at that could they? They still had to make out he lied on national television about the whole skin bleaching crap and still made out that he was trying to make himself look white. :no:

I could scream for ignorance of people and especially people who has anything to do with bodies, dead or alive.
If they had done a little search in the internet, they would have found out the bleaching is solution for vitiligo patients who suffers greatly for their appearance.
Are these ignorant people suggesting that Michael should have gone around and possibly look like this:

or like this:

Depigmentation is solution to unify skin colour and Michael had to keep doing it in order to have one colour.

 

[Ferrari]

I watched this last night out of interest. At first, the only thing that I found merely positive out of this was when they mentioned that he had in fact had Vitiligo, which many people have just refused to believe for years.....but then they couldn't leave it at that could they? They still had to make out he lied on national television about the whole skin bleaching crap and still made out that he was trying to make himself look white. :no:

To be honest I just found the whole program disturbing in general...to make out that they knew his life so well just by prodding around his corpse. A corpse that they had to show the photos of as well?

I'm just so sick of seeing the same old BS about what a tragic figure he was and how his life was plagued by all these different problems. Only MJ himself knew how he felt, what he wanted, how he wanted to be, what he wanted people to see....who are these people to assume they know Michael inside out from an autopsy report? The autopsy proves nothing about what kind of man he was. All it proves is that he had some health issues. It was like the program was trying to explain his life story on how he perceived himself and how he handled his personal issues and why he must have turned to prescription drugs etc. In death, they still can't leave him alone and have to pick and poke at his life and question everything he did.

For once can we not have just a positive documentary showing all the wonderful things Michael achieved in his lifetime and did for other people? Showing the giving, kind, selfless humanitarian that he was? Instead of talking about his million dollar debt, can't we talk about the millions he gave to charities over the years. The sick children he visited in hospitals, the positive messages he gave to the world, the ground breaking music he made...

Unfortunately we won't, because the world is full of nasty, money-hungry, narrow-minded, judgemental vultures who love to showcase negativity and make a joke out of someone who never did anything wrong to anybody and only wanted to show the world his art and his love.

Long rant I know, but programs like this just make me angry.

 

[L.T.D]

Mixed feelings. The part's where they spoke about his skin conditions and the Pepsi accident were good, the bits where they stuck to FACTS and details about his health found in the autopsy were fine.

But then, there were some bits that were pure speculation that were sometimes stated as fact. They talked about him receiving demerol in Klein's office but then went on to say there was none found in his system during the autopsy, so why bring it up in a program which is supposed to be based on the autopsy?

The re-enactments were a little over the top as well but not too bad.

Good bits and bad bits, certainly wasn't the worst program I've seen on Michael....far from it. The most frustrating part is that they attributed him not performing his dance routines full out in rehearsals to arthritis.......when it was simply a rehearsal. They sometimes put out speculation as fact when it is simply their opinion, that peed me off the most....they even showed footage of Billie Jean. I was watching it thinking he seemed fantastic......as did millions of other people who saw the film.

 

[Electro]

I heard the film had This Is It footage and Michael's music. So if the Estate was so against it then why did they grant them the rights to use those? Or if they didn't then they should sue them on that basis.

I havn't seen it. But i guess if they used MJs music it was taken from the TII film (from which they also showed video footage), which they got hold of via some sublicense from who ever currently owns the broadcasting rights in the UK at the moment. they would not need to ask for permission from the estate or sony directly then. Just a thought.

Which channel showed the TII film in the UK recently?

 

[myosotis]

I havn't seen it. But i guess if they used MJs music it was taken from the TII film (from which they also showed video footage), which they got hold of via some sublicense from who ever currently owns the broadcasting rights in the UK at the moment. they would not need to ask for permission from the estate or sony directly then. Just a thought.

Which channel showed the TII film in the UK recently?

Channel 5.... The same one, I think.

 

[Bubs]

"On August 10, 2009, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff approved a deal between film distributor Columbia Pictures and AEG Live for the former company to purchase and distribute rehearsal footage of Jackson for a film entitled Michael Jackson's This Is It"

Columbia pictures has right to it?

 

[myosotis]

I watched this last night out of interest. At first, the only thing that I found merely positive out of this was when they mentioned that he had in fact had Vitiligo, which many people have just refused to believe for years.....but then they couldn't leave it at that could they? They still had to make out he lied on national television about the whole skin bleaching crap and still made out that he was trying to make himself look white. :no:

To be honest I just found the whole program disturbing in general...to make out that they knew his life so well just by prodding around his corpse. A corpse that they had to show the photos of as well?

I'm just so sick of seeing the same old BS about what a tragic figure he was and how his life was plagued by all these different problems. Only MJ himself knew how he felt, what he wanted, how he wanted to be, what he wanted people to see....who are these people to assume they know Michael inside out from an autopsy report? The autopsy proves nothing about what kind of man he was. All it proves is that he had some health issues. It was like the program was trying to explain his life story on how he perceived himself and how he handled his personal issues and why he must have turned to prescription drugs etc. In death, they still can't leave him alone and have to pick and poke at his life and question everything he did.

For once can we not have just a positive documentary showing all the wonderful things Michael achieved in his lifetime and did for other people? Showing the giving, kind, selfless humanitarian that he was? Instead of talking about his million dollar debt, can't we talk about the millions he gave to charities over the years. The sick children he visited in hospitals, the positive messages he gave to the world, the ground breaking music he made...

Unfortunately we won't, because the world is full of nasty, money-hungry, narrow-minded, judgemental vultures who love to showcase negativity and make a joke out of someone who never did anything wrong to anybody and only wanted to show the world his art and his love.

Long rant I know, but programs like this just make me angry.

I agree with you 100%. The pathologist started the programme saying something to the effect that an autopsy can tell you not just how someone died, but also how they lived'.

However the programme really took liberties with that statement eg showing Michael sat in the back of a car, taking tablets...implied demerol or similar. ( The programme mentioned the multiple prescriptions in different names found in his room).
In terms of the actors representation of him, Michael came across as some sort of shambling, drug-dependent ' maestro' character, at one point swathed in a cloak (I presume they got the cloak idea from the film of MJ walking through the corridor at the Staples centre).

The programme -makers seem to have tried hard to create a realistic picture of the room in which Michael died (inc a doll on the bed...they made sure to include that, of course), but the reconstructions themselves were a bit bizarre, and very un-Mike-like, which made it somewhat easier to watch with a sense of detachment.

I didn't like the sly and subtle 'digs' throughout eg after Michael was pronounced dead, the body 'was moved without ceremony to the Coroners office' implying some sort of haste, or lack of respect. I don't know why they had to add 'without ceremony'...it was totally unnecessary, and I feel it was put there to add a kind of 'throw- away' feeling to the account'.

 

[Bubs]

I havn't seen it. But i guess if they used MJs music it was taken from the TII film (from which they also showed video footage), which they got hold of via some sublicense from who ever currently owns the broadcasting rights in the UK at the moment. they would not need to ask for permission from the estate or sony directly then. Just a thought.

Which channel showed the TII film in the UK recently?

In the United States, major film studios routinely sign exclusive licensing deals for the television broadcast rights to their libraries.
These licensing deals are typically divided into three stages: pay-per-view, premium channel, and basic cable (or free-to-air broadcast) airings.

I was thinking if Columbia has sold premium rights to Channel 5 as they showed TII movie previously, and then Channel 5 has comprehensive right to use footage in other programs in their channel?

"The contract also stated that the film is not allowed to show footage of Jackson that shows him in a negative way, stating that: "Footage that paints Jackson in a bad light will not be permitted and "Under the terms of the proposed contract, the film will have to be screened for Jackson's estate and cannot include any footage that puts the superstar in a bad light."

If this program used TII footage to show Michael in bad light, doesn't that mean that somebody broke the contract rules?

 

[mjchris]

Oh, thank God. I thought for a second they were actually going to show footage from the autopsy (which I assume is filmed, because it's MJ). We already have a couple of pictures from it.

Sickening anyway.

a couple of pictures? i thought i t was said that they are fake?

 

[bobmoo79]

As with all these things, if you don't like what you saw then contact the channel.
In this case, you can contact Ben Frow (Director of programmes) directly using this email address:
ben.frow@five.tv

If you have specific reasons to believe the show broke regulator rules/guidelines then contact the regulator, Ofcom, here:

https://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/tell-us/specific-programme-epg

If we do and say nothing, then we can't expect anything to change.
In my opinion this documentary was clearly inaccurate and misleading on a number of issues and because it was portrayed as being a 'documentary' the viewers have a right to expect honesty and accuracy. This programme falls short and so I have complained already.

 

[Ferrari]

If they had done a little search in the internet, they would have found out the bleaching is solution for vitiligo patients who suffers greatly for their appearance.
Are these ignorant people suggesting that Michael should have gone around and possibly look like this:

Depigmentation is solution to unify skin colour and Michael had to keep doing it in order to have one colour.

Exactly! It's quite obvious that he would have used such a bleaching solution to even out his skin tone and for them to still insinuate that he was trying to become white is just ignorant! :mat:

 

[myosotis]

a couple of pictures? i thought i t was said that they are fake?

The two photos (as used in the Murray trial) are not fake ...the one of Michael on the gurney in the emergency room, with sheets pulled across his body, and the forensics photo of his body with the blacked out rectangle across his hips.

 

[HIStoric]

Exactly! It's quite obvious that he would have used such a bleaching solution to even out his skin tone and for them to still insinuate that he was trying to become white is just ignorant! :mat:

What specifically did he do to make his skin go from a light brown to ghostly white around '90-'91? I used to know exactly but I've forgotten the specifics...

EDIT: Found exactly what he used. In case any of you are interested as well...

"When there were more white patches than his normal skin color and the daily chore of hours of makeup became cumbersome, MJ was given the choice of depigmenting his skin so that the color would even out.

The bleaching or depigmentation of the skin was carried out under the supervision of his dermatologist. 20% monobenzylether of hydroquinone was used for this purpose. This chemical causes a permanent and irreversible loss of skin pigment and produces a chalk-white color.

The absence of the melanin pigment makes the skin more prone for sun burns, hence Michael Jackson had to wear long sleeves and hat, and, at times, cover his face when he went outdoors." [Source]

 

[Bonnie Blue]

I watched and found the prog a bit rubbish but not quite as much rubbish as it cd have been. It was saved a little by the fact they had dr shepherd who was doing pieces to camera about what he discovered in the coroner's report but then they had the voice over narrator who was desperately trying to drum up the sensationalised tabloid stuff which they then had to acknowledge didn't actually come up in the autopsy.

That synopsis of the prog that was published was just wrong. Dr shepherd said the autopsy showed that mj was in good shape for a man of his age, normal bmi, organs all in good order, no disease, good heart etc. He had some arthritis but non uncommon in a 50yr old, and 'might limit his movements'. There was a big segment on demoral by the narrator, and that mj was addicted before he died but then it went back to shepherd and he had to acknowledge that mj had no demoral in his system when he died and so it had nothing to do with his death. What did tick me off bigtime though about shepherd was in final conclusion which ended the doc, 'it was a miracle mj lasted so long' referring to mj's drug habits. Ridiculous comment from a pathologist after examining a coroner's report on a body that bore no hallmarks of drug addiction. From a respected pathologist, that was a real mistake to make on tv. The other thing he said was that mj's nose had caved in on one side and the 'bridge was missing'. What's a nose bridge? the middle part? - that's not in the report so where on earth did he get that from?

Alot of the rest of the prog was just rehashing the drug issues, apparently mj was addicted to pain killers ever since the pepsi, and addicted to prop the last 10yrs of his life. They did mention the pepsi accident at length and showed the munich bridge incident so did show the pain issues mj had, but what incensed me was the repeating of the claim that demoral = medical/pharmalogical version of heroin?! I've never come across that before. I'm thinking that in their disappointment in not finding any evidence of hard illegal drug taking by mj, they're trying to push that this painkiller is like heroin.

The reconstruction of mj's last hours with out of focus 'actors' was a complete joke as they missed out the last hour of mj's life. They seemed to take murray's lapd interview as gospel, unaware that he had changed the times. So a timeline showed murray finding mj not breathing at 11.05, the prog was then forced to miss out the time of the 911 call as even they knew they couldn't claim that murray was spending 1 and half hrs trying to resuscitate mj and they also had to miss out that murray was on the phone to his girlfriends for nearly an hour after supposedly finding mj not breathing. It was just a complete mess. The prog makers were embarrassingly clueless as to what happened and there's no excuse with the murray trial making everything public. That dr shepherd was stupid to allow himself to be attached to this prog.