What happened to Michael in the late nineties -2003?

mjfan05

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The period starting from maybe late 1996 to about 2003 - Michael seemed different. He was different in the interviews he did - more eager to please and defensive (prbably attributable to 1993). Then he got worse - decided to let Bashir into his life. Went on a publicity overdrive (maybe fueled by Invincible not doing as well as he though it should have). Definitely seems to have been drinking a lot more than before as well as under the influence of painkillers. To this day, I can't watch some part of LWMJ because Michael seems a version of himself but not himself.

I'm interested in what triggered all this. I do feel like he started losing track of his finances during this period as well. Started associating with dodgy people or at least started being surrounded exclusively by dodgy people from thereon. Was it 1993 sinking in and changing him as a person? He started a family and should've been happy but he didn't seem to be and didn't display the best judgement especially from 2002-2003. His life 2006-2009 seems an exaggerated, more nosedivey version of 1999-2003 without the publicity aspects of it. At least some of his problems post 2005 stemmed from him not having a homebase like Neverland but the 1999-2003 period, he was fairly sorted in most ways - why still did his life turn so problematic? His spending and not keeping track of outgoes got to be too much? Long years of fame and pressure, midlife existential crisis?

Some of you were probably keen watchers back then - what did you think?
 
I wasn't an active fan back then but my guess (at least for 1999-2003, I don't see any problems before then) would be that the Munich lift incident and him later breaking his foot caused him to take painkillers that clouded his judgement. He even kinda admits so in this video:

 
I wasn't an active fan back then but my guess (at least for 1999-2003, I don't see any problems before then) would be that the Munich lift incident and him later breaking his foot caused him to take painkillers that clouded his judgement. He even kinda admits so in this video:

I think so too. HIStory was my main ear as a fan and from late 1999 onwards he just wasn't the same anymore.
Plus the trouble with Sony that probably would have escalated anyway, since it had already built up since years before.

(But wasn't it a spider bite, not a broken leg?)



...I can sense a major mj_frency eruption coming...
scared.gif
 
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Electro;4303656 said:
(But wasn't it a spider bite, not a broken leg?)

Yes, a spider bite. And as usual, no one believed him without photo evidence.

qtGbEfF.jpg


Electro;4303656 said:
...I can sense a major mj_frency eruption coming...
scared.gif

:laughing:

What I would like to know is, where do these “drinking” rumors always come from? He appears to have had some sake with Barry Gibb (which probably came with their sushi order), and possibly some wine on airplanes (nervous flyer, but who wasn’t after 9/11?), but that’s about it. Or wasn’t his liver found squeaky clean and unremarkable during the autopsy? Why is this even a topic?
 
ScreenOrigami;4303658 said:
What I would like to know is, where do these “drinking” rumors always come from? He appears to have had some sake with Barry Gibb (which probably came with their sushi order), and possibly some wine on airplanes (nervous flyer, but who wasn’t after 9/11?), but that’s about it. Or wasn’t his liver found squeaky clean and unremarkable during the autopsy? Why is this even a topic?

They are not rumors - he did drink - no one is saying excessively. Have you seen the 2003 birthday fan party thingie? He liked to drink white wine quite a bit.

Electro;4303656 said:
I think so too. HIStory was my main ear as a fan and from late 1999 onwards he just wasn't the same anymore.
Plus the trouble with Sony that probably would have escalated anyway, since it had already built up since years before.

(But wasn't it a spider bite, not a broken leg?)



...I can sense a major mj_frency eruption coming...
scared.gif

I ask these questions with love :)

Yes but something seems to have changed. Compare his interviews during Bad era or even 1993 with his Barbara Walters interview. All of his 2003 appearances. He did injure himself in 1999 and that might;ve triggered a dependency but why did it go on for so long? I wonder what he was going through behind the scenes. Strangely, whenever Michael put himself out there and did a publicity blitzkrieg, allegations followed. Both in 1993 and 2003.
 
(But wasn't it a spider bite, not a broken leg?)

Oh, my apologies. For some reason I thought he had a broken foot during his Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Oxford Union speeches.
 
mjfan05;4303659 said:
They are not rumors - he did drink - no one is saying excessively. Have you seen the 2003 birthday fan party thingie? He liked to drink white wine quite a bit.

Yeah, but that’s just having a couple of drinks at a party. People make it sound like he was having a drinking problem when in fact he just went from not drinking at all to having a couple of drinks occasionally, with friends, at parties etc. just like pretty much anyone else.

mjfan05;4303648 said:
Definitely seems to have been drinking a lot more than before as well as under the influence of painkillers. To this day, I can't watch some part of LWMJ because Michael seems a version of himself but not himself.

This sounds like it was somehow a serious drinking issue.
 
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ScreenOrigami;4303658 said:
What I would like to know is, where do these “drinking” rumors always come from? He appears to have had some sake with Barry Gibb (which probably came with their sushi order), and possibly some wine on airplanes (nervous flyer, but who wasn’t after 9/11?), but that’s about it. Or wasn’t his liver found squeaky clean and unremarkable during the autopsy? Why is this even a topic?

Michael drinks responsibly at least.
 
PoP;4303664 said:
Michael drinks responsibly at least.

That’s what I mean. Why bring it up in the context of “what happened to him” then?

Painkillers I can understand. He did injure his back in 1999, broke his foot in 2001, and suffered from a terrible spider bite in 2002. And those are only the things we know about. Since he didn’t appear that often in public, who knows what else he had to deal with.

But drinking didn’t really seem to be an issue, in my opinion.
 
ScreenOrigami;4303666 said:
That’s what I mean. Why bring it up in the context of “what happened to him” then?

Painkillers I can understand. He did injure his back in 1999, broke his foot in 2001, and suffered from a terrible spider bite in 2002. And those are only the things we know about. Since he didn’t appear that often in public, who knows what else he had to deal with.

But drinking didn’t really seem to be an issue, in my opinion.

Michael didn't seem himself to me in the 2003 party - I was thinking of that when I mentioned it. Not implying he was a drunkard - I hope that suffices. You can't really control other people's thoughts and expressions how much ever you try to prove that you're right. It is simply opinions.


elusive moonwalker;4303667 said:
Randy,allegedly . It was discussed at the time.

Randy Jackson? Didn't he get involved after 2003?
 
Michael didn't seem himself to me in the 2003 party - I was thinking of that when I mentioned it. Not implying he was a drunkard - I hope that suffices. You can't really control other people's thoughts and expressions how much ever you try to prove that you're right. It is simply opinions.

I can think of a number of other reasons than alcohol why someone might not appear to be at the top of their game on a specific day. In my opinion, some kind of proof is indeed required when we start making assumptions about health related issues.
 
I just watched this video from Gary in 2003, and I’m really wondering how this Michael is supposed to be so radically different from the Michael of the early 90’s. What is it that everyone’s seeing that’s so different? (Except hair, make-up and age, of course.) I chose this video specifically, because it’s very long and shows Michael from all angles, interacting with people young and old in various ways, and even delivering a short speech. If anything, he appears to be a little less shy.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vNNoPJiUPHw" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
ScreenOrigami;4303675 said:
I just watched this video from Gary in 2003, and I&#8217;m really wondering how this Michael is supposed to be so radically different from the Michael of the early 90&#8217;s. What is it that everyone&#8217;s seeing that&#8217;s so different? (Except hair, make-up and age, of course.) I chose this video specifically, because it&#8217;s very long and shows Michael from all angles, interacting with people young and old in various ways, and even delivering a short speech. If anything, he appears to be a little less shy.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vNNoPJiUPHw" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I honestly think that when people ask "what happened to him" it's because he was on medication. He has admitted before that he has been medicated for long periods of time for various reasons. It's unfortunate but it's something that is quite well known.
 
SmoothGangsta;4303677 said:
I honestly think that when people ask "what happened to him" it's because he was on medication. He has admitted before that he has been medicated for long periods of time for various reasons. It's unfortunate but it's something that is quite well known.

I agree. Aside from the occasional painkiller episodes, he was certainly taking something to keep his lupus under control, and lupus medications can have all sorts of side effects.

https://www.lupus.org/resources/medications-used-to-treat-lupus

It&#8217;s known that he faced a number of health challenges, but that didn&#8217;t change who he was.
 
Increased disconnection from the world, health issues, painkiller dependency, insecurity about his appearance and the media scrutiny, pressure to stay big in the music business, the distress and damage caused by the allegations, over-spending, surrounding himself with yes men. I think a combination of many things.
 
The period starting from maybe late 1996 to about 2003 - Michael seemed different. He was different in the interviews he did - more eager to please and defensive (prbably attributable to 1993). Then he got worse - decided to let Bashir into his life. Went on a publicity overdrive (maybe fueled by Invincible not doing as well as he though it should have). Definitely seems to have been drinking a lot more than before as well as under the influence of painkillers. To this day, I can't watch some part of LWMJ because Michael seems a version of himself but not himself.

I'm interested in what triggered all this. I do feel like he started losing track of his finances during this period as well. Started associating with dodgy people or at least started being surrounded exclusively by dodgy people from thereon. Was it 1993 sinking in and changing him as a person? He started a family and should've been happy but he didn't seem to be and didn't display the best judgement especially from 2002-2003. His life 2006-2009 seems an exaggerated, more nosedivey version of 1999-2003 without the publicity aspects of it. At least some of his problems post 2005 stemmed from him not having a homebase like Neverland but the 1999-2003 period, he was fairly sorted in most ways - why still did his life turn so problematic? His spending and not keeping track of outgoes got to be too much? Long years of fame and pressure, midlife existential crisis?

Some of you were probably keen watchers back then - what did you think?

They are not rumors - he did drink - no one is saying excessively. Have you seen the 2003 birthday fan party thingie? He liked to drink white wine quite a bit.

Michael Jackson had a drinking problem (that escalated from late nineties onwards), and on certain occasions he would drink excessively.

One example is after he watched the Bashir documentary right before it aired officially (when he drank an entire bottle of wine out of frustration brought on by the unfavourable way that this documentary portrayed him).

Michael Jackson would always drink white wine masked in diet coke cans on almost every flight, and sometimes in excessive quantities (official documents from the charter company prove that).

The reason that he would drink white (or red) wine in diet coke cans also on other occasions (apart from the flights) was that he did not want people and kids see him drinking and thus to retain a clean, public role image about himself.

Prosecutor Ron Zonen (in the 2005 trial) also stated that Michael Jackson appeared intoxicated even on consecutive days in his Neverland Ranch.

During the days of the 2005 trial, Michael Jackson would also drink a lot in home in order to stifle the emotional pain and stress that the trial was causing him.
 
? is that you randy. ? funny its not what i remember from reading every single court transcript of testimony every day of the trial. The air hostesses said they put it in cans. And staff at the ranch talked about mj having bottles of wine when he had dinner guests around . You know ron zonen is the font of all knowledge when it comes to mj?

Mj openly admitted he relapsed in regards to painkiller around 2002 and took steps to address it.
 
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Michael Jackson had a drinking problem (that escalated from late nineties onwards), and on certain occasions he would drink excessively.

One example is after he watched the Bashir documentary right before it aired officially (when he drank an entire bottle of wine out of frustration brought on by the unfavourable way that this documentary portrayed him).

Michael Jackson would always drink white wine masked in diet coke cans on almost every flight, and sometimes in excessive quantities (official documents from the charter company prove that).

The reason that he would drink white (or red) wine in diet coke cans also on other occasions (apart from the flights) was that he did not want people and kids see him drinking and thus to retain a clean, public role image about himself.

Prosecutor Ron Zonen (in the 2005 trial) also stated that Michael Jackson appeared intoxicated even on consecutive days in his Neverland Ranch.

During the days of the 2005 trial, Michael Jackson would also drink a lot in home in order to stifle the emotional pain and stress that the trial was causing him.

Please include sources for all of your statements when you post. This pattern of constantly making claims as factual with nothing included to back them up is not acceptable.
 
elusive moonwalker;4303716 said:
&#55357;&#56834; is that you randy. &#55357;&#56900; funny its not what i remember from reading every single court transcript of testimony every day of the trial. The air hostesses said they put it in cans. And staff at the ranch talked about mj having bottles of wine when he had dinner guests around . You know ron zonen is the font of all knowledge when it comes to mj&#55357;&#56834;

Exactly. Portraying MJ as a habitual drinker was supposed to make it easier for the prosecution to sell their claim that MJ also gave alcohol to minors. That&#8217;s why we have to be very careful with those kind of claims. I&#8217;m currently seeing more MJ & alcohol stories pop up in the tabloids again, which is not a good trend.

And to claim that he developed a drinking habit during the trial, when he had to get up at around 5 am each day to spend the entire day in a court room for weeks, and had to leave a good impression on the jurors is just ridiculous.
 
I think so too. HIStory was my main ear as a fan and from late 1999 onwards he just wasn't the same anymore.
Plus the trouble with Sony that probably would have escalated anyway, since it had already built up since years before.

(But wasn't it a spider bite, not a broken leg?)

He had a spider bite and he also had a broken foot.

The spider bite was on the right leg.

The moon boot here is on the right foot - at Uri Geller's wedding

uri-geller-wedding285-m-2.jpg


He also had sprains, at different times.

Left foot

michael-dop1b.jpg


Right foot

0ca646ff32f4743510b8e250524972ff--bad-michael-michael-jackson.jpg
 
Well said. Agenda ridden propaganda. Theres always a motive. Normally to de humanize as its easier to lynch then

He broke his foot in early 2001 before his london visit in march. Spider early 2003 as shown on the mag. As normal he was called a liar as it was during the avram trial case? So he had to release the pictures which were on his drs website.
 
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elusive moonwalker;4303737 said:
Well said. Agenda ridden propaganda. Theres always a motive. Normally to de humanize as its easier to lynch then

Exactly.

elusive moonwalker;4303737 said:
He broke his foot in early 2001 before his london visit in march. Spider early 2003 as shown on the mag. As normal he was called a liar as it was during the avram trial case? So he had to release the pictures which were on his drs website.

Yes, but the Avram case and the spider bite happened in Nov/Dec 2002. Magazine dates aren&#8217;t accurate, a January issue usually comes out in December, sometimes even earlier. It&#8217;s just a confusing newsstand convention.
 
Yeah i cant remember the exact date of the avram case off the top of my head. Would have to look it up so just looked at the mag date
 
elusive moonwalker;4303742 said:
Yeah i cant remember the exact date of the avram case off the top of my head. Would have to look it up so just looked at the mag date

Same. I&#8217;ve started organizing my collection by date, so it&#8217;s easier to look things up, but it&#8217;s still a mess. :D
 
The 60 minutes interview says it all. He was for sure on painkillers. He was in constant pain. He never fully recovered from the Pepsi accident.
 
The 2nd pic down is from the avram lawsuit trial

Are you talking about my pic? The 2nd one down? Yes, he was attending court on the day this was taken (2002).

The problem is that it's his left foot that is in a sock in that pic and the spider bite was on the right leg, so I think they are two separate injuries that are being mixed up by fans and media alike. Especially as the spider bite was in 2003.

I was thinking this could be the spider bite. Lots of swelling and no moon boot.

singer-michael-jackson-at-the-oxford-union-to-speak-in-aid-of-his-picture-id51129982
 
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