In Las Vegas, it fell on manager Dieter Wiesner to break the news to Michael Jackson. “Michael was still in his room,” Wiesner explains. “He was sitting next to the fireplace when I came in and he was very quiet. I had to tell him and it was not easy to tell Michael things like this because he was in such a good mood. He saw a future. When the Bashir situation arose he was very down. Now everything had changed and Michael was ready to do new things. Then, to go to his room and tell him such a bad situation… it was a disaster.
“I told him, ‘Michael, there is bad news but on the other side you have to see it as also good news. The bad news is the police are on the ranch.’ Michael was completely shocked. I was sitting next to him; I had my arm on his shoulder.
“He looked at me and he was really... You could see the blood going out of his face. He was deeply shocked. But I told him, ‘Michael, now you have the chance finally to clear up everything. Once and forever you can clear up everything.’”
News spread quickly amongst the crew. “I saw it on TV that morning and by the time I got to the hotel lobby, everybody else had already found out,” says a crew member. “So we went to work as normal and waited to see what was going to happen.
“Of course, when we got to the soundstage it was a complete zoo with paparazzi and fans. It had leaked where we were shooting. The day before, nobody knew we were shooting or anything.
“We waited that entire day for Michael to come and I think we went back a second day. Then he called finally and said, ‘I’m just not going to be able to come’.”
Jackson spent much of those two days crying, says Dieter Wiesner. “I was sitting with him day and night. He was shocked; he was crying… he didn’t know what to do. It was such a bad situation. We were supposed to go to Europe. He was ready to move on in his life and everything was prepared. It was just a beautiful situation and this news shocked him deeply. Really, it killed him.”
Two days after the Neverland raid Jackson’s depression turned to anger. When it emerged that the boy behind the accusation was none other than Gavin Arvizo, the boy whose hand Jackson had held in the Martin Bashir documentary, Jackson decided to fight.
“You know, when it was clear that this allegation was because of the Arvizos, then he started to really fight the situation,” says Wiesner. “Michael told me, ‘Dieter, you know what, they should bring this young boy into a big place, invite all the press and he should look me in the eyes and tell me that I did this.’ So he was ready to fight.”