Michael Jackson had not been at a physical state to perform in years. He hardly made it through his History Tour and he never went on another tour since 1997 mostly due to health issues.
In fact, he wanted to cancel the History tour but he didn’t so as not to let down his fans. Also, one of the reasons of Michael’s feud with Sony in 2002 was because he refused to go on a US tour to promote his album Invincible, which Sony sabotaged, and thus sold only 13 million copies worldwide.
Michael Jackson accepted to do This is it when his loans from FORTRESS defaulted and his Neverland Ranch was facing foreclosure for 23 million dollars. His brother Jermaine introduced him then to DR TOHME, who later worked as Michael’s manager for a while and has recently sued his Estate.
Dr Tohme introduced Michael to THOMAS BARRACK THE COLONY CAPITAL president and real estate billionaire who offered to refinance Michael’s mortgage on the condition he would perform live for AEG, which had been stalking Michael to perform live since 2007, if not earlier, as RANDY PHILIPS himself testified in 2013 yet, Michael always emphatically refused.
THOMAS BARRACK was also very good friends with PHILIP ASCWITZ, the AEG president. Michael was very vulnerable financially then so he accepted and though he at first agreed to only ten shows they eventually pushed on him fifty, the pressure and stress from which deteriorated his chronic anorexia and insomnia.
Michael collapsed from the second rehearsal, he often felt dizzy, he missed rehearsals and he needed to be helped off the stage. He was frail, skeleton slim, anaemic, incontinent, he wore a cundom catheter, he was legally blind, he suffered from osteoarthritis, phlebitis and everyone, including himself, knew he would not make it to 3 shows, let alone fifty. Karen Faye’s emails to the AEG executives prove the severity of his condition of which they were fully aware but turned a blind eye to.
He was so skinny that Michael Bush said they could actually see his heartbeat through his skin chest and when they told his manager Frank Dileo – he had already fired dr Tohme by then- they only got the cynical response ‘’ sb get him a bucket of chicken’’. He was insomniac, anorexic, depressed and Karen Faye also said that he was just as scared as he was during the 2005 trial. Randy Philips admitted that he had to slap Michael to get him through that press conference in March and his leaked emails also prove that Michael was an emotional wreck. Yet, Philips pushed more shows on him.
Randy Philips and Randy Taramborrelli who both claimed Michael accepted to perform live because he wanted his kids, who were by then old enough to appreciate his art, see him perform live are blatant liars. Michael didn’t need to do 50 shows so his kids could see him, he was cornered financially and he would never have accepted to do this tour, which arguably killed him if he had any other financial alternative. Needless to say, none of his wealthy friends helped him then.
The AEG paid for Dr Conrad Murray and a nutritionist to monitor Michael’s eating habits. Murray was paid by Michael’s advance but it was still the AEG that was paying him 150000 dollars a month.
Again, AEG executives leaked emails prove they paid Murray: ‘’ remind Murray what is expected of him and it is AEG that is paying him and not Michael Jackson’’. Why would a tour promoter invest so much money on the comeback tour of an artist who needed 24/7 medical attention?
How did an emaciated zombie Michael Jackson had become by then pass the health test required to get the green light from the sponsors with flying colours? Why did the AEG have trouble getting the tour insured if MJ was enviably healthy? The fact that his heart was in an excellent shape does not mean that he was fit to perform 50 live shows.
It debunks his chronic drug use though. Had he been abusing opioids for years his heart would have been in a terrible condition, yet he was more healthy than the average 50-year-old. Was he, however, able to perform live again? Certainly not. Did he need to die though? No.
Had the concerts been cancelled due to health problems with a still alive MJ, and not because of his death, would they release a documentary based on the tour rehearsals which would gross 500 million though? Absolutely not.
People saw ‘’This is it’’ because it was Michael Jackson’s swan song, a farewell, a tribute to his memory, an homage. But, was This is it the truth? No. This is it shows a dying Michael trying to save his assets. Again, AEG executives’ leaked emails prove that it was heavily edited so Michael would look healthy and strong when he clearly wasn’t.
Source: Quora