Wow! Now this is serious drama. According to a Jackson family insider, Stacy Brown, family matriarch Katherine Jackson used a very derogatory slur when referring to the then embattled Michael Jackson. Although a lot has been said about the family, I really hope this is not true. However, thinking about some of the players involved (read Jermaine and Randy), this could actually be true.
Check this out:
After a chance meeting as a young fan, Stacy Brown became friends with Jermaine Jackson and later the rest of the Jackson family, including Michael. He helped write some of their memoirs, traveled on their tours, and even gave them loans (never to be repaid). Here, for the first time, Stacy explain what its like to be friends with the strangest family in America.
Randy Jackson, the second-youngest of the storied musical dynasty, likes to call his family the black Kennedys.
Maybe. But they certainly werent as smart with their finances as the Kennedys.
Even before this month, when the family lost a $40 billion lawsuit against AEG over the death of Michael Jackson, theyve struggled with debts. Especially when the familys richest members, Michael and Janet, decided to cut off their seven other siblings and parents out of whim or spite.
A particularly low point came in 2003. No money was coming in, few of them had actual jobs and Janet gave but one gift to her siblings: free meal cards to Baja Fresh, a fast-food chain with which she had an endorsement deal.
I visited Rebbie, the oldest of the Jackson kids, in Vegas, to work on a book. It was Baja Fresh for breakfast, lunch and dinner. From there I drove to Hayvenhurst, the familys estate in Encino, Calif., to meet Katherine, the matriarch, and Jermaine.
And for 2¹/? weeks it was .?.?. Baja Fresh.
Finally, for the sake of my stomach, I offered to take Katherine to Trader Joes. She loaded the cart with groceries, and I ended up with the bill $700.
There was no thank you. The money was never repaid. Whatever courtesies are shown to them are met with the air of You did what you ought to. We are the Jacksons!
Why No Black Boys?
As a friend, ghostwriter and confidant of the Jackson family for nearly 25 years, people ask how I could put up with such behavior.
It wasnt easy but theres something seductive about the craziness.