TV – Executors of Michael Jackson’s estate welcomed Friday a TV channel’s decision not to air a TV program re-enacting the pop icon’s autopsy, which it called exploitative and in shockingly bad taste.
But the King of Pop’s executors said it hoped the show, which the Discovery Channel agreed to postpone “indefinitely” citing legal reasons, would never appear on screen.
“The co-executors of the estate of Michael Jackson are pleased that Discovery Channel made the correct decision in choosing to cancel this exploitative program,” said the co-executors John Branca and John McClain.
The pair were especially angered by a European promotional advertisement for the program that shows Jackson’s trademark sequined glove emerging from beneath a coroner’s white draping sheet.
Executors of Michael Jackson’s estate demanded Wednesday that the Discovery Channel cancel plans for a show purporting to re-enact the dead superstar’s autopsy.
John Branca and John McClain fired off an angry letter Wednesday to Discovery Communications calling the planned show “in shockingly bad taste” and insensitive to the feelings of Jackson’s family.
They accused the company of being motivated by “blind desire to exploit Michael’s death, while cynically attempting to dupe the public into believing this show will have serious medical value.”
Branca and McClain said they were especially outraged by an Internet ad now circulating for the show, “Michael Jackson’s Autopsy.”
They called it “sickening” and said it depicts a corpse on a steel gurney covered by a sheet with a hand sticking out wearing Michael’s signature sequined glove.
“Discovery obviously views this as clever advertising…But in fact the ad makes light of Jackson’s death and is debased, sick and insensitive,” the letter said.
They said some viewing “this fictitious morbid image” on the Internet may think it is real. Discovery has had a reputation for fine TV programming which is why “we find your decision to proceed with an offensive, exploitative program like ‘Michael Jackson’s Autopsy’ so mind boggling,” the lawyers said.
Branca and McClain appealed on behalf of Jackson’s family, fans, common sense and decency for cancellation of the program.
A call to Discovery headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., after hours was not answered.
Michael Jackson fans have launched a petition in a bid to stop the broadcast of a gruesome TV show featuring a re-enactment of the late star’s autopsy.
The Discovery Channel’s controversial program Michael Jackson’s Autopsy is said to be based on the official coroner’s report and court documents taken after the star’s tragic passing back in 2009.
The show will follow a pathologist as he performs a full autopsy on a synthetic cadaver and exposes the “medical myths that surrounded Jackson throughout his troubled life – his drug addiction, his vitiligo and other disorders.”
And the plans have infuriated the Thriller hitmaker’s loyal fans, who have launched a petition in a bid to stop the show from airing.
Members of two Jackson campaign groups, MJ Justice Project and MJ Children, have united to urge other devotees to contact bosses at the Discovery Channel to voice their displeasure about the show.
The petition states, “We ask the directors of the Discovery Channel programming to proceed with the outright cancellation of this indecent documentary.”
THE PETITION – PLEASE SIGN
Discovery Channel will broadcast 13 January 2011 a documentary on events surrounding the death of the singer, Michael Jackson.
Based on the authopsy’s report and court documents, the film will show a reproduction of the body of the star in every detail. The documentary aims to follow a doctor who will dissect the body and reveal the true reasons for his death by spreading rumors about his addiction or his skin condition.
Like any other human being on this earth, Michael Jackson is entitled to a minimum of decency and respect. Over the months, media accumulate abuse and act as low as before.
Ok, so you know the ‘GOLDEN CAPE PHOTO‘ we blogged about yesterday? Well another reader sent us another link of website that has Karen Faye’s take on the whole photoshoot. Apparently she tweeted her viewpoint. O and Karen was Michael’s make-up artist.
Also, it’s common practice for celebrities not to like photos that are taken sometimes, but they get published anyway! Remember Janet did not like herW Magazine front cover? So we don’t know. It’s way over our little heads.
The day after “Living With Michael Jackson” aired, Oprahs original plan was to discuss something else, but she couldnt resist talking about Michael. She started the show by saying something like “This show is not going to be about Michael Jackson but OMG, did you all see the documentary yesterday?” Of course, then she and her audience talked about Michael the entire show. She turned straight to the camera and directed a personal message to MJ and said “Michael, if you were my brother I would say to you that it’s not appropriate to have kids sleep in your bed.”
She then invited guests on her show to get them to malign Michael & she’d laugh heartily at their disrespect during the trial. She asked several people about their opinions about the trial and MJ, when Michael was not even the topic of the show.(continued in comment-field below)
1) As Randy Jackson has stated, during jury deliberations, she had a show about pedophilia. This is kinda interesting because the old woman, the one juror who said she was huge Oprah fan was the one who slowed down the “jurydeliberation process”.
2) She had a show about unrelated men who share intimate relationships with one another (a deep closeness, no sex) yet continued to insist they were heterosexual. Something like that anyway. One of the men said that he often shared a bed with his friends (again, no sex) and Winfrey laughed and said “You’re sounding like Michael Jackson.”
3) When she had Jay Leno on her show, she asked him “What kind of jokes do you tell on your show.” He said, “of course, Michael Jackson jokes”. She went on to ask about his trial experience. When he talked about “wanting to crack a few jokes” during his testimony, she ended the conversation.
4) Larry King once asked her if she felt sorry for Jackson. She smiled slightly before saying no.
A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit by a concert promoter against the late Michael Jackson over a failed reunion concert.
U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. granted a motion by lawyers for Jackson’s estate to dismiss the case, citing a lack of evidence that the late King of Pop or his family were under a binding agreement to perform at a reunion concert.
AllGood Entertainment Inc., a company started in Morristown, N.J., sued Jackson for $40 million on June 10, 2009, roughly two weeks before the singer’s death in Los Angeles at age 50. It claimed Jackson and his then-manager broke a contract for a Jackson reunion show.
AllGood later filed a creditor’s claim with Jackson’s estate, claiming the potential value of the lawsuit was at least $300 million.
Baer determined that there was a letter of intent between Jackson’s then-manager, Frank DiLeo, and AllGood, but never an enforceable contract. He noted that neither Jackson nor any other members of the family who were to be involved in the show ever signed a contract.
Attorneys for Jackson’s estate and DiLeo contended that if there was a breach in the contract, AllGood broke the agreement first because it did not issue a payment to Jackson before a required deadline. Baer wrote that there was no evidence that AllGood suffered substantial economic damage because of the failed concert.
“This case never had any merit and the claim was frivolous from day one,” Jackson estate attorney Howard Weitzman said in a statement. “Michael Jackson never agreed to participate in a concert promoted by AllGood as the judge clearly found in his opinion.”
Yvie Burnett is the main vocal coach on ITV’s successful TV talent show, The X Factor. She was born on 8 August 1968 in Aberdeen, Scotland. She attended Ellon Academy, Aberdeenshire from 1975 to 1981.
Michael Jackson is said to have built a ‘secret tunnel’ to avoid people, according to X Factor vocal coach Yvie Burnett.
Burnett, who previously worked with the King of Pop has claimed that MJ was the ‘rudest’ celebrity she has ever helped and revealed how he used to disappear in an underground tunnel so he didn’t have to speak to staff.
Yvie claimed: “I remember a long time ago, I was working with Michael Jackson and he had a tunnel built which took him from the stage into the dressing room,”
She added: “He crawled into this big white tunnel so he didn’t have to speak to any of us. He was probably the rudest [celebrity] because we all went up to meet him and he wouldn’t speak to anyone, not even the crew who were beside him.”
Today we read in a US Tabloid Weekly that Donte Jackson could be Michael Jackson’s son.
Can you believe it?
Did you read it?
A double page spread with pictures and everything. I mean COME ON!!!!! What has Donte Jackson ever done to hurt anyone? Most people don’t even know he exists. Now, people who could not careless are going to want to know about Donte Jackson. He is not even trying to be a superstar to warrant that type of mainstream attention. He is just a young boy/man and now he has live with that rubbish or stigma if other tabloids pick up on it. Anything for a story! Don’t they know family comes in all sorts of extended shapes and sizes. There are so many Jacksons it’s hard to match them all up, let alone tell them apart sometimes. The story had no relevance or facts whatsoever….wishy washy rubbish, talking about Joe Jackson and Vegas!!!!
Donte, if anyone gives you a hard time, tell them BUBBLES is YOUR DADDY. That should shut them up.
On second thoughts, NO DON’T!
The media are so stupid sometimes they will probably do a DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD ON THAT basing their facts on stories from ‘JACKSON INSIDERS’.
YOU KNOW WHAT…
Katherine, get the guest the room ready…
I’m moving in (with my readers) and just let them write some rubbish speculating about our DNA… They’ll find outWHO THE DADDY ISaround here!
We try to keep this site very postive as mainstream media tends to focus only on the ‘Conrad Murray’ stuff. We personally can’t make heads or tails of it and neither do we want to. Too many great MJ memories for us all to remember, no time mate!
However, sometimes we just get upset with the way they/media attack the Jackson Family. These paparazzi folk are just stirring trouble Latoya. Why are they like that?
PS: We love the #justice4MJ campaigners, so we will blog about them all day long.
Here you can read a comment on that topic by Michael himself (Taken from the Interview “MJ Talks To Oprah”, ):
Oprah: OK, but you are in something there, there’s a picture of you, where did that come from? How did it get started?
MJ: That’s… I did a commercial for Pepsi and I was burned very badly and we settled for 1 million dollars and I gave all the money…like, we built this place called the Michael Jackson Burn Centre and that’s a piece of technology used for burn victims, right. So I’m looking at the piece of technology and decide to go inside it and just to hammer around, somebody takes the picture, when they process the pictures the person who processes the picture says. “Oh, Michael Jackson”. He made a copy and these pictures went all over the world with this lie attached to it. It’s a complete lie [...].
[...] It’s crazy. Why would I want to sleep in a chamber?
REMOVE THAT SCARF! YOUR HANDSOME!
Awww…
