Introduction: Past broadcasts have outlined an apparent strategic goal of the Underground Reich and the Bormann capital network, as set forth in the Nazi tract Serpent’s Walk. (For detail about the Bormann network, see Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile.)
“The SS . . . what was left of it . . . had business objectives before and during World War II. When the war was lost they just kept on, but from other places: Bogota, Asuncion, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Colombo, Damascus, Dacca . . . you name it. They realized that the world is heading towards a ‘corporacracy;’ five or ten international super-companies that will run everything worth running by the year 2100. Those super-corporations exist now, and they’re already dividing up the production and marketing of food, transport, steel and heavy industry, oil, the media, and other commodities. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] They’re mostly conglomerates, with fingers in more than one pie . . . . We, the SS, have the say in four or five. We’ve been competing for the past sixty years or so, and we’re slowly gaining . . . .”
(Serpent’s Walk by Randolph O. Calverhall; Copyright 1991 [SC]; National Vanguard Books; 0-937944-05-X; pp. 42-43.)
This program asks whether this Underground Reich strategy may have targeted the extremely valuable music catalog owned by the late Michael Jackson, a collection that included many of the most important of the Beatles’ tunes. Tuck this line of informed speculation away for future use, and see if German corporations begin using Beatles’ songs (licensed to them by Bertelsmann) to sell product.
In the period leading up to his death, Jackson had some very “interesting” people around him. Might some of them have been involved in pushing him over the edge and to his demise?
Among the noteworthy characters around Michael Jackson during the closing phase of his life was veteran intelligence officer Gordon Novel, pictured at right. Having served with the CIA’s anti-Castro efforts, and an individual whose name crops up in connection with the investigations of both the assassination of President Kennedy and Watergate, Novel is discussed in FTRs 579, 269, among other programs.
Jackson told Novel he felt that he was the focal point of a conspiracy to obtain a valuable music catalog to which he owned the rights. Jackson felt that organized crime associate Alvin Malnik and personages associated with SONY music were involved. (SONY bought out Bertelsmann’s music arm [BMG]). He also felt his life was in danger.
More depth concerning the sinister forces gathered around Michael Jackson during the closing phase of his life was provided by Ian Halperin. Asserting that Jackson was gay and preferred young male lovers, Halperin maintains that the pedophilia charges of which Jackson was acquitted were baseless.
It was to finance his defense against those charges that Jackson sold off half of the rights to a valuable music catalog, including the rights to many of the Beatles songs. The other half of the catalog is owned by SONY, which acquired Bertelsmann’s music arm.
Might Jackson’s accusers have been part of a conspiracy to wrest control of the Beatles’ catalog from his control?
Halperin also notes that Jackson was in poor health and that the proposed 50-show London appearance would have severely damaged or destroyed Jackson’s health. He also notes that sinister forces around Jackson during the closing period of his life included operatives of Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, including a mysterious man named Dr. Tohme Tohme, whose precise background is a matter of conjecture. (For background information about Farrakhan and his organization, including information linking Farrakhan to the assassination of Malcom X, see FTR #21.) Farrakhan is pictured above, right, with some of his goons.
It is Halperin’s opinion that those around Jackson knew his health was bad and that he couldn’t stand the rigors of the proposed tour. Were they trying to push him into his grave? Were they in cahoots with elements looking to obtain control of the Beatles catalog?
Two weeks after Jackson’s death, the powerful Bertelsmann firm was capitalized by KKR in a new music venture. Speculation involved the possibility that Bertelsmann might use the capital to acquire the rights to the licensing of the catalog owned by Jackson and SONY.
The bulk of the second side of the program deals with Alvin Malnik, a former attorney for Meyer Lansky (often mentioned as Lansky’s possible heir) and an executor to Jackson’s will. Rightly or wrongly, Jackson was very afraid of Malnik, whom he suspected of plotting to gain control of his estate, his stake in the Beatles’ catalog, in particular.
Malnik converted to Islam and adopted an Arabic name. In addition, his son Mark Malnik married a princess of the Saudi royal family and changed his name to Shareef. (Father and son Malnik are pictured at right.) The broadcast examines this relationship. Mr. Emory refers to the Malnik milieu as “Lake Malnik” and notes the many powerful and monied interests with property on or adjoining that remarkable lake.
Program Highlights Include: Review of Bertelsmann’s links to the Underground Reich; review of the scenario set forth in Serpent’s Walk; the death by gunshot wound of the father of one of Jackson’s [false] accusers; the fact that L.A. authorities were–for a time–treating the Jackson death as a homicide investigation; Alvin Malnik’s relationship with the world of the late CIA drug smuggler Barry Seal; Malnik’s relationship with Seal attorney Richard Ben-Veniste (a member of the Kean Commission charged with investigating 9/11); the Saudi royal family’s intercession on behalf of Malnik’s in-laws when their criminal activities came to light.
1. Among the noteworthy characters around Michael Jackson during the closing phase of his life was veteran intelligence officer Gordon Novel. Having served with the CIA’s anti-Castro efforts, and an individual whose name crops up in connection with the investigations of both the assassination of President Kennedy and Watergate, Novel is discussed in FTR #’s 579, 269, among other programs.
Note that Jackson felt that he was the focal point of a conspiracy to obtain a valuable music catalog to which he owned the rights. Jackson felt that organized crime associate Alvin Malnik and personages associated with SONY music were involved. (SONY bought out Bertelsmann’s music arm [BMG]). He also felt his life was in danger.
. . . Take General Maximo Overkill, for instance. That’s his soldier of fortune’s nom de guerre. His real name is Gordon Novel, and he moves in those spooky circles which he calls “high strange,” where conspiracies flourish and cloak-and-dagger investigations overlap. He cut his teeth working for former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison on the J.F.K. assassination, and he boasts that he served as former attorney general Ramsey Clark’s “Doberman” at Waco. Several weeks before the trial began, I was put in touch with him through Steven Saltzman—the son of a James Bond–film producer—in Monaco, who told me that Michael Jackson’s brother Jermaine had been seeking Novel’s advice on how to stop the trial. According to Novel, the Jacksons believed that it was all a grand conspiracy, that the accuser’s mother was being paid by Jackson’s enemies, who wanted to take control of his major economic asset, the Sony/ATV Music catalogue, which holds publishing rights to 251 Beatles songs and works by scores of other pop artists. Jackson claimed that the main conspirators were Sony Records; its former president, Tommy Mottola; and Santa Barbara County district attorney Tom Sneddon, the prosecutor, who also investigated Jackson in 1993. The catalogue is held jointly by Jackson and Sony, and Jackson’s share is mortgaged for more than $200 million. If Jackson defaults, Sony has first chance to buy his half as early as this coming December. (A Sony spokesperson said, “We are not going to comment on any aspect of this.”)
Jackson explained to Novel that the conspirators had introduced him to Al Malnik, a wealthy Miami attorney who had once represented Meyer Lansky. Malnik later helped Jackson refinance his loans. That was not what Jackson told Novel, however. According to Novel, Jackson said he was lured to Malnik’s house in Miami Beach by film director Brett Ratner to see a house so beautiful it would make him catatonic. He said that once he was there, however, Malnik, who Jackson claimed had Mafia ties, wanted to put his fingers in the singer’s business. Jackson also said he received a call from Tommy Mottola while he was there, which aroused his suspicion, but he did not tell Novel that he later put Malnik on the board of the Sony/ATV Music partnership. (Reached by telephone, Malnik scoffed at the idea of a conspiracy or of his having any Mafia ties. He said, “It does not make any sense.” Ratner confirmed that he took Jackson to Malnik’s house and that he considers Malnik a father figure.)
Jackson and Mottola have been at odds for years. In New York in July 2002, Jackson staged a public protest against Mottola with the Reverend Al Sharpton, calling him a racist and “very, very devilish.” He called for a boycott of Sony, which is believed to have contributed to Mottola’s ouster from the company six months later. Jackson is reportedly so frightened of Mottola that one of the reasons he surrounded himself with Nation of Islam guards in 2003 was that he thought Mottola could put out a hit on him. (Mottola could not be reached for comment.)
Jackson wanted Novel to find the links among these characters. Novel told me in March that “he believes he’ll get convicted. He believes the judge, the D.A., and the Sony guys are a conspiracy to take over his money.”
On March 17, nearly a month into the trial, Novel went to Neverland to strategize. Maximo’s first thought was that Michael was in need of “an extreme makeover” of what he calls “imaggio.” Jackson drove him around the ranch in an old pickup truck. “He acted like he was scared silly,” Novel told me. His fear was “six foot thick. He kept asking me what prison was like. Can he watch TV and movies there? He wanted me to stop the show.” When I asked Novel what that meant, he related that Michael said, “‘I want this trial stopped.’ He said the judge and Sneddon had rigged the game.”
The general was blunt with Jackson. “I told him, ‘Get rid of the weird persona. You look like the weird pedophile. I’m talking about the hair, lipstick, eyebrows. Just be yourself, and say why you’re doing it. Say that’s your show-biz personality. It’s just what you do to sell LPs.’ He said, ‘No. I just want to be me.'” The general also told him to find a female lover. “He didn’t want to go with girls, do the romance thing either. He didn’t want to come to Jesus; he thinks he’s already religious. I said, ‘Why didn’t you stop fooling around with kids?’ He said, ‘I didn’t want to.'”
Novel told Jackson that he could walk away free if he would just submit to a lie-detector test, undergo hypnosis, and take truth serum, which Novel would administer in “a controlled environment.” While he was under the influence on video, Novel said, Jermaine could ask him questions, and they could distribute the video worldwide, proving his innocence. Jackson refused to take truth serum, Novel said, claiming it was against his religion.
Novel told me that he was ready to go public with this information and sell it to the highest bidder, because Jackson had stiffed him on his $5,000 consultant’s fee. I told him that Vanity Fair does not pay for information, but he nevertheless related in detail a conference call he had had with Michael, Jermaine, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Many of the things he said they had discussed were echoed in an interview Michael gave Jesse Jackson on Keep Hope Alive with Reverend Jesse Jackson the following Easter Sunday.
Michael said on the phone that what was happening to him was the result of racism. He told Jesse Jackson in the radio interview, “I’m totally innocent, and it’s just very painful. This has been kind of a pattern among black luminaries in this country.” He told him he got strength from the examples of Nelson Mandela, Jack Johnson, Muhammad Ali, and Jesse Owens. Novel told me he had said to Michael, “You can either be a victim or a warrior.” In his interview, Michael told Jesse Jackson, “I’m a warrior.”
On the phone, Novel told me, Michael and Jesse had decided that telling the press they spoke with each other frequently was a good way to give a positive spin to Michael’s predicament. Sure enough, Raymone Bain, Jackson’s attractive spokeswoman, promptly told reporters that Michael woke up before dawn every day and spoke with Jesse for 15 or 20 minutes. She said, “They talk together and pray together.” In the interview Michael said, “I gained strength from God. I believe in Jehovah God very much.”
Novel told me they had discussed the conspiracy at length on the phone. In the interview, Jesse Jackson asked Michael point-blank about the catalogue and what was in it. Michael said that “it’s a huge catalogue. It’s very valuable, it’s worth a lot of money, and there is a big fight going on right now as we speak about that.” He added, “I can’t comment on it. There’s a lot of conspiracy. I’ll say that much.” . . .
“CSI Neverland” by Maureen Orth; Vanity Fair; July/2005.
2. More depth concerning the sinister forces gathered around Michael Jackson during the closing phase of his life was provided by Ian Halperin. Asserting that Jackson was gay and preferred young male lovers, Halperin maintains that the pedophilia charges of which Jackson was acquitted were baseless.
It was to finance his defense against those charges that Jackson sold off half of the rights to a valuable music catalog, including the rights to many of the Beatles songs. The other half of the catalog is owned by SONY, which acquired Bertelsmann’s music arm.
Halperin also notes that Jackson was in poor health and that the proposed 50-show London appearance would have severaly damaged or destroyed Jackson’s health. He also notes that sinister forces around Jackson during the closing period of his life included operatives of Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, including a mysterious man named Dr. Tohme Tohme, whose precise background is a matter of conjecture. (For background information about Farrakhan and his organization, including information linking Farrakhan to the assassination of Malcom X, see FTR #21.)
It is Halperin’s opinion that those around Jackson knew his health was bad and that he couldn’t stand the rigors of the proposed tour. Were they trying to push him into his grave? Were they in cahoots with elements looking to obtain control of the Beatles catalog?
Whatever the final autopsy results reveal, it was greed that killed Michael Jackson. Had he not been driven – by a cabal of bankers, agents, doctors and advisers – to commit to the gruelling 50 concerts in London’s O2 Arena, I believe he would still be alive today.
During the last weeks and months of his life, Jackson made desperate attempts to prepare for the concert series scheduled for next month – a series that would have earned millions for the singer and his entourage, but which he could never have completed, not mentally, and not physically.
Michael knew it and his advisers knew it. Anyone who caught even a fleeting glimpse of the frail old man hiding beneath the costumes and cosmetics would have understood that the London tour was madness. For Michael Jackson, it was fatal.
I had more than a glimpse of the real Michael; as an award-winning freelance journalist and film-maker, I spent more than five years inside his ‘camp’.
Many in his entourage spoke frankly to me – and that made it possible for me to write authoritatively last December that Michael had six months to live, a claim that, at the time, his official spokesman, Dr Tohme Tohme, called a ‘complete fabrication’. The singer, he told the world, was in ‘fine health’. Six months and one day later, Jackson was dead.
Some liked to snigger at his public image, and it is true that flamboyant clothes and bizarre make-up made for a comic grotesque; yet without them, his appearance was distressing; with skin blemishes, thinning hair and discoloured fingernails.
I had established beyond doubt, for example, that Jackson relied on an extensive collection of wigs to hide his greying hair. Shorn of their luxuriance, the Peter Pan of Neverland cut a skeletal figure.
It was clear that he was in no condition to do a single concert, let alone 50. He could no longer sing, for a start. On some days he could barely talk. He could no longer dance. Disaster was looming in London and, in the opinion of his closest confidantes, he was feeling suicidal.
To understand why a singer of Jackson’s fragility would even think about traveling to London, we need to go back to June 13, 2005, when my involvement in his story began.
As a breaking news alert flashed on CNN announcing that the jury had reached a verdict in Jackson’s trial for allegedly molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo at his Neverland Ranch in California, I knew that history had been made but that Michael Jackson had been broken – irrevocably so, as it proved.
Nor was it the first time that Michael had been accused of impropriety with young boys. Little more than a decade earlier, another 13-year-old, Jordan Chandler, made similar accusations in a case that was eventually settled before trial – but not before the damage had been done to Jackson’s reputation.
Michael had not helped his case. Appearing in a documentary with British broadcaster Martin Bashir, he not only admitted that he liked to share a bed with teenagers, mainly boys, in pyjamas, but showed no sign of understanding why anyone might be legitimately concerned.
I had started my investigation convinced that Jackson was guilty. By the end, I no longer believed that.
I could not find a single shred of evidence suggesting that Jackson had molested a child. But I found significant evidence demonstrating that most, if not all, of his accusers lacked credibility and were motivated primarily by money.
Jackson also deserved much of the blame, of course. Continuing to share a bed with children even after the suspicions surfaced bordered on criminal stupidity.
He was also playing a truly dangerous game. It is clear to me that Michael was homosexual and that his taste was for young men, albeit not as young as Jordan Chandler or Gavin Arvizo.
In the course of my investigations, I spoke to two of his gay lovers, one a Hollywood waiter, the other an aspiring actor. The waiter had remained friends, perhaps more, with the singer until his death last week. He had served Jackson at a restaurant, Jackson made his interest plain and the two slept together the following night. According to the waiter, Jackson fell in love.
The actor, who has been given solid but uninspiring film parts, saw Jackson in the middle of 2007. He told me they had spent nearly every night together during their affair – an easy claim to make, you might think. But this lover produced corroboration in the form of photographs of the two of them together, and a witness.
Other witnesses speak of strings of young men visiting his house at all hours, even in the period of his decline. Some stayed overnight.
When Jackson lived in Las Vegas, one of his closest aides told how he would sneak off to a ‘grungy, rat-infested’ motel – often dressed as a woman to disguise his identity – to meet a male construction worker he had fallen in love with.
Jackson was acquitted in the Arvizo case, dramatically so, but the effect on his mental state was ruinous. Sources close to him suggest he was close to complete nervous breakdown.
The ordeal had left him physically shattered, too. One of my sources suggested that he might already have had a genetic condition I had never previously come across, called Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency – the lack of a protein that can help protect the lungs.
Although up to 100,000 Americans are severely affected by it, it is an under-recognized condition. Michael was receiving regular injections of Alpha-1 antitrypsin derived from human plasma. The treatment is said to be remarkably effective and can enable the sufferer to lead a normal life.
But the disease can cause respiratory problems and, in severe cases, emphysema. Could this be why Jackson had for years been wearing a surgical mask in public, to protect his lungs from the ravages of the disease? Or why, from time to time, he resorted to a wheelchair? When I returned to my source inside the Jackson camp for confirmation, he said: ‘Yeah, that’s what he’s got. He’s in bad shape. They’re worried that he might need a lung transplant but he may be too weak.
‘Some days he can hardly see and he’s having a lot of trouble walking.’
Even Michael Jackson’s legendary wealth was in sharp decline. Just a few days before he announced his 50-concert comeback at the O2 Arena, one of my sources told me Jackson had been offered £1.8million to perform at a party for a Russian billionaire on the Black Sea.
‘Is he up to it?’ I had asked.
‘He has no choice. He needs the money. His people are pushing him hard,’ said the source.
Could he even stand on a stage for an hour concert?
‘He can stand. The treatments have been successful. He can even dance once he gets in better shape. He just can’t sing,’ said the aide, adding that Jackson would have to lip-synch to get through the performance. ‘Nobody will care, as long as he shows up and moonwalks.’
He also revealed Jackson had been offered well over £60million to play Las Vegas for six months. ‘He said no, but his people are trying to force it on him. He’s that close to losing everything,’ said the source.
Indeed, by all accounts Jackson’s finances were in a shambles. The Arvizo trial itself was a relative bargain, costing a little more than £18million in legal bills.
But the damage to his career, already in trouble before the charges, was incalculable. After the Arvizo trial, a Bahraini sheikh allowed Jackson to stay in his palace, underwriting his lavish lifestyle. But a few years later, the prince sued his former guest, demanding repayment for his hospitality. Jackson claimed he thought it had been a gift.
Roger Friedman, a TV journalist, said: ‘For one year, the prince underwrote Jackson’s life in Bahrain – everything including accommodation, guests, security and transportation. And what did Jackson do? He left for Japan and then Ireland. He took the money and moonwalked right out the door. This is the real Michael Jackson. He has never returned a phone call from the prince since he left Bahrain.’
Although Jackson settled with the sheikh on the eve of the trial that would have aired his financial dirty laundry, the settlement only put him that much deeper into the hole. A hole that kept getting bigger, but that was guaranteed by Jackson’s half ownership of the copyrights to The Beatles catalogue. He owned them in a joint venture with record company Sony, which have kept him from bankruptcy.
‘Jackson is in hock to Sony for hundreds of millions,’ a source told me a couple of months ago. ‘No bank will give him any money so Sony have been paying his bills.
‘The trouble is that he hasn’t been meeting his obligations. Sony have been in a position for more than a year where it can repossess Michael’s share of the [Beatles] catalogue. That’s always been Sony’s dream scenario, full ownership.
‘But they don’t want to do it as they’re afraid of a backlash from his fans. Their nightmare is an organised ‘boycott Sony’ movement worldwide, which could prove hugely costly. It is the only thing standing between Michael and bankruptcy.’
The source aid at the time that the scheduled London concerts wouldn’t clear Jackson’s debts – estimated at almost £242million – but they would allow him to get them under control and get him out of default with Sony.
According to two sources in Jackson’s camp, the singer put in place a contingency plan to ensure his children would be well taken care of in the event of bankruptcy.
‘He has as many as 200 unpublished songs that he is planning to leave behind for his children when he dies. They can’t be touched by the creditors, but they could be worth as much as £60million that will ensure his kids a comfortable existence no matter what happens,’ one of his collaborators revealed.
But for the circle of handlers who surrounded Jackson during his final years, their golden goose could not be allowed to run dry. Bankruptcy was not an option.
These, after all, were not the handlers who had seen him through the aftermath of the Arvizo trial and who had been protecting his fragile emotional health to the best of their ability. They were gone, and a new set of advisers was in place.
The clearout had apparently been engineered by his children’s nanny, Grace Rwaramba, who was gaining considerable influence over Jackson and his affairs and has been described as the ‘queen bee’ by those around Jackson.
Rwaramba had ties to the black militant organisation, the Nation of Islam, and its controversial leader, Louis Farrakhan, whom she enlisted for help in running Jackson’s affairs.
Before long, the Nation was supplying Jackson’s security detail and Farrakhan’s son-in-law, Leonard Muhammad, was appointed as Jackson’s business manager, though his role has lessened significantly in recent years.
In late 2008, a shadowy figure who called himself Dr Tohme Tohme suddenly emerged as Jackson’s ‘official spokesman’.
Tohme has been alternately described as a Saudi Arabian billionaire and an orthopaedic surgeon, but he is actually a Lebanese businessman who does not have a medical licence. At one point, Tohme claimed he was an ambassador at large for Senegal, but the Senegalese embassy said they had never heard of him.
Tohme’s own ties to the Nation of Islam came to light in March 2009, when New York auctioneer Darren Julien was conducting an auction of Michael Jackson memorabilia.
Julien filed an affidavit in Los Angeles Superior Court that month in which he described a meeting he had with Tohme’s business partner, James R. Weller. According to Julien’s account, ‘Weller said if we refused to postpone [the auction], we would be in danger from ‘Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam; those people are very protective of Michael’.
He told us that Dr Tohme and Michael Jackson wanted to give the message to us that ‘our lives are at stake and there will be bloodshed’.’
A month after these alleged threats, Tohme accompanied Jackson to a meeting at a Las Vegas hotel with Randy Phillips, chief executive of the AEG Group, to finalise plans for Jackson’s return to the concert stage.
Jackson’s handlers had twice before said no to Phillips. This time, with Tohme acting as his confidant, Jackson left the room agreeing to perform ten concerts at the O2.
Before long, however, ten concerts had turned into 50 and the potential revenues had skyrocketed. ‘The vultures who were pulling his strings somehow managed to put this concert extravaganza together behind his back, then presented it to him as a fait accompli,’ said one aide.
‘The money was just unbelievable and all his financial people were telling him he was facing bankruptcy. But Michael still resisted. He didn’t think he could pull it off.’
Eventually, they wore him down, the aide explained, but not with the money argument.
‘They told him that this would be the greatest comeback the world had ever known. That’s what convinced him. He thought if he could emerge triumphantly from the success of these concerts, he could be the King again.’
The financial details of the O2 concerts are still murky, though various sources have revealed that Jackson was paid as much as £10million in advance, most of which went to the middlemen. But Jackson could have received as much as £100million had the concerts gone ahead.
It is worth noting that the O2 Arena has the most sophisticated lip synching technology in the world – a particular attraction for a singer who can no longer sing. Had, by some miracle, the concerts gone ahead, Jackson’s personal contribution could have been limited to just 13 minutes for each performance. The rest was to have been choreography and lights.
‘We knew it was a disaster waiting to happen,’ said one aide. ‘I don’t think anybody predicted it would actually kill him but nobody believed he would end up performing.’
Their doubts were underscored when Jackson collapsed during only his second rehearsal. . . .
3. Los Angeles authorities were moving in the direction of a homicide investigation at one point in their inquiry.
The slow dribble of news and rumors in the aftermath of Michael Jackson’s death continues, with reports that the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office is considering the case a criminal investigation, and that the LAPD is treating Jackson’s death as a homicide. . . .
4. Two weeks after Jackson’s death, the powerful Bertelsmann firm was capitalized by KKR in a new music venture. Speculation involved the possibility that Bertelsmann might use the capital to acquire the rights to the licensing of the catalog owned by Jackson and SONY.
Less than a year after Bertelsmann, the German media giant, exited the music business, it is taking a novel approach to get back in.
The company said Wednesday that it would form a joint venture with the private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company to license and administer music rights.
The new company will combine Bertelsmann’s existing BMG Rights Management unit with the financial muscle of K.K.R., which will own 51 percent of the joint venture, with Bertelsmann holding the rest.
And while BMG’s indirect competitors will be the music publishing titans of the world, like EMI, Warner Music, Universal and Sony — companies that market the immense catalogs they own — BMG is counting on signing artists who are seeking someone who will administer their intellectual property without actually owning it.
“Our financial strength combined with BMG’s sector expertise will create a unique platform for building up a global music-rights management business,” Johannes P. Huth, the European head of K.K.R., said in a statement.
In August, Bertelsmann sold its stake in the music company SonyBMG to Sony for $900 million. As part of the deal, it retained the rights to 200 European artists, who, with 100 signed since October, form the core of BMG Rights Management, which is based in Berlin.
Founded last October, BMG Rights Management is a relatively new business that acts as an agent for artists whose intellectual property can be licensed for uses outside of traditional recording. For example, the music can be broadcast through various media or used in movie productions.
Its stable of artists includes Toby Gad, a German songwriter living in New York who has worked with artists including Beyoncé and Hannah Montana, and 2Raumwohnung, a popular German group.
K.K.R. will put 50 million euros up front into the new company, drawing on its European investment funds, and another 200 million euros over five years as investment opportunities arise, according to Philipp Freise, a director of K.K.R. in Europe and member of its global media team.
“We both want to broaden BMG’s global reach faster than originally anticipated,” Thomas Rabe, Bertelsmann’s chief financial officer, said.
Hartwig Masuch, BMG’s chief executive and a veteran of its music publishing business, will keep that title in the new company.
BMG has offices in six European countries, including Germany, Britain and Italy, and is now turning its gaze across the Atlantic to begin signing artists there. “With this joint venture, the main point now is to get active in the United States,” said Tobias Riepe, a Bertelsmann spokesman.
Though its first priority is acquiring a stable of artists, another possibility for expansion would be for BMG to acquire control of music catalogs in its own right from other owners, or artists who sell them, Mr. Riepe said.
The music world, for example, is now abuzz with speculation about what will happen to the catalogs controlled by heirs of Michael Jackson. The recently deceased pop superstar had his own music catalog, and a 50 percent interest in the Sony/ATV collection, which includes songs from The Beatles — assets the family could try to sell. . . .
5. More about the Bertelsmann/K.K.R. deal:
To Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, music was “the universal language of mankind.” Money may be the lingua franca for the partners at the private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, but a combination with music could make a pleasant tune for its investors.
The fund run by Henry Kravis is teaming with the German media group Bertelsmann to pounce on some of the choicest bits of the music business — copyrights to songs. Given the turbulence in the recorded music sector, and the ownership of libraries like Michael Jackson’s up in the air, they’ll likely have a wealth of assets from which to choose.
Widespread digital distribution of music has hampered the ability of companies like Warner Music Group and EMI to make money from their traditional activity of finding new artists and marketing their tunes. Yet, their copyright businesses continue to produce profit. In the quarter that ended in March, Warner’s publishing division posted 40 percent operating margins, four times those of its recorded music division.
That has raised expectations that copyright owners like EMI, which is highly leveraged, may need to sell assets to pay down debt and fix their recorded music operations. Similarly, Warner may seek to monetize part of its library to finance a bid for the recorded music arm of EMI, should its owners at the buyout firm Terra Firma wish to sell.
And copyrights owned by the estates of Michael Jackson and Allen Klein, the former Rolling Stones manager, may come on the block. The Jackson estate’s share of its venture with Sony, which holds the rights to most of the Beatles’ music, was valued at $390 million in a 2007 audit. . . .
6. Shortly after Jackson’s death, the father of the first of his two [false] accusers died of a gunshot wound, said to have been self-inflicted.
First, Even Chandler–father of Jordan Chandler, the boy who first accused Michael [Jackson] of molestation–committed suicide by handgun, sparking speculation that he’d perhaps done so out of guilt over the whole child molestation scandal that arguably started the downward spiral of the fallen King Of Pop’s bizarre life. We shall never really know, and there was no suicide note at the scene. . . .
7. Bertelsmann was the publisher for the SS in World War II. The firm’s patriarch, Heinrich Mohn, was a member of that organization. Available evidence suggests strongly that Bertelsmann is part of the Underground Reich.
Note that the late Heinrich Mohn selected Dieter Vogel to head the Thyssen firm. In addition to being one of the German core corporations (and therefore part of the Underground Reich), the Thyssen firm is one of the most important elements of the Bormann capital network.
“Issuing more than 20 million volumes, Bertelsmann was the largest supplier to the army and supplied the SS.”
(“Bertelsmann’s Nazi Past” by Hersch Fischler and John Friedman; The Nation; 12/28/98; p. 1.)
8. More about Bertelsmann and Heinrich Mohn’s membership in the SS:
“When Bertelsmann applied after the war for a second publishing license, it was turned down by occupation authorities. [Bertelsmann patriarch Heinrich] Mohn had ‘forgotten’ to mention that he had been a ‘passive’ member of the SS, as well as a supporter of the Hitler Youth and a member of the prestigious National Socialist Flying Corps, according to de-Nazification files in the central state archive in Dusseldorf.”
(Ibid.; p. 2.)
9. For those inclined to view the activities of Heinrich Mohn and associates as something that was “long ago and far away,” the program reviews the fact that Bertelsmann’s house historian–Dirk Bavendamm–exhibits behavior suggestive of Bertelsmann being part of the Underground Reich. As recently as 1998, Bavendamm wrote a book blaming World War II on Franklin Roosevelt, U.S. imperialism and Jewish control of the media. A remarkable interpretation of that conflict from the official historian of the largest English language publisher.
“His book Roosevelt’s Way to War (Roosevelt’s Weg zum Krieg) was published in 1983. Rewriting history, he stated that Roosevelt, not Hitler had caused World War II. He also wrote that American Jews controlled most of the media,’ and he claimed they gave a false picture of Hitler. Did the book impress [Heinrich’s son Reinhard] Mohn, then the majority shareholder of Bertelsmann? The firm hired Bavendamm as its house historian, and in 1984 he completed a historical study, 150 Years of Bertelsmann: The Founders and Their Time—with a foreword by Mohn. A year later, Bavendamm edited the firm’s official history, which set forth the untrue story that the firm had resisted the Nazis and had been closed down by them. Mohn also asked Bavendamm to write the authorized history of the Mohn family, published in 1986 under the title Bertelsmann, Mohn, Scippel: Three Families—One Company. In a second book, Roosevelt’s War (published in 1993, reissued in 1998), Bavendamm accuses the U.S. President of enacting a plan to start World War II. In the same book he suggests that Hitler’s threats in early 1939 against European Jewry were a reaction to Roosevelt’s strategy against Germany. After the revelations about Bertelsmann’s Nazi past appeared, the company announced that it had asked ‘the historian and publicist Dr. Dirk Bavendamm to look at the new information and begin to reinvestigate the role the publishing house played in those days’ and defended his work.”
(“Bertelsmann’s Revisionist” by Hersch Fischler and John Friedman; The Nation; 11/8/99; p. 1.)
10. The bulk of the second side of the program deals with Alvin Malnik, a former attorney for Meyer Lansky (often mentioned as Lansky’s possible heir) and an executor to Jackson’s will. Rightly or wrongly, Jackson was very afraid of Malnik, whom he suspected of plotting to gain control of his estate, his stake in the Beatles’ catalog, in particular.
Malnik converted to Islam and adopted an Arabic name. In addition, his son Mark Malnik married a princess of the Saudi royal family and changed his name to Shareef. The broadcast examines this relationship. Mr. Emory refers to the Malnik milieu as “Lake Malnik” and notes the many powerful and monied interests with property on or adjoining that remarkable lake. People and institutions involved with, and overlapping, the intelligence community, organized crime, politics, show business, industry and finance all rubbed elbows with Malnik.
The marriage–literally–of an alleged heir to the Lansky syndicate to the Saudi royal family raises the possibility of a truly remarkable and virtually limitless engine of corrupt power. (For discussion of Malnik, the program excerpts material from FTR #512.)
Autopsy doctor doubts Michael Jackson caused his own death.
http://news.yahoo.com/jacksons-mother-wept-told-singers-death-185844565.html
What about the death of Whitney Houston?
Excerpt from the Financial Times”
http://www.ft.lk/2012/02/14/sony-to-set-plans-for-whitney-houston-catalogue/
“Sony to set plans for Whitney Houston catalogue
Published : 12:10 am February 14, 2012 | No comments so far | | E-mail to friend
Reuters: Sony Music executives will meet this week in New York to determine a strategy for marketing the nine albums, soundtracks and compilations that feature Whitney Houston, the pop singer who died on Saturday at age 48, according to two people familiar with the plans.
Executives will also discuss st”
@George Karnazes–
People might be inclined to dismiss your comment as paranoid conspiracy theory at its worst.
I think it shows more insight than that. Both Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson had racked up epic record sales.
Both were reaching (or had reached) the point where they could no longer perform effectively.
Michael Jackson was enfeebled during the rehearsals for his big tour, and many close to him feared for his health and life if he continued to push himself.
Whitney Houston had, by accounts, lost her voice, to a considerable extent.
Like Jackson, she was on the downside of her career, to say the least.
Like Jackson, she had drug habits that would have made dispatching her easy.
Like Jackson, she was worth more dead than alive, with powerful corporate interests standing to benefit from the energized popularity stemming from the tragic deaths of both.
Sony and Bertelsman/Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts were quick to join the hunt.
Remember, that we are talking about a great deal of money to be made by powerful corporations.
That treachery might enter into such affairs is one to be seriously pondered.
I would note that Houston mentor Clive Davis, who throws the annual Grammy party at the Beverly Hilton was employed as of 2002 by Bertelsmann, a proprietary firm of the German giant.
We looked at this in FTR #250.
hollywoodnews.com 2-20-12
http://www.hollywoodnews.com/2012/02/20/whitney-houston-mystery-michael-jackson-and-whitney-had-a-curious-friend-in-common/
Excerpt
“Whitney Houston Mystery: Michael Jackson and Whitney Had a Curious Friend in Common
By: Roger Friedman
HollywoodNews.com: Here’s the one person in the Whitney Houston story whose name you have not heard, and who has remained a mystery: a Dutch man from Amsterdam who goes by the name of Raffles van Exel. He is also known – in court records—as Raffles Dawson and Raffles Benson. He was on the fourth floor of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in one of Houston’s suites when she died.”..
@George Karnazes–
Good Show! Raffles uses different names when in court?
Sure is in the right place at the right time.
As I said in response to your earlier comment, this is the sort of thing that people tend to dismiss as Conspiracy Theory at its worst.
But look at the washed up Jackson and Houston.
MUCH more valuable dead than alive.
With the licensing of their music for advertising purposes, in addition to sales to “grieving” fans, serious corporate profits are to be made.
That is always the dominant consideration in our world.
Keep up the good work!
Dave
Greetings all ,I am an occasional listener and appreciate and commend Mr. Emory’s work. After reading the article about this ‘Raffles van Exel’ character, I did a ‘you tube’ search and several videos turned up. He appears to be a celeb wannabe and con man who has a knack for getting next to famous people and then using that access to promote himself. He is believed to have secretly taken and sold to the tabloids for $50,000 the final picture of Whitney Houston in her casket.
But one of Raffles’s videos– a 4 part interview of Michael Jackson’s ‘manager’, Frank Dileo, raised curiosity.Plainly put, the manager guy seemed to be a mobster. I didn’t even watch the entire video because he begins early on trying to squash rumors and ‘conspiracy theory’ about why and how the “This Is It ” documentary about Michael’s last tour came about. Dileo insists to Raffles that the tour rehearsals were never filmed with the intent of making a cash cow movie as a deliberate financial alternative once they realized Jackson was too ill to complete the tour. Dileo insists it was done sort of like a home movie–to preserve memories of what was scheduled to be Michael’s last tour—he begins to say there was originally no commercial intent.
But then he says “Michael couldn’t afford a film crew”, so somebody just went out and bought two $6000 video cameras –and that’s how this mega million dollar movie about Jackson’s last days came about. That remark that Jackson “could not afford to hire a film crew” caused me to pause the video right there and begin doing google searches for Frank Dileo.
From what the internet says the guy is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. A former bookie and record industry “payola” type, unable to ditch the persistent taint of the names Gambino and Gotti , were some of the descriptions of Dileo. A journalist writing a book on mob influence in the record industry interviewed Dileo –Dileo reportedly laughed when asked about organized crime and said to the effect, “there hasn’t been any organized crime since Al Capone.”
Dileo was asked by Martin Scorcese to play “Tuddie Cicero” in the movie ‘Goodfellas’ –btw “Tuddie Cicero” was the overweight mobster who assassinates Joe Pesci’s character “Tommy” in the movie.
Looking into Dileo’s history with Michael Jackson we find he turned around the ‘Epic’ record label and then became Michael’s manager in the singer’s hey day era of the “Thriller” and the follow up “Bad” albums –probably the singer’s biggest hit records– but they parted company on less than friendly terms in the late 80s when Jackson fired him–Dileo was accused by some of stealing millions from Jackson.
After almost 2 decades of absence –how did Dileo become Jackson’s manager again ? Apparently representatives of Anschutz Entertainment Group, or AEG the “This Is It ” tour sponsor insisted Dileo be reinstated as the singer’s manager for the tour– over the objections of Michael Jackson . A cursory look into AEG reveals the owner Phillip Anschutz is a`billionaire and right wing Christian and financial contributor to the George ‘Dubya’ Bush political campaigns.
The book “What Really Happened ” by former Jackson promoter and family friend Leonard Rowe says that AEG financially raped the singer with a “contract” his crooked lawyers encouraged him to sign that basically left Michael responsible for all of the expenses of the tour–which according to Rowe is unheard of in the industry.
The contract left him millions of dollars in debt to AEG and gave them the legal right to take his billion dollar music catalog if he defaulted on his debts to them. AEG owns both the Staples arena where the tour rehearsals were going on and controls the O2 stadium where the concerts were to take place –but Michael was charged for all of the tour’s production costs and would not receive a dime until all these costs were paid–it’s like someone offers you your own tv show, but the electric bill and all costs of operating the studio,the props, furniture and sets –everything– including lunch for all the staff and all the staff salaries have to be paid by you.
AEG also requires Michael contractually to pay for the substantial life insurance , cancellation insurance and non completion insurance policies they had placed on him and the tour–and they won’t reveal how much they collected when he died.
When Jackson dies, suddenly with a surprise will that no one including michael’s new lawyer knew about, up jumps John Branca –the lawyer Jackson fired in 2003 when investigators told the singer that his attorney Branca and Sony exec Tommy Mottola were working together stealing millions from Jackson and hiding the money off shore. According to Rowe, Jackson repeatedly said he would never do business with Branca or Dileo –EVER –but apparently through AEG they are both back in the picture –one managing production of the “This is It ” film grossing hundreds of millions world wide and the other as the executor of his estate handling among other things, the billion dollar music rights belonging to the singer –and both of these two scoundrels billing the singer’s estate for management and legal fees.
In the first year after the singer’s death his estate took in over a billion additional dollars from record sales films, memorabilia , licensing etc, ect. –Michael Jackson IS worth more dead to the industry than alive.
And it must also be mentioned that manager Dileo suddenly ‘discovered’ music tracks that he said Michael recorded in 2007 but were never released. Some of these songs are included in the posthumously released album “Michael” but fans and critics immediately proclaim these ‘discovered’ songs as “fakes” . Even the singer’s daughter allegedly said the voice on the songs didn’t sound like her father–but audio experts from …Sony…certify the voice as Michael’s and assure grief-stricken fans to buy the album.
In early 2011 a fight breaks out between estate executors John Branca and John Mc Clain and manager Frank Dileo. Dileo complains he is being stiffed for management fees by the estate and cut out of decision making power. He threatens to write a ‘Tell All” book about his experiences in the music business which creates a media buzz because of his connections to Michael and others prominent in the industry. Branca and McClain reportedly make payments to Dileo. The book never comes out because shortly after the story makes the news , Dileo suffers severe heart problems and eventually dies in August 2011.
Now I don’t know if any of this overlaps with or has anything to do at all with the underground reich–but if it doesn’t, the Borman group needs to take notes from these guys. The corrupt corporate execs, the corrupt managers, the corrupt lawyers, the corrupt doctors, the highly corrupt and mafia-like AEG, the corrupt ticket agents who illegally made an estimated $50 million that they won’t have to return simply from scalping tickets to this sold out tour and most of all the corrupt judges that quickly dismissed Jackson’s father’s law suit against AEG and do not challenge the crooked last will and testament where apparently even Michael’s kids’s names are listed incorrectly. This will was supposedly signed by Michael in LA on the same day Michael was recorded by the media staying in NY and conducting protests against Sony exec Tommy Mattola , the corrupt media that still focuses on Jackson’s eccentricities RATHER THAN THE BIZARRE CIRCUS OF CORRUPT AND BLATANT THIEVES CONSTANTLY SURROUNDING HIM–EVEN IN DEATH– AND THE LEGAL SYSTEM ALLOWING AND SUPPORTING ALL OF THIS . if the Borman group is in no way connected to all this, Martin Borman must be turning in his grave from jealousy and in envy of these gangsters of today…and complaining “We never had it so good as this.”
I found it interesting how long it took for us to find out who Joan Rivers personal doctor was when we heard so many other details so quickly. Hell, it took TMZ weeks to figure it out, and they have their fingers in everything! Note that propofol was in the mix again, AND that this doctor was not at all authorized to do anything in this medical office. Nor did she have written approval from Rivers.
Also, keep in mind that this happened within weeks of the bizarre “seated hanging” of Robin Williams, like Joan Rivers, ALSO a supporter of Israel.
The TMZ post is only worthwhile for the fantastic pic of Dr. Korovin, who looks about as friendly as you would imagine. Not assuming this was a “murder”, but at the very least, Dr. Korovin has “a lotta splainin’ to do” as Ricky Ricardo put it.
http://www.tmz.com/2014/09/17/joan-rivers-doctor-death-throat-surgery-gwen-korovin/
The CNN story has more actual details.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/16/showbiz/joan-rivers-cause-of-death/index.html
At first, Lloyd said, Rivers was unable to bring oxygen into her body due to the vocal cord spasm. After a couple of minutes, her heart started to beat irregularly or completely stopped. Finally, her heart stopped delivering fresh oxygenated blood to her brain, which shut down, according to Lloyd.
“The unanswered question is why they did not do a combat (tracheotomy)?” he asked. “You’ve seen in the James Bond movies. You take a ballpoint pen and puncture the thyroid cartilage and create an emergency airway for her. Of course, they would do it with sterile instruments. … And, after minute two, did anybody say, We need to start doing some CPR for her?”
The initial report did not name the doctor or doctors who performed the procedures.
Melissa Rivers posted this on Twitter on Friday afternoon: “In response to NYC’s Medical examiner’s report, we continue to be saddened by our tragic loss. No further comment at this time.”
Timeline emerges in Joan Rivers’ death
What happened?
Several clinic workers told investigators that the August 28 appointment began with Rivers’ personal throat doctor, Dr. Gwen Korovin, performing a laryngoscopy, which involves using a device to view a patient’s vocal folds, a source close to the investigation told CNN last month.
Gastroenterologist Dr. Lawrence Cohen, who was the medical director of the clinic until resigning after Rivers’ death, then performed an endoscopy intended to diagnose why she was suffering a sore throat and hoarseness, the source said.
Cohen detected something of concern, the source said.
Korovin then began a second laryngoscopy to again view River’s vocal cords, the source said. It was at that time that her vocal cords began to swell, leading to a cutoff of oxygen to her lungs and ultimately to cardiac arrest, according to the source.
Korovin was authorized only to observe Cohen, who performed the procedure, since she was not certified by Yorkville Endoscopy clinic, as required by New York health law, the source said.
Investigators have found no prior consent form signed by Rivers authorizing a procedure by Korovin, the source said. It was unclear if Rivers had given verbal consent to the biopsy before being sedated.
But Korovin denied “performing an unauthorized procedure” before the comedian suffered cardiac arrest, a source close to the doctor told CNN last month.
Paramedics rushed Rivers from the clinic to New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital a mile away, where she was kept on life support until she died a week later.
E!’s ‘Fashion Police’ to continue without Joan Rivers
Doctor to the stars
Korovin is well known for helping an impressive list of celebrities with voice trouble. The list of famous patients who have sung her praises include actors Hugh Jackman and Nathan Lane and singers Celine Dion, Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande.
The walls of Korovin’s Manhattan medical office are covered with autographed photos, including from operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti, Broadway star Barbara Cook and actress-singer Julie Andrews.
Other Hollywood star news (sorry, not big on tabloid gossip, but these stories are weird enough to have significance beyond that trashy realm).
Former child star Amanda Bynes has had significant substance and mental issues play out in the public eye the last few years, with many people flat-out enjoying her decline. She’s been pretty bitchy throughout, so it’s not entirely undeserved. Plus she seems to walk for things “normal folk” go to jail or get committed for.
Why I find this interesting is that she is apparently being “handled” now by Sam Lufti, who formerly “handled” Brittany Spears during her various mental breakdowns. He was her manager at one point. He is also hooked up with Spears’ ex-boyfriend Adnan Ghalib, who has been described as having “trained in Mujahideen camps”. This was reported when Spears and he were in the news a few years back, but I cannot find mention of it now.
Bynes recently claimed that her father sexually abused her as a child. THEN she retracted that claim… but then claimed that she had a “microchip implanted in her head and that her father was the one who wanted it”. This story is bizaree, Bynes is bizarre, and the family seems either utterly clueless or just classic awful Hollywood parents.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/10/13/second-psychiatric-hold-painful-public-meltdown-amanda-bynes/
She had the successful Hollywood career most actors only dream about. But over the weekend, for the second time, former child star Amanda Bynes has been put in a psychiatric hospital.
According to TMZ, Bynes, 28, was lured back to Los Angeles last week from New York City by none other than former Britney Spears confidante Sam Lufti, who “managed” the pop star throughout her public fall of 2008, but was later accused by Spears’ parents of negligently medicating her.
Lufti reportedly convinced Bynes to return to the West Coast so she could sue her parents. But rather than taking her to a lawyer’s office, Lufti took Bynes to a medical facility in Pasadena where she was placed on a 72-hour psych hold. The 5150 hold can be extended for 14 days if deemed necessary, and while her parents have not publicly announced plans to get another conservatorship over their daughter, it is being widely reported they will do so while she is under psychiatric care.
Lufti said on Twitter that Bynes was “in good hands”:
now helping Amanda Bynes
By Hollie McKay
Published October 13, 2014
FoxNews.com
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LOS ANGELES – She had the successful Hollywood career most actors only dream about. But over the weekend, for the second time, former child star Amanda Bynes has been put in a psychiatric hospital.
According to TMZ, Bynes, 28, was lured back to Los Angeles last week from New York City by none other than former Britney Spears confidante Sam Lufti, who “managed” the pop star throughout her public fall of 2008, but was later accused by Spears’ parents of negligently medicating her.
Lufti reportedly convinced Bynes to return to the West Coast so she could sue her parents. But rather than taking her to a lawyer’s office, Lufti took Bynes to a medical facility in Pasadena where she was placed on a 72-hour psych hold. The 5150 hold can be extended for 14 days if deemed necessary, and while her parents have not publicly announced plans to get another conservatorship over their daughter, it is being widely reported they will do so while she is under psychiatric care.
Lufti said on Twitter that Bynes was “in good hands”:
Bynes had tweeted just an hour earlier:
Courtney Love even chimed in:
A hearing on Bynes is expected to take place this week. Last year, she was taken in for mental evaluation after a string of bizarre incidents, climaxing with a small fire she set in the driveway of a stranger’s home.
The urgency for professional intervention increased substantially on Friday after the actress tweeted to her 3.4 million followers that her father sexually abused her as a child. She later deleted the tweet, and wrote: “My dad never did any of those things. The microchip in my brain made me say those things but he’s the one that ordered them to microchip me.”
Lynn Bynes shot down the abuse claims in a statement, noting that she was “heartbroken” for her husband of 47 years.
Upon arrival at the Los Angeles International Airport on Friday, where she was swarmed by paparazzi, Bynes told photographers that she wanted to be “like Marilyn Monroe” and that she couldn’t wait for her father to be “dead in his grave.”
Earlier in the week, the troubled entertainer was filmed gyrating on a bodyguard at a New York boutique and an hour later was issued with a “do not trespass” order at Barney’s after allegedly attempting to leave wearing a $200 hat she had not purchased.
Bynes’s hospitalization comes at the end of increasingly erratic and disturbing behavior. The former star turned fashion guru hopeful was arrested for a DUI on September 28, in which reports then emerged that she had been booted from classes at fashion design school FIDM.
Bynes’s troubles appear to have begun around four years ago when she “quit” acting and posed for Maxim in an attempt to shed her wholesome, tween idol image. She rose to international stardom at the age of ten, soon even garnering her very own primetime Nickelodeon program “The Amanda Show.” Bynes later transitioned into movies, making her mark in hits like “Hairspray” and “She’s the Man.” She appeared to stay out of the Hollywood party scene, and told FOX411 in 2008 that she preferred “quiet time.”
Experts say that the trappings of fame and fortune aren’t necessarily the cause of severe mental illness, but they can be a catalyst.
“I have seen firsthand how the pressure of fame and stardom can trigger vulnerable kids to develop both bad behavior and mental illness,” said L.A.-based addiction specialist, Dr. Damon Raskin, who does not treat Bynes. “It is the stress for those with poor coping skills that can then lead to acting out. For those with the right genetics, this can trigger illnesses such as depression and schizophrenia.”
Last year, Bynes was arrested for tossing drug paraphernalia from her Manhattan apartment, was seen at gyms in West Hollywood talking to herself and wearing sunglasses to workout. She shaved her head and tweeted incessantly about her body and weight.
Yet even after the first psychiatric hold and rehab, Bynes’s attorney and parents denied reports that she was suffering with schizophrenia, her mother declaring earlier this year that her daughter “has no mental illness whatsoever.”
http://www.people.com/article/amanda-bynes-breakdown-family-heartbreak
After a series of worrying public displays and a Twitter rant in which she lashed out at her father, Amanda Bynes has checked into a treatment center in Los Angeles.
The troubled star, who boarded a flight from New York to L.A. on Friday, was admitted shortly after touching down in California, PEOPLE has confirmed.
TMZ reports that Bynes has been placed on a 5150 psychiatric hold, where she will be held for 72 hours.
The move comes hours after Bynes lashed out at those she was once closest to: her parents, Lynn and Rick.
Keep up with Amanda Bynes in the pages of PEOPLE Magazine by subscribing now.
On Friday, the troubled former child star, 28, took to her highly charged Twitter account to make a series of alarming accusations, including claims that her father was sexually, verbally and physically abusive when she was a child.
She has since deleted the Tweets about sexual abuse, along with a bizarre retraction of sorts: “My dad never did any of those things The microchip in my brain made me say those things but he’s the one that ordered them to microchip me”
In response, Lynn Bynes issued a statement to PEOPLE through her lawyer, Tamar Arminak, refuting the accusations and citing her daughter’s “mental state” for charges that “have no basis in reality.”
“I am heartbroken today for my husband of 47 years,” Lynn said. “Rick has been the best father and husband a family can ask for. He has never abused Amanda or our other children physically or sexually.
“These accusations are absolutely horrible and could not be further from the truth!” she continued. “These allegations stem from Amanda’s mental state at the moment. They have no basis in reality. It saddens me beyond belief that my husband’s character could be slandered in such a way.”
Through their attorney on Friday, Bynes’s siblings, Jillian O’Keefe and Tommy Bynes, told TMZ that they have “the most wonderful parents who have ever lived. … “We are pained by [Amanda’s] behavior but we absolutely give our full unconditional love and support to our wonderful parents.”
RELATED: Amanda Bynes’s Parents Are ‘Happy She’s Safe’: Source
Long-Standing Tensions
What no one disputes is that Bynes has had issues with her father for years. A source who has spent time with her in recent weeks says Bynes has talked about her resentment toward her father, holding him responsible for her mounting problems.
“It’s scary,” the source tells PEOPLE. “She talks about [how] ugly she is, and she sits on her phone 24-7, checking her Twitter feed.”
“She is very angry at her father,” the source adds.
Until her latest social media outburst, Rick and Lynn remained silent as Bynes seemingly descended into another scary breakdown in the wake of her most recent DUI arrest, on Sept. 28.
Since leaving the home she shared with her parents in Southern California – where she had seemed to be on a healthier path while attending fashion school – and flying to New York City, she has appeared to spiral out of control.
In a series of rambling revelations to reporters and on social media in the past week, she has said she is engaged, needs a “tremendous amount of facial surgery” and “will not be manipulated or brainwashed by anyone.”
Past Problems
The behavior is chillingly similar to a series of episodes in the summer of 2013, which culminated in Bynes being hospitalized on an involuntary psychiatric 5150 hold. After a period in treatment, Bynes was placed under her mother’s care and lived with her parents in the L.A. area.
At the time, her parents believed their daughter was on the road to recovery. “She is doing extremely well,” Lynn told PEOPLE in March. “She’s making new friends and learning about the fashion industry.”
“She’s very happy to establish the loving relationship with her family she once shared,” Arminak added when she was released to her parents’ care.
Back then, Arminak told PEOPLE that Bynes “does not have schizophrenia,” as had been widely speculated.
Lynn also issued a statement, saying, “Amanda has no mental illness whatsoever. She has never been diagnosed as schizophrenic or bipolar.”
But there is no question that the onetime Nickelodeon star’s relationship with her parents, particularly with her father, has long been strained.
While she was hospitalized, Bynes allowed Lynn to visit, but did not want to see her father. “Amanda has consented to seeing her mother, but unfortunately not her dad, with whom she’s estranged,” said a source at the time.
Early Encouragement
Raised in Ventura, California, Bynes was encouraged by Rick, a dentist and sometime standup comedian, to try her hand at improv and acting. “When she was 3, she would put on my clothing and be silly, trying to get attention from her sister and brother,” Lynn told PEOPLE in 2004.
Rick encouraged his daughter by writing material for routines about family life, sending her to comedy camp, helping her audition for commercials and serving as her manager.
“When her time onstage was up,” Rick told PEOPLE in 2002, “they would physically carry her off. She didn’t want to give up the spotlight.”
The young performer caught the attention of executives at Nickelodeon as a 10-year-old. That led to a breakout role on the series All That. Bynes became the network’s biggest star, landing her own show in 1999.
But by her teens, serious tension developed in the family. Bynes sought to legally emancipate herself from her parents, then withdrew the petition. She also leaned on Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider and his wife, Lisa Lillien, for support. “She was spending a lot of time with us,” said Lillien. “But she never left her [family’s] house.”
A source who knew the family says Rick was the prime focus of Bynes’s anger. “Her parents were very, very strict with Amanda. Her dad called all the shots and was very controlling.”
Still, in a 2007 Tonight Show interview with Jay Leno, Bynes took pains to acknowledge her father and mother in the studio audience and credit them with her success.
“My parents actually were very strict, in a good way though,” she said. “I was never allowed to go to the mall alone or with friends. But as you can see that’s where I got my love of comedy – from my funny dad.”
In 2010, however, there were early signs of distress: Bynes announced her retirement from acting on Twitter, saying “being an actress isn’t as fun as it may seem.” She began turning up in L.A. nightclubs and behaving erratically. That led to a string of car accidents and run-ins with police.
Bynes also became obsessed with her appearance, at one point lashing out at her parents on Twitter: “My dad is as ugly as RuPaul! So thankful I look nothing like you both!”
When confronted with reports about her behavior, Bynes “tells people she doesn’t party or drink,” a source said at the time. “She doesn’t realize she has a problem.” At first Rick echoed those sentiments. “My daughter doesn’t drink,” he told PEOPLE after she was arrested for DUI in April 2012. “She’s a good girl.”
Up and Down
But as Bynes continued to spiral, her loved ones became worried that she posed a danger to herself and others, and her mother later stated in court papers that she feared Bynes was spending millions she’d earned as a child star on drugs and possibly plastic surgery. After an arson incident outside a home in Thousand Oaks, California, in July 2013, they acted to protect her estate.
“Nobody in the family understood the severity of Amanda’s condition until the fire incident,” said a source. “Up until then, her family hoped a conservatorship wasn’t necessary.”
The family’s concerns were acknowledged by a California judge, but “the conservatorship was filed on behalf of Lynn Bynes only,” said the source. And it was Lynn, not Rick, who addressed their daughter’s health in statements to the media.
During a period of recovery at her parents’ home, Bynes was seen in the company of both her parents, who seemed optimistic that she was healing. “They hope … Amanda’s situation will get under control,” said the source. “They love their daughter very much.”
But after a period in fashion school, Bynes’s problems have returned, culminating in her return to New York City this month.
So far, Rick has not spoken about his daughter’s most recent outburst. But in 1999 he described the importance of family in grounding his talented child. “The reason everybody likes Amanda is who she is,” he told the Los Angeles Times, describing a time he turned down a job opportunity in Florida to keep her closer to Hollywood and her loved ones.
“The minute you take her away from here, from her brother and her sister and house,” he said, “well, you might not have Amanda anymore.”
Houston’s daughter found unconscious in the bathtub and is near death three years after her mother passed away in the bathtub.
———————————–
Atlanta (CNN)As Bobbi Kristina Brown remains hospitalized, her father’s attorney said “we are currently investigating the events that led to (her) hospitalization.”
Attorney Christopher Brown also said Tuesday that the 21-year-old daughter of singers Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown “is not and has never been married to Nick Gordon,” contrary to some reports.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/04/entertainment/whitney-houston-daughter-bobbi-kristina-hospitalized/
“Bobbi Kristina Brown was found facedown in a bathtub over the weekend. Her family has been tight-lipped about her condition, but her R&B singer father issued a statement through his lawyer Tuesday night.”