http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,184325,00.html
Jackson Kicked Out, Cut Off by Arab Prince
Thursday, February 09, 2006
By Roger Friedman
Today will be the seventh week in a row that employees at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch have not received paychecks.
And now I have really bad news for them: Jackson has been cut off and kicked out by Prince Abdullah, son of the King of Bahrain. He is no longer, I repeat, not doing it anymore — not funding Jackson, his kids and nanny in an extended stay in Bahrain.
The first clue that this was the case was Jackson's traveling last week from Bahrain to Germany, and then on to Italy — on commercial flights in business class. There was no more private plane.
But now I'm told that the prince has been informed by his family, the al-Khalifa clan, that Jackson is no longer welcome to unlimited generosity from the Bahraini royals.
In fact, Jackson is aware of this. Sources tell me that he had found a couple of wealthy families in Dubai who helped him out, but their largesse was limited.
"Jackson is essentially bouncing around the United Arab Emirates looking for handouts," my sources say.
Compounding this now dire situation is a sharp, harsh reality: Jackson's $270 million worth of loans owned by Fortress Investments are due on Feb. 20.
Fortress had given Jackson a 60-day extension, which began on Dec. 20, to resolve his problems with it, but nothing's happened. Now Fortress will either foreclose on Feb. 20 or make a deal with Sony Music.
Sony, I am told, doesn't want Fortress to foreclose and send Jackson's loans to a public auction via bankruptcy court. Sony has been negotiating for weeks with Fortress, sources say, to avoid that development.
But either way, Jackson's inability to deal with reality and his financial problems constitutes a veritable house of cards. And it's all about to come crashing down. |