Michael Jackson Estate Send Open Letter To Organisers of Tribute Concert
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Written by Elliott Batte
After condemnations by Jermaine and Randy Jackson, thousands of negative comments by Jacksons fans worldwide and our feature article, it looks like the Michael Forever tribute concert may have finally received the KISS of death after scheduling Gene Simmons and the rest of his make-up’d band to play at the show, just a year after Simmons publicly branded Michael a child molester.
And now, the besieged organisers Global Live Events have received a formal letter of disapproval from Michael’s estate, as well as coming under fire from the largest online Michael Jackson forum, MJJCommunity.com, who released an official statement about the affair telling fans not to attend the show.
The estate, which controls MJ’s name, his property and his likeness, claimed that its “mandate is to protect, preserve and perpetuate Michael’s legacy” and that Global Live Events should contact the estate urgently – leaving the future of the concert in heavy doubt. The proposed ‘tribute’ to MJ has come under scrutiny since its announcement earlier this summer, after splitting the Jackson family. Michael’s mother Katherine is a supporter of the show but also received money for Michael's children from the promoters, whereas Jermaine and Randy Jackson opposed the show as it was planned to go ahead during the trial of Conrad Murray, the doctor who allegedly prescribed and fed Michael the drugs that killed him.
After the initial problems, things got worse and worse for Global Live Events and things boiled over, resulting in Michael’s estate sending the company an open letter addressing the show. As you can see in the scan below, the letter calls Global Live Event out on everything to do with their concert, and will make life very difficult for the promoters when they’re trying to sell the 72,000 tickets for the event at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium (should the concert even go ahead).
There have been many rumours circulating on the internet suggesting that KISS have been removed from the line-up by bungling bosses at Global Live Events, but we can’t confirm whether that is true at the current time. What we can say, though, is that the damage of adding KISS to the bill in the first place is long done, and at this moment in time it looks like the concert is doomed.
But, just in case the letter and KISS controversy wasn’t enough, Michael’s largest online following joined in the attack on the promoters, advising readers and followers to boycott the gig.
They wrote: “We want to make it known that we as MJJC do not support Michael Forever Tribute for the above mentioned reasons. We urge the fans not to attend and make a statement to the organizers to show that we aren’t happy about the conditions of this tribute and how the memory of Michael is treated.”
And the forum’s users agreed, with Yolanda Jackson writing: “I co-sign this statement. It doesn't matter if KISS has been dropped, the damage has been done. Gene Simmon's statements about Michael have been dredged up once again. Michael's name has been drugged through the mud once again. Enough is enough.”
Claudia Mancini asked: “Where can I send a confirmation to the organizers to let them know that this tribute concert is a SHAME??” and Luis Gonzalez simply told MJJC “I will not support it at all”.
Stereoboard has been following the Michael Forever tribute concert closely for the past couple of weeks – tell us what you think of the controversial concert in the comments section below.
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