(Simon Spotlight Entertainment)

www.simonandschuster.com

(Grand Central/Hachette)

www.hachettebookgroup.com  

BY A.D. AMOROSI

As far as Michael Jackson biographies go, you know they couldn't be right even if these anticipated volumes were readied for release long before Jackson's demise.

Taraborrelli writes for the Times of London, Redbook and Good Housekeeping and has published biographies of Liz Taylor, Cher and Diana Ross as well as this same Jackson book without the death knell finale. Halperin, an award winning investigative journalist, has worked for 60 Minutes 2 and written books about bad supermodels. Seemingly he's the more convincing of the two as well as being the guy to predict, six months previous to it, that Jackson would be dead within half a year's time.

Clearly, then it's Halperin that killed Jackson so to work out some priceless release week hype. Taraborrelli may have simply watched as Halperin administered the death drip.

That said, after swallowing and digesting these 1000+ pages on Jackson's life - to say nothing of the countless hours of 24 hour news cycles and unendingly twisted (but gripping) entertainment program details, the information burnout that's long been ignited is smoldering now like a wet campfire.

Still, I like a good salacious starfuck biography even more than the next guy, so let's tuck in.

While I'm uncertain that Halperin cared about/for MJ as an artist (he seems driven in foretelling the amount of actual participation in the London AEG shows; laughable from a concert business standpoint) the author has some curious charges to ladle onto the deceased that simply stand as hilarious - not unfounded, just bio-book goofy. The "MJ is gay" thing and the pillow talk the singer used on his lovers are as funny as the idea that Lisa Marie married him only to get MJ into Scientology's grip; giddy fun. While the list of plastic surgeries is easy to see (and the reasons why textbook psychology stuff told here with dippy gravitas) the retinue of illnesses Halperin claims on Jackson's behalf (chronic gastrointestinal bleeding, blindness in his left eye, lung and liver diseases) isn't. Though his use of too many anonymous sources and Perez Hilton make Halperin a thing of disgust, his analysis of child molestation charges and assertions there's no truth to the accusations give him a new glow. But this doesn't make Halperin a hero as he really seems to seek to cut down the fawning on the outside/monstrous on the inside (from a business standpoint) Jackson. Plus at times, it's weirdly edited, as if in a rush to catch that six month deadline. Luckily, it only takes in the last decade+ of Jackson's life - too much more would've been a real mess.

Taraborrelli goes way back - the beaten-down child star and the unending claims of a lost youth, the disgust at his brothers and his father, the move from 5 to solo, etc.  Taraborrelli is not incapable of the salacious. He just seems at ease better documenting his claims than Halperin; Jackson's relationship with Jordie Chandler and the $20 million payday gets a solid read. The author's friendship with known Jackson-hating Court TV maven Diane Diamond makes for some lousy guesswork, but, at least he's willing to source. And ultimately you get the sense that (for better or worst in the name of objective journalism - hahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa) Taraborrelli likes Jackson as an artist and as a man on some level. For a soul so misunderstood and maligned (I think), Michael Jackson could use a friend and not just the sudden fans he has in the wake of a celebrity's passing.

 More MJ at Blurt: King of Hype