Michael Jackson was $500 million in debt when he died, new court documents reveal

Pop star Michael Jackson was hundreds of millions of dollars in debt at
the time of his death, according to court documents filed this week in
Los Angeles Superior Court and obtained by Entertainment Weekly. 

The petition was filed by attorney John Branca and A&R executive John
McClain, the executors of Jackson's estate, who are seeking legal
authorization to pay various legal firms for services they provided to
the estate from July through December 2018. In doing so, their petition
provides many details about the nature of Jackson's assets before and
since his death. 

"The Executors have faced extraordinarily challenging circumstances,"
the petition reads. "Among other issues, at the time of Michael
Jackson’s death, Michael Jackson’s most significant assets were subject
to more than $500 million of debt and creditors’ claims, with some of
the debt accruing interest at extremely high interest rates, and some
debt in default." 

Jackson was also in the middle of preparing a massive musical comeback
at the time of his death. Extensive preparations for his planned This Is
It residency added costs to his financial resources. 

But since Jackson's death in 2009, the executors have achieved quite a
turnaround for his holdings. They claim in the new filing that they
"have resolved virtually all of the creditors’ claims and litigation,
and have successfully solidified the MJJ business as a significant
entity in the music industry." 

Some of this comes from the estate buying a stake in EMI Music
Publishing (including the rights to Motown classics and songs by Carole
King and Norah Jones) for $50,000 in 2012, and then selling it to Sony
for $300 million in 2018. Because of this and other successes, Branca
and McClain are seeking court authorization to compensate various law
firms for more than $3 million in total for services provided that year. 

The Jackson estate has made other gains in recent years too, like the
Tony-winning Broadway sensation MJ the Musical. There is also a biopic
film, Michael, in the works from director Antoine Fuqua, starring
Jackson's nephew Jaafar Jackson in the lead role. At CinemaCon earlier
this year, Fuqua promised that "the movie will get into all of it" —
including, perhaps, the accusations of sexual abuse leveled against
Jackson over the years. 

Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who detailed their accusations against
Jackson in the 2019 HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, have been granted
a jury trial against Jackson's estate and companies. Though Jackson is
dead, Robson and Safechuck allege that his staff were complicit in both
their abuse and for covering it up afterward. The estate denies any
wrongdoing and claims the accusations against Jackson are false. 

https://ew.com/michael-jackson-500-million-debt-when-died-8670684