Splicetoday

Pop Culture
Aug 29, 2008, 08:41AM

What Might Have Been

Tomorrow Michael Jackson turns 50. Here's a computer simulation of what he might have looked like, along with a few thoughts from a journalist who's been covering the pop star since he was 16.

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From the time he was a teenager, Michael Jackson believed he would sell more records than anyone else - and, of course, he did.

He also knew he would have the biggest-grossing concert tours in history. But all of that is now in the past.

Today, he spends his time wandering around Las Vegas with a gaggle of bodyguards and his three precocious children, Prince Michael I (11), Paris (ten) and Prince Michael II (six).

He is almost always in a wheelchair, wearing a bizarre outfit and so frail he appears to be at death's door.

Meanwhile, his record-breaking career seems a thing of the past. From all accounts, he is not motivated to do anything. He has no real plans for the future and is deeply in debt.

...

The testimony had been so damning, I was certain that a man as private as Jackson would never recover. 


After all, Michael Jackson had been carefully constructing an image for himself since the age of ten - a time when most kids are building tree houses.

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