It all got out of hand
These two stories is all acording to J.Randy Taraborelli's book, "Michael Jackson: The Magic and The Madness":
The Hyperbaric Chamber
While Michael was filming the Pepsi comercial in 1984 he was burned by accident. He was put in at the Brotman Memorial Hospital where he for the first time saw the hyperbaric chamber. Steve Hoffelin (Mike's plastic surgeon) told him he had a theory that if you sleep in the machine, it'll lenghten your life. Michael was facinated by the thing and wanted to buy it for himself. It would cost $200 000. Frank Dileo finally convinced him not to but it, he thought it was to unnecessary.
So, he didn't buy it, but he at leat wanted his picture taken in it. Immediatley, the word spread that Michael was going to buy the chamber and that he was taking his picture in the thing. When Mike heard of it, he came up with a - as he thought of it then - fun idea. He told Dileo and Branca: " I want my whole career to be the greatest show on earth."
Michael wanted to promote the story that he was sleeping in the hyperberic chamber and that he was hoping to be at least 150 years old, and that he was planning on taking it with him on his next tour. He wante to do this to see just how much stir he could create out of it.
Dileo contacted Charles Montgomery and told him the story, he wanted him to publish it as the weekly cover, but without giving away the source. Charles got it confirmed from Michael, his manager and his doctor. He even got a picture of Michael lying in it. So he was good to go. He thought it was a wacky story and wasn't sure people was gonna buy it. At this time it wasn't as easy to belive in such things about Michael since it was very rare. But it certainly did sell. People was soon talking about it all over. Michael had gotten just what he wanted. He was satisfied.
The Elephant man's bones
Later in 1987, Michael saw a movie about John Merrick, "The Elephant man", starring John Hurt. He was moved by it and sources says he cried the whole movie trough. Could it have been because Michael felt that he could relate in some ways to the deformed man? A lonely man living as an outside all his life.
There was a exhibition where you could go to to see the remains of the man, and Michael wanted to go there. Well at the exhibition Michael told Dileo he wanted the bones: "I sure would like to have these bones at Havenhurst house. Wouldn't it be cool to own them?"
"Man, that is crazy," Frank said. "I know," Michael cheered up. "That's why we have to do it."
They both remembered what kind of stir it led to the last time with the hyperbaric chamber, and Michael once again wanted to see how far it would go. And so Frank called around to reporters, claiming that Michael had offered a half-million dollars to the hospital for the bones. It all got big for sure and soon enough you could see it in papers everywhere. The media checked though with the hospital to see if it really was true that Michael was going to purchase the bones, but they said no. They wouldn't have either even if he had asked. And he did. Michael put a real offer for the bones this time, but still they wouldn't sell it to him.
If Michael would have known what this would do to him to this day, he probably wouldn't have done it. The press finally felt like "giving Michael what he really wanted" as a vengeance, that's when all the false stories about Michael started. You can say this is what really triggered this whole tabloid junk mess. Stories like: He tried to convince Elizabeth Taylor to sleep in the hyperbaric chamber (which he didn't own); was convinced that the whole world would end in 1998; refused to bathe in anything but Evian water; he had seen John Lennon's ghost (who convinced him to use The Beatles song "Revolution" in a Nike ad). And the stories about his chimp Bubbles never seemed to end.
And if you all wonder why you shouldn't belive the press, here's a pretty clear proof. I say it always, do not belive anything the tabloids try to feed you with unless you've seen it or heard it yourself. I'm talking about the tabloids in general now, not just about Michael, it's all 99 percent lies. I saw on the front page of one of our junk magazines here that "David Beckham is cheating again". It was a picture of him and an other woman where it looked like they were about to kiss, and it said that they did. But you still could see that they were just gonna do a kiss on the cheek, to say hello. If he did kiss her, they would have shown the picture of it wouldn't they? It's hilarious, really!
Don't belive in gossip at all, you find out the truth by your self, and then you know!
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