The Misery of the Victory Tour
Michael, who had dropped to 105 pounds from his normal weight of 125 pounds – the skinniest he had ever been – looked as if he was under a great deal of stress when he and his brothers arrived at the Hyatt Hotel in Birmingham, Alabama, on 26 June for a week of meetings about the tour. As Michael checked in, he had become so dizzy he had to lean on one of his bodyguards for support. When a hotel cook approached to say hello to him, the guard released his grip and the star nearly crumpled to the floor. It seemed to some observers that Michael barely had the strength to walk. How was he going to perform?
Perhaps the problem with fatigue had to do with Michael's eating habits. At Michael's orders, his Sikh cook, Mani Singh Khalsa, fed him a diet of cashews, pecans, seeds, herbs and spices. ‘He's a health nut,’ said his cousin Tim Whitehead, a roadie on the tour. ‘People don't know that the reason he's a vegetarian is not so much because of what meat does to a person, but because he can't stand the idea of having an animal killed so he can have dinner. I've often wondered how he gets by on the little food he does eat.’
‘If I didn't have to eat to live, I'd never eat at all,’ Michael once told his mother.
Later that day, a difficult meeting with the brothers, attorneys and managers on telephone conference calls took place. By the time it was over, Michael was fed up. When he got into the freight elevator (he always travels in freight elevators rather than public ones), he leaned back against the wall and just slowly slipped down until he was sitting on the floor. Someone tried to help him to his feet, but he was too exhausted to stand. ‘Just leave me alone. Let me rest here for a second,’ he said as he went up to the sixteenth floor. Witnesses to these kinds of scenes began whispering that Michael was suffering from anorexia nervosa, which wasn't true but certainly seemed plausible from the way he looked and acted.
It was time to announce the new ticket-buying arrangement. Michael held a midday press conference on 5 July, the day before the first concert was to take place. He wore a white sequined jacket and a red-and-white striped sash. Marlon, Randy and Tito accompanied him. To counteract the charge that he was greedy and doing the show only for profit, Michael announced that he intended to donate all of the money he made from this controversial tour to a favourite charity. Moreover, close to two thousand tickets in each city would be donated to disadvantaged youths who would not otherwise be able to attend the concerts.
Michael added, ‘We've worked a long time to make this show the best it can be. But we know a lot of kids are having trouble getting tickets. The other dayI got a letter from a girl in Texas named Ladonna Jones. She'd been saving her money from odd jobs to buy a ticket, but with the current tour system she'd have to buy four tickets and she couldn't afford that. So I've asked our promoter to work out a new way of distributing tickets – a way that no longer requests a one-hundred-twenty-dollar money order. There has been a lot of talk about the promoter holding money for tickets that didn't sell. I've asked our promoter to end the mail-order ticket system as soon as possible so that no one will pay money unless they get a ticket.’ Michael said that details of the new over-the-counter system for buying tickets would be announced shortly. (It was implemented by the tour's third stop in Jacksonville.)
Michael took no questions. Suddenly he and his brothers were surrounded by security men. And then they were gone.
‘Why did he decide to donate all his money to charity?’ one reporter asked Frank Dileo, who stayed behind.
‘Because he's a nice guy,’ Frank said.
Michael's estimated worth at the time came to seventy-five million dollars, so donating to charity the approximately three to five million dollars he would make on the tour would be a generous gesture but not one that would cause him to change his lifestyle. His brothers, however, couldn't possibly have afforded such a gift. Also, Michael did not – perhaps could not – address any of the other problem issues. According to Cliff Wallace, who managed the Louisiana Superdome, Joseph and Katherine Jackson, Don King, Chuck Sullivan and The Jacksons had asked for free stadium rent; a waiver of city, state, and federal taxes; a share in the profits of the food, beverage and parking concessions; and free advertising to boot. Meeting their demands would have cost city taxpayers $300,000. And gross five million dollars for the Jacksons.
Michael arranged for Ladonna Jones to receive a set of four complimentary tickets to the show, to which she would be chauffeured by limousine. Michael met with her after the show. ‘He asked me if I had good seats,’ she recalled. ‘They didn't turn out to be very good, but it was fun anyway.’
At this time, CBS released the
Victory
album. Not counting 1981's live album, it was the first Jacksons album in four years, so it was widely anticipated. The album featured Michael's duet with Mick Jagger on ‘State of Shock’, which wasn't so much a song as it was a glorified Rolling Stones riff. The best cut on the album was written by Jackie and entitled ‘Torture’, a high-tech rocker of a song on which Michael wails up a storm. The album featured songs written by all of the brothers – and leads were split among them as well – so it was the kind of group effort that was the perfect vinyl kick-off for the tour.
The long-anticipated and controversial Victory tour finally began on Friday 6 July 1984, in Kansas City, Missouri. ‘Anybody who sees this show will be a better person for years to come,’ Don King told the press that day. ‘Michael Jackson has transcended all earthly bounds. Every race, colour, and creed is waiting for this tour. The way he shall lift the despairing and the despondent enthralls me. Only in America could this happen, only in America. Oh, I am so
thankful
to be an American…’
‘Can't someone shut that man up?’ Michael asked one of his associates. ‘Isn't there enough pressure?’ To complicate matters, Jackie injured his leg and would not be able to join his brothers until a later date; Jermaine, Marlon, Randy, Tito and Michael would have to appear without him.