Enter the Moonies
In the spring of 1988, Jerome Howard, the thirty-five-year-old president of business affairs for Joseph and Katherine Jackson's many entertainment corporations, received a telephone call from someone named Kenneth Choi, a Korean businessman who desperately wanted to arrange a meeting with Joseph. Kenneth, who had already been booted out of Michael Jackson's office – as well as the offices of his accountant, Marshall Gelfand, and attorney, John Branca – told Jerome that he was from a wealthy family interested in spending millions to organize and promote a Jackson family concert tour in Korea. Realizing, of course, that just such a reunion was always on Joseph's and Katherine's minds, Jerome arranged a meeting between Kenneth and Joseph.
‘Millions of dollars were offered at that meeting,’ Jerome remembered. ‘The guy was talking ten to fifteen million. Whatever it would take to get the Jackson brothers to come together for these concerts, that's what he and his family wanted to spend. Joseph was excited. Choi invited us to go to Korea to check things out. We didn't know what was happening; all we knew was that the guy had a lot of money – and he wanted to give it to us.’
Joseph, Katherine, Jerome and Kenneth took a four-day trip to Korea, paid for by Kenneth. They were wined and dined and introduced to several wealthy and influential business people, celebrities and politicians. They also met a gentleman who could not speak English, named ‘Mr Lee', who was introduced as Choi's brother. They were told that Lee, who owned a shipping company, would be the primary backer of the proposed Jacksons concerts, along with the
Segye Times,
a Korean newspaper. Through his interpreter-secretary, Mr Lee said that if the concerts were successfully organized, he would also invest two million dollars in a record company for Joseph. Of course, Joseph was intrigued and eager to move forward with the deal.
‘These people knew the strengths and weaknesses of the Jackson family,’ Jerome Howard recalled. ‘They knew that Joseph was interested in getting money for his company, and for himself. They understood that Katherine's interest was for her family. She wanted to make money for her children. They seemed to know everything about the Jacksons, and they knew how to play all the angles.’
In the course of meetings, Jerome soon discovered that the
Segye Times
is owned by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church. The so-called Moonies, as it turned out, were actually to be the ones primarily backing the tour.
Although many people have joked over the years about being hassled for small change by young Moonies in airports, Moon's followers have actually raised a lot of money, which Moon has invested in a number of diversified enterprises, including banks, restaurants, fisheries and the media. However, the Unification Church has been a lightning rod for controversy: Christian fundamentalist groups have charged that the Church is not Christian; liberal groups have accused them of being too right-wing; parents have hired deprogrammers to kidnap their children who are living in Moonie compounds. Although membership has rapidly declined, the Unification Church is still wealthy.
What Moon craved most for his church was respectability. If he could align himself with Michael Jackson (the biggest-selling and most clean-cut pop artist of all time) and the Jackson family (still perceived by many as being one of the most wholesome families in the United States), Moon would benefit, greatly. The price would be high, but the prestige would be well worth the cost.
When Jerome told Joseph and Katherine that the Reverend Sun Myung Moon was involved in the proposed Jackson deal, Joseph was fascinated; he had heard that Moon was wealthy. However, Katherine was upset. ‘I don't want to have anything to do with anything religious,’ she said. ‘Business is business, but I don't even want to know anything about the religious ties.’ Katherine did not tell Jerome to stop the negotiations. She just didn't want to know the details.
From the beginning, Jerome was suspicious of the people working on Moon's behalf. ‘They always spoke Korean behind your back,’ he said. ‘They'd say something in English and then turn to someone and say something in Korean, and who knows what they were saying? I worried that we were missing out on important information. It would be my job to protect the Jacksons as best I could in these sorts of circumstances.’
It was a job Jerome often performed admirably. At about this time, Katherine and Joseph purchased a six-bedroom house in Las Vegas, Nevada, where they eventually plan to retire. The house was being offered for $570,000. The Jacksons brought Jerome Howard to Las Vegas with them to negotiate a deal. Before they went to meet the sellers, Jerome told Katherine and Joseph to strip off all their jewellery – probably a quarter of a million dollars' worth – and put it in the glove compartment of the car. Then, Jerome brought them into the home to meet the owners. Katherine and Joseph acted like ‘everyday folks’, never mentioned their famous history, and must have done a fairly convincing job of acting because, in the end, they bought the house for only $292,000.
Of the cost of the home, $200,000 came from money that Michael had given Katherine. She then mortgaged the balance.
A month after their first visit to Korea, Joseph, Katherine, Rebbie and Jerome returned for more meetings. They attended a meeting with a Reverend Dr Chung Hwan Kwak, president of the
Segye Times.
A large, framed picture of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon hung in his office; Katherine tried to ignore it. Kwak told Jerome to put together a proposal, ‘“and whatever my son wants to do, we'll do it.” He kept saying “my son” throughout the whole meeting, and we were under the impression that Choi was his son [he wasn't],’ Howard recalled. Kwak may of course have meant the reference in a spiritual, rather than strictly familial, way.
Katherine and Joseph then met privately with Reverend Kwak in their suite. They had a sumptuous breakfast and exchanged gifts; Katherine gave him autographed pictures of her family members. After that meeting, Katherine and Joseph went shopping in Etaewon with a tour guide, all to keep them busy while Jerome started talking ‘real business’.
Working with Kwak's special assistant David Hose, Jerome Howard began structuring a deal at the Ambassador Hotel. Joseph, Katherine and Jerome agreed that the way to structure it was to make the Moonies the sponsors of the show and Katherine and Joseph the promoters. Katherine and Joseph would establish a company for this purpose, which they would call Jackson Family Concerts International. Reverend Kwak's representatives then took what Jerome had outlined, left the hotel, and brought the papers to their lawyers. They returned three and a half hours later.
‘They came back with a contract that was so wild I couldn't believe it,’ Jerome said. ‘They wanted Michael to begin the show by singing the Korean national anthem and then perform three Korean numbers in Korean costumes. I looked at that contract and thought, Oh, man, this is ridiculous. Michael is not going to learn any Korean songs, and he is certainly not about to wear any Korean wardrobe onstage! When I showed the deal to Joseph and Katherine, they busted up laughing and were almost rolling on the floor. “I want to see Michael sing in Korean,” Joseph said. “Now, that is too much! It's gonna be hard enough to convince him to go along with this, but wait'll we tell him he has to learn Korean.”’
Jerome negotiated an outstanding deal. The Jacksons would perform for four nights, one two-hour show each night, at the Olympic Stadium in Seoul, for which they would be paid $7.5 million. There would also be a $1.5 million production budget; whatever was not spent of that budget would go to the Jacksons. One hundred per cent of the profits from broadcasting rights outside of Korea and 50 per cent of the merchandising profits would also belong to the family. However, the Moonies would hold broadcasting and video rights in Korea, as well as 100 per cent of the ticket sales. The clauses about the Korean songs and costumes were deleted from the contract. There was further talk that the Moonies hoped to send Michael and his brothers to Russia and China, and would offer them up to thirty million dollars in advance for those tours. Joseph, Jerome and Kwak signed the contract. Katherine didn't sign; she doesn't sign anything, which is why she is the one with good credit, and not Joseph.
‘The Jackson – Moonie Project,’ which is what it became known as among the family members, had become a major, multimillion-dollar proposition for the family. As it happened, most of them needed the money.
Janet and LaToya were not approached because the Koreans only wanted the brothers, plus Janet was immersed in the recording of a new album for A&M and would never have toured with the family at this stage of her life. Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Randy would not be a problem, or at least that's what Joseph and Katherine speculated. Rebbie had consented to appear but, again, this tour was only for the brothers. Of course, the entire deal was contingent upon getting Michael, who was in Europe on the Bad tour at the time, to agree to it.
‘How will we get Michael to do this?’ Jerome asked Joseph.
Joseph turned to Katherine with a smile. ‘The question,’ he said, ‘is how will
she
get Michael to do this?’