ON THE NIGHT AFTER MY ARRIVAL IN SEOUL, THE first of two Michael Jackson & Friends concerts to benefit the children of Kosovo took place, with performers including Slash, Boyz II Men, Andrea Bocelli, and Luciano Pavarotti. I sat on the side of the stage to watch Michael perform, as I had done so many times in the past. Although I knew my role was going to be different now that I wasn’t a schoolkid, the change would come more suddenly than I expected.

   After the concert, I was standing backstage with Michael when Mariah Carey, who had just performed, appeared with her boyfriend at the time—the Mexican singer Luis Miguel. Luis and I chatted about soccer—he initially thought I was from Spain because at the time my orange hair matched their team colors (I can’t explain the hair. I have no idea what I was thinking)—while Michael and Mariah talked. They were debating who-sang-it-better: the song was “I’ll Be There” and both the 1970 Jackson 5 version and the version Mariah did twenty-two years later with Trey Lorenz had been No. 1 hit singles.

   “Michael,” insisted Mariah, smiling from ear to ear, “no one could ever sing that song better than you.” A blush swept over Michael’s cheeks.

   “No, no,” he blurted out. “Really, you did a better job.”

   Mariah seemed honored to be in Michael’s presence—she was acting like a dazzled fan—and as the two stars chatted, I noticed the smile leave Luis Miguel’s face, and I got the impression that he was slightly annoyed at the attention Mariah was giving Michael. I myself was a little surprised to see Mariah, who was such a successful singer in her own right, appear so awed by Michael, but in the years to come I would see many stars behave that way in his presence.

   Turning toward me, Mariah asked Michael, “Who’s your friend? He’s so cute.” She started rubbing my (inexplicably) orange hair.

   “Please don’t stop,” I said, leaning into her like a puppy. “Frank, stop,” interrupted Michael. “Mariah doesn’t want to rub your head. God knows what you’ve got in there.”

   Luis Miguel looked a little awkward and perplexed, standing there waiting in his skintight suit. I couldn’t help it. I pulled out my favorite old routine. “I love your suit,” I told him.

   Michael mumbled, “Stop,” but I was under the sway of an irresistible impulse.

   “What brand is it?” I asked. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Michael was trying not to laugh.

   Luis Miguel mumbled a designer brand, but he wasn’t smiling. He definitely didn’t like the head rubbing or the friendly flirting between Mariah and Michael.

   As they said good-bye, Michael seized the moment to exact a bit of revenge. He said to Mariah, “Frank’s a big fan of yours and has a massive crush on you.” I turned red. Did I have a crush on her? I ask myself now. I really don’t know, but I do recall thinking she was sexy.

   After Mariah and Luis left, Michael and I teased each other about Mariah. Michael told me I wouldn’t know what to do with her if she were in my bed, and I retorted that if he was given a chance with her, he’d probably ask her to play video games or watch cartoons. He said, “Shut up, Frank,” in a funny way, and we both started laughing. That’s the way Michael and I acted when it came to girls, like adolescents, fighting over the same hypothetically available girls. I was still young, and it was something I would outgrow soon enough (well, for the most part, anyway), but Michael remained most comfortable in that fantasy world.

   For the second charity show, we flew from Seoul to Munich, Germany, in a chartered plane that could hold the entire crew. Michael and I sat next to each other in the front of the plane along with a few other stars and security.

   As the plane took off, Michael said, “Listen, when you’re flying with me, you don’t have to worry about the plane going down. I’m not going to die in a plane crash. No, that’s not going to happen. I’m going to die from a shot.” I remembered these words—and this was not the only occasion when he uttered them—because for all our deep conversations, Michael didn’t really talk much about death. He was too excited about raising his family.

   We arrived in Munich in the early evening and headed straight to the hotel—the Bayerischer Hof. As we approached the building, I saw hundreds of fans, among them a handful that I recognized: we’d just seen them in Korea.

   Outside every hotel in every city where he performed, fans awaited Michael’s arrival like this, most of them clutching postersize collages covered with images and inspirational quotations. His fans knew exactly what he liked, and they put a great deal of time and effort into the gifts they made for him. Michael loved pictures of Mickey Mouse, Peter Pan, Charlie Chaplin, the Three Stooges, babies—any of the many subjects or performers that he found inspirational or just plain funny. Babies, for instance, he saw as pure and innocent, and when he was feeling blue, pictures of them never failed to cheer him up. In their collages, the fans juxtaposed the images they’d collected in interesting and creative ways, placing a photo of Michael dressed as Peter Pan standing right next to one of Charlie Chaplin, for example. Or they would cut out cute baby pictures and use them to frame a poster of Michael. Of course, not all the signs were so elaborate—some simply stated, “I love you, Michael.”

   And Michael loved them back. Many times when we were trying to move through a mob of people, he would take notice of a particular fan and stop in his tracks to reach out to that person, say hello, ask a question, and make a momentary, but real, connection with him or her. This happened everywhere we went. In every city and in every country, fans would show up at the hotel bearing personal gifts, and on his way into the hotel, or later from the window, Michael would point out the gifts he wanted. A member of his staff would bring his favorites up to his hotel room, which he would then decorate with these souvenirs. After each stop on his journey, he had the fans’ gifts shipped back to Neverland, envisioning that one day he would make a museum of all he had collected.

   In Munich, after I was settled in my room, I got a call from Michael to join him in his room. When I arrived, he was ready to put me to work.

   “Frank, see those posters down there…,” he began, and then proceeded to point out the ones he wanted me to bring up to his room. Escorted by security, I went to the front of the hotel and started collecting. Having seen me with Michael over the years, all the fans knew my name. As I made my way through the crowd, people said things like “Frank, please tell Michael we love him,” and “Frank, please ask Michael to say hello from the window.” I had seen this happen all the time, everywhere we went, ever since I was a child. But now I was the one representing him.

   I had no grand plan for Munich or what would follow. In those first days I was just trying to take everything in. I wanted to observe as an adult the business of being Michael, to understand how it all worked. After his Munich performance, Michael’s focus would shift to the studio and I would work alongside him.

   He was poised to plunge deep into the making of his next

   album. By the time he had finished touring for the HIStory album in October 1997, Prince was eight months old and Debbie was pregnant with Paris. That year Michael had also released Blood on the Dance Floor, a remix album with five new songs. He had taken most of 1998 off to spend time with his children. His next album was widely anticipated, not least by his label, Sony.

   The night of the second benefit concert we got into a black van and headed to the stadium with a police escort. This was something I had done many times before, but I still liked watching the crowd part to make a path for us as we left the hotel.

   When we arrived backstage at Olympic Stadium, the show had already been going on for a while. There were over sixty thousand people in the audience, and artists performing from all over the world. As we watched the other performers on a screen, I greeted some familiar faces. There was Karen Faye, Michael’s hair and makeup stylist. I had met Karen on the Dangerous tour, at video shoots, and before public appearances and had had a secret crush on her as a kid. I called her by the nickname Michael had given her —Turkle. Michael loved Turkle and messed with her all the time. If she was wearing a zippered jacket, he’d try to unzip it. If she was wearing a skirt, he’d lift it up. When we saw each other, I gave Turkle a big hug and a kiss.

   Turkle did Michael’s makeup while Michael Bush, who designed clothes for Michael, was getting him dressed.

   I had already seen the benefit show in Korea. I knew what was —and wasn’t—supposed to happen. Michael would do a thirtyminute performance at the end of the show, after all the other performers were done. After his makeup and wardrobe were completed, Michael sat on the side of the stage, enjoying the show. Everything was going smoothly. Then he went out to perform “Earth Song,” a song that was dear to his heart. It is a song about the beauty of the world and how we are destroying what we were given through war and selfishness. His live performances of it always evoked wartime suffering. During the Munich performance, he stepped onto a big bridge that spanned the front of the stage. It was raised up, lifting him fifty feet in the air, just as it had in Korea. It was supposed to descend gradually during the song. But this time, instead of coming down slowly, the bridge fell. It plummeted to the stage with a loud crash. This had not happened in Korea. What the fuck?

   Ever the showman, Michael never stopped singing, even as he fell. When the bridge landed, he was still standing. He later told us that he had jumped at the moment of impact, which may have saved him from more serious injury, but even so, he wasn’t in great shape. Instantly, without thinking, I ran onto the stage along with the security team. At the end of the song, the lights went out, and Michael collapsed into our arms. With security, I helped him off the bridge. The audience, who at first must have assumed the falling bridge was part of the show, saw us rush in and realized what they had witnessed. A worried murmur went through the crowd. A full-size tank rolled onstage, and a soldier emerged from it holding a gun. Offered a flower by a child, the soldier sank to his knees and wept. Michael finished the performance, at times bending over in pain. Afterward, backstage, he was clearly in a lot of pain, but continued the show.

   “My father told me no matter what, the show must go on,” he said.

   So he went back out, sat down on the edge of the stage, and sang his last song, “You Are Not Alone.” Security helped him off the stage.

   For some reason—I can only think it had to do with the press —we didn’t take an ambulance to a hospital. Instead we got into the black van we’d arrived in and started driving around, trying to find a clinic that was open at that hour of night. It took the driver forty-five minutes to find one. As we drove in circles around a city that was strange to me, I grew increasingly frustrated. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Our driver was German, but he kept getting lost. Why hadn’t we taken an ambulance? Ordinarily I’m a pretty patient and respectful person, but when people aren’t on top of things, it drives me crazy. I lost it and started yelling at the driver. Meanwhile, Michael was in the backseat, barely conscious. The tour’s doctor was taking his pulse, and I was telling him that everything was going to be fine. Moments earlier, I had been casually absorbing the rhythms of Michael’s world. Now my instincts kicked in. Michael’s welfare became my responsibility. At last we reached a clinic, and I filled out the paperwork to check Michael in. A short time later, when I went back to see him, he was lying in a hospital bed. Miraculously, or because of his instinctive jump at impact, he hadn’t broken anything, but his lower back hurt so much that he could barely breathe. Speaking very softly, he told me to find out who had been responsible for the accident. He wanted someone fired. I hesitated when he asked me to call Kenny Ortega, the producer of the show, to get to the bottom of it, because it was three o’clock in the morning and Kenny Ortega was a big deal, but if Michael wanted it done, I was his man. I found the number and woke up Kenny. Michael was in too much pain to speak to him, so I spoke for him. Kenny apologized and told us he would figure out what had gone wrong and why. By the time we finally made it back to the hotel, it was five in the morning. Michael and I were alone in his suite for only a few minutes before a doctor, who had traveled with Michael from New York, came into the room with two other people. They started to set up some medical equipment next to Michael’s bed.

   “Who are these people?” I asked the doctor.

   “They’re doctors,” he responded. “They’re going to help

   Michael fall asleep.” He paused for a moment, then added, “They need to concentrate on what they’re doing. It would be best if you went back to your room. Michael’s going to be just fine.”

   “Yeah.” Michael’s voice suddenly came up from the

   background. “I’m going to be fine. They’re just giving me some medicine to take away the pain and help me sleep.” Satisfied with this answer, I left him with the doctors, and returned to my room. Only later would I fully understand what I had witnessed that night. It was the first time I saw Michael about to receive the drug propofol, which is a powerful anesthetic. Only an anesthesiologist can administer propofol, and there were two doctors present because, given the strength of the medication, anyone receiving it requires careful monitoring. At the time I didn’t know this, having had no experience with such things. As far as I was concerned, Michael was under the care of a doctor whom he presumably knew and trusted. It seemed safe and appropriate to the circumstances. What else was I supposed to think? The dangers that those drugs represented to Michael were foreign and utterly invisible to me. In the aftermath of the Munich fiasco, Michael, the kids and their nanny Grace, and I took a plane first to Paris, which had been their home base during the HIStory tour, and then to Sun City in South Africa. My parents met us in Johannesburg, where Michael was treated like a king. We went on an amazing safari and were guests at Nelson Mandela’s birthday party at his house. We stayed at a hotel called the Michelangelo, which, along with Michael, inspired the name of the restaurant my parents would one day open in New Jersey: Il Michelangelo.

   Between aiding Michael’s recovery from his injury and assisting him on these early travels, my job began to take a clearer shape. Initially my role was simple—helping him decorate his rooms and going out into the world to pick up T-shirts, food, books,

   magazines, and such. I was thrilled to be traveling with Michael, and glad to help however I could. I was in an odd, but fortunate position. Michael would sometimes say, “You have no idea how lucky you are. So many people would love to be in your position, but I picked you for a reason.”

   “Trust me, I know how fortunate I am, and thank you again for everything,” I always responded.

   Being around the biggest entertainer in the world was special to me—I knew that and appreciated the adventure of it—but it was also all I had known for as long as I could remember. My friends didn’t know much about my experiences, but from time to time they saw my face pop up on the TV news, or in magazine photos, next to Michael. When they were intrigued, I got it, of course. But, as always, it was still my normal. So while I felt grateful and excited to be living in that world, I didn’t dwell on my good fortune. Not in the way I might have if I hadn’t grown up with Michael. I loved the adventure, but what I took for granted was simply my time with Michael himself. I didn’t realize how special that was.

   No matter what was going on, good or bad, being with Michael made me feel like I had a purpose in the world. From the moment I started working for him, we had talks about the shape my future was going to take, both short and long term. In one of those early conversations about my new role, Michael said something important to me, something that would resonate in the years to come.

   “Frank, you’re in a position of power,” he said. “People are going to be jealous of you. People will try to pit us against each other. But I promise you I will never let that happen.”

   For some reason, those words seared themselves into my memory. I never forgot them. But I had no idea what truth, and what heartbreak, they foretold.

  

   BY AUGUST WE WERE BACK AT NEVERLAND. FROM THE time we left Munich, Michael’s back, still painful, became a chronic problem. Nonetheless, he had business to attend to. He put me to work organizing his massive video library, and though this seemed like a pretty straightforward exercise, as always, Michael had a master plan.

   “Frank,” he said, pulling me aside, “I know this is not rocket science, but I need you to do something else at the same time. I want help figuring out how to restructure the ranch.” The reorganization of the video library, he explained, was just a decoy. For some time Michael had been unhappy with the way Neverland was being run, and what he really wanted me to do was to be his eyes and ears—to figure out what went on while he was away. Michael was rarely at Neverland, but it cost him $6 million a year to maintain that ranch and to pay the fifty or so people who worked there full-time. Yet despite the expense and the size of the staff, when he’d come home from a tour or a trip, things were not in tip-top shape. A ride wouldn’t function properly. There would be patches of yellow in the grass or the seasonal flowers would have yet to be planted. Although everyone would start scrambling like mad to bring the place up to Michael’s standards as soon as he showed up, the situation was extremely frustrating.

   “What do they do all day?” he asked me, exasperated. “All they have to do is maintain the property. It’s the easiest job in the world!” Did anybody work when he was gone? He wanted me to find out. I had never looked at Neverland—or Michael’s life, for that matter—in terms of who did what and whether they did it well, but this evaluation made sense to me. Michael was a manager in absentia, and he wanted to assess his employees’ performances, especially now that he had two small children who were spending time at Neverland. He wanted to make sure Prince and Paris were surrounded by staff he liked and trusted. But I would come to see that Michael had a general distrust of those around him, doubt that bordered on paranoia.

   With this task delegated to me, he left to return to Sun City, where he was accepting an award, and I stayed home to observe what I could about the situation at Neverland and figure out how to resolve the problems. Everyone at the ranch had known me since I was a kid, so Michael figured if I hung around, allegedly working on the video library, I’d eventually get an idea of which mice were doing what while the cat was away. So I went about my work, and I spent time with the staff, all of whom I liked. As soon as Michael left, I noticed that the energy of Neverland changed. He embodied the spirit of the place, and without him the magic faded a little. I also quickly realized that with the boss away, the rhythm of the place slowed down. The staff was very relaxed, to say the least. Although people understood that I was close to Michael, not all of them avoided me. In fact, just as Michael had hoped, some of them started talking. And talking. Turned out they had a lot to say about some of their colleagues. I took it all in.

   Eventually it became clear that there was a problem with the ranch manager. She had been working for Michael for years. She was a very nice person, but she wasn’t as on top of things as she’d once been. Maybe she was getting complacent or burned out. And she had the gardeners from Neverland doing maintenance at her house, on Michael’s dime. The ranch manager was part of the problem.

   When Michael returned, we let the ranch manager go and appointed someone else. And that was just the beginning of the Neverland reorganization. In each department—security, maintenance, grounds, fire department, housekeeping, train station, zoo, amusement park, and movie theater—I identified people who could assess what needed to change. I was nineteen, so I was very careful about my approach. The last thing I wanted to be or sound like was some obnoxious, know-it-all kid. I listened, tried to make it work for everyone, and ultimately set up systems to make the employees accountable.

   In the end, it was the perfect first task for me, one that served the dual purpose of getting the staff at Neverland comfortable with my new role and allowing me to help Michael feel more confident about how his home was being maintained. From that experience, I began to see how broad and sensitive my job would be. Michael knew that I was loyal to the core, and that I had no agenda other than helping him out. Reorganizing the ranch was a warm-up for what lay ahead.