Michael Jackson the singer was also Michael Jackson the billion-dollar business. Yet after selling more than 61 million albums in the US and having a decade-long attraction open at Disney theme parks,the King of Pop died Thursday at age 50 reportedly awash in about $400 million in debt,on the cusp of a final comeback after well over a decade of scandal. The moonwalking pop star drove the growth of music videos,vaulting cable channel MTV into the popular mainstream after its launch in 1981. His 1982 hit Thriller,still the second best-selling US album of all time,spawned a John Landis-directed music video that MTV played every hour on the hour. Five years later,Bad sold 22 million copies. In 1991,he signed a $65 million recording deal with Sony. Jackson was so popular that The Walt Disney Co. hitched its wagon to his star in 1986,opening a 3-D movie at its parks called Captain EO,executive produced by George Lucas and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The last attraction in Paris closed 12 years later. One of Jacksons shrewdest deals at the height of his fame in 1985 was the $47.5 million acquisition of ATV Music,which owned the copyright to songs written by the Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney. He bought the sprawling Neverland ranch in 1988 for $14.6 million. But the bombshell hit in 1993 when he was accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy. When he ran into further financial problems,he agreed to a deal with Sony in 1995 to merge ATV with Sony's library of songs and sold Sony music publishing rights for $95 million. Then in 2001,he used his half of the ATV assets as collateral to secure $200 million in loans from Bank of America. As his financial problems continued,Jackson began to borrow large sums of money,according to a 2002 lawsuit by Union Finance & Investment Corp. that sought $12 million in unpaid fees and expenses. One forensic accountant testified that the singer had an ongoing cash crisis and was spending $20 million to $30 million more per year than he earned. In March of last year,the singer faced foreclosure on Neverland. He also repeatedly failed to make mortgage payments on a house in Los Angeles that had been used for years by his family. A final piece of the financial jigsaw puzzle fell into place in March,when billionaire Philip Anschutz AEG Live announced it would promote 50 shows in London's O2 arena. Tickets sold out,and the first show of the This is It tour was set for July 8.
