Longtime celebrity publicist Michael Levine represented Michael Jackson during the singer's first child-molestation trial. NEWSWEEK spoke with him regarding his former client's death and what he believes may have caused it. Excerpts:
How are you feeling right now?
So, I'm certainly feeling a powerful emotion, and that's sadness. I'll tell you one emotion that I'm not feeling, and that's surprise. I don't have any particular surprise. I was having lunch with my assistant about a quarter to 3 and my office called, and I was unsurprised. But very, very sad. And the metaphor or analogy here is the certain parallel to Elvis … he really looked up to Elvis, who died at 42; then [Jackson] dies at 50. I don't think it's appropriate to overlook [the similarities].
Describe why you weren't surprised—in what way?
In what way? Well, I'm not sure how to answer you except to tell you that I wasn't surprised. I represented him during the first molestation incident … One does not have to be Sigmund Freud to figure out that there was a kind of repetitive-pattern, egregious self-destruction, in lots and lots of arenas … There was just this kind of increasing pattern of self-destruction. And I've represented hundreds of major celebrities—there seems to be a kind of DNA component to self-destruction. It's one of the things I've kind of noticed … those who [sometimes] seem militantly determined to live life on their terms as opposed to on life's terms. Guess what? You can take a rock and throw it up in the air, and say gravity doesn't exist, but guess what? Gravity doesn't give a rat's ass what you believe.
Specifically, the family spokesman and other sources cite prescription-drug abuse, poor diet, overtraining, and the like. To which of those things are you referring?
I think every one of those things could be part of a pattern [of behaviors].
Talk about how you began representing Michael.
For those of us who were around at that time, it was, at that moment, the largest scandal of its kind in the world. It was international in scope and unprecedented in the attention it got. That was in kind of the embryonic stages of this "new media." All that was the prelude to what exists today. At the time, it was the biggest story in the world. With the biggest star in the world. And I was a young man, front and center. I'm not sure anyone's ever fully prepared.
Would it surprise you if toxicity reports determine that drugs played a role in his death?
No. Nothing would surprise me, but I would say the root of his death—I think we can understand much more by reading Shakespeare than an autopsy report. Because I believe the arc of his self-destruction is Shakespearean in its proportions. Any one particular report—I just saw this, I'm sure you did too, that a family spokesman said the family enabled him—I think that's not where the money is. Where the money is, is in a combination of things … Was it food that killed Elvis? Was it drugs that killed Elvis? Was it insanity that killed Elvis? It's multidimensional.
