It’s a wonderful afterlife for Michael Jackson

Following his death on June 25, 2009, a popular reclaiming of Jackson as a beloved, once-in-a-lifetime musical genius has taken hold.

On March 5, 2009, when Michael Jackson announced that he would perform a run of 50 concerts at London's O2 Arena in a comeback tour called “This Is It,” the British media largely greeted the news with derision.
The Guardian wrote that a quickly erected stage at the press conference “served only to heighten Jackson's physical weirdness -- the sunken cheeks, the upturned nose, the overpronounced chin cleft.” The Daily Telegraph described his behaviour as “bizarre,” and so many rumours circulated about his ill health that the tour's promoter, AEG, was forced to issue a statement that Jackson had undergone a battery of tests to prove he was in condition to play the dates.
Since 2005, Jackson had spent much of his time in seclusion -- at his Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara, California; in Bahrain; in Ireland; in Las Vegas -- emerging only, it seemed, to fend off financial ruin, either through ill-fated recording projects or embarrassing public divestitures. Many saw the concerts as little more than a desperate, money-raising gambit.
Despite his ability to sell out 50 arena dates, the King of Pop was seen, even by some of his supporters, as little more than a hallowed oldies act, a performer whose heyday, albeit phenomenal, was more than two decades in the past. To his detractors, though, Jackson was even less than that: either a laughingstock -- “Wacko Jacko” -- or worse: a freak, a deviant, a pariah.
Flash-forward 15 months, and Jackson's image in the public consciousness has undergone a dramatic revision. In the days, weeks and months following his death on June 25, 2009, from drug-related cardiac arrest, a popular reclaiming of Jackson as a beloved, once-in-a-lifetime musical genius took hold. While cable-news pundits endlessly pored over the tawdry circumstances of his demise, millions of fans new and old simply shrugged their shoulders and happily popped in their “Thriller” CDs.
In July, Jackson regained his spot at the top of the Billboard sales charts, moving 422,000 units in the week after his death alone -- to date, the Jackson catalogue has sold 9 million copies in the year since he passed, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Spontaneously, kids from LA to Beijing were seen sporting bootleg “Thriller” T-shirts and blaring “Billie Jean” as if it were 1983 and Reagan was in the White House.
In the fall, the film of Jackson's rehearsals for the mocked “This Is It tour” became the highest-grossing concert movie of all time, earning $72 million at the North American box office, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com. (The soundtrack to “This Is It,” Sony Music's only release of new Jackson material since his death, has sold 1.6 million copies.)
In March, the Jackson estate, led by co-executors John Branca and John McClain, signed a 10-album, $250 million deal with Sony that will include the release of a collection of previously unreleased tracks, set for November, as well as repackages of Jackson's 1979 solo breakthrough, “Off the Wall,” and his 1987 album, “Bad.” One month later, Cirque du Soleil, which created the Beatles' show “Love” to great acclaim, announced it would produce both a touring and permanent show based on Jackson's music.
When both fans and experts discuss the troubled last decade of Jackson's life, it's now in softer terms, with the artist portrayed less as an agent of his own demise than as a victim of a colluding set of circumstances -- abusive family, circumspect entourage, incomprehensible pressures of fame -- that would have felled anyone, no less a fragile man-child like Jackson.
Not wanting to speak ill of the dead is a human and rational desire -- once someone is gone, he or she is unable to defend him or herself. But the changed tone of the conversation surrounding Jackson has done more than just remedy some of the damage inflicted by his years of weird-to-aberrant behaviour; it has also created a series of enormous business opportunities for his estate, opportunities that in all likelihood wouldn't have emerged had Jackson lived.
It seems death has breathed a new lease of life into Michael Jackson's legacy.

Michael Jackson's children to start school

Source: ReutersMichael Jackson's children, Prince Michael Jackson and Paris Jackson, accept an honourary Grammy

Michael Jackson's children will start school in September - so they can make friends.
The late King of Pop's mother Katherine Jackson - who is the legal guardian of his three kids, Prince Michael, 13, Paris, 12, and eight-year-old Prince Michael II, known as Blanket - has revealed the trio are due to enrol at a new education centre later in the year, to help them befriend youngsters their own ages.
Katherine said: "They don't have any friends. They don't go to school, they have private lessons at home - but that will change in September, when they are due to enrol at private college. But they have their cousins and aunts and uncles around them constantly, and that's helped them immensely.
"To them, it's normal, it's the life they have known. They have a certain time to go to bed, then they get up and get dressed for lessons. They practise karate and swim, which they love."
Michael died on June 25 2009 from acute Propofol intoxication, aged 50.
However, his children provide the Jackson family with continuous memories of the pop star, because they all has personality traits similar to his.
Katherine explained to the Sunday Mirror newspaper: "Paris has that lovely way, just like him, and I see his talent in her. Whatever she does, she is very good at it. She's a good artist, she plays the piano and she wants to be an actress. Prince is serious about a lot of things. He wants to be a cameraman or produce movies. He is dedicated to that, like Michael was. And Blanket is very playful, like Michael was."

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Katherine, 80, has also revealed her son was so protective of his young children - who he raised alone - he deliberately kept his fame from them for as long as possible - so they wouldn't get "egos".
She added: "He said, 'I never told them what I do'. He didn't want them to know... He didn't want them walking around with egos! So when they went to the 30th show, the two little ones were in the audience. Michael got backstage and they said, 'You're a big star! When I grow up, I want to be like you!' Michael said that gave him the biggest chuckle."