"Hi, I'm Michael and I'm addicted to drugs"
By Robert McGibbon
(Rehab in 1993)
It was nearly 1 am on a cold November night and the runway at Luton airport was deserted. A private Jet just landed and taxied to a secluded spot near the perimeter fence. Two rented minibuses, their windows blocked out with white sheets, drove to the tail section where a narrow stairway was being lowered. Driving the first van was bodyguard Steve Tarling with one thing on his mind -- to get Michael Jackson off the jet as quickly and as secretly as possible. Custom and Immigration officers boarded the plane to check documents and Steve moved in. Nothing could have prepared him for the shock of seeing Michael Jackson.
He says: He was sitting alone and appeared to be asleep, a red tartan blanket was wrapped over his legs and a black Trilby was tilted over his eyes. He was wearing a black shirt with a big red collar and a big black cardigan with a belt around the waist. He had on black loafers which were really scruffy.
Elizabeth Taylor, her husband Larry Fortensky and Jackson personal Doctor David Forecast were trying to tell him to get up. Taylor shook him awake and said: “Michael, you have to get off now”. He was completely out of it, he was so drugged up he looked like a zombie. He just looked like a lost soul.
When his hat came off and I saw his face for the first time I was physically shocked. I had this image of Michael Jackson the performer in mind but the sight I saw was nothing like that. He looked terrible. He wore full make-up with smudged red lipstick and eye-liner. He was covered in white paste like a clown. He looked like a Transvestite who had had some make-up on for a couple of weeks. What shocked me most was the tip of his nose, it was jet black. His whole face was white except for his nose which was black a looked like a painful scab.
I wanted to get him off immediately, because the longer we stayed the more vulnerable we were. It was pandemonium on the plane, security men and and airport ground staff were unloading baggage but Jackson was oblivious to it all.
Taylor had two dogs she wanted to take with her. It was impossible because of quarantine laws but she still asked me to smuggle them off. I said no way, so she told Larry to stay on the plane with them. He looked fed-up that he was being told what to do, while Jackson was getting all the attention.
The original plan was for Larry and Liz to stay on the plane and fly to Switzerland to throw the media off the scent. But Liz insisted on staying with Jackson until he got to the clinic. But when Jackson tried to get up his legs collapsed and I had to hold him up. It was like he had drunk two bottles of Scotch and was so paralytic he couldn’t co-ordinate. It was a sad sight. I held on to him and someone pulled the blanket up over his shoulders and covered his face with his hat.
I carried him like you would carry a tree-trunk. He is very tall so he was leaning over my shoulder. It was awkward going down the narrow stairway down to the tarmac, and I remember thinking: “My god, if I fall, he’ll end up in hospital for other reasons, not his drug problem!”
As Steve laid Jackson in the first bus, another security guard pulled off an amazing decoy stunt, hidden in the second bus was a look-a-like wearing exactly the same clothes. As the singer was carried off, the lookalike was smuggled on to the plane and curled up on his seat pretending to be asleep. The decoy worked and as far as the passport control were concerned, Jackson had never left the plane. The lookalike and Fortensky were to wait for Elizabeth to return then fly to Switzerland as if the stop to Luton had only been to refuel.
Therapist Beauchamp Colcough, known as Beechy, was waiting in the first van. He began asking us if he understood why he was there and if he knew he had a problem. Beechy started explaining how the cure treatment would work. Steve says: Beechy was laying down the rules of which Jackson would have to follow, he told him he would have to make his own bed, wash his clothes, and generally do everything for himself. Jackson was mumbling his answers and kept saying he wanted to use the phone, Beechy said this was not allowed. He told Jackson he would have to earn his phone calls.
Suddenly Jackson said very calmly and coherently, “Excuse me, can you turn this bus around and take me back? If I can’t use the phone, I'm calling the whole thing off”.
It made everyone realize that he wasn’t such a spaced out idiot at all. Beechy had to compromise and said he would allow him to make two calls. Taylor was in the bus and got angry when she realised Steve had changed the plan. Earlier in the day he had checked out the Charter Nightingale Clinic in Marylebone, Central London, only to find photographers staking it out. He felt it was too risky to go there and had fixed up a stay at the $2 million home of John Reid, Elton John’s manager in Hertfordshire. Steve says: Taylor wasn’t happy. She said, “This is bull****" and started asking about my credentials. As I drove around a round-about she screamed out hysterically, apparently the move had hurt her back.
As I pulled pulled up outside the house a guard slid open the door and Jackson fell out. He slumped out like a corpse. Thankfully we caught him before he hit the ground and carried him inside. He was all floppy and dead to the world. We laid him on a settee in the living room and surrounded him with cushions, then put his hat on him. I crossed his hands over his chest. If someone had come in they would have been convinced he dead. “His face was white, he was lying completely still and looked like he was hardly breathing, it was a bizarre sight." Before Jackson landed Beechy had been worried sick, he said he would be finished if he didn’t succeed but would be set up for life if he did. At one point waiting for the plane, he was shaking with fear. As Beechy came in the house, I shouted out “You can stop worrying now, he’s dead” It was a silly joke but the situation was so unreal.
Within an hour, Taylor insisted Jackson was taken to the clinic. She felt he would react better to treatment in a hospital environment and the Doctors agreed. Taylor returned to the plane which flew to Switzerland as other decoy stories to confuse the press were released in Europe and the U.S. Some papers reported Michael had been in a clinic in the French Alps.
Steve found it easy to smuggle Jackson into the clinic. He arrived at around 5am and the few photographers still there were asleep in their cars. He drove through the rear entrance and took Jackson to the top floor which was sealed off but the singer locked himself in his room and refused to come out. Steve said: he turned up his radio, the whole building seemed bare and uncomfortable, I knew he wouldn’t put up with it for long and I was right. I left one of Elizabeth Taylor’s bodyguards in charge while me and one of my ground men checked the ground floor. We went down stairs when the receptionist rang up saying “Quick, Michael Jackson’s trying to escape!” The bodyguard had been lying on his bed while Jackson had left his room and jumped in the lift. He had pressed number 1 thinking it was the ground floor, the numbers are different to American lifts. Jackson had been wandering around, politely asking patients,"How do you get out of here?" I felt really sorry for him. You can tell he was determined to get out and was ready to walk the streets of London in the freeezing cold. Half the worlds media were searching for this man and he nearly walked right out into the open on his own! Can you imagine if that had happened?
I told my man to guard the back while I rushed to the first floor. Jackson was getting more and more frustrated and was slapping his hand against the wall. He was saying in his high pitched voice “I wanna get out of here, I don’t like it here”. The nurse and I got him into the lift, I held on him and he started to calm down. Later that first morning Jackson agreed to meet some ex-addicts. Nurses were ordered to search the star for drugs. The first session of therapy lasted about three hours but mainly concentrated on laying down the rules. I felt really bad when they searched Jackson’s personal things. He had an old yellow bag with a tape machine and diaries inside. The nurses emptied it and found 13 bottles of pills which they confiscated.
Beechy made everyone introduce themselves and say what their problems were. Jackson was very friendly towards me because he knew I didn’t have to be there. He smiled at me when I said my bit, which I thought was nice of him. He didn’t want to speak, but Beechy said he HAD to. Eventually he said very quietly, “Hi, I’m Michael and I’m addicted to drugs.”
Meanwhile reports had surrounded the clinic and it was decided to smuggle Jackson out to be treated at John Reid’s house. The whole lot had to go with him. He disguised the staff as patients and throughout the day they left through the front door on foot or by black cab, They were collected by cars waiting less than a mile away at Lords Cricket Ground.
Jackson left around midnight. Steve dressed him up in a baggy tracksuit, a long coat, hat and scarf. Jackson went through an underground walkway to the building next door and waited in the basement until a message by walkie talkie told him to walk.
By Robert McGibbon
(Rehab in 1993)
It was nearly 1 am on a cold November night and the runway at Luton airport was deserted. A private Jet just landed and taxied to a secluded spot near the perimeter fence. Two rented minibuses, their windows blocked out with white sheets, drove to the tail section where a narrow stairway was being lowered. Driving the first van was bodyguard Steve Tarling with one thing on his mind -- to get Michael Jackson off the jet as quickly and as secretly as possible. Custom and Immigration officers boarded the plane to check documents and Steve moved in. Nothing could have prepared him for the shock of seeing Michael Jackson.
He says: He was sitting alone and appeared to be asleep, a red tartan blanket was wrapped over his legs and a black Trilby was tilted over his eyes. He was wearing a black shirt with a big red collar and a big black cardigan with a belt around the waist. He had on black loafers which were really scruffy.
Elizabeth Taylor, her husband Larry Fortensky and Jackson personal Doctor David Forecast were trying to tell him to get up. Taylor shook him awake and said: “Michael, you have to get off now”. He was completely out of it, he was so drugged up he looked like a zombie. He just looked like a lost soul.
When his hat came off and I saw his face for the first time I was physically shocked. I had this image of Michael Jackson the performer in mind but the sight I saw was nothing like that. He looked terrible. He wore full make-up with smudged red lipstick and eye-liner. He was covered in white paste like a clown. He looked like a Transvestite who had had some make-up on for a couple of weeks. What shocked me most was the tip of his nose, it was jet black. His whole face was white except for his nose which was black a looked like a painful scab.
I wanted to get him off immediately, because the longer we stayed the more vulnerable we were. It was pandemonium on the plane, security men and and airport ground staff were unloading baggage but Jackson was oblivious to it all.
Taylor had two dogs she wanted to take with her. It was impossible because of quarantine laws but she still asked me to smuggle them off. I said no way, so she told Larry to stay on the plane with them. He looked fed-up that he was being told what to do, while Jackson was getting all the attention.
The original plan was for Larry and Liz to stay on the plane and fly to Switzerland to throw the media off the scent. But Liz insisted on staying with Jackson until he got to the clinic. But when Jackson tried to get up his legs collapsed and I had to hold him up. It was like he had drunk two bottles of Scotch and was so paralytic he couldn’t co-ordinate. It was a sad sight. I held on to him and someone pulled the blanket up over his shoulders and covered his face with his hat.
I carried him like you would carry a tree-trunk. He is very tall so he was leaning over my shoulder. It was awkward going down the narrow stairway down to the tarmac, and I remember thinking: “My god, if I fall, he’ll end up in hospital for other reasons, not his drug problem!”
As Steve laid Jackson in the first bus, another security guard pulled off an amazing decoy stunt, hidden in the second bus was a look-a-like wearing exactly the same clothes. As the singer was carried off, the lookalike was smuggled on to the plane and curled up on his seat pretending to be asleep. The decoy worked and as far as the passport control were concerned, Jackson had never left the plane. The lookalike and Fortensky were to wait for Elizabeth to return then fly to Switzerland as if the stop to Luton had only been to refuel.
Therapist Beauchamp Colcough, known as Beechy, was waiting in the first van. He began asking us if he understood why he was there and if he knew he had a problem. Beechy started explaining how the cure treatment would work. Steve says: Beechy was laying down the rules of which Jackson would have to follow, he told him he would have to make his own bed, wash his clothes, and generally do everything for himself. Jackson was mumbling his answers and kept saying he wanted to use the phone, Beechy said this was not allowed. He told Jackson he would have to earn his phone calls.
Suddenly Jackson said very calmly and coherently, “Excuse me, can you turn this bus around and take me back? If I can’t use the phone, I'm calling the whole thing off”.
It made everyone realize that he wasn’t such a spaced out idiot at all. Beechy had to compromise and said he would allow him to make two calls. Taylor was in the bus and got angry when she realised Steve had changed the plan. Earlier in the day he had checked out the Charter Nightingale Clinic in Marylebone, Central London, only to find photographers staking it out. He felt it was too risky to go there and had fixed up a stay at the $2 million home of John Reid, Elton John’s manager in Hertfordshire. Steve says: Taylor wasn’t happy. She said, “This is bull****" and started asking about my credentials. As I drove around a round-about she screamed out hysterically, apparently the move had hurt her back.
As I pulled pulled up outside the house a guard slid open the door and Jackson fell out. He slumped out like a corpse. Thankfully we caught him before he hit the ground and carried him inside. He was all floppy and dead to the world. We laid him on a settee in the living room and surrounded him with cushions, then put his hat on him. I crossed his hands over his chest. If someone had come in they would have been convinced he dead. “His face was white, he was lying completely still and looked like he was hardly breathing, it was a bizarre sight." Before Jackson landed Beechy had been worried sick, he said he would be finished if he didn’t succeed but would be set up for life if he did. At one point waiting for the plane, he was shaking with fear. As Beechy came in the house, I shouted out “You can stop worrying now, he’s dead” It was a silly joke but the situation was so unreal.
Within an hour, Taylor insisted Jackson was taken to the clinic. She felt he would react better to treatment in a hospital environment and the Doctors agreed. Taylor returned to the plane which flew to Switzerland as other decoy stories to confuse the press were released in Europe and the U.S. Some papers reported Michael had been in a clinic in the French Alps.
Steve found it easy to smuggle Jackson into the clinic. He arrived at around 5am and the few photographers still there were asleep in their cars. He drove through the rear entrance and took Jackson to the top floor which was sealed off but the singer locked himself in his room and refused to come out. Steve said: he turned up his radio, the whole building seemed bare and uncomfortable, I knew he wouldn’t put up with it for long and I was right. I left one of Elizabeth Taylor’s bodyguards in charge while me and one of my ground men checked the ground floor. We went down stairs when the receptionist rang up saying “Quick, Michael Jackson’s trying to escape!” The bodyguard had been lying on his bed while Jackson had left his room and jumped in the lift. He had pressed number 1 thinking it was the ground floor, the numbers are different to American lifts. Jackson had been wandering around, politely asking patients,"How do you get out of here?" I felt really sorry for him. You can tell he was determined to get out and was ready to walk the streets of London in the freeezing cold. Half the worlds media were searching for this man and he nearly walked right out into the open on his own! Can you imagine if that had happened?
I told my man to guard the back while I rushed to the first floor. Jackson was getting more and more frustrated and was slapping his hand against the wall. He was saying in his high pitched voice “I wanna get out of here, I don’t like it here”. The nurse and I got him into the lift, I held on him and he started to calm down. Later that first morning Jackson agreed to meet some ex-addicts. Nurses were ordered to search the star for drugs. The first session of therapy lasted about three hours but mainly concentrated on laying down the rules. I felt really bad when they searched Jackson’s personal things. He had an old yellow bag with a tape machine and diaries inside. The nurses emptied it and found 13 bottles of pills which they confiscated.
Beechy made everyone introduce themselves and say what their problems were. Jackson was very friendly towards me because he knew I didn’t have to be there. He smiled at me when I said my bit, which I thought was nice of him. He didn’t want to speak, but Beechy said he HAD to. Eventually he said very quietly, “Hi, I’m Michael and I’m addicted to drugs.”
Meanwhile reports had surrounded the clinic and it was decided to smuggle Jackson out to be treated at John Reid’s house. The whole lot had to go with him. He disguised the staff as patients and throughout the day they left through the front door on foot or by black cab, They were collected by cars waiting less than a mile away at Lords Cricket Ground.
Jackson left around midnight. Steve dressed him up in a baggy tracksuit, a long coat, hat and scarf. Jackson went through an underground walkway to the building next door and waited in the basement until a message by walkie talkie told him to walk.