A debt greater than $500 million dollars maintained Michael Jackson at the time of his death on June 25, 2009. The information is contained in legal documents revealed last week in the city of Los Angeles, California.}
“At the time of Michael Jackson’s death, his major assets were subject to over $500 million in debts and creditor claims, some of the debt was accruing interest at extremely high interest rates, and some of the debt was in default.” says the court document accessed by Deadline.
AEG Live, the company behind the “This is It” event that was to keep Jackson at London’s O2 Arena from July 2009 to March 2010, produced a certified public accountant named William R. Ackerman as a witness in a 2013 trial over debts owed by the “King of Pop.”
According to Ackerman’s account, Jackson spent money on charity donations, gifts, trips, art and decorations. “He spent a lot of money on jewelry, I was exhausted”the accountant said during the trial as documents revealed.
When Jackson died, the financial responsibility generated by the planned London tour passed into the hands of the heirs, who were being asked to pay $40 million. They also argued that there was little chance of generating income because the King of Pop’s assets were already “highly leveraged” in various deals.
Although in March 2024 those responsible for Jackson’s estate acknowledged that they were burdened with debt and on the brink of bankruptcy when the artist died, it is now estimated that some renegotiations allowed the value of MJ’s legacy to exceed $2 billion dollars.
Still, Jackson’s representatives say there are still “trade, tax and legal issues” that are still being resolved, even though they have managed to resolve most of the problems and a final decision has yet to be made following a victory against the US tax authorities, the Treasury Department.
