Throughout the 1980s and 90s, there were few more famously wealthy
Americans than Donald Trump and Michael Jackson.
So it's unsurprising that they find themselves moving in the same circles,
stepping out publicly at the same festival fundraisers and photo ops and relating
to one another's lavish tendencies, be it gold toilets or private amusement parks.
That friendship continued into the 2000s.
And despite the two men's rapidly diverging paths,
Trump continued to publicly support Jackson up until his 2009 death.
And beyond painting the late King of Pop
as misunderstood as recently as his lead up to the 2016 election.
Welcome to the detail.
And here then is a select annotated
timeline of the unusual friendship of Michael Jackson and Donald Trump.
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March 3rd, 1988,
in the midst of Jackson's marathon tour, forbad the successor for his record.
Shattering further, he swung for New York
for a benefit concert and wowed thousands at Madison Square Garden.
It was a performance The New York Times called a Mama Pop Soul Halloween party.
Then 41 year old Donald Trump was among those in attendance.
And as he recalled to Larry King in 2009, I spoke to him for a little while.
He was low key.
And I think there's no way this guy is going to go out on that stage and perform.
It's fair to assume Jackson likewise would
have never seen that his new acquaintance would one day be president.
After this initial counter, Ivana Trump states in a 2017 memoir,
Raising Trump How Jackson, then 30, was a very playmate for Vanke Donald Jr.
and Eric alluding that Jackson was living in Trump Tower at the time.
Although this is inconclusive,
according to Trump, sex by Jackson and her three children watch MTV or play video
games or naturally build Trump Tower in Lego and don't even get started.
On the time Jackson popped into a bunker
school performance of The Nutcracker on April six, 1990,
Trump's Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City was opened with such Fiora as if Trump had
successfully airlifted the glamorous heyday of mid century Las Vegas
to a sleepy seaside town in New Jersey shoreline.
Then Trump, welcome to the premises.
His ace in the hole, Michael Jackson himself for a guided tour
that just happened to be captured by media throngs and screaming fans.
It was as the late lifestyles of the rich
and famous Robert Lynch commented, downright Beatlemania.
While Jackson was occupied at the as he
received news that Ryan White, an Indiana teenager who struggled
to survive the AIDS virus, which he contracted from a blood
transfusion, had passed away in a surreal scene.
Cameras captured Jackson with Trump
in tow, arriving at the white family home to pay condolences,
with Jackson even climbing into Ryan's Ford Mustang,
which had been a gift from him as a copy of Bad played in the stereo.
When asked by a reporter why the two men
appeared together, a Trump spokesman answered, Mr.
Jackson spent the weekend at Taj Mahal as Donald Trump's guest,
and Michael Jackson asked if he could come along in the winter of 1993,
when Jackson started dating Elvis Presley's daughter, Lisa Marie.
They apparently got familiar with each
other in the cozy confines of Trump's Mar a Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida,
and Trump's own telling Mar a Lago to service the pair's simmering chemistry,
having written in his book The Art of the Comeback.
I was there and I saw the magic of Mar
a Lago brought to them because after they left, it didn't work so well.
I can tell you for at least a period
of time, those two folks are really getting along.
On May 26, 1994, Jackson and Presley wed in what was widely viewed as a hasty
matrimony between two pillars of music royalty,
if not an outright effort to draw attention away from the mounting
accusations of child molestation against Jackson.
The marriage did indeed dissolve less than two years on,
which must have been crushing for their biggest supporter, Donald Trump,
as Trump shared with media after they tied the knot.
Those two really get along great and they're very happy.
He also sneaked in the fact that they were at the top of Trump Tower.
Now, when Jackson released history on June
16th, 1995, a provocatively titled collection coming on the heels
of molestation accusations and related settlements.
One track Money is a song that calls out
the soul seething haters and frauds, which, through the years,
fans have debated whether Trump was among the names.
Jackson mutters in the background just over three minutes in.
You be the judge.
On December 18th, 2003, Jackson was formally charged with seven
counts of child molestation and two counts of administrating an intoxicating agent.
On that point, until Jackson was acquitted in June 2005, the performer was presumed
guilty across large swathes of public opinion.
Trump, however, never wavered his support,
telling Larry King and others throughout this period.
I'm going to stick by him because nobody else is.
And I don't believe that his remarks would frequently be punctuated with memories
of how much Jackson enjoyed his time at both Trump Tower and Malaga Lago
on June 25th, 2009, the day Michael Jackson passed away at the age of 50.
Almost immediately,
obituaries and reflections walked the tightrope of touting his artistry,
rehashing a challenging childhood and insulated life of stardom,
and also being candid about the allegations that swirled around him.
Trump, at the peak of his apprentice
popularity, was wildly available for comment.
I was quick to maintain that Jackson was
not a molester and millions of children, he was not able to attend Jackson's
funeral, although he insisted to Larry King at there be any doubt
that they invited me and they called me so many times.
But above all, Trump remembers the times
they shared, especially at Trump Tower and his Mar a Lago Russell in Palm Beach
and more recent years during a CNN town hall hosted by Anderson Cooper,
the then presidential candidate, Donald Trump, spoke of Jackson,
saying he lost tremendous confidence because he honestly had bad, bad surgery.
And under such circumstances, you can even lose your talent.
Maybe it's fitting that Jackson's
daughter, Paris, got the final word regarding this unlikely friendship.
In the summer of 2017,
during the MTV Video Music Awards, Paris proclaimed from the stage,
If we were to stand up all united as one, our impact, it would be huge.
And that's not fake news.
She underscored this meaning later that night with a now deleted tweet
reading stuff up Donny Boy at Real Donald Trump.
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