In September 2024, Tito Jackson was in Munich with his brothers Jackie and Marlon for a show, one that would end up being among the last the brothers ever did together. Before the concert, the three of them stopped by the Michael Jackson memorial in the city.
Tito wrote about it afterward. He said they’d visited the beautiful memorial dedicated to their brother, and that he was deeply grateful for a place that honors not just Michael’s memory but the whole family’s shared legacy, and he thanked the fans for keeping his spirit alive.
Days later, on September 15, 2024, Tito died. That post about the Munich memorial turned out to be one of the last public messages he ever shared.
Michael Jackson Fans Flock to Munich Statue
The memorial itself has a strange and kind of beautiful backstory. It isn’t an official monument at all. It’s a fan-made shrine built around a statue on Promenadeplatz, in central Munich, of a man named Orlando di Lasso, a composer who lived four hundred years before Michael was born. The two have nothing to do with each other. Fans picked the spot simply because the statue sits across from the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, where Michael used to stay when he was in town.
When he died in the summer of 2009, people started leaving flowers and photos and candles at the base of that statue, and they just never stopped. Fifteen years on, it’s still there, still covered in tributes, still tended by strangers who loved him.
So picture the scene. Three aging brothers, in their seventies, standing quietly at a shrine another city’s fans built for the brother they lost, and one of them thanking those fans for it, with only days of his own life left. Munich also happens to be where Michael played one of his most famous shows.