The morning after Michael Jackson died, while the world was still processing the shock, Liza Minnelli picked up the phone and called CBS’s The Early Show from Paris.
She was devastated. She said he was a splendid man, a brilliant performer who had changed theatrical history. She said she saw him all the time and would miss him more than words could say.
And then she said something that stopped the interviewer cold.
“I’m sure when the autopsy comes, all hell’s going to break loose. So thank God we’re celebrating him now.”
She did not elaborate. The interviewer did not push. The moment passed and the media cycle moved on to the next headline. But those words from someone who knew Michael personally, someone who had been in his wedding party and called him a close friend, have never fully gone away for the people who heard them.
There was something about the way she talked.
WHAT WAS SHE EXPECTING THE AUTOPSY TO REVEAL, SOMETHING THAT COULD CAUSE ALL HELL TO BREAK LOOSE?
She said it with a certainty that did not sound like speculation. It sounded like someone bracing for a truth they already suspected.
Liza Minnelli speaks about Michael Jackson after his death.
Two years later in a separate interview, she went further. She said she believed she knew what really killed Michael Jackson. Not the propofol. Not Conrad Murray. Her words were precise and deliberate.
“IN THE END, THE SCORN, THE CRUELTY, THE VICIOUS MEANNESS — THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT TOOK HIS LIFE.”
A man broken not by his own choices but by what the world chose to do to him repeatedly over decades. That was Liza Minnelli’s verdict. Not the coroner’s. Not the media’s.
The full story of Michael Jackson’s final days
The coroner’s report listed the cause of death as acute propofol intoxication. Conrad Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
But Michael’s own daughter, Paris, later told Rolling Stone that everyone in the family believes it was a setup. And Katherine Jackson told NBC that Michael had told her repeatedly he felt people wanted him gone.
Liza knew something was coming. She just could not say it out loud on live television.