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Legal
Jackson auction will go ahead, despite Jacko’s objections
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 30 March 2009
That Michael Jackson memorabilia auction that seemingly had the singer’s approval, but then didn’t all of a sudden, will still go ahead, the auction house running it has said, despite Jacko launching legal proceedings to try and stop it.
As previously reported, Jackson is trying to stop Julien’s Auction House in LA from staging the auction, claiming that the auctioneers had not fulfilled their commitment to let him approve what goods would be sold before announcing the sale. But the company’s owner, Darren Julien, claims Jacko had been in the loop throughout the planning stages of the auction, and had even signed off a press release, and that he is therefore “really puzzled and disappointed” about the singer’s subsequent legal action.
Confirming the auction would go ahead on 21 Apr, Julien told reporters: “We’re really puzzled and disappointed that he’s trying to stop this sale because the last eight months he’s known about the auction. In December he and his manager approved a release that went out, announcing that we’re conducting an auction of Neverland and Michael Jackson”.
On the planned sale, he continued: “We’re going to keep our commitment to him and really make sure that it’s really something his fans and the world can be proud of. I mean Michael Jackson is an amazing pop icon – the history, and what he means to pop culture, and Neverland, is part of pop culture history. So we want this to be something that’s fun, that’s exciting, so we hope we get past all these issues with him and he’ll enjoy the process like he did originally when he was putting the sale together for us”.
Many of the goods for sale seemingly come from Jackon’s own collection – they include the wrought iron gates from his Neverland Ranch and a white glove he wore in his 1983 Billie Jean video – so I’m not quite sure how that works given the singer’s subsequent withdrawal from the sale, though presumably the auction house has some legal right to sell them.
