In 2003, Vanity Fair published one of the strangest allegations ever attached to Michael Jackson. Reporter Maureen Orth claimed that three years earlier the superstar had become involved with spiritual practitioners who promised to destroy people he considered enemies. According to the report, the list contained 25 names and included two enormous Hollywood figures: David Geffen and Steven Spielberg.
The article claimed Jackson instructed his business adviser Myung-Ho Lee to wire $150,000 to a bank in Mali for a spiritual leader named Baba. Orth reported that 42 cows were then ritually sacrificed and that the people on Jackson’s alleged enemies list were supposed to die soon afterward. None of that happened.
The Weird Story of Michael Jackson and Voodoo… and Me!
The story became even stranger when Vanity Fair described another alleged ritual involving Jackson himself. Orth claimed he had previously paid a six-figure sum for a cleansing involving sheep’s blood while dealing with another spiritual practitioner and an Egyptian woman named Samia in Switzerland.
Yet there is an important distinction between a sensational published claim and an independently proven event. When the story appeared, even the Los Angeles Times treated it skeptically and emphasized that it originated with Vanity Fair. Jackson’s lawyers were also fighting broader accusations from Lee at the time and accused the former adviser of financial wrongdoing.
That dispute matters because much of the extraordinary story emerged during a period when Jackson’s finances and former advisers were already tangled in litigation. Vanity Fair reported that Lee had sued Jackson while Jackson’s lawyers countered that Lee had duped him and improperly handled millions of dollars. The curse allegation was never established in a criminal proceeding.
For the man who transformed pop music with Thriller, Bad and groundbreaking performances watched around the world, the alleged $150,000 ritual remains one of the most bizarre stories ever printed about his private life. Whether readers believe the account or question how it was sourced, watch the video above and decide what you make of the extraordinary claim.