“It’s almost like winning the lottery”

The hottest book on the market – an unauthorized biography of Michael Jackson – is in the hands of a Canadian publisher. Montreal publisher Pierre Turgeon will be releasing the book, Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson, next week. He explains that author Ian Halperin had written an account of the King of Pop’s turbulent life, timing the book’s release to coincide with Jackson’s comeback tour in London. But with the star’s recent death, the timing couldn’t be better. “It’s almost like winning the lottery, though at the other end of the scale there’s the death of a human being,” Turgeon said. In previous articles, Halperin alleged that Jackson was a drug abuser and that his health was failing – in part, due to a genetic condition that was destroying his lungs and making him unable to sing. In December, Halperin predicted that Jackson would be dead within six months. The book’s first printing will consist of 50,000 copies for Canada, 300,000 for the U.S., 100,000 for Britain and 100,000 for France. Following Jackson’s death, the author rewrote the final 50 pages of the book.

The Vancouver Sun