Time to Tune Your Bullshit Detector

What is it about the deaths of celebrities that brings out the worst in mankind? Broward residents got a gruesome look at this phenomenon after Anna Nicole Smith died. But the Michael Jackson case was bound to be an even bigger, more bizarre circus. So before it gets too topsy-turvy...

By Thomas Francis

June 29, 2009

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What is it about the deaths of celebrities that brings out the worst in mankind? Broward residents got a gruesome look at this phenomenon after Anna Nicole Smith died. But the Michael Jackson case was bound to be an even bigger, more bizarre circus.

So before it gets too topsy-turvy to know which end is up, let's identify a few of the clowns. Over on Pulp, Bob Norman has a bead on one of them. Al Malnik claims to be a close friend and executor of Jackson's estate, but he doesn't seem to have any recent evidence of that friendship. Norman talked to a guy who says Jackson tossed Malnik out of his inner circle years ago.

And be skeptical of what you hear from Daphne Barak, a celebrity journalist (or is that journalist celebrity?) who has a knack for swooping in just as a falling star hits the pavement. Barak apparently ingratiated herself with Jackson's former nanny, Grace Rwaramba. Mallika Chopra, daughter of feel-good guru Deepak Chopra and a close friend of the nanny's, casts Barak as a manipulator who was eager to cash in that investment the moment Jackson turned up dead.

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