The molestation charges hanging over Michael Jackson aren't the only problems facing the onetime King of Pop, The Washington Post reports.
Although he managed to post $3 million bail, Jackson's financial situation has fizzled to the point at which he's now deeply in debt, according to the Post. And for the first time since he was 10, Jackson will soon be without a record contract.
His current greatest-hits collection, "Number Ones," ends his obligations to Sony Music under the terms of a $65-million contract he signed in 1991. Opening-week sales for the album, released last week, are projected to be 85,000 to 100,000 -- which, the paper notes, may not even be enough to land him in Billboard's Top 20.
Jackson financed his own 2001 album, "Invincible," at a reported cost of $30 million, but the CD has sold only 2.1 million copies, according to Soundscan.
And it's a bad time for Jackson to be out of a job. The paper cites reports that Jackson may be as much as $250 million in debt -- and his legal bills are expected to begin piling up immediately.
Meanwhile, some observers say the allegations, coupled with his behavior over the past decade, have left Jackson permanently damaged in the pop-music world.
"Image is everything," says Jamie Foster Brown, editor and publisher of Sister 2 Sister, a black-oriented celebrity magazine. "Remember when 'Thriller' came out, how every little kid had the little red jacket, the white socks and glove? Now Michael is macabre. He doesn't look like anything anybody else would want to look like."
Your Reaction
