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AT LEAST now we know they're not sleeping together. Last Thursday, Lisa Marie Presley filed for divorce from her husband of 20 months, Michael Jackson, citing unspecified "irreconcilable differences." It was really over. No more stifled, forced kisses in public. No more strangely unwarm hand-holdings or remote waves from hotel balconies at Euro Disney. No more endless speculation over whether they did or whether they didn't. No more prime-time TV interviews with the two of them sitting stiff and pretty as alabaster statues, trying to convince the world of their deep love for one another when they barely seemed able to make eye contact. We'll miss this marriage, now that it's gone. It wasn't the romance of the century, but it was the kind of twisted royal wedding our celebrity-glutted minds deserved. And it ended just as it began, in giant, megapoint tabloid typeface. JACKO GETS THE SACKO! yelled the New York Post on Jan. 19.
Well, that's that-o. As news of the breakup spread, journalists, talking heads, divorce lawyers, marital experts and friends-of-a-friend were left scrambling to second-guess why Michael and Lisa Marie had split--and we'd barely finished second-guessing why they'd gotten together in the first place. The facts were scant. We knew that Presley filed a routine three-page divorce paper in L.A. Superior Court. Jackson sources say there was a prenuptial agreement and that Presley could receive a hefty $15 million settlement, plus 50 percent of anything purchased after the couple wed in May 1994. We know the legal separation date was Dec. 10, only four days after Jackson collapsed onstage in New York, forcing the cancellation of a much-hyped HBO special. We know that last Thursday, Jackson was sequestered with filmmaker Spike Lee, discussing possible video projects. While the world focused on his divorce, Jackson focused on his sagging career. Some Jackson campers blame Michael's work-obsession for the split. "Michael is a workaholic and Lisa Marie has no idea what that is all about," said one. "She hasn't worked a day in her life. We thought it was pretty tacky for her to separate from him while he was sick." A Presley source asserted that even if Jackson friends found the timing tacky, the Jackson family genuinely liked Presley. Some wondered if Jackson's refusal to join the Church of Scientology, to which Presley and her mother, Priscilla, belong, contributed to the rift. "It was an issue at the beginning," said J. Randy Taraborrelli, a Jackson biographer. "Michael actually went and took a couple of tests. I understand he flunked the personality test, but I understand everybody does. In the end, he decided not to become a Scientologist, but it wasn't a major factor." And some blamed Lisa Marie's interlude last August in Hawaii with her ex-husband, musician Danny Keough, the father of her two children. Not so, said Jackson family friend Flo Anthony: "Michael OK'd that trip."
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Through all the muck and innuendo, most immediate family remained silent. Priscilla Presley was unavailable for comment, although we know she was very fond of first husband Danny and less wacko about Jacko. "Lisa Marie should come to her senses and kick this freak out before these allegations taint her," Priscilla reportedly said in August, referring to child-molestation charges that follow Jackson even today. Jackson's family, too, was silent, unless you count La Toya's husband Jack Gordon as family. "La Toya warned Michael that this marriage would be his downfall," said Gordon. "It's one thing to get married, but to Elvis's daughter was totally absurd. Something went wrong in that marriage and Lisa Marie will soon be telling it all, and Michael will be destroyed."
In the end, all we knew for sure about the relationship was this: two monstrously famous people made a stab at human intimacy, and failed. If we were never able to fathom them apart from their fame-alone, in private, without our prying eyes--that's not so surprising. Michael and Lisa Marie never convinced us they were just a couple of crazy kids in love, but more important, they apparently never convinced themselves. "The divorce was more predictable than the marriage," said Memphis music critic Stanley Booth. And that's no flacko.
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