Michael Jackson

Long after the fans have left the gates of Neverland, the fantastical Santa Barbara County ranch once owned by Michael Jackson, the far less whimsical question remains of what will happen to it. Colony Capital, the private equity firm that bought the loan on the property, sparing it from foreclosure, won't say what its plans are. But the ranch, which once featured a zoo and amusement park and had an estimated value of $96 million to $120 million, could wind up as something of a white elephant.

Whether it turns out that he died of heart disease, a cocktail of potent prescription drugs or just years of indulgence and excess, one verdict is inescapable: What really killed Michael Jackson was an overdose of showbiz values. Like so many child stars before him, from Judy Garland and Sammy Davis Jr. to Tatum O'Neal and River Phoenix and Lindsay Lohan, Jackson never found himself a home in the real world.

Michael Jackson's longtime dermatologist and friend filed suit Monday accusing another physician with a decades-long relationship with the pop icon of slandering him in a British tabloid report about Jackson's death. In papers filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, lawyers for Dr. Arnold Klein alleged that cosmetic surgeon Dr. Steven Hoefflin made statements to the newspaper that he knew were false in an attempt to wreck a rival's reputation and hurt his celebrity-studded Beverly Hills practice.

It may not be Neverland, but it will have to do. Michael Jackson has leased a Bel-Air mansion for $100,000 a month, according to his manager-spokesman Tohme Tohme. The pop icon wanted to be closer to "where all the action is" in the entertainment industry, the spokesman said. The gated estate that Jackson is leasing was one of the most expensive houses listed for sale last year in Los Angeles but was withdrawn from the market after the Gloved One signed a year's lease.

The gates of Neverland Ranch. The crystal right-hand glove worn in the video for "Billie Jean." An arcade's worth of video games and a small army of fiberglass butlers and other figures once scattered about to make the mansion feel less lonely. These are just a few of the 1,390 lots of Michael Jackson's belongings now on the auction block in Beverly Hills.

Michael Jackson was not of this world.

Michael Jackson was fascinated by celebrity tragedy. He had a statue of Marilyn Monroe in his home and studied the sad Hollywood exile of Charlie Chaplin. He married the daughter of Elvis Presley. Jackson met his own untimely death Thursday at age 50, and more than any of those past icons, he left a complicated legacy.

Michael Jackson, an incomparable figure in music, dance and culture whose ever-changing face graced the covers of albums that sold more than half a billion copies, died Thursday, shortly after going into cardiac arrest at his rented Holmby Hills mansion. He was 50. He spent much of his life as one of the most famous people on the planet, and to many, his untimely death felt both unthinkable and, oddly, inevitable.

Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is a fearless, equal-opportunity offender, but when it comes to jokes about Michael Jackson in Baron Cohen's new film "Bruno," there apparently are limits: At the last minute, "Bruno's" filmmakers have deleted a comic sequence about Jackson and his sister, La Toya.

In death, Michael Jackson is a bestseller again. Along Hollywood Boulevard on Friday, mourners snapped up glossy posters and T-shirts bearing the singer's image from rows of sidewalk sellers. Online retailers reported that they were placing back orders for sold-out merchandise and working with suppliers to meet the staggering demand. Elsewhere, business was brisk in pretty much all things MJ. "This is simply unprecedented," said Bill Carr, vice president of music and video at Amazon.com Inc.