A captain with the L.A. City Fire Department tells us the burns Michael Jackson suffered during the filming of the 1984 Pepsi commercial were caused by a director who wanted to get a more dramatic shot.
Captain Don Donester was at the filming, working as a fire safety inspector. Donester says after doing take after take, he overheard the director tell Jackson, "Stand there longer [under the sparks]. You'll look more majestic." According to Donester, by making Jackson stay under the sparks for a longer period of time, it would look as if the singer was emerging from the smoke and sparks.
We just spoke with the director, Bob Giraldi, who said "That's not true. Whatever." Then he hung up.
In Michael's autobiography, the singer backs up Donester's story, writing Giraldi "came up to me and said, 'Michael, you're going down too early. We want to see you up there, up on the stairs. When the lights come on, we want to reveal that you're there, so wait.'"
Donester says the director's decision went against the rules set by the senior fire safety inspector. Don also told us he was one of the people who helped put out the fire on Michael's head.
Various people connected with Jackson say the serious burns the singer suffered triggered his prescription drug addiction, that consumed him for the rest of his life.
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Those people shoul've been sued or at least paid his medical bills relating to that incident for however long he needed treatment !
Who Cares/
Old News,, But If MJ did not have all that Afro Sheen crap on his hair to make it look like
a white persons hair , He would not have caught on fire.. IT SAYS ON THE JAR IN BIG LETTERS
FLAMMABLE !!!!! HE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN.... HE COULD READ ?? ORR COULD HE ??
SoSad-- They did pay him money-- and he donated it to a burns unit at a hospital
Yes, Yes! Why wasn't there more concern for an accident possibility. I don't know what extinguishers would have done but it seems like there should have been a team at the ready. Mike only sued for a million and change and then donated that to charity. I would've owned Pepsi for that screw up. I admit it was probably the curl activator in MJ's hair which was more than likely petroleum based. Any director with a brain should've recognized the potential for disaster and was, indeed, negligent.
TO 5. Those people shoul've been sued or at least paid his medical bills relating to that incident for however long he needed treatment !
Posted at 6:52PM on Jul 16th 2009 by SoSad
THEY WERE SUED NUMNUTS !!! YOU ARE SO SAD.... A REAL FAN WOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT...
I Will Take Being Born White Any Day - Thats Worth Much More To Me, #6:
What if that guy was with the Mafia? Then he would be Don Don Donester.
Why are you doing this story now. This should have been done twenty-five years ago when it was actually news. The man is dead for crying out loud!
The same thing goes for the tape. Why would it be released now. It makes absolutely no sense now.
Harvey, we all know you have been riding the MJ thing quite a bit. Well the train ride is over until the autopsy results come out. This site does not have to report each little tidbit or make something to be a "newsworthy item" when it is ancient history. Probabily three quarters of your staff and half of your viewing audience weren't around back in January 1984 when this happend. It was news back then, it is not news now.
