With the terrible news on Astroworld Festival, some twitter accounts are falsely claiming that people died at a Michael Jackson concert. It’s unclear why they choose to bring Michael Jackson’s name into this tragedy!
As this has become a discussion topic, we wanted to not only fact check, but document the truth of this claim so it’s on record.
No, 23 people did not die at a Michael Jackson concert.
The claim comes from two similar articles from two unofficial or unverified websites. The article is full of inconsistencies, first claiming the concert took place in ‘1999 in Bucharest’ – Jackson only performed two shows in 1999 – one in Munich and one in Seoul.
The first article claims that 5,000 people fainted and then claims ‘among them, 23 people fainted’ – then suggests one person died on the spot. The second suggests the concert went on for THREE DAYS! – Jackson had stamina, but a three-day concert?!
These are obvious translation errors. So, not only are the claims wrong, the translations do not even tell the correct story at all. Therefore not a trustworthy source, or to be used to justify what happened at Astroworld.
Knowing Jackson’s character, its safe to say if 23 people had died at one of his concerts, the impact on his attitude to performing live would have been forever changed and in the most extreme case, he may never have performed at a stadium again.
But it didn’t happen, in addition, there is absolutely no case where this concert would have been approved for airing on BBC in the UK and HBO in the U.S and released on DVD in 2004 if it had in fact resulted in the death of 23 people
But seeing as some seem to think Jackson would be heartless enough to allow this to happen, let’s remember the type of person he actually was: In 2002 when fans swarmed MJ, they knocked a lady passing by and Jackson was quick to reprimand them and have them move back.
When his fans were found in dangerous situations such as one outside his hotel and one during a live performance, Michael Jackson stepped in to resolve the issue and ensure his fans were safe from harm where he could.
Between songs on his HIStory World Tour, Jackson had security come to remove a bug from the stage so he didn’t step on it.
Michael Jackson was also known to pay for the funerals of stories that moved him or people he was close to. Ramon Sanchez, Craig Fleming & Temptations’ David Ruffin are just 3 examples. If 23 people had died at a Jackson concert, he would have done the same. But it didn’t happen.
Michael Jackson spent much of the 90s on the front page of mainstream newspapers around the world. Everything in his world was documented, including false stories. If 23 people had died at a Jackson concert where were the front-page headlines? Where were the lawsuits?
What’s most disturbing is that people looking to partake in ‘yeah, but…’ behaviour, searched the internet for an article claiming deaths at a concert as if using it would somehow ‘balance’ what happened at Astroworld. It doesn’t.
And as always Michael Jackson gets caught in the crosshairs. If those claims were remotely true, you’d already know about it, you wouldn’t have to use one rogue website where you read only the headline to push this about.
I didn’t bring Michael Jackson into this, but I am putting this here, to take him out of it.
Pez Jax
This is an amazing article of truth, well written and moving. Thank you 🦋
It’s not about trying to equivalate the two, it’s just the fact that people got hurt at Michaels shows. He didn’t stop when the first or second or third person got put into the ambulance. So now whether he was aware of it at the time or not isnt my concern, it’s the fact that he did another show and another. So you can’t put all blame on t.s.
Dear Kerven,
This article was written due to the fact TS fans tried to justify the 8 death in Texas by saying MJ concerts had 23 death. This is not factual and wrong. Mr Jax did not put any blame on anyone for that tragedy last week-end at Astroworld.
As regarding MJ shows, we have spoken to over 100 people who worked with the King of Pop and yes he was aware of what was going on and was notified if anything was wrong. Also, I did not see any of MJ fan climbing on stage to ask crew members to stop the show or hundreds of people shouting “Stop The Show”.
This article is not to put a blame on anyone but to clearly fact check as per the title. Thank you for your input.
MJVibe.