How Michael Jackson Nearly Lost His Prized Music Catalog

A Wrap Series: The tangled web of Michael Jackson's finances and his tumultuous 30 years of dealings with the superlawyer who now rules his estate -- the first of five parts

No one said that ruling Michael Jackson’s inner circle would be a moonwalk.

Just a year and a half after his death, lawyer John G. Branca is about to oversee the release of a posthumous album on Dec. 14 under a new $250 million deal for the estate, even as he negotiates a way out of a looming $300 million debt that Jackson left behind.

But did Branca, who had a hand in nearly all of MJ's most brilliant career and financial moves, always have his client's best interests at heart? According to documents obtained by TheWrap, the lawyer tried to help along a deal that would have dispossessed Jackson of the music catalogue he held most dear -- while making Branca considerably richer.

Branca has never embraced the limelight. But in a months-long investigation that included secret documents and two dozen interviews -- one with Branca himself -- TheWrap reveals the complicated relationship between the singer and the lawyer that Jackson would hire for the last time within a week of his death.

In that short, final tenure, Branca was left permanently in charge of one of the most important music legacies of our time.

Branca’s roller-coaster relationship with Jackson unfolds over 30 years of hiring and refiring.

It is punctuated by moments of brilliance, such as when the lawyer orchestrated Jackson's purchase of the Beatles' song catalogue, ATV Music, perhaps the most important deal of Jackson’s life.

But some might conclude that Branca is no hero at all. A deal in 2003 to sell Jackson’s interests in the Beatles’ and Mijac catalogues to the investment bank Goldman Sachs will lead some to question Branca's role in Jackson's business affairs.

Either way, his importance in the constellation of Michael Jackson’s firmament cannot be dismissed. The release within days of Jackson’s first posthumous album comes on the heels of record-setting income of $275 million in the year since Jackson died. According to Forbes magazine, the sum topped the year's list of entertainer’s posthumous earnings.

This summer, however, Branca became preoccupied with Jackson's massive $300 million bank debt, due this month, against the estate’s crown jewel -- half interest in Sony/ATV Music Publishing.

At the core of Sony/ATV’s enviable collection of rights to songs by the likes of Elvis, Bob Dylan and Eminem is to be found the Beatles song catalog, a 20^th century musical treasure that Branca famously arranged for Jackson once to own outright.