Dee / Demy ꨄ🪷

Wish people paid attention to how artists, especially Black artists, are exploited financially. Historically, a lot of Black artists were exploited by their accountants and business managers resulting in bankruptcy and other legal troubles. Trust is super important when it comes to things like this and a lot of these managers end up betraying their clients and exploiting them for their own financial gain. Michael was betrayed countless times by people he hired to work for him who instead decided to exploit him (ex. Branca, Tohme, Bernstein, Fox, Whitman, Goldman and Sloan). This also happened to Black artists like Sam Cooke and Dionne Warwick. Sam Cooke's case is particularly interesting because Allen Klein did a lot of shady stuff and ended up taking control of Sam Cooke's business and catalog. However, Allen Klein also worked for the Rolling Stones and Mick Jagger happened to have some knowledge of finance and accounting so he figured out that Allen Klein was trying to screw him over financially. That was a super rare occurrence because most artists do not have a lot of knowledge on the legal system or accounting which is what makes them so vulnerable. This is one of the reasons why we see so many artists performing in their old age despite being super famous and all. It's because their finances and legal troubles were mismanaged. And back to Michael - his financial and legal situation required so much trust + attention (due to his own catalog, his business ventures, and of course the Sony/ATV catalog) and quite literally everybody he hired betrayed him. And now you're telling me these documents plus other things disappeared like 😭😭😭 this man was SO exploited and I hope we see the full truth come to light some day in a grand, public way and hold these people accountable.