Michael Jackson almost fills debt hole from the grave

Earlier this week, some news places were reporting that Michael Jackson was afraid he'd end up working in McDonalds if his London comeback shows didn't work. We have this, by the way, on the highest of authorities:

"He was scared to death because AEG was funding everything. He said he would have to work at McDonalds if he didn't do these shows," Michael’s hairstylist Karen Faye reportedly told LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) detectives just days after the pop icon passed away.

That seems quite a lot for a barber to know about - if she was claiming he'd intended to go somewhere nice for his holidays, or had been planning to have sex on Saturday or Sunday and had taken something for the weekend, maybe this would be credible.

Can you imagine Jackson working in McDonalds? As if having Ronald McDonald in there isn't alarming enough for the kids. To say nothing of how the last place a man whose face kept dropping off should be working is in the catering industry - although, to be fair, his face contained about as much flesh as Taco Bell beef.

Still, it turned out that Jackson shouldn't have worried. All he had to do, it turns out, was drop down dead. He's been doing nicely since then:

The pop superstar passed away with massive debts amounting to a mammoth $400 million (£266 million), boosted by a huge number of creditors demanding alleged unpaid monies after his demise.

But papers filed in a Los Angeles court on Thursday (17Feb11) show the Thriller star's estate is heading back in to the black thanks to a huge surge in posthumous record, film and merchandising sales.

The estate administrators have now paid off $159 million (£106 million) of the pop star's debts.

To be fair, though, the paying back of debt is as much about not having to fund a man who would buy a pottery leopard with jade eyes at the drop of a hat.

If only the deficit was as easy to fix, eh, George?