MJ: breakdowns and houses

STRAITJACKETS AND REAL ESTATE: "Trouble with MJ. Big trouble. He is having a mental breakdown." So reads an e-mail from AEG's then-chief, Tim Leiweke, to CFO (and current CEO) Dan Beckerman shortly before Michael Jackson's death. When asked about the message in video testimony shown to jurors in the MJ wrongful-death trial, Leiweke disclaims any memory of the e-mail; when pressed about whether he in fact thought Jackson was having a mental breakdown, the exec suggests that "he" may in fact have referred to AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips. "I figured something might be wrong given how jittery Randy has been this week," Beckerman wrote back to his boss at the time. "Is it 'pre-show nerves' bad or 'get a straight [sic] jacket/call our insurance carrier' bad?" In other Jackson-Phillips news, it appears the megastar tearfully confided to the AEG Live honcho that he needed the This Is It tour proceeds to buy a home for his three kids, then later set his sights on a $93 million mansion. Meanwhile, irony takes center stage, as do surviving Jackson brothers Jermaine, Tito, Marlon and Jackie, at an AEG Live-produced gig on 6/30 at the Staples Center, mere blocks from the courtroom. Will the ghost of Michael—said to have been conjured by a medium who told a psychic who told Phillips that Dr. Conrad Murray wasn't at fault—make an appearance? (6/13p)