Michael Jackson’s former Neverland ranch in California was sold to U.S. billionaire Ron Burkle, his spokesman said Thursday, at a sharply lowered price of about $ 22 million.
The late King of Pop turned his huge mansion into a fairytale-themed retreat, with toy railroads, ferris wheels and orangutans, and wrote some of his major hits there.
But Neverland was also the infamous place Jackson invited children to visit and sleep with, and the scene of alleged child sexual abuse, according to accusations against him.
After Jackson’s death, it was renamed Sycamore Valley Ranch in 2009.
Burkle, a Montana businessman with investments ranging from supermarkets to the entertainment industry, bought the ranch “as a ‘land banking’ opportunity,” his spokesman told AFP in reference to the land acquisition for long-term investment.
The $ 22 million price reported by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed to AFP as a source familiar with the deal would mean a sharp drop in the ranch’s starting price of $ 100 million. in 2015.
That juicy figure, considered “optimistic” by realtors even at the time, dropped to $ 31 million last year, but the ranch remained unsold and was withdrawn from the market.
Burkle was flying over the region recently to explore a neighboring property, likely to house a new branch of his private club network Soho House, when he spotted the ranch, after which he contacted its owner, according to the spokesman.
Michael Jackson reportedly paid $ 19.5 million for the property in the 1980s. Thomas Barrack Jr.’s investment firm Colony Capital. he bought the ranch from the then heavily indebted singer for $ 22.5 million the year before his death.
Burkle had worked in the past as the singer’s advisor on business matters, including resolving debts incurred for his luxurious lifestyle in the years preceding his death.
The 1,100-hectare estate, located 65 kilometers from Santa Barbara, has a main house with six bedrooms and three guest houses, a lake with a waterfall, tennis courts, several barns and shelter facilities. animals.
Jackson’s ranch was flattened in 2003 as part of a child abuse case against him and police confiscated a large repertoire of pornography and images of naked children.
Jackson was acquitted in 2005.
Last year, the HBO documentary “Leaving Neverland” aired testimonies from two men who claim Jackson sexually abused them as children on the ranch, including the attic, master bedroom and pool.
Jackson’s heirs, who sued HBO for $ 100 million for the “posthumous murder of a character,” deny all charges, as Jackson did in life.