Michael Jackson’s former Neverland Ranch in California was sold to US billionaire Ron Burkle, his spokesman said on Thursday, at a reduced price of about 22 million dollars.
The late king of pop turned his massive mansion into a fairytale-themed paradise, complete with a toy railroad, a Ferris wheel and orangutans, and wrote some of his greatest hits there.
But Neverland was also the infamous place where Jackson invited the children to visit him and sleep, as well as the place of the alleged sexual abuse of minors, according to the accusations brought 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 farm as a “land banking” opportunity, his spokesman told AFP, referring to the acquisition of land for long-term investment.
The $ 22 million price that the Wall Street Journal reported and confirmed to AFP as a close source of the agreement would mean a significant reduction in the initial farm price of $ 100 million in 2015.
This juicy figure, considered “optimistic” by real estate agents at the time, fell to $ 31 million last year, but the farm remained unsold and was taken off the market.
Burkle was recently flying overhead to explore a neighboring property, which could house a new subsidiary of his private Soho House club network, when he saw the farm, then contacted its owner, according to the spokesman.
Michael Jackson reportedly paid $ 19.5 million for the property in the 1980s. Thomas Barrack Jr. Colony Capital’s investment firm bought the farm from the then heavily indebted singer for $ 22.5 million the previous year. his death.
Burkle had previously been the singer’s advisor on business matters, including settling debts from his generous lifestyle in the years leading up to his passing.
The 1,100-hectare farm, located 65 kilometers from Santa Barbara, has a main house with six bedrooms and three guest houses, a waterfall lake, tennis courts, several barns and animal shelters.
Jackson’s ranch was attacked in 2003 as part of a child abuse case against him, and police confiscated a wide repertoire of pornography and images of naked children.
Jackson was acquitted in 2005.
Last year, the HBO documentary “Leaving Neverland” published testimonies from two men who claim that Jackson sexually abused them as children on the farm, including the attic, the master bedroom and the pool.
Jackson’s estate, which sued HBO for $ 100 million for “posthumously killing a character,” denies all allegations, as Jackson did in his lifetime.