A simple answer would be ‘no.’ As the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in 2009, "Michael Jackson never performed an actual ticketed show in Las Vegas during his adult career." The closest he came was holding some recording sessions in the studio at the Palms hotel-casino. He also provided the theme song for Siegfried & Roy’s Mirage show and stayed often in The Mirage’s poolside villas during the era when Steve Wynn owned the property. His presence in Las Vegas, through Bally Technologies’ Michael Jackson series of slot machines, his wax figure at Madame Tussaud’s in the Venetian, and in Cirque du Soleil’s Jackson tribute show, Michael Jackson One, looms larger in death than in life.
As a member of the Jackson 5, Michael did perform a series of gigs at Bally’s Las Vegas in 1974, beginning in April. Twenty years later, he would return to Sin City for an NBC telecast from MGM Grand Garden of "The Jackson Family Honors." Other than singing as part of an ensemble number at the end of the show, Jackson’s sole contribution was a spoken tribute to Berry Gordy, founder of Motown Records.
After settling a sex-abuse in California, Jackson found refuge in Las Vegas and Pahrump periodically from 2002 to 2008, including a six-month stretch in 2007. The most notorious of these escapades took place following his arraignment for child molestation in 2003. Jackson posted bail in California, then jetted to Vegas. "A slow-speed car chase ensued as local and national media followed from the air and ground Jackson's Lincoln Navigator as it seemingly wandered the streets of Las Vegas and Henderson," chronicled the R-J eventually culminating in a grand arrival at Green Valley Ranch.
As Jackson’s Lincoln Navigator meandered north, then south, fans ran alongside and mobbed the vehicle as though it contained a visiting pope. Of the media circus, then-Station Casinos spokeswoman Stephanie Bethel told the Las Vegas Business Press that if Station had it to do over, they’d have Jackson stay somewhere else.
Following his acquittal, Jackson went into self-imposed exile (in Bahrain, and later Ireland), before returning to the U.S. and renting a house in Summerlin from late 2006 to June 2007. Its features included tunnels, enabling Jackson to move about freely, and a 74-seat chapel. When Jacko eventually left, local gossip columnist Norm Clarke reported that the house, Hacienda Palomino, was "filthy," with Christmas trees still standing. Jackson’s presence did wonders for the property’s value, though. Listed at $3.5 million in 2004, it was marked up to $19.5 million after Jackson left, but eventually reality set and it was sold for $3.1 million.
During this period, Jackson met in Vegas to discuss the never-to-be This Is It show with Kenny Ortega, plans that included a 50-foot-tall Michael Jackson robot, which was to roam the Nevada desert as a kind of ambulatory billboard for the show. "Michael's looked at the sketches and liked them," said co-designer Michael Luckman at the time.
The mega-production was initially thought to be Vegas-bound but investors proved scarce and it would eventually be rehearsed in London before Jackson’s untimely death put an end to it. One of the stranger by-blows of the Jackson/Ortega skull sessions was the notion of a Jackson-themed hotel-casino on the Vegas Strip. Visitors would be met at the entrance by a Jackson android. Said Luckman, "Michael really liked the initial designs and wanted to use them … The face would move, shooting laser-beam-looking lights. The whole building would be covered with spotlights." Promoter Jack Wishna also peddled the idea of a three-days-a-month residency show, at a casino to be determined, entitled Rock City, although the craziness of the Jackson family, especially papa Joe, became too much for Wishna to handle.
In early 2008, Jackson lurked at the Palms for two months, making recordings. (Some of these tracks found their way onto the 25th anniversary reissue of "Thriller.") Because of the way the Palms’ recording studio is set up, the reclusive Jackson didn’t even have to leave his suite much of the time but could pipe his vocals into the studio via remote.
At this time, Jackson was deeply in debt to private-equity fund Colony Capital, which foreclosed on his Neverland Ranch. There was speculation that Colony would dismantle the adult playground and move it to Las Vegas, possibly to a large tract of land that Station Casinos had acquired near Palace Station and Rex Bell Elementary school, or perhaps to Station-owned acreage near its Wild Wild West casino, but nothing came of those rumors.
Had Jackson lived through the This Is It dates in London, he was planning to return to Las Vegas and, newly flush, purchase Gary Primm’s lavish (10 bedrooms), $16.5 million estate – which includes everything from horse stables to a roomful of taxidermied animals (including a giraffe) to two on-site filling stations. Jackson told realtor Zar Zaganeh he planned to call the Tomiyasu Lane compound "Wonderland." (Jackson’s neighbors would have included Wayne Newton and the Sultan of Brunei.) The entertainer loved its centrally controlled gates, its bulletproof doors, tunnels, hidden passageways, and its panic room, with dedicated phone lines and oxygen supply. He also liked the fact that the grounds – spacious enough that helicopters have landed on them -- were sufficiently shady that he could walk outside and not have to protect his face from the sun with a mask or umbrella.
"Michael wanted to make sure that his kids were very safe. He was always nervous that someone could perhaps kidnap the kids, or something awful could happen, so safety was the biggest factor for him in finding a home," Zaganeh said. "Here, with the underground tunnel and the indoor garage, he was able to drive in quite a few cars and pack and unpack the cars in safety." (Jackson also planned to purchase the Primms’ pet pig as part of the deal.)
Who knew that Michael Jackson’s greatest impact on Las Vegas – aside from keeping a host of celebrity impersonators employed – would be as a real estate mogul rather than an entertainer?
