A haunting and upsetting portrait of Michael Jackson's final months has now been painted by Grace Rwaramba, a nanny who cared for his three children.
In an interview with The Times of London, Rwaramba said she routinely pumped his stomach after he had ingested a dangerous combination of drugs.
"I had to pump his stomach so many times. He always mixed so much of it," Grace Rwaramba, 42, said. "There was one period that it was so bad that I didn't let the children see him ... He always ate too little and mixed too much."
Rwaramba, who is originally from Rwanda, is en route to L.A. where she will be interviewed by the LAPD, which is investigating why Michael Jackson died.
Having once proposed a drug invention for Michael, and contacting his mother Katherine and sister Janet for their help with it, the nanny instead got fired:
"He didn't want to listen. That was one of the times he let me go."
An employee of Michael Jackson's for more than a decade, Grace Rwaramba started as an office assistant to the pop star before becoming a nanny to his three children.
Jackson's three children are Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr., 12 (also known as Prince Michael Jackson), Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, 11, and Prince Michael Jackson II (a.k.a. Blanket), 7. Debbie Rowe is the mother of the elder two.
Rwaramba was last fired by Michael in December 2008, and claims that when she visited the three children in April, she personally had to buy the balloons for Paris' birthday party because Michael Jackson was so broke.
"Michael had no idea about money," she says, backing up claims that Jackson was rumored to be awash in about $400 million in debt at the time of his death.
According to Rwaramba, on Friday, the day after Michael died, his mother Katherine called her from Michael's L.A. house and asked where he kept his cash.
"She said, 'Grace, the children are all crying. They are asking about you. They can't believe that their father died. Grace, you remember Michael used to hide cash at the house. I am here. Where can it be?'"
Rwaramba advised looking "at the garbage bags and under the carpets."
Then, said the former nanny, "She said, 'Grace, where are you? Come. I will pick you up from the airport.' She sounded so strong. So strong!"
Jackson's autopsy results revealed an unknown cause of death. Toxicology testing should help establish more concrete answer, but will take weeks.
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31 Comments
June 28th, 2009 11:12 PM
he's gone to peace.
June 29th, 2009 9:33 AM
Sheesh. Not sure what this woman's motivation is. She talks about all she did for Michael Jackson, and likes to imply intimacy with his family, but, is this former employee truly honoring his memory..?
June 30th, 2009 9:11 PM
The former Nanny is probably just speaking the facts according to her recollection. Perhaps she doesn't have a motivation.
July 3rd, 2009 5:17 AM
Michael Jackson became a drug addict because he suffered from one of the worst forms of mental illness, referred to in psychiatry as alienation of the existential self. The root cause of this mental illness, which affects a large number of blacks, making them succumb to addiction and self destruction, is centuries of conditioning as a result of the slave trade and oppression. These facts are well explained by Oscar Bamwebaze Bamuhigire in The Healing Power Of Self Love (504 pp., $30.95, available at: http://www.amazon.co.uk ISBN-10: 144010137X
ISBN-13: 978-1440101373). He argues that:
Due to the effects of alienation of the existential self, some blacks have even gone as far as changing their skin color from black to white, in an attempt to deny their “Africanness”. Many African women today apply skinlightening creams, and wear wigs of white women’s hair, in an attempt to deny their “Africanness”. It is considered fashionable by many African women to wear a wig of a white woman’s hair. Many Africans break their backs trying to imitate the accents of Europeans or Americans. These are symptoms of the psychiatric illness which Frantz Fanon aptly labeled ‘Alienation of the existential self ’. It is a severe form of self hatred which often leads to self destruction, physical and mental illness. Emmanuel Hansen, in his analysis
of the works of Frantz Fanon, explained:
Fanon uses the word Alienation to indicate a variety of phenomena. He
uses it to identify a ‘psycho existential complex’ – a series of inferiority
complexes that manifest themselves in the existential condition of the
individual. He also uses the word to indicate a condition of separation or
attempted separation of the individual from himself. ‘A Senegalese learns
Creole in order to pass as an Artilles Native: I call this alienation.’ Here it is
a separation or an attempted separation of the individual from his existential
self or an aspect of his existential self. The fact of being ‘Senegalese’ is part
of the existential self of a native of Senegal, and to run away from this is to
manifest alienation. In the same way, a black man who tries to run away
from the existential condition of blackness manifests alienation…
According to Hansen, Fanon added another dimension to the notion of separation. This was the notion of alienation of the existential self. To run away from the self, he said, is merely to avoid the self, but Fanon was talking about suppressing the self and killing it. In both cases, alienation is manifested. In many cases, the victims of alienation suppress and kill the self through alcoholism/ drug addiction. Hansen explains how colonialism/ slave trade forced its victims to turn against themselves in self destruction: “In this way violence is introduced into the relations of the colonizer and the colonized, but due to the fear of severe sanctions or a feeling of inferiority, the violence of the native is repressed…” he said. “Fanon argues that the native attempts to relieve this repressed violence by visiting it upon himself, or on other natives… sometimes the alienation of the native seeks an outlet in nihilistic acts of self destruction…” (P.301)
In The Healing Power of Self Love it is further explained that:
The African Americans and other non white people today suffer from high rates of alcoholism and self-destruction, because of the long term effects of abuses which their ancestors were subjected to. They are the products of several generations which never healed from their wounds, and from which they have ‘inherited’ various mental illnesses and psychopathologies. Every new generation that emerges, becomes the unconscious recipient of the psychopathology of its ancestors, who were the original victims of the slave trade, discrimination, and oppression. Once infected, this new generation also unconsciously transmits its illnesses to the next, perpetuating an endless pattern of self destruction. Whereas it is very likely that the original slaves were of sound mind and body, it is also a well acknowledged fact that they were traumatized by the slave trade and other forms of abuse. This being the case, it would be illogical for any of us to expect their children to be emotionally healthy, when they were raised under the very conditions which caused their parent’s trauma! Not only were the children of traumatized slaves also traumatized, but so were their children’s children. Realistically speaking, we should not expect a race which has been subjected to more than four hundred years of torture and trauma, to heal from its festering sores, when it was denied professional treatment.
…The fact that injuries inflicted upon the mind usually manifest themselves in the form of physiopathology, and psychopathology, is well demonstrated by the African American’s health profile today. This argument was supported by Dr. Miller’s observation that, “In fact, most illnesses are nothing more than the language permitted the abused child, as represented by the adult body. How else is the truth of a tormented, unwanted, and betrayed child to find an outlet in our society?” (P.107)… As expected, many people will be quick to reject the idea that the average African American today, still suffers from the effects of the slave trade. They will argue that because the slave trade occurred several hundred years ago, its effects can no longer be felt. According to this argument, those who were wounded by this trade died ages ago, and their descendants can not be directly affected by an event which they did not experience first hand.
But those who are psychologically inclined will humbly beg to differ from this prevalent view, and maintain that the African American’s illnesses are nothing other than the language permitted an abused race, because this is the only way the truth of a tormented, unwanted and betrayed race can find an outlet in our society. Through illnesses of all kinds, the African American race continues to flee from its ugly past. Dr. Miller, in For Your Own Good, argues that, “our earliest experiences unfailingly affect society as a whole; that psychoses, drug addiction, and criminality are encoded expressions of these experiences”. Therefore, even when we have the strength to flee from our earliest experiences, we cannot hide from them.
July 3rd, 2009 9:27 AM
the nanny had been out of his life and had been put out for a reason. no doubt the media paid her well for the yarns she spun.
rip michael. god bless you.
July 5th, 2009 6:02 AM
MOST BLACKS SUFFER SAME FATE AS MICHAEL JACKSON
Most African Americans suffer the same fate as Michael Jackson, and this has been the case for several centuries. Michael Jackson’s addictions and severe mental illnesses, including one referred to in psychiatry as alienation of the existential self, are more common among black people than any other race. The root cause of this phenomenon has been attributed to centuries of conditioning as a result of the slave trade and oppression. These facts are well explained by Oscar Bamwebaze in The Healing Power Of Self Love (504 pp., $30.95 available at: http://www.amazon.co.uk ISBN-10: 144010137X ISBN-13: 978-1440101373)
Oscar Bamwebaze goes a head to reveal that, even though 1 in 2 Americans has a diagnosable mental disorder each year, and 81 Americans commit suicide every day, of all the races in the United States, the African Americans rank highest in psychopathology, alcoholism, and self destruction…70 to 75% of the nation’s 2 million heroin addicts are black! African Americans account for 39% of the drug abuse related emergency room visits reported to the Drug Abuse Warning Network of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Since 1980, the suicide rates among young black males has doubled, and African Americans are more likely to experience a mental disorder than their white counterparts… somatization is more common among African Americans than among whites. Unlike the other races, African Americans experience culture-bound syndromes such as isolated sleep paralysis. Over 25% of African American youth exposed to violence meet the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Among Vietnam War veterans, 21% of black veterans, compared to 14% of non-Hispanic white veterans, suffer from PTSD…
July 6th, 2009 5:36 AM
Seriously how can we believe anything that these idiotic tabloids have to say now. It's all he-said she-said. I hope that Michael's children and assets are handled as he intended them to be. I thought he'd fired this nanny?
July 7th, 2009 5:17 AM
She didn't talk like that when Michael was alive. I don't believe a word she's saying.
July 7th, 2009 7:34 AM
MICHAEL JACKSON’S CHILDREN MAY BE MENTALLY ILL/ TRAUMATIZED
Michael Jackson’s children may be mentally ill/ traumatized because of their frequent interaction with him. Mental illness and other forms of psychopathology are frequently transmitted in this manner. This argument is well developed by Oscar Bamwebaze Bamuhigire in The Healing Power Of Self Love (504 pp., $30.95). He observes that:
The health status of an individual or social group can be transmitted. Curl Jung observed that, “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances. If there is any reaction, both are transformed.”…human illnesses, including alcoholism, psychopathology, mental illness and self destruction, can be passed on from one person to another through contagion…A good example is mass psychogenic illness, in which symptoms of illness are passed on from person to person among people who are visible to one another. Timothy F. Jones, the deputy state epidemiologist at the Tennessee Department of Health, observed that, “You get sick because you see someone else getting sick.” Mass psychogenic illness is just one of several examples of what is known as contagious behavior: the unconscious transmission of actions or emotions from one individual to another...on a daily basis, we “contract” subtle emotions and complex behaviors, such as happiness, sadness, anger, bulimic symptoms, and depression, from the people we associate with…Contagion involves both biological and social processes… The most widely studied contagious quality is that of mood and emotion. It was discovered that we often unconsciously pick up other people’s emotions- both negative and positive- without consciously trying to do so…
July 8th, 2009 4:38 PM
MICHAEL IS MICHAEL, NUMER 1 KIN OF KIN. TE AMO POR SIEMPRE,TU Q ERES UN GRAN MAESTRO PARA MI Q NOO HAY Q ODIAR NI TENER RENCOR A NADIE.Y DAR MAS AMOR A CAMBIO DE NADA.SIEMPRE VIVES EN EL MUNDO I LOV UUUUU