Whitney Houston, Bio-Babies, and Nazis: Exposing the Lies of Michael Jackson's Fake Bodyguard
How Matt Fiddes turned an unpaid weekend of umbrella-holding into a lucrative money-making scheme[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]When a group of Michael Jackson fans created the California Anti-Defamation Law petition in 2010, hoping to get a law passed that would make it illegal to slander the dead . . . it was for people like this.
Matt Fiddes, from Devon, is British martial arts and fitness trainer who claims to run a network of martial arts schools around the U.K. (though currently, all but one of his companies has dissolved). He is also something of a famewhore in his home county. Prior to making a business out of exploiting Michael Jackson's children . . . Matt was mostly known for allegedly forging documents in a lawsuit against Channel 4 (which he promptly dropped); for sending out his own press releases to gush about an alleged secret relationship with Z-list celeb Bianca Gascoigne (tweeted Bianca: "#TEAMSINGLE!"); to obsessively harassing and threatening Big Brother star Chanelle Hayes and her son.
Quite a piece of work, huh?
Fiddes was first introduced to Michael Jackson in June 2002 via the spoon-bending guru Uri Geller, who he had worked with on a fitness video and was an old friend of Jackson's. (Geller famously sold said "friend" to controversial journalist Martin Bashir for a reported $200,000k.)
Geller asked Fiddes to sub as one of Jackson's bodyguards for free, during an event at Exeter Football Club over the weekend -- a request he gladly accepted.
And that is where Jackson's known association with Fiddes ends. Despite his own assertion that he was "Michael Jackson's U.K. bodyguard," Jackson had no further contact with Fiddes on trips to England, Scotland, Ireland, or Wales.
Fiddes (a self-proclaimed millionaire martial artist) also told inquiring Jackson fans on Twitter that he'd "practically lived with Michael for 10 years" . . . a bizarre claim with nothing to back it up. There's no video footage and no photographs of Fiddes and Jackson together, beyond the few taken in 2002. (This is especially odd, considering there are many fansites solely dedicated to collecting and organizing every photo of Jackson from every day of his life.)
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]What's more -- no one from Jackson's life seems to know Fiddes. Not his makeup artist (she said Fiddes and Geller "creep me out"); not his former managers ("I have no idea who he is!" Frank Cascio said on Twitter); not his friends; nor his actual long-term bodyguards and security team.
Knowing all this, one might wonder why and how Fiddes is still relevant, given that he barely knew or interacted with Michael Jackson. However, it wasn't until years later that this unpaid weekend of umbrella-holding for the King of Pop turned into something much more lucrative. . . .
In 2008, members of the Jackson family (including Jackie, Tito, and their mother Katherine) were considering buying a holiday home in England; subsequently, an hour-long documentary was filmed about their U.K. visit. Never one to miss an opportunity, Matt Fiddes made himself available as a local guide to the Jacksons, on the basis of his previous tenuous association with Michael Jackson.
Family matriarch Katherine Jackson would later say in an official statement, "Fiddes tried to pretend he was a close friend to my son Michael, but when I spoke to Michael about him, he could not remember who he was."
Things quickly took a turn for the worse when the family had falling out with their self-appointed tour guide. . . .
[img]What's more -- no one from Jackson's life seems to know Fiddes. Not his makeup artist (she said Fiddes and Geller "creep me out"); not his former managers ("I have no idea who he is!" Frank Cascio said on Twitter); not his friends; nor his actual long-term bodyguards and security team. Knowing all this, one might wonder why and how Fiddes is still relevant, given that he barely knew or interacted with Michael Jackson. However, it wasn't until years later that this unpaid weekend of umbrella-holding for the King of Pop turned into something much more lucrative. . . . In 2008, members of the Jackson family (including Jackie, Tito, and their mother Katherine) were considering buying a holiday home in England; subsequently, an hour-long documentary was filmed about their U.K. visit. Never one to miss an opportunity, Matt Fiddes made himself available as a local guide to the Jacksons, on the basis of his previous tenuous association with Michael Jackson. Family matriarch Katherine Jackson would later say in an official statement, "Fiddes tried to pretend he was a close friend to my son Michael, but when I spoke to Michael about him, he could not remember who he was." Things quickly took a turn for the worse when the family had falling out with their self-appointed tour guide. . . .
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Tito Jackson recalled: "Matt started to get in more and more shots, and didn't want this or that person to be involved because it would take away from his screen time.
"When I saw Matt trying to run me the way he wanted, I put a stop to it. That's when things started falling apart. Some people want to be seen in your company and want to piggyback on your 40 years of hard work. And when you figure that out, they get mad."
The Jacksons Are Coming documentary aired on Channel 4 shortly thereafter, showing Fiddes in an unfavorable light, using his association with the Jacksons to sell stories to tabloid newspapers. Enraged, Fiddes took a lawsuit out against Channel 4 in January 2010, alleging that they had misrepresented him.
When the Jacksons offered evidence against Fiddes on behalf of the documentary crew, he wrote Tito Jackson, threatening the family "would regret it" if they crossed him.
"We decided we were going to come and tell the truth about him, anyway," Katherine Jackson declared. "You have to stand up to people like this."
In June of that year, Fiddes dropped the lawsuit after it was alleged he had forged a document, leaving Channel 4 with a £1.7 million legal bill. Fiddes later admitted that he "publicly acknowledges that the programme was not 'faked' as he has previously claimed and has today withdrawn his allegations of malice."
Not one to mince words, the chief executive of the documentary's production company, Stephen Lambert, subsequently described Fiddes as "vainglorious" and "a fame-seeking fantasist."
A few months later, Fiddes made good on his threat to the Jacksons: He sold a story to News Of The World, a British tabloid, in which he claimed to be the biological father of Michael Jackson's third child, Prince Michael Jackson II (nicknamed "Blanket").
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Fiddes bragged that he was offered £500,000 ($1,000,000) by the King of Pop for his precious "athletic" seed, but that he turned it down. He also suggested that, during a stay in London in April 2001, Jackson stole his sperm under the guise of testing it for Fiddes. As if such a tale wasn't laughable enough . . . it turns out that Jackson wasn't even in London in April 2001.
Fiddes sold many more Jackson-related stories to the Daily Star, News of the World, et al., over the years, hiding behind the fact that one cannot legally libel the dead. More recently, he claimed he would fly to Los Angeles to legally assert paternity and consequent legal guardianship of Michael Jackson's youngest son. (He initially claimed he was going to do this in January 2011, as well -- though he never followed through.)
"He won't go to L.A., he has no intention!" Fiddes ex-girlfriend Carly Galliford said via Twitter. "He loves the attention, not caring about the Jacksons." Galliford (who claims she was with Fiddes when he came up with the baby-daddy tale) said that Fiddes admitted to lying about being Blanket’s father to her face, years ago.
"He has told me himself it is a 'money-maker'! He was not even ashamed," Galliford continued. "He is not Blanket Jackson's dad. All lies!"
And now, in April 2012, Fiddes has reared his ugly head again. This time, after a barrage of Jackson fans complained about him online, Fiddes gave a scathing interview to the Sun, making wild claims about his supposed friend, Michael Jackson.
The claims are easy to debunk but too numerous to list, to be honest. However, we'll try to address the eight most controversial, below. . . .
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