Did Your Kids Sleep with Michael Jackson? Michael Jackson's Bodyguard Reveals All!

Are there similarities in the lives of Michael Jackson and his long term friend and bodyguard, Matt Fiddes? I find out.

Step into the world of Matt Fiddes, renowned as Michael Jackson's trusted bodyguard, as he unveils the gripping truths of life beside the King of Pop. Get ready for intimate tales of life with the King of Pop—thrilling Neverland adventures, shocking allegations, and efforts to clean up Michael's image. But amidst the scandals lies a tale of resilience and success—discover how Matt built his multi-million-pound empire. Delve into the striking parallels between Matt and Michael's lives, from their shared struggles to their meteoric rise to the top.

Key Insights:
Building a Successful Business: Matt shares insights into starting his karate studio at 16 and scaling it into a thriving franchise, inspired by Michael Jackson. Key lessons include strategic marketing, competition analysis, and scalable business models.
Marketing Strategies and Innovation: Explore Matt's innovative marketing tactics, including branding and celebrity endorsements, and learn how staying ahead of the curve ensures long-term success.
Overcoming Personal Challenges: Delve into Matt's journey through personal struggles with bullying and addiction, and discover how resilience, mentorship, and a supportive network paved the way for growth and success.

Timestamps
0:00 - Intro
1:44 - Matt Fiddes Childhood
4:07 - What would you tell your kids to do to deal with bullying?
8:10 - Black Belt at 12 - can you take on an 18 year old?
10:15 - Opening First Karate Studio at 16 to 100 Members
17:17 - Did you learn anything back then that would be revolutionary today?
20:54 - How were you marketing your schools?
21:59 - What got you into the books?
23:29 - What was the competition saying?
25:45 - When did you start to Franchise it?
29:50 - Michael Gave You The Idea To Franchise
31:03 - What was the concept of the franchise?
34:12 - Michael Jackson - Uri Geller, Bruce Lee
40:52 - Was Michael a Creator of His Own Destiny
43:28 - The Doctors with Michael Meds
47:07 - Being Michael Jackson's Bodyguard
57:44 - The Child Abuse Accusations
01:06:44 - Wade and James
01:08:31 - Michael Needed to Clean Up his Image
01:10:31 - What does the Future hold?
01:12:0

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Who Is Matt Haycox? - Click for BADASS Trailer

As an entrepreneur, investor, funding expert and mentor who has been building and growing businesses for both myself and my clients for more than 20 years, my fundamental principles are suitable for all industries and businesses of all stages and size.

I’m constantly involved in funding and advising multiple business ventures and successful entrepreneurs.

My goal is to help YOU achieve YOUR financial success! I know how to spot and nurture great business opportunities and as someone who has ‘been there and got the t-shirt’ many times, overall strategies and advice are honest, tangible and grounded in reality.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This guy walks up to me and he bows to me, says hi, master Fidesz. My name is Michael Jackson, pleased to meet you.

Speaker 2: 0:05

The child abuse allegations was Michael the creator of his own destiny.

Speaker 1: 0:09

He was the creator of his own destiny, gary Geller. He would say this is not looking good to the world. You need to start cleaning up your image a bit.

Speaker 2: 0:15

Are you saying, kids did or didn't?

Speaker 1: 0:17

sleep in his bed. They did not sleep with him in his room.

Speaker 2: 0:20

He sleeps in an oxygen tent. Were these other things true as well?

Speaker 1: 0:23

This is where the story goes a bit wild. He started to realise he could manipulate mainstream media extremely well, make billions off the back of it, and his record sales would go through the roof and create the mystique that became Michael Jackson, which also backfired on him too.

Speaker 2: 0:33

As well as being friends, you would do security for him as well. Friends with him up until up until his death, yeah, I spoke to him two nights before he died.

Speaker 1: 0:43

He called me up erratic, unhappy. I knew something was wrong.

Speaker 2: 0:45

I didn't think he was gonna die hey, matt haycock's here with a quick interruption just to say I hope you're liking the show, but please, please, like, subscribe or comment. That's how we can bring you better guests. That's how we can make the show better each week. So please, please. That's all I ever ask of you. We never charge, we never ask anything else. Just please give us a few moments of your time, matt. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2: 1:12

Thanks for having me on. Thanks for being here. I'm very excited. I was doing a little bit of prep this morning, just watching a couple of old episodes's. A lot you've talked about already and maybe we'll find some different angles as well. But your story is certainly an adventurous one. Crazy life, I mean. Look, let's go back to the beginning, because I guess you know there's many different parts to this and each one leads on to the next Wales you were brought up in. Is that where you're from?

Speaker 1: 1:41

No, not far from there. Swindon Swind been. Is that where you're from?

Speaker 2: 1:44

no, it's not far from there swindon, swindon, yeah, swindon, about an hour from there and um, tell me about your childhood, because I think you were bullied as a child, which is ultimately what led on to adventure into martial arts that's what made me.

Speaker 1: 1:53

I know it sounds weird, but I got bullied by a kid at school and it was yeah, it was tough going between the ages of five and seven by one particular kid what does bullying mean as a five or six year old?

Speaker 2: 2:05

I mean when you look back at it now.

Speaker 1: 2:06

It's kind of ridiculous, isn't it? And it's uh, but yeah, it's getting kicked under the table and stealing your milk Cause names. I used to hide in the playground from. The kid was just big compared to me. I was a skinny little, flipping tiny guy and very underconfident, hated. I was a skinny little, flipping tiny guy and very underconfident, hated school, couldn't do anything at school, and if you're underconfident at school, you just attract these kind of people. This kid was from a wealthy family, super successful. Yeah, you know, it was one of those things that was meant to happen. Because it didn't happen and I would never have sought out looking to do martial arts and none of this whole crazy stuff. Just happened and we're good friends, me and him. Now we we actually met on national tv on a tv show called this morning in the uk you were pushing him around in his wheelchair they were worried I was gonna kick him in the head or something.

Speaker 1: 2:54

But now we we met in front of millions of people first time in 32 years and now he's my anti-bullying ambassador.

Speaker 2: 2:59

Oh really, organization, yeah but whose idea was it back then to get into martial arts? I mean, were you coming home crying about this?

Speaker 1: 3:04

yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a massive thing. I, my mum, was trying to get him expelled from school and it was constantly bruised all the time and used to try and make up excuses of why I couldn't go to school. You know, I'm feeling very well. I was very good at doing that.

Speaker 1: 3:18

Yeah, just coming over and and basically there was a kid next to me in the class and he did a martial art called jujitsu and he said you know, matt, come along to the class because you can defend yourself against Anthony. He was the bully and I went to the class and I didn't like that particular martial art, but in the room next door there's another one called taekwondo, and I had long legs, and obviously not as long as you are now, when you're like seven years old, but I was very good at Taekwondo. For some reason I could do the splits already, all the high kicks and, for a change, I felt I was getting praise from my instructor for something I was good at, rather than getting criticized all the time for not being able to draw dinosaurs properly at school and doing pointless stuff that I was never gonna use. So I just found my purpose, my passion.

Speaker 2: 4:04

I just knew that was going to be my career path tell me, I mean as a parent now, and I guess you know we do live in a slightly different society than 30 odd years ago. You know, when you were a kid, I mean, what would you say to your kids who were in the same position as you, or or what would you do? You know, because I think you know. On the one hand you get the parents who want to go into school and say my kid's getting bullied, you know, you need to tell that kid off, you need to suspend him, you need to to expel him. Um, and invariably what happens is, you know, the kid finds out and he bullies you more and bullies you more. You know. The flip side is, you know, as a parent, you say, go and give him a good kicking which might shut him up, but then probably gets you expelled. And what would you do? Is there a happy medium?

Speaker 1: 4:48

Yeah, that's a good question. I've not been asked this one before. So if I put my head teacher hat on as the owner of the biggest martial arts training in the world, I need to say the right thing, which is seek out help, basically, and that's why we've done well. We provide instructors for these kids to go to. But for my own children, matt, I think that's an important I've got six children that I would openly want them to defend themselves at school because you're all right is the more complaining you do, it gets back to the parent and the parent slaps the kid and then the kid comes back even more angry and you get bullied even more. But more importantly than that, bullying is a part of life. I get bullied now, as we're doing this podcast, as people talking about me, instagram x, twitter, whatever you want to call it facebook talking nonsense about me.

Speaker 1: 5:36

Bullying is life. It's just the way it is. The more you put yourself out there, the more you're going to be challenged. Your haters are really your lovers. They're your free public publicists and and once you understand that concept, you have to roll over it. So my own kids I tell them that you're going to have challenges at school now. Everyone's going to like you. There's going to be peer pressure and you need to be able to stand up to that. That's just the way life is, and when you're older, it's never going to stop.

Speaker 2: 5:58

You're always going to feel that the world's unfair, that people are going to treat you bad, and that's just the way it is I think as well, you know a kind of a let's say, a non-physical but but business analogy, and you know and it is, it's it is bullying in its own way is that, ultimately, you know someone's always going to want to take your lunch.

Speaker 2: 6:14

You know whether, whether they're doing it by calling your names, whether they're doing it by kicking you for, let's say, for no benefit other than their own ego and trying to show off in the school yard, or whether this is business, and you know someone wants to expand into your territory, you know to, to sell a cheaper coffee, to sell a better burger. You know, whatever it may be, there's always going to be someone who's after what you've got. Um, and you know you've got to be able to find a way to stand, to stand your ground and to fight back in in field. And I know some people listening to this might be thinking how the hell have we gone from bullying to business? But they are the same thing Every day I wake up.

Speaker 2: 6:53

Someone wants my customers, someone wants my business someone wants something and it's my job to defend that in whatever way it is. I'm not saying I'm going around stabbing people, you know you, you've got a legal system things and so forth.

Speaker 1: 7:06

Yeah, I mean it never. It never stops and it that's an interesting way. You're here to defend your family, your friends and your network and and your name and your brand and so forth. And yeah, to me you've got to embrace it. I mean I wouldn't say I had it hard as a bully kid. Interestingly, my parents mechanism to try and stop it was keep changing me schools. But every time I changed school because I'm the underconfident, shy kid, she's to attract another bully. So you just gotta teach kids to understand and recognize who is the bully and to stay away from them. And more confident I got it just started to fade away, it went.

Speaker 1: 7:39

You know I've built, obviously, a huge career out of teaching stuff that the school system don't teach now, which includes anti-bullying techniques. You know I made a fortune out of teaching stuff that the school system don't teach now, which includes anti-bullying techniques, you know, and made a fortune out of it and there's a big gap there. But a lot of it's down to boredom. At school you're getting taught things that are outdated and and kids are bored and they're picking on each other and you can't teach 30, 40 kids the same way. They're all individuals and for me, when I look at my back at my school life, it was a complete waste of time. Yeah, I just complete nonsense.

Speaker 2: 8:08

None of it ever benefited me at all so you're about seven when the martial arts started. I was seven years old and I think I've read that you were a black belt by the time you were 12.

Speaker 2: 8:16

I was 12, yeah and in real terms, as a 12 year old black belt. I mean, are you still, are you super handy? I mean, obviously I'm sure you can knock the other 12 year olds, but if an 18 year old comes along, are you still like a weak 12 year old, or can you handle yourself in those situations?

Speaker 1: 8:31

So being a black belt doesn't make you the. I mean, back then I mean it was brutal training that we had. I mean, you're from the North of the, from the Doncaster area. It was massive. That's where I took my black belt, funny enough.

Speaker 1: 8:47

So, in terms of defending yourself, you just get educated in the end that you don't use it for that. You don't need to use it for that. You wouldn't give somebody the pleasure to kick them around the head or whatever. It doesn't happen. Plus, people tend to leave you alone when you're the 12 year old black belt. They don't want to come near you. You know they're the bullying stopped by that point and you're so damn confident because you have this big goal of becoming a black belt and on the way you've got these little color bouts that you're working towards and each one just ups your confidence. So some of you get to black belt. You're not cared about the bullying anymore, about someone taking the mick out of you but saying bad things about you. You don't get in those situations. So so, yeah, you can defend yourself, but you have to be realistic, right, if you're gonna have like some strong, 25 30 year old guy who's, you know, five or six stones heavier than you. He's got a knife or something and no matter what, you're not who you are, you're bruce lee. You can't defend yourself against that type of stuff.

Speaker 1: 9:42

I got interviewed recently by the media in the uk. We had this big fuss about these Excel bully dogs, you know, and they said, matt, can you realistically defend yourself against one of them with martial arts? Of course you can. You've got to be honest. You've got a pair of jeans on, tight jeans on. You know we're doing high kicks, are you, when you're in your 40s, trying to do those high kicks? I used to be famous for my early 20s. It's like I learned how to have a flipping hip replacement. You know what do I want to be doing that for?

Speaker 2: 10:06

I'm going to ask what you do with tight jeans and your 40s anyway.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Yeah, that too, yeah that, as well, yeah, that's not for me, but no, you have to be realistic with this stuff.

Speaker 2: 10:16

So, 12-year-old black belt, you opened your first business being a karate studio when you were 16 years old. I mean, how do you go from doing it as a hobby to wanting to do it as a business? And I guess, what was your entrepreneurial thought process and path at that time?

Speaker 1: 10:32

Well say it's entrepreneurial. I just I was in my mathematics class at 13 years old in secondary school and I remember because I kept the exercise book. Remember, we had these exercise books.

Speaker 2: 10:42

Yeah, yeah. We've got iPads now and I for a per class maths and religious studies and math ones used to have little, yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah, and on the back of it.

Speaker 1: 10:50

I just turned to the back page and I wrote down a series of goals, because the teacher at the time was teaching us how, how many different ways can you put 50p into a red telephone box? Because they were a thing back then. They're like museum pieces now, aren't they't they? You put two 20Ps and a 10 or five 10Ps. I just thought it was exactly ridiculous. I'm never going to use this in my life. So I turned to the back of it and I got thinking what can I do? And I was a big fan of watching Jean-Claude Van Damme back then, and so some of the goals I put down were like doing how to do the size splits on the 18. I want to be a millionaire by the time I'm 18. I want a Ferrari because my brother used to draw Ferraris. He's a car designer, so I grew up with Ferrari pictures all over the house. I was insane the way he could draw them. So I wanted to own a Ferrari by the time I was 18. I have a six pack, big muscles and so forth, and that was my focus for secondary school. That's what got me through the damn process. Because I hated it.

Speaker 1: 11:43

I left school with no qualifications whatsoever other than my martial arts black belt. I did a personal trainer qualification just because I enjoyed that and I worked in the gym in the evenings. How old are you? 16, okay, yeah, I did the baller qualification. I don't know if it's still around. Any british, british amateur weightless association did at college. You gain that in like six months or you can get them in a day now I, I think, can't you personal trainer qualifications and then backwards up against the wall.

Speaker 1: 12:09

What can I do? I mean, my mum is one of 14 children. She was a lawyer. They're all university graduates. And then my dad's from a get a trade background. He worked for Brunel Railways, an engineer. So my granddad from that side wanted me to get a trade, but electrician plumber. I didn't want to do any of that. I just wanted to teach martial arts for a living, but no one had done that before. This was the challenge, so that you can kind of get by by collecting a three pounder class into an ice cream container is what we used to collect it in and take it to the bank. But then when the sun's out which is pretty rare in the uk I like dubai here, or holiday term or whatever. You don't get paid, people don't turn up anymore. So law of attraction, whatever the hell you want to call it, I moved into a bedsit. My parents didn't believe in what I was doing why did you move out?

Speaker 2: 12:55

so I moved out 16.

Speaker 1: 12:57

I didn't get on my dad. We clashed. He didn't believe he called martial arts legalized violence before I was throwing my life away. Mum kind of supported me in a way. She said there was no such word as can. Obviously they're not very happy that I failed all my GCSEs. You know they weren't happy about that. I just wanted to get out and work, man, I didn't want to do all this nonsense, you know. And so I moved into a bed.

Speaker 1: 13:20

So I moved out at 16, moved into a bedsit with my girlfriend in North Devon 30 pound a week, got evicted from three of them, went through three bedsits in the same town that was quite an achievement and then into rent accommodation. I kept on putting this damn thing off, this business. I got a job at North Devon, legislative, working for £2.75 an hour as a lifeguard. That got me by. Just about covered the bills. It. It was pretty painful and in the end it was my girlfriend at the time who said you keep talking about this business thing Because I had a thing that no one would take me serious at 16. I'm too young, how am I going to start a business off? So I read somewhere if you grow, if you look at the old pictures of me. I had like a long ponytail. It became like my symbol.

Speaker 1: 14:05

I was worried if I have cut the down thing off. My success was like a lucky child, yeah, like Steven Seagal type thing. I've read somewhere you look older if you grow your hair long. So I did that and in the end she bought me this briefcase I think it's for Christmas or something saying come on, you keep talking about this business thing, just get on with it, because probably got in Devon. If you're a lifeguard you've got loads of work in the summer. It comes to winter there's nothing there because tourism.

Speaker 1: 14:23

So I still waited like six months and then I opened up my first martial arts class and for whatever reason I knew I had to be aggressive, marketing wise and I was very good at doing this flying kick. Um, obviously back then we didn't have like the paparazzi technology of pictures, so I had to go hire the squash court for like five pound and I had to do many takes and get this kick right and that became my logo in the end. Actually, my brother, nathan, drew my first logo for me using that flying kick and then my posters made put it all over the village at 100 members paying me three pound a class, and I was happy with that. My costs were 15 pound a night for hall rent of a local school hall twice a week. I was happy.

Speaker 2: 15:05

How long did it take you to get those 100 members?

Speaker 1: 15:08

I put up with 100 members straight away.

Speaker 1: 15:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean there weren't many people who were actually looking the part doing it, and where I saw it as a negative at being so young, people saw it as positive, because when people view you, they don't look at you. It took me a while to figure this out. I think they're going to come to you because of how high you can kick or how good a shape you are. All they're interested in is that you need to represent what they want their child to become. And I did. I called them, sir ma'am, I made sure I was very respectful and so forth. And the next chapter One of my friends went to America on holiday. Another martial artist, good guy, could leave Charles, good friend of mine, and then he paged me back then. Start my business off of a pager, he said. And I went to the red phone box near my bed, sit. I called him up and he said I just come back from the States and you believe what's going on out there like 20 years ahead of us. It's like martial arts millionaires, multi millionaires conferences just about martial arts business and multi-millionaires conferences just about martial arts business. And we're kind of funny in our industry. Because I didn't want to compromise standards for money, I said, yeah, but I want to keep the standards higher of taekwondo. Because, no, they got standards and they got the money. So I saved up my money working as for two pounds 75 as a lifeguard and three pound a class as a martial arts instructor.

Speaker 1: 16:22

And I flew out to a convention in the states and it was at a Hyatt hotel, three-day convention. The owner of it was a guy in his 80s. He's not a martial artist but he's like a business guru. He owned a lot of the shares of Marriott hotel, multi-multi-millionaire. I went to introduce myself to him and America is very different to English.

Speaker 1: 16:41

English is successful or have ambition. They just want to knock you down In America. He was impressed. I used my last money To buy a ticket to come to this convention and he took me under his wing Because I'd be like the perfect case study From when I was 17 then and if he could make me rich and lead my way, it'd be a great case study For his consultancy organisation. So he told me, go and follow this person around and I was getting up at four in the morning going to all the staff trainings, watching their classes. I understand how they market and so take it back to England. If it works, it works. If it don't work, it don't work. I mean, they just see England as like a tiny little dot on the globe, don't they?

Speaker 2: 17:20

Can you remember a couple of revolutionary that you thought about?

Speaker 1: 17:23

Yeah, like, put music on the lessons. Can't do that. I got kicked out of my martial arts organisation because I was doing that, not teaching in Korean. So we used to count in Korean and do the kicks in Korean, turn it to English, making everything that the school system doesn't teach, designing the programme, so it does. So we teach goal setting water safety, fire safety, uh, how to be, have good manners, be respectful, topic of the month. They'll sit down with the kids at the end of each lesson for 10-15 years and the adults too, give them homework sheets. They have to have a sheet signed by their parent, teacher and martial arts instructor and unless, like they're being well behaved and disciplined at school and at home and keeping their bedroom tidy, brushing their teeth, then they're not allowed to go from the next color grade.

Speaker 1: 18:09

The other thing I did too is I was the first guy to put people on direct debits in the UK for martial arts, which is seen as a no-no. Gyms were doing it. There were still some paid for gyms, like per class, and that stabilized my income. Right for 100 members who come as and when, pay me as and when, to suddenly put them on 49 59 pound a month membership depending if they're family members or or singles. I was doing five, six thousand pound a month, plus gradients, plus joining fees, merchandise, so my overheads were 30 pound a week and you're still about 18 at this point 17 yeah, and the next big dream was I wanted to be like the american way.

Speaker 1: 18:45

So the american way is big, bold centers, full-time locations. It's actually the wrong thing to do, that's not my business model, but I wanted to do that because that's all I felt they could do there. The next town was barnstable, which was a population of 30 000, so I built this business of five, six thousand, amount of ten thousand people people. So Barnsville got me excited and I wanted to have this building and I saw the ideal building. It was above an estate agent, it's two floors and it was owned by the estate agents. And I walked in there and they just laughed me out like you can't make any money. I cry how are you 17? You're not even old enough to sign a lease. You know my laugh, um, but I, I just saw. I saw the vision here. It was mapped out as offices.

Speaker 1: 19:27

We started to knock the partitions down. He had this ultimate dojo and that when it got bigger I could expand it into the second floor. But I couldn't convince these. These guys called richard and len to to let me have this studio, um, but my mum was a conveyancing lawyer, property lawyer, so she knew all the estate agents. So she called Richard Smith, who's owned this building, and said listen, I think my son is onto something here. Why don't you give him six months free rent? Let him fund the partition knocking down, so there's no risk to you at all, you've got nothing to lose. The market wasn't great back then. It's like talking like 97, 98 time. Let's see what happens. And they very reluctantly said okay, we'll give you a six months free rent.

Speaker 1: 20:06

The issue I had then is I wasn't old enough to sign a lease and my girlfriend was 19. She changed her name by depot to Fidesz and she signed the lease and we got in there and I remember on New Year's Eve and I was painting the walls, all the petitions were down. We couldn't afford mats or nothing. We had carpet down. There's a lot of carpet burn going on. When my first round of students that they can remember looking out the window and it's right on the square in barnsville, on the front where they do all the fireworks and celebrate new year's eve, and I saw the fireworks going off and everyone getting drunk and thinking what am I doing?

Speaker 1: 20:37

here, what the hell am I doing? Surely I should be down there, but that's the moral of the've got to observe the masses and do the opposite to everyone else. Long story short, six months later, 700 members making a million pound a year, 80,000 a month from that building, and it was the biggest martial arts school in the UK. And I duplicated that five times.

Speaker 2: 20:55

How were you marketing it?

Speaker 1: 20:58

Back then it was all offline. There was no online, there was no Facebook. Internet was around, email was around. Email was around but it wasn't a thing. So I spent 140 pound on a little advert literally a picture of me doing my flying kit full-time martial arts school at Barnstable, and I had a queue all around the corner, people just coming to sign up. No one was doing martial arts professionally, as a business. They were all doing it for fighting and or as an educational system.

Speaker 1: 21:28

And word got around like this you've got this guy in town who's doing it's like a private school what he's doing. They've got homework the kids have looked after and he looks the part and and so on. You know it's like we see these personal trainers out there now. A lot of them are out of shape for these big chains. You think what are you doing? How can you take advice of someone who hasn't done it himself? And I left the part. So I I always knew the marketing was the number one thing and I read all the right books. You know tony robbins books and robert kiyosaki's with his dad poor dad and jay abraham's marketing books I mean, what's what got you into those books?

Speaker 2: 22:02

what opened you up to that world? I mean, was that off the back of when you'd gone to the American thing?

Speaker 1: 22:06

Yeah, yeah, the Americans are just like. You can be as great as martial arts instructor in the world, but no one's going to go and say, oh, that was a great class, here's a check for £10,000. Ain't going to happen. It's all about how you get those members in the front doors, what brings you success, and then delivering the service. This is where people go wrong. They focus too much on the service and don't understand the front end. They got there's three areas of business. You've got marketing down, the sales down, and then you get to do what you do the service, the service part.

Speaker 1: 22:37

And I just knew from the outset I had incredible mentors at such a young age that I had to get this marketing thing down. So by the fifth of every month I had 15 marketing ideas already strategized and planned in my diary, ready to execute the following month. So every month there was 15 offline activities. In fact, that's still in place now. So my franchisees now they have to have 15 marketing ideas in place offline by the fifth of every month, aside from Facebook and social media too 15 new ones every month.

Speaker 1: 23:05

Every single month, yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:07

And what would some examples be?

Speaker 1: 23:09

So this time of year we're at Easter now, so it would be like Easter camp campaign bring a friend to class, school talks, family parents nights out, leaflet drops, putting posters in all the places like GPs, doctors, dentist, surgeries, having 100 lists, 100 places where people can visibly see you, lead boxes, go on and on.

Speaker 2: 23:29

And back in the day when you were doing this, you got to do five studios, I mean, even when you'd done one. To be fair, what were the competition saying?

Speaker 1: 23:37

They hated me, like well, you can't do this. How do you think you are making money out of martial arts? You can't put music on the lessons. I mean I was the most hated man in the martial arts industry. They compared me to McDonald's. They thought I watered it all down. They called it McDojo.

Speaker 1: 23:53

But now they're all doing it. Now they're all trying to be like me. You know they'll never be like me. It's like Arnold Schwarzenegger, like you, arnold, don't worry, you never will. They're not going to catch us because we were the first and we're the biggest and and we're still out there. But now they understand it and they embrace what I was about. But back then I took a lot of hate. I did for the sector and even like growing up, I used to buy a martial arts magazine called martial arts illustrated and I cycled my BMX bike with my pocket money and buy that and read it every single month and my goal was one day to be in it. And I was other than bruce lee. The editor tells me I was the most featured person on the front cover of martial arts illustrated because they knew they put matt finesse on the front. It was going to sell copies and all my thousand thousands of students are going to buy it and it's controversial.

Speaker 2: 24:39

Were you still training hard yourself at this point with?

Speaker 1: 24:41

the martial arts. Okay, so you.

Speaker 2: 24:42

You didn't kind of get chubby and move to business.

Speaker 1: 24:45

You were you, you were doing both sides yeah yeah, yeah, yeah I I put my training first and even I started having kids and stuff. I'd get in and go train at 9, 30 at night for an hour and still still want to be progressing. Those things are very linked together. And to get on the front cover that magazine I know it sounds ridiculous but the editor wanted to me to spar him, fight him. So I went up to Huddersfield proper old-school and I had to spy him to show him I was a real deal and At the end of he picked the hell out of me. He's got like ninth down and ten martial arts. He's okay, yeah, you can be on the front cover and yeah, bob laughs about it now. But yeah, it was incredible, incredible journey and everyone who's anyone in the martial arts world will come in down to Devon to try and check out.

Speaker 1: 25:26

What the hell is this 18-year-old doing? How is he making all this money? Why has he got a Ferrari 355 at 18 years old? What's he doing different to us? We've been doing this 30 years and we've never made this kind of money. They still got day jobs. Martial arts is just a hobby to them. You know you must be doing something criminal. It can't be right, but now I just modernized the martial arts industry.

Speaker 1: 25:46

And when did you start to franchise it? Okay, so this is where the story goes a bit wild. So the next town the reason I stopped at five is you've got Barnesville, biddeford, ilvercum, south Malton, et cetera. Brunton, the next town, was 40 miles away, a place called Tiverton, and in my head I felt it's hard enough getting people to work for an 18 year old when they're in their 30s 40s, let alone travel to Tiverton. So that was a mental block for me. I didn't think it's gonna be able to happen.

Speaker 1: 26:12

Now I sat on my reception of my main martial arts school, my full-time Center in Barnstable, and One of the parents is a reporter. He had two students, a boy and a girl, come to my, my school, and said Matt, I work for Southwest News Agency. I didn't mean anything to me at the time. I'd like to do a story on you. I'm a journalist, I know you're bullied at school, you've got no qualifications, you're clearly making a lot of money and you've got a nice car outside. Can I interview you? And I said, yeah, sure, I was looking for significance, recognition after being bullied at school. Just what wanted you know? So he interviewed me. He wanted a picture of me when I was at school. But when I was the bullied boy age in my school picture, seven years old, and then he took me through my whole childhood, what I was doing, how things are going now, and I was very honest about the money I was earning. Because all these people who try and hide it I parked my Ferrari right outside the building. Because if parents said, call, you must make a lot of money out of this. Like, yeah, that's why you bring your kid to me, because I'm going to teach you everything that the school system don't teach you, so they can have a ferrari one day. Wouldn't that be great? And parents like, yeah, you know, if I tried to park it around the corner, hide my success, then it would have had the same effect. So this guy who's called nick constable, did a big feature on me and took a picture of me in my car meeting a martial arts pose, went away. Nothing happened for a few days.

Speaker 1: 27:27

And this is back in 97 98, when mainstream media was massive. Like each publication. We picked up 20 million copies per day. And, yeah, I woke up one morning the phone was ringing off the hook, the landline. It would just go mad and I thought what the hell's going on. Then I went to get some food and everyone staring at me and pointed at me. I was on the front page of every single tabloid newspaper. There was bully boy becomes millionaire and it's such a unique story with martial arts it was massive. And then on the back of that, tv researchers. They scan the newspapers for stories. So you probably remember the shows like Esther Ramson, tricia Kilroy Richard and Judy GMTV. I did all the shows and on the back of that, uri Geller was watching the world famous.

Speaker 1: 28:09

Mindpower Spoonbender they call him in the UK but the rest of the world. Don't call him that. Uri Geller was watching it. He's hugely successful, especially in property and business, and his best friend was Michael Jackson. He introduced me to Michael Jackson as we became friends and he got to trust me and Michael was already a black belt. Joseph Jackson made all the Jackson 5 study martial arts. He wanted to proceed with his training as a second Dan and just a conversation in his hotel suite, bored.

Speaker 1: 28:39

We couldn't go anywhere. Michael says to me how's your business doing? I've got five locations. Why you only got five locations? Why you only got five locations, matt, why you took this in global as well.

Speaker 1: 28:47

The next town's at Tiverton, is 40 miles away. And I gave him this sob story. He's like what are you talking about? I'm a poor boy from Gary, indiana. What are nine children with no money whatsoever got the biggest selling album in the world thriller. You ever heard of it? And uh, of course you can work out how to get this thing to this town. So it's called Franchising.

Speaker 1: 29:07

And I immediately bit back at Michael and said yeah, but no one's ever done that in a martial arts before. And he said well, that's exactly why you've got to do it and he took out a napkin or like a, not wrote down everything I needed to do, because he was a master at licensing his name. He had the biggest brand deal with Pepsi Cola of all time endorsement deal and he, he wrote down. He got manualized everything, got scripts. He could be genius and manipulated mainstream media. You've got to systemize everything, got to build a brand. Yeah. And then from that point on with my friendship with Michael became very different. So yeah, I took over. I was bodyguard to him. I took over his security, but I did it for free. There's no money exchange. I didn't want over. I was bodyguard to him. I took over his security, but I did it for free. There was no money exchange. I didn't want his money. I was already a millionaire before I met the guy. I didn't want his money and that's why the friendship worked for 10 years.

Speaker 2: 29:52

But he kept me accountable. Well, I was going to say we've talked Uri Geller, michael Jackson and bodyguarding about 30 seconds, let To finish off on franchising, and then we can get deep on the Michael Jackson stuff. But so it was when you knew Michael that he introduced you to the concept of franchising, and then you just went back to England and decided to give it a whirl.

Speaker 1: 30:14

It was in London. Michael Jackson opened my mind to that. Anything is possible, and Uri Geller as well. So Uri's like stop flipping, wasting your car money on Ferraris, matt. Yeah, buy houses and not build any more land. It's a great investment in the world. So he pushed me. I hated him for it. I hated Yuri for it. I love him for it. Now We've got the largest property portfolio in the southwest of the UK. Michael, on the other hand, kept me accountable on building this franchise network. So whenever the phone calls took place, whenever he called me up, it changed. It was how's the business going, matt? When we used to get meetups, my friend network was unbelievable. Like Mohamed Al-Fayed, we used to go round his house for dinner and the owner of Harrods and the conversation at the dinner table was very different to an average 18-, 19-, 20-year-old I was experiencing. I was a billionaire, I was a superstar and they just held me accountable.

Speaker 2: 31:04

And what was the concept of the franchise? So I'm a local karate owner. I don't know anything about business. I come and buy the you know the the mf karate, mf martial arts package and um, and you teach me a business in a box and business in a box.

Speaker 1: 31:18

Do you know what it's? Nowadays you don't get martial artists buying them. We get investors buying them because it's the return so good. You think about it's just an empty room, it's a school hall. So the full model, full-time center, that doesn't really work in the UK. There's no need for that. There's higher locations, for £10, £15 an hour, and also it's VAT exempt because it's education as well. We had to fight for that and so now we get investors. They buy one for £10, £25,000, and they get an 85% return on their money passive income and they just employ martial arts instructors.

Speaker 2: 31:50

And is it just the sign-on food? Do they pay you an ongoing commission as well? They pay me a commission.

Speaker 1: 31:55

So I only make money if they make money, so win-win, and that's always seen me good, rather than some franchises just pay you a set amount. That's the way it's worked and people have tried to copy it and stuff, but it's never worked out. Because you can't copy my story, you can't copy my social proof. You know when you, when you stick, if you're looking for your to take your child to a martial arts class or for you to join martial arts class, you put my name in google. You get a long list of media articles going back 20 odd years and social proof.

Speaker 1: 32:22

You put the competitors trying to copy what I do. You just get a website, an Instagram, a TikTok account. You're always going to pick the person who's been around nearly three decades with all these megastars and advising Kim Kardashian and stuff over the local guy. People want to be part of a brand, so people are happy to buy into a brand and they especially now where people concern about pedophiles and and are their children safe and the internet stuff. We even covered our internet bullying, cyber safety now too. So yeah, the brand power is is really, really important and how many have you got?

Speaker 2: 32:58

how many units? 1800 now all around the world all around the world.

Speaker 1: 33:02

We're expanding. We're about to run our biggest expansion ever. We're going to do 2000 more locations, but big time in australia, obviously, uk, ireland and so forth do you still?

Speaker 2: 33:14

do you still have the original five?

Speaker 1: 33:16

yeah, yeah, I've still got the original building which I yeah, 27 years later, which, yeah, I go in there sometimes and I think back to when I was decorating it and how the hell did this happen? You know, and they love it when I go. It's funny because that town gave me such a hard time. And when I go back now they're like thanks for putting Barnstable on the map. You know, if it weren't for you, you've got Michael Jackson here, you've got this here. I'm thinking, yeah, you guys gave me such a hard time. Man, I was like the most hated person in North Devon in North Devon, but I don't blame them. Now I'm 44 and I look back at it. When you're 18 years old and you're driving around town in perfect condition, your body, perfect long hair, perms, in a Ferrari 355, spyder, with the roof down in the winter, multi-millionaire, and your best friends are Michael Jackson you would get a Britney Spears and Mohamed Al Fad, people are going to think you're not normal and you're not from that town as well.

Speaker 2: 34:07

So I get it now but um, yeah, you go up out of a lot of hate to be successful look, let's um, let's move from business to to michael jackson, and obviously that was one of the two key things we talked about at the beginning and obviously, what you're well known for, you've, you've quickly glossed over the fact that when you started to get well known, you met your regala and your regala then introduced, introduced you to Michael. I mean, just just just tell us a bit more around that story, because I mean, even though you're a, you know, successful young guy at the time, it still must have been a bit of a surprise to walk into the room with probably you know what was and still is one of the, if not the most famous men in the world yeah, well, the last award he got was Guinness Book of Records the most famous man in the world.

Speaker 1: 34:47

But no, uri Geller called me at three o'clock in the morning, said come to my house now. If you don't you'll regret it for the rest of your life. Uh, it's the problem I had. He wouldn't tell me why. He would not tell me why, and he lived in Sondland-on-Thames, just outside of Reading in England, so about three and a half hours from me.

Speaker 1: 35:02

Incredible house, like a replica of the White House, 20 million pound mansion with all the ground and buildings attached next to george clooney's house. So I said you're you. Can you just tell me why? So I've never guided you wrong. Get in your ferrari, stop moaning, I love you. Bye, put the phone down me. So I had a massive row of my missus so you could imagine what the hell you could try and explain where you're going.

Speaker 1: 35:22

And three o'clock in the morning and I arrive at yuri's house, the gates open as they do and it's an incredible home, and walk in his living room and this guy walks up to me and he bows to me. He says hi, master Fidesz, my name is Michael Jackson, pleased to meet you and I thought flipping. Heck, I know you are. What are you doing here? And then for a second I thought I'm quite high profile on all these shows. These are prank TV shows, like Jeremy Beadle or I think Uri Geller was very powerful, internationally famous, and I'd hear President's Ring and Royalty and big names would be there, but not to this level. I never heard him mention Michael Jackson. It turns out he's his best mate, best man at his wedding. We got on like a house on fire, me and Michael. Just got on so well.

Speaker 2: 36:05

Just talk about Uri, because I mean, I think for people he's still alive, Uri, yeah, yeah, yeah, he Just talk about Yuri because I mean, I think for people he's still alive, yuri, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's living in Israel Yuri Geller Museum, but I think for people, I guess, who are, let's say, younger than us, it's not really a name that people know now, but I mean going back to certainly the 80s and 90s.

Speaker 2: 36:23

I mean the guy was enormous, like you say, he was known as, I guess, the spoonbender, and that he had some money, some international connections, but I don't think people appreciate the quantum of wealth, the amount of power I mean. Where did it all come from?

Speaker 1: 36:34

So yeah, so he's got companies all around the world. When you're world famous, you just release one book and it does moderately OK the publisher, he's translated in all those different languages. I think he's published like 52 books and he's got production about my mind power, my medicine, yeah, Creating wealth and health and so forth.

Speaker 1: 36:57

You know autobiographies. There's loads of books that he's done and co-written, and then he's got TV shows all around the world. He used to say to me about the UK he said, Matt, you can never be a prophet in your hometown, so in the UK it's just spoonbend. When you go around the world you get that there's none of that. It's more about the mind side. So you've got like Tony Robbins.

Speaker 2: 37:17

I was about to say, as I'm listening to this, he's basically sounding like a Tony Robbins who can do a few magic tricks, if you like.

Speaker 1: 37:26

Yeah, I've seen that spoon thing and fork thing, metal thing, pound coin, where it's magic. Then it's damn good, because he literally just rubs it, hands it to you and it bends in your hand.

Speaker 2: 37:38

So I don't know, I see doing swim pools.

Speaker 1: 37:41

Every kind of theory awful. Is it a chemical, is it this? But I can. I've known that guy since I was 17 now and I'm 44. He's my best friend and I don't know how he does it. I've got no idea and I've seen it probably more than many, many people. But no, he's been investigated by scientists and everything. But no, he's got TV shows all around the world called the Next Uri Geller, where people are trying to audition in front of him to be the next Uri Geller. In the UK he's just never been given that kind of recognition.

Speaker 2: 38:10

So you meet Michael middle of the night. Your missus is pissed off with you. Yeah, yeah. And then you try to tell her why.

Speaker 1: 38:19

That's the interesting thing. Where are you? I'm just hanging out with Michael Jackson, the singer.

Speaker 2: 38:26

And so you went to meet him because you really wanted to introduce you, because he was a martial arts practitioner himself.

Speaker 1: 38:30

So Michael Jackson was a martial arts black belt.

Speaker 2: 38:35

Was that common knowledge?

Speaker 1: 38:36

I mean I've never heard that before.

Speaker 2: 38:37

You can't imagine Michael Jackson as a martial artist, I know.

Speaker 1: 38:41

He was damn good. Not just him, though, tito Jermaine, all of them did it, all the Jacksons. Joseph made sure they wanted to make sure they could take care of himself. Joseph was a boxer, their dad. They call him Joseph, by the way, They'll call him dad, that's why I refers from his Joseph. And yeah, it's coming All right.

Speaker 1: 38:59

You know, you look back at Michael Jackson's dance and he puts all the kicks and punches and blocks in it's dance and it's all in there. He was a Bruce Lee fanatic. You sit down with Michael and watch a movie. He would annoy you because he'd know every single word to enter the dragon, wear the dragon, the big boss, no matter how many times. He just watched the movies over and over again and he wanted to meet Shannon Lee and Lyndon Lee, bruce Lee's ex-wife and only surviving child, his daughter, because that's what he did. He studied the greats and wanted to know how they stayed relevant, and I had connections to Shannon Lee and Lyndon Lee. So he was obsessed about what made Bruce Lee so relevant all these years on. So he was studied like James Brown, charlie Chaplin, fred Astaire and, and take bits from them and put them into his own dance and is thinking, read four or five non-fiction books per week if we go to bookshops. He just cleaned the whole place out, literally.

Speaker 1: 39:46

Actually, one time I went to london we were running late for our flight and it was a particular bookshop and it specialized in art, because he's an artist as well. And I, I said I went up to him and in public I referred to as mr jackson. I said, mr jackson, we, we need to get going, you know. And he goes hmm, damn, I love this bookshop too. Okay, can you just tell her I'll take all of it. I said, what do you mean? I said I would just take everything.

Speaker 1: 40:12

So, michael, I'm not going up to that cashier in town, you can take the whole thing. So, okay, I'll do it. And he goes. Okay, so he goes up to her and goes. Hi said, um, I got a cash for flight. Apparently can I take everything and you can send it to neverland and and my team will take care of the bill, thank you bye. And he and they shut the door down on the shop that day and it all got exported. Every single book got exported to Neverland. It was insane. So he would just like study. He was Tony Robbins. He was really into him. Tony talks about him in his personal power kit, about Michael had the biggest endorsement deal of all time with Pepsi Cola. He was the man who started off celebrity endorsements and licensing. So time with pepsi cola. He was the man who started off celebrity endorsements and licensing, so for him he was a big inspiration to me.

Speaker 2: 40:53

I mean he took me under his wing and so was michael. I mean, I guess you're going to say yes because of some of the things you've already been saying, but so I mean, was it was michael an intelligent guy, a businessman, who was in control of his own stuff? Because I mean, again, as um, I guess, as lay public public, we always look at people like that and think, oh, incredibly talented performer, but surrounded by this management team, these lawyers, these deal makers, and they just put him in a room and he gets on with it, but they create all the stuff. I mean, was Michael very much the creator of his own destiny?

Speaker 1: 41:26

He was the creator of his own destiny, but he was very bad in trusting the wrong people. So for the 10 years I knew him, he must have gone through 12 different managers, and some of them were very good and some of them were very bad he.

Speaker 2: 41:39

If they were very good, why was he going through them?

Speaker 1: 41:41

because people would get in his ear the late, the latest friend, the latest I'll say family member, because he didn't have an awful lot to do with with them as such. But people would get in his ear about this or that and and he would push the next person out, and even myself I would find myself pushed out at some point but why?

Speaker 2: 42:01

why could you know? If he's an intelligent guy, you know, and he can read a room and he can see circumstances, you know? Why could he not make those decisions himself? You see it a lot, I don't know. Guy gets a new girl older guy, younger girl she wants to get her feet under the table and he's pussy whipped and starts to basically cast aside everyone who's been near him. But I guess it's never a decision made by sense. It's a guy following his dick who wakes up five years later and thinks you know what the fuck have I done?

Speaker 2: 42:35

But was that a kind of a similar? I'm not saying he's doing it because of women, but if he's an intelligent guy who's had good people around him, why does he listen to someone to then kick out these good people?

Speaker 1: 42:46

The biggest issue we had was the doctors. There was always a doctor, and I ain't joking. I remember one time I went into a bathroom of a hotel downstairs not in michael's hotel suite and I could overhear a doctor talking to a michael jackson fan. And the doctor was basically doing a ten thousand pound deal which was a lot of money back then to introduce the fan to Michael in the hotel suite. I couldn't believe my ears. Problem I had is that if you go back to Michael with that, you've got to hope he's going to believe you because he'll shut you out and then he's stuck with this doctor who's no good for him. And this is the issue we had. The doctors had a way of hooking Michael in with the medication and making him dependent on them.

Speaker 2: 43:30

So let's talk about doc. So why did he have these doctors? You know what were they for, what was the medication? What was the dependency here?

Speaker 1: 43:37

He got burnt with a Pepsi Cola Commercial serious scalper. I remember that yeah, and he was. Because he's Michael Jackson, they over prescribed him, in my belief, and and, but that's when it all began. There was no drugs.

Speaker 2: 43:49

There was no doctors prior to this.

Speaker 1: 43:51

No, that guy would never try Anything given to a doctor by a doctor he saw as medicine. I mean he was. I know it's hard for people to understand this because the way he died. But he would not let me go to nightclubs. I was not allowed to drink alcohol. I'd have my first alcoholic drink until I was 27. That's how tough he was on us because when he said when he was getting famous with jackson five, he'd go around these clubs at five, seven, eight years old and see the way guys would treat women and alcohol abuse and drug abuse. And he was really tough on us about that.

Speaker 1: 44:23

If you ever smoke matt, you're out. If you ever see you drinking alcohol, you're out. He was pretty, pretty full-on. But the doctor side, he had this, this well publicized now dependency on painkillers. You know it's not like paracetamol you get over here, it's over there. It's like heroin, open opium, linked painkillers and the damn doctors would give it to him because it's a way of them Staying in his life and we get rid of one doctor and another one to turn up. It was just a constant cycle and that was.

Speaker 2: 44:52

Is that all he was having these, these painkillers?

Speaker 1: 44:55

yeah, sleeping tablets like um. If I'm honest with you, obviously I know what he died of because that's been in the autopsy. At the time I didn't know what he was taking. I was a guy in my 20s, mid-20s to late 20s, seeing my friend go into a room and then come out 20 minutes later like a flipping zombie or be a bit erratic. I didn't know what the hell he was taking. It was all double-dutch to me, but yeah obviously when he died, he died of his endopines.

Speaker 2: 45:22

I remember we used to see all the Michael Jackson stories like oh you know, he's got his doctors on 24-7 call. He sleeps in an oxygen tent, he does this, he does the other. I mean, were these other things true as well?

Speaker 1: 45:34

He designed all those stories. So the Oxygen Chamber one is his first bash of controlling the media. So he was very much a close friend of Elizabeth Taylor. He admired Elizabeth Taylor and he used to speak to her all the time and she used to get on a magazine called the National Enquirer oh yeah, which was massive back then and Michael was jealous of her because he wanted to be on the National Enquirer on the front and that was the thing. You don't want to be on the front of the National Enquirer now, but that was the thing.

Speaker 1: 46:08

And after the burn that he had the serious burn situation. Obviously pepsi cola thought he was going to sue them because a pyrotechnic went off and burned his hair. Rather than do that, michael made them donate a lot of money to a burn center for children and he visited it and he turned up there and there was this oxygen chamber there which basically kids go in and it helps their skin get better quicker some kind of latest technology, he thought to himself. He said to his manager, frank de leo, I'm going to get in that quickly, take a quick picture of me and we're going to release that. So he led down on it. He said it's the most scariest thing of his life, frank de leo. His manager took a picture of him of it and he said send that to the national inquiry and tell them I sleep in an oxygen chamber.

Speaker 1: 46:49

He did boom, front page. That was it. And that story stuck ever since. And then he had, like the elephant man, bones and all the classic stories you can think of. He started to realize he can manipulate mainstream media extremely well, make billions off the back of it, and his record sales would go through the roof and create the mystique that became michael jackson, which also backfired on him too so tell me.

Speaker 2: 47:08

So you became friends as well as being friends, you would do security for him as well, I mean, was that an ad hoc now and again, like when he needed something special, or did you have an official capacity?

Speaker 1: 47:20

No, I wasn't employed, I wasn't paid. He offered me money but I didn't want his money. I've got my own businesses to run. So yeah, he just called me and said I'm at the airport, I'm about to fly you to England. Can you meet me at terminal five, heathrow, pick me up, come hang out with me. Or I'm at Paris, I'm in New York, can you come hang out on board?

Speaker 1: 47:40

And cause I was a martial arts guy and back then I had big muscles and I was you know, I'm a six foot four and he's my little vulnerable friend Mullered, mobbed everywhere we went, we just couldn't do anything, you know, and and that became a thing, and also paparazzi was a big thing about the answer pictures of me and it'll be everywhere and yeah, so it's an unofficial role. I saw bodyguard companies charging 150, 200 thousand a month and he could answer phone calls around him when I think, because they were selling out sour stories. So I said stop all this nonsense. If, if you need me for public events, I've got hundreds of martial artists linked to me, instructors, I've got my family my brother-in-law used to do the bodyguarding outside his bedroom door after his hotel suites and things you can trust in us, just call on us whenever you want, and he did.

Speaker 2: 48:32

And presumably they all got paid.

Speaker 1: 48:34

So my team did not get paid. They all got paid. So my team did not get paid. My brother-in-law, I believe, got paid for the night shift. Yeah, standing outside his door. In fact he probably had more communication with michael than all of us because michael famously couldn't sleep and I used to come out wandering the corridors on the night and with my brother-in-law and chatting to him and stuff about everything and things. But yeah, they got paid, but uh, I didn't know, I didn't want money off michael. I got paid by michael by yeah, they got paid, but I didn't want money off Michael. I got paid by Michael, by the network, the contact book, the knowledge that he had been passed on to me.

Speaker 2: 49:04

Well, that's what I was going to come on to.

Speaker 2: 49:05

Whilst you may have not been paid in money to be in proximity to someone like that, with his network, with his contact base, with the pull and reach he's got, whether it was spoken or unspoken, I mean that had to have been, I guess, a massive attractor to you.

Speaker 2: 49:25

That you know, and it's not. You know, I always can never find my words properly on these kind of situations where I think you know, just because somebody has something that you can benefit from, you know you can still be mates. It doesn't have, it doesn't have to be disingenuous like if we're we're mates together, we're mates together. But if I know, you know someone, I'm gonna ask you for an introduction, we're gonna ask you if you can help and in the same way it's in the same way I do the same for you we have. It's not, that's not why I'm your mates. Yeah, and I know, you know some people might think there's a fine line. But I also think that you know, sensible or intelligent people can always tell when someone's trying to build a relationship with them from a bad place or from some disingenuous intent.

Speaker 1: 50:01

He understood very well because he said to me if you're going to be friends with me, matt, your life's never going to be the same. And I just laughed off at the beginning. It was almost like a schoolboy asking if he could be friends with you at school. You know, are you sure you want to be my friend? I didn't understand what he meant. We're flipping x, life changing. There's a day that goes past, even now, where someone stops me or asks me or a dm comes in about michael. And uh, 15 years after his death, it seems to be getting bigger there and they've got the biopic coming out next year. The same people have made the freddie mercury one. I'm currently filming the michael jackson one. It's called mich. His nephew, jafar Jermaine's son's, playing him. They reckon it's going to be the biggest movie of all time. I don't doubt it.

Speaker 2: 50:42

You were friends with him up until his death.

Speaker 1: 50:44

Yeah, I spoke to him two nights before he died. He called me up, erratic, unhappy, and I knew something was wrong. I didn't think he was going to die. If I thought he was going to die I would have been on the next plane out. He asked me to fly out. He called up I was in Barnstable. My wife answered the phone and she said Michael's on the phone. It doesn't sound good. I spoke to him and he was very erratic in his speech. I said what the hell have you been taking? He said the doctor's giving me a drug to help me perform rehearse that night. So he said to me the concert promoters were going to pull the concert. So it's 50 shows in the O2 Arena.

Speaker 2: 51:20

I had tickets. I remember, oh, did you, I did yeah.

Speaker 1: 51:22

Yeah, and he had this thing about rehearsing. He said, matt, I wrote these songs, I wrote the dances. I've been doing this for 30-odd years. I don't need to be rehearsing every night at the Staples Center, but I've got to go tonight, although they're going to pull the show and that. They advanced him a load of money apparently and they were, he was living off them accommodation. I wasn't doing the security.

Speaker 1: 51:45

I had very hard to get hold of Michael at this point because they took over complete control of him the last two, the last couple of years. And then, um, yeah, he got my number for for someone who was at the house at the time and he said I need to get hold of Joseph. That's in his dad. So Joseph Jackson is the only person who can sort this shit out. That's the exact words. To me I was like whoa, because if Michael calls you asking for Joseph, you know there's something not quite good, because they didn't quite well publicized. They never had the greatest relationship. It was better towards the end of his life. So I knew where his dad was. I had his number. He's in las vegas. Michael was in los angeles at the time. So I gave him his dad, joseph jackson number, and then he asked for his best friend, mark lester's number. Now, mark lester played the original oliver twist. Remember that film?

Speaker 2: 52:31

I mean, I know, please, sir, have some more.

Speaker 1: 52:33

He's the original one. They're the same age. They grew up in the magazines together the Jackson 5 and they. That was his best mate. Mark was godfather to Michael Jackson's children and Michael Jackson godfather to Mark Lester's children, so I gave him Mark's number too. He then asked to speak to my children. He spoke to Madison, my oldest daughter. Then he spoke to Lola, my second daughter, who tried to speak to me. She was only like a toddler at the time Came back to me and I said are you sure you're okay?

Speaker 1: 52:58

Because I'm fine. I'm on the way to rehearse, so make sure you ring. Joseph Said I will and I'll see you in London in the next few weeks, so I'll see you there. Man, we've got the house ready. We're going to move in with you. Me and Mark Lester are going to move in with him and rather than stay in a hotel suite and be stuck in a hotel suite for nine months, he hired a house in surrey funny enough, between surrey and kent, and the plan was to get on the river thames and get to the o2 arena, so we don't have the paparazzi following the kids and him all the time, and we were going to make sure he slept, keep the doctors away and so forth, and that was that. So I left him. I was. He took a drug called ephedrine, he said, which is not abnormal for a dancer to take or a bodybuilder to take before you work out. I thought if the doctor gave it to him, then it was okay.

Speaker 1: 53:45

Anyway, it turned out he did the most incredible performance ever that night. He blown them away, billie Jean and everything, just blew them apart and came away and the concert promoters were like we're, we, he's gonna do it, he's gonna smash out the o2 arena. And he went home. And on the thursday I came home from the office, sat down on the sofa, put tv on, sat down with madison on my lap. Yuri ghetto calls me up and says uh, I got fox news on the phone to cnn saying that michael's in a coma. I was like you know what he's like with the publicity stunts. He's fine. I spoke to him two nights ago. He's a bit unhappy about the way he's being treated out there rehearsed too hard, but he's fine. He's got a doctor looking after him as well. He goes, okay, it's just michael b michael hyping up the um, the, the show that's coming to him.

Speaker 1: 54:36

And about an hour later, yuri calls me again. It's Matt. I'm driving down the driveway to my house. My landlines are going mad. We've got CNN, fox News, larry King, everyone saying that Michael's had a heart attack.

Speaker 1: 54:47

I was like gosh, should I ring Michael or should I not? Because a matter of times. I rang him Matt. And he's like ha-ha, you fell into my trap, matt. It's a publicity stunt and it's just too good to be true. This can't be right. It's right next to his show, you know. Even all the tickets were sold out. Come off the phone to Yuri. Mark Lester rings me. Now.

Speaker 1: 55:03

When I saw Mark ringing me I thought shit, there's some truth to this, because Mark's a different route to Michael, he's closer to Michael's dead, michael's dead, and so on. So he said where are you? So I'm at home. So, matt, listen, michael's died. Wow, so how? I said we don't know, but the nanny's screaming down the phone he's dead, he's gone.

Speaker 1: 55:29

Anyway, it took hours for anything that gone the news. So by that point I had his family ringing me up. Are you with my brother, you with Michael? I said no. So there's rumors that he's not very well, he's been rushed to the hospital. And I just played dumb because I didn't want to be the one to deliver the news. I said call your mum, you know. And I knew he'd already died by that point. And uh, yeah. But about two hours later went on the tv Michael Jackson, the coma, mike Jackson's heart attack. And once they no one wanted to say it. And once they got the official coroner's report, michael Jackson dead and then that was it. It was freaking mayhem helicopters over the house. It was like a couple of days of absolute madness.

Speaker 2: 56:12

And how did you take it? How did it hit you Real?

Speaker 1: 56:14

hard, real hard yeah.

Speaker 1: 56:18

You can't like when you breathe somebody, you go through a process, you have counseling, and so I went to the doctors. I said you imagine it, you know you sit down. My friend has died. Who's your friend? They knew my friend was because he got well known. They didn't know how to deal with me.

Speaker 1: 56:29

Everywhere I went, his music was playing like when he was alive, was suddenly being commissioned like for it alive in London, and so on Musicals, everything was happening. Everyone wanted to know why he died and it was everywhere Sky News, top News, it was madness. Paparazzi outside my house. I was getting treated like I was him and Mark Lester was too and Yuri was. We were getting hounded. We just couldn't cope. Doctors put me on antidepressants, sleeping tablets. They sent me to a bereavement counsellor I imagine I had a brand new Ferrari 360 Spyder at the time turning up, going in there for counselling and if she don't know how to deal with a situation, she starts crying and I end up giving her a hug because it's such an unusual thing. They're fascinated by it.

Speaker 1: 57:11

But yeah, it was tough. We all had to have therapy and learn to embrace it. I therapy and and uh, learn to embrace it. I think what annoyed me the most is that I went from being matt fidesz, the martial arts millionaire, property tycoon businessman, as soon as he died ever since, and I've learned to live with it now and I, I, I wear it, I embrace it just got labeled as michael jackson's bodyguard, but he warned me of that. He did say, didn't he? Your life's never going to be the same. So, yeah, but that's the same. I Alvarez Presley's bodyguard. Very well, it's the same with him too. He gets labelled like that and he's got some great credentials to his name.

Speaker 2: 57:44

Well, look, we can't talk about Michael without talking about the child abuse allegations. I mean, they were multiple and frequent over a long period of time and I guess if anyone was going to be close to him and witness that kind of thing or comment on it, it's going to be yourself. I mean. I guess, again from a layperson's perspective. You know it's framing the question, but I mean it's always hard, I think, for us, even though we know we don't know what goes on the other, on the other side of the wall, you know, I would say, you know there's no smoke without fire. You know it's one thing when one person says it, when it's going on dozens and dozens and dozens of times and and even things when you know which were, I think, known facts, like you know you'd have all the kids around the house, or people sleeping in the bed and stuff.

Speaker 2: 58:33

I mean even if he wasn't abusing them. You know, as a parent, it's fucking bonkers.

Speaker 1: 58:37

I mean what's?

Speaker 1: 58:38

Yeah, yeah sure, If you didn't ask the question, then people would be asking why are you dodging that question? So it all goes back to 1993. Allegations by Jordan Chandler. His dad was a dentist, evan Chandler. I encourage people to go and watch a documentary out there called Square One on Amazon Prime and another one called Chase the Truth, which goes in deep into this subject.

Speaker 1: 59:02

So in 1993, michael was in the middle of a big tour called the Dangerous Tour. Billions were at stake, hundreds of employees, two 747 jets going around the world, massive had to be interrupted because this boy made these allegations. The same family, evan Chandler, came to to Michael with a finance proposal to budget to make a film. He made a film called Men in Tights. He wanted to make a big budget film. Michael declined the offer and then the guy went away and I don't know why it's not more out there, but you do see this a lot now where people just the mainstream media don't seem to want to report it. They want to report the narrative. There's audio tapes. You go watch these documentaries where Evan Chandler says if I go through with this, I'm going to win big time. You know, we're going to get Michael Jackson, we're going to stitch him up and it's all over money. You got kids, matt. Yes, yeah, I got six kids. So I accused someone one of my kids to be with daddy. You know, michael Jackson molested anyone mess with the, I'll kill him. Yeah, I would kill him. I'm not. I'm not gonna go and sue them for money. My first phone call, well, the first, I'll go get a gun probably, then call the police. I'm not having that. So they just went suits money. They were not interested in the criminal side. So they sued for money against Michael Jackson. And Then the district attorney, the police, basically FBI, they approached us. Well, don't you want to file a criminal suit? No, we're not interested in that, we just want to go for the money.

Speaker 1: 1:00:28

And the story goes basically that Jordan Chandler was given some kind of a medication to do a, to do a witness statement, because his dad was a dentist. And what happened next was Michael wanted to go and challenge these allegations. He wanted to fight the life out of them. The problem he had is that there was no criminal charges brought against him, it was just civil and he had this big tour on the go and you have massive insurance policies. So he got overruled and this is not out there enough.

Speaker 1: 1:01:00

If you go watch those documentaries Square One and Chase the Truth on Amazon Prime, you'll see. The documents are there. His insurance company sat him down with a board of people saying I'm sorry, mr Jackson, this is not your decision. We will pay this to get rid of you. We need you back on the road. There's billions that say this is a 20 million problem. Whatever it may be, we'll get rid of this damn thing. These liars, and the insurance company paid out. Michael never paid them out. He wanted to go and fight this damn thing and he wanted them to file criminal charges.

Speaker 2: 1:01:28

And this was the first allegation 1993.

Speaker 1: 1:01:30

It's opened up the flipping floodgates, didn't it? Now, because of that in America the law changed. You could no longer make those allegations, just go for money. You now have to do criminal case first, then do a civil claim after. So then nothing happened after that. There's all these stories about other. There is no other allegations. The next one that came about was in 2004 from Gavin Aviza, which Michael fought the criminal charges. He could have tried to settle it if he wanted to I'm going to fight the damn things and was unanimously found not guilty on all charges Hands down in the hardest court in the world.

Speaker 1: 1:02:05

Now, bear in mind, this family hired the same legal team as the 1993 people did. They had the same district attorney who was out to get him and this whole profit in your hometown thing. They wanted to get Michael. Why was the DA out to get him? Because he couldn't get him the first time around, because he would have made his name. So as soon as that trial ended, he was called Tom Sneddon. The district attorney retired. He wanted to retire on the biggest star in the world in jail.

Speaker 1: 1:02:33

And do you know what, matt, I've been with Michael and the Jacksons in America and the racism they have to put up with is unbelievable. I couldn't. I Used to hear it from Tito and Jermaine about people swearing on the street and call them names and that, and try witness it for myself. I couldn't believe it because we're Michael, we would hide and try not to be with the public much because it was madness. But I'd hear Tito get racist remarks against him and stuff and it was shocking. But I'd hear Tito get racist remarks against him and stuff and it was shocking. So there's an element of that too. And then it turned out too that the FBI had a 10-year investigation into Michael Jackson as well, open. They couldn't find nothing. They couldn't do nothing.

Speaker 1: 1:03:08

Now, the reason I stuck with him I knew the guy really well. He used to hang out with my family and my kids. My mum was dying of breast cancer. He was the biggest strength to me and her around, and the problem we had is that he was brainwashed by motel to not be seen with a girl, because you seem with a girl, your fan base be gone. And tito jackson was the first to get married out of jackson five and he was devastated. He thought this is going to be the end of our career. Well then why did you do this tito? He was crying. So we went to great lengths to hide his girlfriends, his wife's, away from the public towards the end of his life. He started to get more open to the situation once we made the fatal decision to work with Martin Bashir, that he hoped that was going to help him. But no, he had a problem with flipping women. He's womanizer. He's back in the car.

Speaker 1: 1:03:54

We got audio footage. If you go back and watch the Michael Jackson film, if anyone wants to doubt me on this, go back and watch living with michael jackson, that fatal hit piece that was done against michael and bashir. I was in that meeting. Bashir promised him all these things that never happened and stitched him up. Most of that footage was done on the last day because he knew michael would never see him again, because he thought michael thought he might was his friend.

Speaker 1: 1:04:15

Go and turn up the volume where the female fans are saying Michael, can we have a hug? And he said sure, you can have a hug. And as he's hugging them, he said I'll give you more than a hug. While that's happening, they turn down and Martin talks over, because it goes against the whole narrative of the program. And this is the issue.

Speaker 1: 1:04:31

Now let's go back and talk about his bedroom. Now I don't condone anyone sleeping in someone's bed, but Michael never slept in their flipping bed. Now you want to talk about his bedroom? It's massive man. It's like it's two stories, three bathrooms, arcade. It's his only private sanctuary he's got. There's nowhere else for Michael Jackson, even when he walks around Neverland he's got security followers, over 150 security staff there, because people used to parachute in, so I don't know where I am and the hope to meet Michael Jackson. He's good. And then he had a panic room in his room to say secret sex chamber. What a little nonsense. He used to hit the button at Neverland security. He had to run to that damn panic room multiple times, people to parachute in or or break the boundaries. Yeah, stuff in there to keep him Entertained. The stuff for how long it took to his safe to come out again, like many billionaires, a multi-millionaires, do.

Speaker 2: 1:05:17

But there is nothing untoward and and uh, but you saying kids did or didn't sleep in his bed.

Speaker 1: 1:05:22

They did not see with him in this bed. He used to sleep on the floor. Good, the bedroom upstairs.

Speaker 2: 1:05:27

It's on two stories same room, then I'm not in the same room.

Speaker 1: 1:05:29

They used to fall asleep watching movies together and his nephews and nieces and but not just but his boys thing come from. It was girls, girls, boys, adults. Staff were in and out. The door's not locked enough. I think people used to come in and out. I'm not saying it's right. He should not have done it, especially after 93. He should have been wary.

Speaker 2: 1:05:46

I guess that's what I'm trying to get at. I'm not trying to be baiting you a bit or be offensive, but I mean as a parent, you wouldn. You wouldn't presumably want your kids to go and watch a movie and sleep with Michael Jackson while you're out for dinner with your missus?

Speaker 1: 1:06:00

Michael. He says he used to go and hang out with my kids all the time and I'd be in the same building, but I won't leave anybody. It's not known to my family with him now where Michael had no problem of him being on my kids Because I knew what it was about and a lot of time to. They don't want to talk about the fact. These kids keep trying, like some of the kids around back then, like Macaulay Culkin for instance. Was that a legitimate friendship? Yeah, absolutely. Michael used to tell me I was his best friend and Michael used to fall asleep on the bed watching movies with his family, with his nephews, nieces and a few people who used to hang around. His freaking wife used to be there as well. Lisa Marie Presley used to say I was there.

Speaker 2: 1:06:37

Why don't everyone mention the fact that I was there in the bed with Michael too, falling asleep, you know, but hey, I think I'm just actually looking at my internet now, because I think just in the last couple of days, something's come out again recently, hasn't it? Which was the accusers? I'll tell you that. You'll know their names. Yeah, wade and James, wade and James, they've seeked to open the sealed records that include new photos of him.

Speaker 1: 1:07:01

So they lost their appeals. They were the star witnesses in the 2004 case, both of them Same age as me, and they were there saying nothing they'd ever done to them or anything. And then they changed their story later on down the line and I didn't think you could do that. And then they changed their story later on down the line and I didn't think you could do that like lie or no. But apparently once you get past a certain amount I think it's seven years in the United States you can't do for it, and they sued for money. They made this hit piece documentary which was four hours long. A lot of that's been proven to be untrue. Now James I think he's out there on the internet as Michael Jackson and it turned out that that train station wasn't even built until he was in his mid-20s.

Speaker 2: 1:07:38

I can't imagine Michael Jackson taking the train.

Speaker 1: 1:07:41

He had his own train station in Neverland. Well, we did take the train. Actually, we used to take the train from Paddington. He loved it. That was his best form of transit. He used to love it. He hated flying. So we took we do that around New York and things like that. So yeah, but I saw nonsense. The guy was into women. I mean, if you're gonna go after someone and bring them down Charminar station murder, rape, the things are you gonna go? And once you've been accused of that, you're over, aren't you? Michael never recovered from that, but I will say and I knew no one was around him strong enough to say I've been. Yuri Geller would say this is not looking good to the world. You should not be hanging around with kids, especially after what you accused on 93. I know your insurance company paid it off and you're innocent, you've got women. But you need to start cleaning up your image a bit and he tried to do that through Martin Bashir and it didn't work.

Speaker 2: 1:08:31

And what was Michael's reaction to that? I mean, did he?

Speaker 1: 1:08:33

agree to that. I mean, do you agree to shut you out of your life? Yeah, if michael heard stuff you didn't want to hear, you'd get shut out. I used to see those people shut out. Now I I wish I was a bit stronger on a map, but I was. I was just in my 20s. I didn't feel like I could raise my voice. I did with a drug usage. I thought he's going to kill himself, but he would shoot me down. You know, because I was just a guy, karate teachers to him in his 20s. Who's Far as Michael was concerned, he may be a multi-millionaire for his knowledge and power and I was just yeah, who was I to say to him but you're again. I used to shut, shout him in. He shut Yuri out.

Speaker 2: 1:09:09

I was gonna say would he shut Yuri as well?

Speaker 1: 1:09:11

Yeah, he shut Yuri out the years to show him. You got to stop doing this. The world don't perceive it right. You know it's Look one way to sum up I've got an incredible home in Devon. If someone moved next to another incredible home next to me who appeared to be a single man having kids come and sleep over, of course I'd call the police. I would. But Neverland was built not for him to be a home. He made that for make a wish foundation. Over 10 000 children a year were bussed into neverland to make their wish country. It's like a fairground, their zoo, everything you can imagine. That's what was built for.

Speaker 1: 1:09:44

So they say multiple accusers. It's not multiple accusers, there's only ever two. And these last two guys have been proven to be fordsters. They've lost to their appeals. Now they're going again because it's been a slight law change after it. But he's not even here to defend himself anymore, is he? And back in 2005, both Wade and James said nothing happened to them and they're suing for hundreds of millions of dollars. And when that TV program was made the four-hour hit piece, they never mentioned that. I think had they mentioned that they are suing the Michael Jackson estate for money, a lot of people would have switched over.

Speaker 2: 1:10:18

A lot of media would have ignored it. What's Neverland?

Speaker 1: 1:10:20

up to now? Is it still there? Yeah, they're filming the biopic there at the moment. It's a private buyer One of his mates bought it. He lost that in 2005, a few years before he died. He lost it, got repossessed.

Speaker 2: 1:10:31

Well, so, matt, it has been a wild conversation, which can't possibly do justice to the wildness of your life over the last 20, well, I'll say 25 years, probably since that guy first nicked your milk back when you were seven years old.

Speaker 1: 1:10:44

Ah yeah, he's a legend.

Speaker 2: 1:10:47

What's the next 30, 40 years hold for you?

Speaker 1: 1:10:50

Well, the MF legacy I'm going to keep building. We've got MF martial arts schools opening all around the world. We're still expanding our franchises. We've got MF Dance, mf Pilates, mf Yoga. We've got my property portfolio, which is still ever expanding. I'm still buying more than ever now. Bargains are back again, so I'm building that.

Speaker 1: 1:11:08

And what I enjoy most, I run something called the Money Freedom Club, which is something that I do for fun. It's more of a passion project for me. It for fun, it's more of a passion project for me. It's not, it's only like 10 or a month, but for me it's getting like-minded people in the room giving them proper, hard, honest advice about how to make money. The money freedom club, mfclub, and and I just bring, I do an event on every three months.

Speaker 1: 1:11:29

There's no selling, there's no pitching allowed. I bring my celebrity contact book to them. We talk about anything from social media to media to property invested, all the different sectors of that how to build wealth, because I don't think there's enough people teaching you how to become financially free out there. It's not taught at school, college, university teachers. You get university degree in business. You're getting taught by a lecturer who's never owned a business before. He's basically broke um. The world's in a mess, so I enjoy that. So I'm going to keep expanding mF Club and teaching and mentoring people how to make money, invest and grow businesses and build their own economy, rather than worry about our governments, which in the UK anyway aren't doing a very good job.

Speaker 2: 1:12:09

And we'll put the link down in the show notes on the podcast. But just give yourself a little mention for where we can find you.

Speaker 1: 1:12:16

It's very simple if they just go to wwwmfclub like a new website on there. You've got all my social medias, too, official. Matt Faddes. Follow me on Instagram and I'll DM me. You'll get me, not a VA, I'm very I like you know people stay in contact with people and if they're struggling with their mental health or they want some guidance here and there, then just DM me and they'll get me responding.

Speaker 2: 1:12:38

Awesome. Well, Matt, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for taking time out while you've been here in Dubai.

Speaker 1: 1:12:42

Been a pleasure, thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:12:44

Thanks for listening to Stripping Off with Matt Haycox. I hope you've enjoyed listening to this week's episode, but please remember to subscribe or to follow and please, please, leave a review. Please leave a review, if you can leave a review. That's how we move up the algorithm, that's how we get to the top of the charts and that's how I can keep bringing you bigger and better guests that you'll love each week. Have you got any suggestions for guests? Have you got any burning questions you want to ask? Well, slide into my DMs on social at strippingoffwithmatthaycox.