Former Hollywood private eye and “fixer” to the stars Anthony Pellicano is serving out the last year of a 15 year sentence for 78 counts of wiretapping, racketeering, protection, intimidation, and identity theft, among other charges at Southern California’s Terminal Island Federal Correctional Institution. Pellicano, whose former clients include Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone, Roseanne Barr, Garry Shandling, and Courtney Love, among others; hasn’t spoken to anyone outside of a courtroom in over six years, but granted a rare interview opportunity to The Hollywood Reporter, on newsstands February 14.
Pellicano’s work as a private investigator dates all the way back to the Watergate scandal and Kennedy assassination, however it was his trajectory in Hollywood that made him a notorious figure, as well as resulted in his downfall. Following his 2002 arrest, the FBI discovered over 150,000 pages of transcribed recordings, which were not court-ordered wiretaps. Although Pellicano could have given up his clients to shorten his own prison sentence, he claims that rats and informants are “worse than child molesters.” “Close call — but I feel that way, and I will never relent,” he told the publication.
Speaking of molestation — while Pellicano carefully tread the line of questioning as to not say anything that may incriminate him — the most damning detail from the interview came about while discussing his former client Michael Jackson, who retained his services when the molestation scandal broke in 1993.
He often refers to the “omerta,” the vow of loyalty he took to clients, the same vow that cost him his freedom. Yet talk to him about most of the A-list that once employed him, and his distaste is clear. For example, Michael Jackson, who reportedly engaged his services around 1993 (via attorney Fields) — and whom Pellicano claims he “fired” because he was disgusted by truths even darker than those alleged in Jackson’s molestation scandal. “I was offered $500,000 to tell the whole story by a tabloid, and I declined, even though, while incarcerated, I needed the money.” Other questions regarding the Jackson saga are met with what may be the definitive Pellicano irony: “All of that would get too close to the truth, so, regretfully, I have to decline.”
Pellicano will be released from prison on his 75th birthday on March 22, 2019, and it’s likely whatever secrets he holds in regards to that scandal — and countless others — will eventually be buried with him. “Some people got away with a lot of things and made a lot of money because of me,” he admitted, when asked if he had any regrets looking back.
(Via Hollywood Reporter)