For months before matters came to a head, Jackson framed it this way himself: "So we can't let them get away with what they're trying to do. Because now I'm a free agent. I just owe Sony one more album… So I'm leaving Sony, a free agent, owning half of Sony. So I own half of Sony's publishing." His own words, not a producer's paraphrase — from a speech at NAN headquarters, Harlem NYC, July 6, 2002 (filmed by Dee Grimes), the same rally recorded in full at node 19 below. Whatever else happened this phase, he walked into it already thinking of the relationship as a chess board with him one move from walking off it a free agent. Compare that framing against Phase I's EXH-C — the board he thought he was one move from leaving.

The 30th Anniversary shows (09.07 + 09.10) — $10,000 VIP seats, a full Jackson 5 reunion on stage. This is the high-water mark; every document below is measured against the heat of these two nights.

Fourteen countries. First week U.S.: 363–366k per source — when a number wobbles, I show the wobble. Six years away, and he walks back in at the top. Whatever happens next, it does not happen because the public stopped buying.

A promo single — radio gets it, fans cannot buy it. The trades say the commercial release is "planned for January." It detonates at node 10.

~25M to ~45M depending on the measure — either way, enormous. A prime-time victory lap for an album whose street-level machinery is already winding down. The contrast with node 06, sixteen days apart, is the whole act break. ■

I count the trade ads myself, weekly, ruler on the page. "♪Butterflies" is #4 R&B airplay with no commercial single to buy. That is not how you treat a hit — that is how you treat a liability. Proof docked below.

Jackson's own visual concept — thugs, a high-rise, reassembly into fire. Sony called it too violent and passed. Jackson self-funded the ⌜Brett Ratner shoot anyway. Sony then cancelled all promotion for the finished film. Read that sequence again: they didn't just decline to greenlight something — they let him spend his own money finishing it, then killed it. Full file: ♪Unbreakable track page.

⌜Tommy Mottola's own private assessment, later reported: "Everyone in the company thought that it was good, but by no means Michael's best work… we were not about to ask him to go back and cut some new tracks." Filed here at the phase level because it's the clearest documented statement of what the label actually thought while the promotion was already dying above. His fuller side, and his public counter to Jackson, is on ⌜Mottola's own file.

"What More Can I Give" — recorded 09.99–11.01, all-star lineup, ~$50M goal for 9/11 families. Sony refused to release it; MJ reportedly put up $2M of his own money to fund the recording. A finished charity record, a willing public, and a no. Explain it to me. It didn't stay buried: it became available as a digital download in October 2003 through non-Sony channels. Jackson pulled it himself on November 17, 2003 — the eve of the Neverland raid. ■ Full adjacent-track file: What More Can I Give.

The "♪Butterflies" commercial release is cancelled. Go back to node 04 — I wrote "hold that phrase" in November and I am not letting go of it now. A #4 airplay record, and the label declines to sell it.

"♪Whatever Happens" was slated as a fourth single — never released. "♪Break of Dawn" was planned — never released. The Vault has a wing for singles that existed only on paper. → THE VAULT

Every MJ studio album since Off the Wall toured; Invincible didn't — a planned tour collapsed under 9/11 and the label dispute. The label's counter: MJ himself refused to tour domestically and refused every video concept but "♪You Rock My World." ⚠︎ Both claims filed, neither adjudicated.

⌜Rodney Jerkins, on why he thinks the label came after Jackson so hard: "They did a deal with him that forever he felt they wanted back. You think they threw all those cases at Michael because they wanted it back? I think it could have had something to do with it." And Jackson's own frame, said directly to Jerkins: "They just can't stand that I'm the greatest." Two intercepts, same source, filed here for lack of a better home — flagged for eventual migration to ⌜Jerkins' own file.

The old framing here (“simultaneously working for Sony, undisclosed”) was wrong and is retired. The real, better-sourced story: in 2003, an unsubstantiated private-investigation report — the “Interfor Report,” commissioned by an increasingly paranoid Jackson — accused ⌜Branca of funneling Jackson's money to offshore accounts. Jackson's own lawyer testified under oath he found no credible evidence for the charges. Jackson fired Branca anyway — a 30-year relationship ended by an allegation that was likely part of a smear campaign, not proven wrongdoing. Arguably a sharper Battle-narrative beat than the old version: paranoia and manipulation inside the circle, not a proven ethical lapse. Full sourcing on Branca's own file.

Jackson's trial attorney, on the mindset that produced the Branca firing above: "He was very verbal that he thought Sony was involved. That he thought the effort was to get his catalog. He had trouble trusting anyone." ⌜Mesereau also recounts Jackson calling him mid-trial at night, crying: "Please don't let them pay you off." Mesereau: "Michael, what are you talking about?" Jackson: "I know they're going to offer you millions. They want me to go down and they see that you're doing a great job." A later pass, searching for the on-record interview these lines were presumed to trace to, found real Mesereau interviews with thematically similar material but not these exact quotes verbatim — filed here as a widely-repeated account awaiting primary-source confirmation, not settled fact. Kept here in summary because it's core to this phase's argument, even though the full file lives on ⌜Mesereau's own page.

Before the public war, the private one: ⌜John McClain attempts to fire ⌜Brad Buxer and ⌜Karen Smith, and targets ⌜Frank Cascio directly. Cascio gets Jackson to fire McClain after the 30th Anniversary Special — and McClain returns anyway. The people around Jackson were not stable while any of this campaign was unfolding. Full account on ⌜Cascio's own file.

Jackson's fan-club protest plan — a double-decker bus, driven through New York. ⌜Frank Cascio refused to support the racial framing behind it. The first time Cascio ever broke from Jackson's position, days before the London press conference below. Full account on ⌜Cascio's own file.

A London press conference. MJ, publicly, for the first time, calls ⌜Mottola "the devil." The battle is no longer subtext.

And the poster: Mottola drawn with devil horns, held up for the cameras. Read the intercept again — it is the entire file, in his voice.

The fuller sequence: ⌜Al Sharpton stood publicly supportive at the Harlem rally. That same night, ⌜Mottola called him. Sharpton's "in his opinion, untrue" line to the press (above) came after that call, not before it. ⌜Russell Simmons sided with Sony. Mottola's own account of making that call is on ⌜Mottola's file; this node states the sequence at the phase level.

Seven weeks after Harlem, at the VMAs: Jackson is presented with a fabricated "Artist of the Millennium" award, on stage, in front of the cameras. Full account, alongside the rest of the personal fallout from this window, on ⌜Cascio's own file.

A formal break in March 2002; then, weeks after the Harlem rally above, formally cut off by a lawyer's letter — cc'd to Jackson, ⌜John McClain, ⌜Trudy Green, ⌜John Branca, and ⌜Barry Siegel. Worth stating plainly: by the time of that rally, the people advising Jackson were no longer the people who had been in the room for the actual recording sessions. A genuine changing of the guard between "The Making" and this phase. Full timeline on ⌜Cascio's own file.

⌜Mottola's own side, presented alongside the rest rather than adjudicated: "Like any child or artist, you lash out at your record company, the voice of authority. It's never anybody else's fault." His fuller account is on ⌜Mottola's own file.

Jackson retained his 50% Sony/ATV stake until his death, June 25, 2009. In 2016, Sony purchased that stake from the Jackson Estate for $750M. That wasn't the final chapter. In February 2024, Sony struck a second, larger deal: 50% of Jackson's publishing and his recorded masters, including the MiJac catalog (Sly & the Family Stone, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jackie Wilson, Curtis Mayfield, and others) — roughly $600M against a total catalog valuation of $1.2B–$1.5B. Katherine Jackson formally objected, arguing the sale violated Michael's wishes; a California appeals court rejected her objection and gave final approval in August 2024. The deal was brokered by executors ⌜John Branca and ⌜John McClain — Branca is now the estate's sole executor following McClain's death in May 2026. The chess board from Phase I's EXH-C was always the right read; this 2024 sale is the more decisive proof of it than the 2016 one alone. Worth flagging here too: the Estate's extortion claim against Frank Cascio is evidentially tied to August 2024 emails — the same month this deal was being finalized — and the Estate has since pointed to Cascio's own memoir, the primary source behind much of this phase's Cascio-sourced material, as a rebuttal exhibit in that separate, ongoing litigation. Treat the memoir as a contested, actively-litigated source, not settled biography, wherever it's cited in this file; see ⌜Cascio's own page. This phase's closing beat hands off directly into Phase IV, "The Legacy", and the broader reassessment covered there.