'My life was a blues song to the max'

Losing lawsuit against Michael Jackson was a catalyst for isolation, but singer is climbing back out

By Sue Lindsay, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published June 11, 2008 at 9:32 p.m.

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Photo by George Kochaniec Jr. / The Rocky

Crystal Cartier performs at The Boneyard Sports Bar and Grill in Aurora . Cartier once sued singer Michael Jackson, accusing him of stealing her song Dangerous. She lost the case in 1994.

Crystal Cartier during the 1994 trial, in which jurors sided with star singer Michael Jackson. The outfit earned her a reprimand from the judge in the case.

In the 14 years since she lost her lawsuit against Michael Jackson, Denver singer Crystal Cartier has barely stepped out of her home, much less onto a stage.

But on a recent Sunday at a club in Aurora, Cartier, wearing a flowing gown and carrying a tall wooden staff, picked up the microphone and sang a song.

She was nervous, and the band played the tune in the wrong key for her voice.

"It was not my best performance," she said, "but I did it!"

It's been a long, hard climb for Cartier, whose confidence and trust in people was shattered by her experience with the Jackson trial.

She has lived in virtual isolation since then, only this year resolving to come out of her shell.

"I decided I've got to get out and be active again. It's like I've been dead for so long."

She did so in a big way, becoming a precinct captain and delegate to the state Democratic Party convention for Barack Obama.

"I am an Obama Mama!" she exclaimed.

But it has been a struggle."Anything out of my comfort zone is really difficult," she said, and that comfort zone ends where the sidewalk outside her home begins.

But Cartier was far from reclusive in 1992, when she sued one of the biggest recording stars in the business.

Cartier claimed Jackson stole her song Dangerous after she dropped off copies of a tape of the song at recording studios in Los Angeles.

Jackson, white-faced with a trademark black tendril hanging over one eye, testified at the federal trial in Denver in 1994. Audio tapes of Jackson's testimony were sold by the court for $15 each.

But the sideshow soon overtook the circus.

'All over some cleavage'

U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham ordered Cartier to change her clothes when she strode into court on the day of Jackson's testimony dressed in fishnet stockings, spike heels and a tight black leather dress that revealed her cleavage.

"I had dressed like a schoolmarm, a frump, for the entire trial," she said. So she wore the leather dress featured in her Dangerous video that had aired on television all week during the trial. "I didn't want Michael to totally upstage me," she said.

"Gee, all this over some cleavage," Cartier said. "Michael sat there wearing his little suit with orange epaulets and more makeup than I did. He looked like a flaming drag queen. What I wore was disrespectful? They acted like I was wearing pasties! It was horrible."

The media frenzy provoked by the dress and the judge's rebuke led Cartier to stay home when the verdict was read.

"I couldn't take it anymore," she said, tears streaming down her face at the memory of her humiliation. "I couldn't believe the verdict. It started out as David and Goliath, but all of a sudden I was Jezebel, thrown to the dogs and all over some cleavage."

And it began a descent into depression that stopped Cartier from performing.

She was crushed by the verdict, believing that key evidence was ignored. "They threw copyright law out the window," she said.

Despondent and broke, Cartier was evicted from her apartment.

After the trial, things went from bad to worse.

"Everything I touched was just falling apart," she said. "I lost my apartment. My car was repossessed. I had no job. I had $300,000 in legal bills. My friends vanished like rats deserting a sinking ship. My life was in the toilet. I'd lost everything. My life was a blues song to the max."

A life in shambles

Eventually, she had to declare bankruptcy.

One day, she said she almost stepped out in front of a bus to end her life.

With the help of her church, she slowly crawled out of that funk, but she stopped singing. She even stopped listening to music.

"I stopped trying to be successful as a singer," Cartier said. "I just stopped everything."

In one bright spot during those years, she married her husband, Lee Woods, whom she met while working in local access cable television.

But even marriage didn't end her self-imposed isolation.

"I don't go out in public. Ever since February 1994, if I (go) anywhere, I'm out long enough to do what I have to do and get my butt home."

Cartier said she was stunned at the shambles her life had become.

"You have to understand, I have been a strong woman, an overachiever all of my life. My parents put all their hopes and dreams into me. I was a straight-A student, skipped two grades, was class president, took accelerated classes, was the first in my family to graduate from college, served my country in the Army, traveled all over, lived in Paris.

"There's a lot of pride. So for me to hit rock bottom like that was really hard, a hard fall."

Now, Cartier said, her life revolves around the computer that dominates a corner of the living room office in her Aurora home.

"This is my world," she said.

"I appear to be an extrovert because of my extroverted behavior when I am performing, but I'm not. I am an introvert. I live in my mind."

From her home office, she writes online magazines, conducts interviews on public affairs and other issues for several local access cable shows, writes social commentary, does social work specializing in elder issues.

On her wall hangs a proclamation from former Mayor Wellington Webb, declaring Sept. 26, 1996, "Crystal Cartier Day" for her work with Channel 57 Denver Community Television and charitable organizations.

Obama 'like magic'

Cartier stays up all night writing and working on her other ventures.

"I work best late at night with no distractions. The phone doesn't ring."

Cartier was finishing her Gothic vampire novel, Immortal Obsession, at the time she heard Jackson's song.

Her book features a character, Michael the Meek, that she wrote with Jackson in mind for a screenplay version with a cast of other stars including Denzel Washington, Billy Dee Williams, Bill Cosby and Diana Ross.

Another character is the reincarnation of King Solomon, who brokers peace in the Middle East and goes on to be the first black president of the United States.

"Isn't that prophetic?" she asks.

But at the time she wrote the novel in 1992, she said she didn't think her vision could become reality.

But she's changed her mind.

Cartier is convinced Obama will be the first black president of of the United States.

"It's like magic, the Obama campaign. When he announced he was running for president and I saw the effect he has on people, I just had to be a part of it, part of this movement. We're going to win this time and I'm going to be involved in making it happen."

Although she was an Obama precinct captain, Cartier said she did her canvassing at home by phone. It was a major struggle to get herself to the precinct caucus at South High School in February.

She is plagued with arthritis in her legs.

"It's embarrassing. It's hard for me to be seen hunched over like an old woman," she said.

But she got to the caucus and attended the state Democratic convention in Colorado Springs last month.

Cartier wasn't chosen as a national delegate. She confides she was torn between wanting to be present for that part of history and wanting to retreat back into her comfortable shell.

She's proud of the fact "I was a part of the grassroots campaign that got him there, and I'll be cheering the others on."

As for Jackson, Cartier says she is not surprised by the sad, self-destructive path his life and career have taken.

"I have said that until he does right by me, nothing he touches will prosper. And nothing has. I believe he's being punished for all the wicked things he's done."

Cartier vs. Jackson

* June 3, 1992: Denver songwriter Crystal Cartier names Michael Jackson in a $40 million federal lawsuit, claiming she wrote, recorded and obtained a copyright for the song Dangerous long before Jackson released a similar song and album by the same name.

* Feb. 14, 1994: Jackson testifies in federal court in Denver, insisting he had never heard of Cartier or her song until she sued him. Cartier testifies she sent several tapes of her song to Jackson before he recorded his song, but Jackson says it's widely known he never accepts unsolicited tapes. He tells the jury his song Dangerous was developed from a "bass lick" he wrote for an unreleased song called Streetwalker.

* Feb. 15, 1994: The jury deliberates less than four hours before rejecting Cartier's claim.

Song excerpts

"Dangerous, he's so dangerous / You've got to get it off your mind / I want to love him but he's Dangerous / I even tried to make him mine / Nearly destroyed me 'cause he's Dangerous / I've got to get him off my mind / Dangerous / Ooh, Dangerous / He's so Dangerous . . .'' Crystal Cartier

"She's so dangerous / The girl is so dangerous / Take away my money / Throw away my time / You can call me honey / But you're no damn good for me / Dangerous / The girl is so dangerous . . .'' Michael Jackson

• June 12, 2008

  2:27 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  peteSmith writes:

  I wished I had been there Kay, so I could get her name! I suppose Judge Naughty got her name. See May 22, 2008 entry at: http://www.knowyourcourts.com/News/ne... for clarification.

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