Michael Jackson planned 50ft robot for Las Vegas residency

According to reports, the late singer wanted a giant Jackson robot to roam the Nevada desert as an advertisement for a 2005 comeback that never was

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• Sean Michaels
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 20 August 2009 10.34 BST
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Michael Jackson's statue on the river Thames ... and you thought this was ridiculous. Photograph: Brian Rasic/Rex Features

Years before Michael Jackson agreed to a 50-date residency at London's O2 Arena, the singer was considering a similar run of shows in Las Vegas. According to reports this week, Jackson was working with artists not just on costumes, sets and an accompanying hotel – but on a gigantic Michael Jackson robot roaming the Nevada desert.

Plans for the Las Vegas concerts began in October 2005, just months after the King of Pop was acquitted on child-molestation charges. Fashion designer André van Pier, a long-time friend of both Jackson and Princess Diana, led the work. According to PageSix, his costume designs included "space-age", solar-powered fabric that changed colour in reaction to stage lights.

The team's sci-fi ambitions didn't stop there. Van Pier, partner Michael Luckman and artist Timothy Patterson made plans for a towering Michael Jackson robot, 50ft high and visible from Las Vegas's McCarran airport. The robot would wander in the desert as an advertisement for Jackson's show. "Michael's looked at the sketches and liked them," Luckman told the New York Daily News in 2007.

Funding, however, was a problem. Fresh from his controversial trial, Jackson had trouble securing investors. Though he met with moguls including casino owner Steve Wynne, "he just couldn't raise enough money," Luckman told MTV News.

Eventually, Jackson and his team scaled down their grand ambitions. Instead of a roaming robot, they conceived of a Jackson-themed hotel and casino – with an android at the entrance. "Michael really liked the initial designs and wanted to use them somehow," Luckman said. Patterson described the looming techno-Michael that would have dominated the hotel's proposed facade: "The face would move, shooting laser-beam-looking lights. The whole building would be covered with spotlights."

Money, however, continued to be a problem. Jackson, who had been living in Nevada, moved away. Van Pier died in August 2008, and finally Jackson announced the London concerts in March 2009 – scuppering plans for a Las Vegas run. Though Luckman, Patterson and Jackson were scheduled to have a meeting in November, Jackson died in June.

There are currently no public plans to build the hotel, casino, or the lonely, moonwalking, robot.