OK! Magazine editors are reeling from the backlash at its decision to run Michael Jackson’s death photo on its cover.
The magazine has reportedly come under fire from advertisers and celebrities alike after paying $500,000 for the last known image taken of Jackson as paramedics continued CPR efforts on him inside an ambulance at his rented mansion in Holmby Hills on Thursday (6/25).
According to the NY Post, magazine staffers questioned the publisher’s decision to purchase the death image (that was already published by ETonline.com last week) and they wondered if it was even worth the impending firestorm of bad press that would surely follow.
But OK! editorial director Sarah Ivens defended the magazine’s decision to run the photo:
“It’s a photo that captures the surprise and the upset and the moment of this breaking news story. I hope the cover will provoke readers. It celebrated the man, but it also does expose that he was an eccentric character who lived a very controversial life.”
Rumors that media moguls Sean Combs and Jay Z were organizing a boycott against the tabloid have been denied. “Not true,” said a rep for Combs.