Sold to Ronald Burkle, co-owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team and co-founder of the investment firm Yucaipa, according to local press.
The property, named “Neverland” in honor of the magical island from the play “Peter Pan and Wendy”, by the writer JM Barrie was bought by Jackson in 1987 to golf capitalist William Bone for 17.5 million
Six years after the death of Jackson, who died in 2009 at the age of 50 from a drug overdose, his heirs put this famous 1,100-hectare mansion in the Santa Ynez wine valley up for sale for $ 100 million.
In 2017, it was reduced to 67 million and the local press persuaded then that the property was still in an “impeccable” condition, with the “only difference” associated to when the king of pop lived that already there were no elephants, nor the train and the amusement park that distinguished it.
But two years later, in the absence of buyers and during the controversy that broke out in the United States over the publication of the documentary “Leaving Neverland”, which aired HBO and where, over four hours, the accusations of sexual abuse against the singer, the property underwent a new reduction, from 67 to 31 million dollars.
Jackson was absolved in 2005 in a trial in which he was impeached of having maligned a young man, while in 1994 he reached a financial compromise out of court with the family of another boy who indicted him of the same crime.
The final price of the property, according to The Wall Street Journal, has been $22 million.
According to Burkle spokesperson, the buyer’s plan is not to set his residence where Jackson once lived, but preferably to invest in real estate so that he can market it later.