Michael Jackson's concert promoter, AEG Live, have released a statement addressing claims they planned 50 shows without the singer's consent. Michael's friend and former promoter Leonard Rowe appeared on Larry King Live! earlier this week and claimed Jackson had never agreed to perform 50 shows and actually only wanted to perform 10 concerts. "Our original agreement with Michael Jackson called for 31 shows. It was our option as the promoter to only announce the first 10 concerts knowing that based on the response to the pre-sale, we could and would add the additional 21 shows to the initial on-sale," AEG's statement to Entertainment Tonight said. "The pre-sale response was so overwhelming that we went back to Michael's representative at the time, Dr. Tohme Tohme to inquire whether Michael would be willing to increase the number of shows. He reported that Michael was willing to increase the number of performances to 50. We did receive feedback from Dr. Tohme and Michael himself that it was important that we spaced the additional shows out over an extended period of time and that we would rent an estate for him and his family so that they would not be 'trapped' in a hotel suite while they were in London. He told us he was also motivated by the opportunity to establish a record to be entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for the run he was about to embark on."
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