Hardcore fans clamour for tickets but will this be a sell-out

He is a 50-year-old man who was said at his 2005 trial on child abuse charges to have regressed to the mental level of a 10-year-old, while his admitted behaviour with young boys left many people feeling queasy.

He has been dogged with rumours about his painkiller addiction problems, his skin whitening and his plastic surgery. And most people still shudder in horror at the moment he held his young son out in the air over a Berlin hotel balcony.

Without a new album for eight years - although there are suggestions of one in the pipeline - Michael Jackson is at a creative standstill, clearly only doing the concerts at the O2 to ease financial problems which have caused him to auction mementos from his long career next month.

Jackson retains a massive global fan base. For them, he's never "Wacko Jacko" but still "The King of Pop".

The devoted fans who yesterday were hanging around the Lanesborough Hotel near Oxford Circus on rumours of his presence, will happily shell out £75 for tickets - probably more than once - as well as buying other merchandise. They would also have bought last year's 25th anniversary re-release of Thriller, keeping it at the top of the re-issue charts for 11 weeks.

The residency at the O2 will allow the singer to avoid many of the rigours of touring. But some will say it still represent a gamble for Jackson, who might find that while he retains a hardcore of obsessive fans they will still not be sufficient to sell out the O2 for almost two months.

That did not stop the mounting excitement on fan websites. "Oh my god pleeeeaaase let this be true!," said one British fan, while a Swedish fan wrote: "Hope this is true. Then I will go to England and see him!!!! Maybe my dream will finally come true.'' With fans like these, Jackson can afford to ignore the critics.