Michael Jackson waves to supporters outside the Santa Barbara County Courthouse, June 13, 2005.

Since Michael Jackson's sudden death on June 25, the rumor¹ mill over details of his bizarre personal life has ground away nearly non-stop, and on Friday, one company said it was turning his hair into diamonds. That one is true.

The claims this week included a report in Rolling Stone magazine that a prosthetic nose he wore apparently² went missing when he was taken to the morgue, and a British tabloid³ trumpeted⁴ a headline that he fathered a secret love-child.

In one by-product⁵ of the "Thriller⁶" singer's death, a Chicago company said on Friday it had obtained some of the hair Jackson burned while filming a 1984 Pepsi commercial and planned to create a limited edition of diamonds from it.

"Absolutely this is for real," said Dean VandenBiesen, founder⁷ of LifeGem, which has a patent on a process that extracts carbon from hair, turns it into crystals and then into high-quality laboratory diamonds.

VandenBiesen told Reuters he thought the company could make about 10 diamonds. No sale price has been set but VandenBiesen said LifeGem created three diamonds from locks of Beethoven's hair in 2007, and sold one of them for around $200,000.

Separately, the August 6 issue of Rolling Stone magazine reported that not only was the left arm of Jackson's dead body "scored with needle marks" -- claims that have arisen before -- but he wore an artificial nose that was missing when he was taken to the Los Angeles county morgue.

"The prosthesis that he normally attached to his damaged nose was missing, revealing bits of cartilage surrounding a small dark hole," the magazine said in an unsourced report.

While that report could not be confirmed, Los Angeles coroner's officials did say earlier this week they were probing security breaches⁸ in their offices.

The coroner's office is expected to release an official cause of death next week which could shed light on some of the reports, including Jackson's possible use of powerful drugs.

And even as custody⁹ of Jackson's three children is set to be decided¹⁰ in court on August 3, The Sun newspaper speculated the singer may have had a love-child raised in Norway.

Omer Bhatti, 25, sparked interest when he was spotted¹¹ sitting with the singer's immediate¹² family at Jackson's public memorial earlier this month. Bhatti reportedly spent time with Jackson at his Neverland Valley Ranch¹³ in the 1990s and was known as "Little Michael".

But another of Jackson's former proteges, singer Ricky Harlow, told celebrity¹⁴ website People.com on Friday that although they were close he doubted Bhatti was Jackson's son.

"They had a father-and-son type of connection," Harlow, 26, told People, "but I never thought he (Jackson) was his biological father."

In Jackson's 2002 will, the singer listed only three children now living: Prince Michael Jackson, Jr, Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince Michael Joseph Jackson II.

自从迈克尔•杰克逊在6月25日突然辞世，有关他私生活的各种光怪陆离的传闻便不绝于耳。上周五，一家公司说准备把他的头发制成钻石。这个传闻是真的。

本周的传闻包括滚石杂志上的一篇报道，上面说迈克尔•杰克逊的尸体在送到太平间的时候他的假鼻子很明显不知去向。一份英国小报对迈克尔•杰克逊有一个秘密的私生子大作文章。

这位“惊悚”歌手去世之后还有这样一则消息：芝加哥的一家公司上周五说它已得到杰克逊1984年拍摄百事可乐广告时烧掉的部分头发，并打算把这些头发制成限量版钻石。

“这绝对是真的，” “生命珍宝”公司的创始人迪恩•凡登比森说。“生命珍宝”公司能够从头发中抽取碳元子，把它制成水晶和高质量的实验室专用钻石，并在这项技术上拥有专利。

凡登比森告诉路透社说他认为公司能制造大约10颗钻石。目前还没确定售价，不过凡登比森说“生命珍宝”公司在2007年曾用贝多芬的几绺头发制造出三颗钻石，其中一颗售价约为20万美金。

另外，滚石杂志8月6日刊报道说，不仅像此前传闻中所说的在杰克逊尸体的左臂上“有针孔痕迹”，而且他在被送往洛杉矶郡停尸间的时候还丢了一个假鼻子。

该杂志称：“他平时在受损的鼻子上所移植的假鼻子丢失了，在一个小黑洞周围露出一些软骨组织。”报道中没有说明消息来源。

尽管那篇报道不能被核实，洛杉矶的验尸官员在本周初时说，他们正在调查验尸官办公室里违犯安全的事件。

验尸官办公室打算于下周公布官方调查的杰克逊死因，这份报告将对一些报道予以澄清，包括杰克逊可能服用强力毒品的报道。

尽管8月3日法庭将判决杰克逊三个孩子的监护权，太阳报猜测杰克逊可能在挪威还有一个私生子。

本月早些时候在杰克逊的公众追悼会上，当25岁的欧默•巴提被看到和杰克逊的直系亲属坐在一起时，他立刻引起了人们的兴趣。 据报道，巴提在20世纪90年代曾在杰克逊的梦幻农庄和他共度了一段时光，还被人称为“小迈克尔”。

但是杰克逊过去的另一个追随者，歌手里奇•哈娄，却在周五告诉名人网站People.com说，虽然巴提和杰克逊很亲密，但是他对巴提是杰克逊的儿子这一说法持怀疑态度。

“他们之间有父子般的感情，”26岁的哈娄告诉名人网站People.com，“但是我从来不认为他是巴提的生父。”

在杰克逊2002年的遗嘱中，他只提到了三名在世的子女：普林斯•迈克尔•杰克逊、帕里斯•迈克尔•凯瑟琳•杰克逊和普林斯•迈克尔•杰克逊II。

Vocabulary:

ground: grind的过去分词。磨（碎），碾（碎）。文中把流言（rumor）比作一个磨坊，把杰克逊生前的私生活像玉米棒子一样“磨”成很多像面粉一样细小的颗粒，被网站和报社、杂志社拣拾起来，提供给感兴趣的人们。

prosthetic: 义肢的，假体的

morgue: 停尸室，太平间

tabloid: （以轰动性报导为特点的）小报

Thriller: “Thriller”是迈克尔•杰克逊的巅峰之作，此专辑不仅在美国专辑榜上蝉连了37周冠军，在世界各国皆成为冠军专辑。拥有七首Top 10单曲，获得了12项葛莱美奖提名及七项奖座。全球销量到1995年已超过四千四百三十万张（美国二千一百万张）。本文中一语双关，巧妙地借用杰克逊最成功的专辑来说明他是一个“令人激动的”歌手。thriller一词有“引起激动的人（或物）”的意思。

cartilage: 软骨

Neverland: 童话《小飞侠》（Peter Pan）中的奇幻王国，杰克逊的庄园就是以童话中的王国命名的。