https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/celebrities-9-11-wahlberg-jackson-macfarlane-b2164383.html
Michael Jackson
According to Michael Jackson’s older brother, Jermaine, the King of Pop’s schedule on 11 September, 2001 included a morning meeting at the World Trade Center. Luckily, the musician overslept and missed the meeting – something he credited to a late-night chat with his mother and siblings.
Years later, the elder Jackson recalled the near-miss in his memoir, You Are Not Alone Michael: Through a Brother’s Eyes:
“Thankfully, none of us had had a clue that Michael was due at a meeting that morning at the top of one of the Twin Towers. We only discovered this when Mother phoned his hotel to make sure he was okay. She, Rebbie [Jackson] and a few others had left him there around 3am. ‘Mother, I’m okay, thanks to you,’ he told her. ‘You kept me up talking so late that I overslept and missed my appointment.’”
Mark Wahlberg
On the day of the attacks, actor Mark Wahlberg was scheduled to fly on American Airlines Flight 11 – the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center.
Fortunately for Wahlberg, he and his friends made a last-minute decision not to fly to Los Angeles, where the plane was headed, but to a Toronto film festival instead.
Years later, the actor boasted that if he’d been on the plane, he would have personally stopped the hijacking.
“If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did,” Wahlberg told Men’s Journal. “There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, ‘Okay, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.’”
After a public outcry, Wahlberg later apologised for his comments.
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has a hangover to thank for surviving America’s worst terrorist attack. The actor and cartoonist was scheduled to board the same plane as Wahlberg – Flight 11 – but arrived late at the airport.