Little help with my class

[quovadimus02]

I'm making a class for an image viewer movieclip. Right now the movieclip sits on the main timeline and is called fullSizeViewer_mc, the linkage identifier as well as the class name is fullSizeViewer. The only thing in the movieclip is another clip called bg_mc. This clip is supposed to function similar to a "lightbox". bg_mc fades in covering the entire stage, an image is loaded above it. when a user clicks on bg_mc it calls a function (fadeOut) to remove the clip picHolder_mc and fade out. my function is being called because my trace statement in it fires, but bg_mc is not fading out and I'm unable to remove the picHolder_mc clip.

This is really my first dive into OOP so any help here would be appreciated.

import mx.transitions.easing.*; 
import mx.transitions.Tween;

class FullSizeViewer extends MovieClip {

	private var preloader_mc:MovieClip;
	private var picHolder_mc:MovieClip;
	private var bg_mc:MovieClip;
	private var bgFade:Tween;
	private var imageFade:Tween;

	public function FullSizeViewer() {
		this.swapDepths(_root.getNextHighestDepth());
		bg_mc._width = Stage.width;
		bg_mc._height = Stage.height;
		bg_mc._x = 0;
		bg_mc._y = 0;
		bg_mc._alpha = 0;
	}

	public function loadImage(_image:String):Void {
		bgFade = new Tween(bg_mc, "_alpha", Regular.easeOut, bg_mc._alpha, 85, .5, true);
		picHolder_mc = this.createEmptyMovieClip("picHolder_mc", 1);
		picHolder_mc._alpha = 0;		
		
		this.attachMovie("MovieClipLoaderUI", "preloader_mc", 2);
		centerClip(preloader_mc);			
		preloader_mc.init(_image, picHolder_mc, this, imageLoaded);
	}	

	public function imageLoaded():Void {
		centerClip(picHolder_mc);
		imageFade = new Tween(picHolder_mc, "_alpha", Regular.easeOut, picHolder_mc._alpha, 100, .5, true);
		bg_mc.onRelease = fadeOut;
	}
	
	private function fadeOut():Void {
		trace("wtf?");
		bgFade = new Tween(bg_mc, "_alpha", Regular.easeOut, 100, 0, .5, true);
		imageFade = new Tween(picHolder_mc, "_alpha", Regular.easeOut, 100, 0, .5, true);
		removeMovieClip(picHolder_mc);
	}
	
	private function centerClip(_clip:MovieClip):Void {			
		_clip._x = (bg_mc._width - _clip._width) * .5;
		_clip._y = (bg_mc._height - _clip._height) * .5;		
	}
	
}

[quovadimus02]

Anyone got any thoughts? I still haven't figured out why this isn't working for me. OOP is frustrating sometimes.