“They’re going to kill me” Michael Jackon’s son tells court how tragic star broke down and wept

• Posted on June 27, 2013June 27, 2013
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

MICHAEL Jackson’s son Prince yesterday told a court his dad broke down under pressure from gig promoters AEG and cried: “They’re going to kill me.”

The revelation came as the 16-year-old got his day in court during the family’s £26billion wrongful death lawsuit.

He said his pop superstar dad was desperate for more time to rehearse for shows in London’s 02 four years ago. He died weeks before them.

Prince said his father told him he was pressured by AEG boss Randy Phillips and ex-manager Dr Tohme Tohme. He testified that Phillips was “aggressive” to Jacko’s doc Conrad Murray shortly before his death.

He also talked about his dad’s insistence he had to wear “annoying” masks covering his face in public.

Prince said: “When I went out with him I’d wear a mask. He wanted to protect us so that people wouldn’t know what we looked like, so we could go out without him. They were annoying when you were young, you’d get feathers in your face and they were hot. He was very protective of us.”

Prince is the first of Jacko’s kids to take the stand and give live testimony in the trial. He was also questioned about the day his dad died.

He told the Los Angeles court: “I heard screaming upstairs.” He said the chef “told me Dr Murray wanted to see me upstairs. I ran upstairs and saw Conrad Murray doing CPR on my dad. Dr Murray was screaming while doing CPR.”

Prince said he saw his dad “half hanging out of the bed”. He added: “My sister then came upstairs, she was screaming all the time and saying she wanted to see Dad.”

He then recalled how the news of his father’s death was broken to him. He told the court: “Dr Murray said to us: ‘Sorry kids, Dad’s dead’.”

Asked how they reacted when they found out Jacko had died, Prince replied: “We just cried.”

The teenager — who has an 11-year-old brother Blanket — said it took a while to realise Jacko was a superstar. He said: “I never knew how famous my dad was — he wanted us to be normal.

“Me and my sister found out how famous he was by watching a video of one of his concerts and there were girls screaming and being carried out on stretchers. Then we knew.

“We always listened to his music but never knew how famous he was.”

He revealed his sister Paris, 15, was having a “hard time” coming to terms with their dad’s death. She is currently in hospital undergoing psychiatric support after trying to kill herself by cutting her wrists and taking an overdose of pills earlier this month

Prince also lifted the lid on life at Jacko’s Neverland mansion.

He said: “He built it for us and wanted to make sure that we were happy. There was always a fireplace lit and classical music playing, it was a homey place.

“Everyone there was like family and we had an amusement park and zoo. We were only allowed to go to the amusement park on special occasions as Dad wanted us to remain humble.

“We lived at Neverland until I was six, then we moved after the court trial because there were complications and they ruined it for my dad.”

The family blame AEG for hiring Murray, who gave insomniac Jacko the fatal dose of sedative Propofol.

AEG claims Jacko hired Murray and it cannot be held responsible for his addiction issues and bad health. Murray is serving four years after he was jailed in 2011 for involuntary manslaughter.

The lawsuit is in its ninth week and is expected to run until August.

thesun.co.uk