Masked ... Michael Jackson in 2008, around the time he met AEG ceo
National Photo Group
TRAGIC Michael Jackson claimed he was so broke his family were “living like vagabonds”, a jury heard.
The boss of Jackson’s concert promoter said the superstar was desperate for cash when he agreed to his ill-fated This Is It gigs at London’s O2 Arena.
AEG Live’s chief executive Randy Phillips recalled how Jackson fought back tears as he bemoaned his financial plight at an emotionally-charged Halloween meeting at a hotel.
He told Jackson’s wrongful death trial in Los Angeles: “He got emotional. He teared up about his family, and having a good life with them, and a place to live and a residence they could call their own.
Dad ... Michael Jackson with Paris and Prince as youngsters
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“I felt incredibly bad that this incredible star was at the point where he just couldn’t buy a house with all this money he made. It just didn’t make sense.”
The revelations came a day after shocking pictures were released of the rented LA mansion where the 50-year-old icon died of a drugs overdose in June 2009.
His bedroom was littered with drugs, medical hardware, gas canisters and a weird shrine to babies.
Jacko’s mum Katherine and his three children are suing AEG, alleging it negligently hired medic Dr Conrad Murray — who was convicted of the star’s involuntary manslaughter in 2011.
But Phillips insisted that despite his fragile finances, Jackson remained a shrewd businessman.
He said: “He’s been presented as a drug-addled five-year-old. That was not the man I dealt with. The man I dealt with was forceful. Kind, but determined. He was a force.”
'Desperate' ... AEG chief exec Randy Phillips was concerned for Jacko
Jackson was described by both sides in opening statements as battling with prescription drug addiction throughout his life.
But Phillips said he disagreed with those descriptions and said he saw no signs of such a struggle.
He said he met with the star several times as they planned the money-spinning O2 concerts but was never told he was having trouble sleeping.
Phillips described Jacko as difficult to work with and also told how he had to coax the singer to a London press conference in March 2009 to announce his concerts.
He wrote in an email at the time: “He is an emotionally paralysed mess, riddled with self-loathing and doubt now that it is show time.”
The jury will decide on the conflicting accounts when they consider claims by his family’s lawyers that AEG pushed Jackson too hard to perform and missed health warning signs.
AEG say the singer hid his addiction to the anaesthetic Propofol and that it had no idea Dr Murray was administering the drug. It plans to call the disgraced cardiologist as a witness.
THE four surviving members of the Jackson Five — Jermaine, Tito, Jackie and Marlon — will perform at a festival this month at the Los Angeles Staples Center, owned by AEG Live.
