Jacko’s doc raps family in book row
Michael Jackson’s personal doctor has hit back at the late star’s family after they slammed his explosive new book about life with the singer.
Dr Conrad Murray, 63, faced a barrage of abuse from the singer’s brother, Jermaine, and daughter, Paris, along with fans.
Jermaine lashed out last week, labelling the hit book “the desperate deflections of a guilty, odious man”.
But Dr Murray – jailed for involuntary manslaughter after Jackson’s death in 2009 – said: “They weren’t around when I was with Michael, they don’t know what I went through. They have destroyed their brother and son and are pinning the misery on me.”
The medic’s memoirs, This Is It, have become a bestseller since they were released three weeks ago.
He added: “I don’t think Jermaine is worth one breath or any time in my day so I will dismiss his thoughts. He is an uneducated fellow that is not refined. I have personally met and spoken with him so am able to make that assessment.
“The Jacksons don’t know Michael. They wanted all this money and Michael didn’t want to do it. He was the ATM machine. They didn’t care about him.”
The book also prompted fury from Michael’s daughter Paris, 18, who said: “The fact people are listening to and believing a cold- blooded murderer is beyond me.”
The book includes tales of Michael romping with prostitutes while disguised as a clown.
For those of us in the UK, it was impossible to watch without your mind being drawn back to our opening ceremony in London in the summer of 2012.
Ah 2012, can you only have been four years ago? Looking back from 2016, you look like a happy time of almost impossible optimism and global unity, a time before Brexit, a time before Trump, a time when Boris Johnson was almost a harmless buffoon rather than the devious maniac who would soon help wreck the EU.
However, as One Night in 2012 – the recent BBC documentary about the staging of the London opening ceremony – made clear, one must be careful of getting too rose-tinted about 2012. We were halfway through the first term of the Coalition and austerity was already well under way.
If you haven’t already seen it, I strongly urge you to try to watch the documentary on iPlayer.
The programme provides a fascinating insight into the logistics behind producing a show as enormous as the opening ceremony.
For instance, when they realised that to give all the 1000 drummers in the Industrial Revolution sequence a drum each would cost around £ 2million, director Danny Boyle said: “Let’s just use buckets.”
Their drumsticks were poles with tennis balls on the end of them. It was a brilliantly British solution.