A heavily slurring Michael Jackson said he loved children and felt their pain because “I didn’t have a childhood,” adding, “I hurt,” in a harrowing recording played in court on Wednesday.
In a phone call weeks before his death in 2009, the apparently drugged singer — whose career was torpedoed by child molestation charges in 2003 — said that planned comeback shows should be better than The Beatles or Elvis.
In the semi-incoherent exchange with his doctor Conrad Murray, who is on trial for Jackson’s manslaughter, the star talked about establishing a children’s hospital with money from the comeback shows.
“Elvis didn’t do it. Beatles didn’t do it. We have to be phenomenal,” he said, adding that fans should leave his shows saying: “I’ve never seen nothing like this in my life … He’s the greatest entertainer in the world.”
Referring apparently to money made from those shows, he continued: “I’m taking that money, a million children, children’s hospital, the biggest in the world. Michael Jackson’s Children’s Hospital.”
“Gonna have a movie theater, game room. Children are depressed. The — in those hospitals, no game room, no movie theater. They’re sick because they’re depressed,” he said.
After Murray replied: “I know you would,” Jackson continued: “I want to do that for them. That will be remembered more than my performances. My performances will be up there helping my children and always be my dream.”
“I love them. I love them because I didn’t have a childhood. I had no childhood. I feel their pain. I feel their hurt,” he said.
Referring to his own songs Heal the World, We are the World, Will you be There and The Lost Children, he added: “These are the songs I’ve written because I hurt, you know, I hurt.”
In a poignant end to the conversation, there is then a 13-second silence, after which Murray asks: “You okay?” Following another eight seconds of silence, Jackson replies: “I am asleep,” and the call ends.
Murray is accused of involuntary manslaughter by giving Jackson an overdose of the powerful sedative propofol while trying to help him to sleep at his mansion in Los Angeles.
The This Is It concerts at the British capital’s O2 Arena were designed to resurrect his fortunes — both image-wise and financially — four years after his acquittal on child molestation charges which torpedoed his career.
The defendant’s lawyers claim the singer administered a fatal extra dose while the doctor was out of the room, and have tried to portray Jackson as heavily drug dependent well before Murray became his personal physician.
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