While the trial in Los Angeles is laying bare the more sordid details of Michael Jackson’s life, one of his best friends is determined that the world know just how normal the King of Pop was.
David Gest, himself a rather eccentric figure who so famously exchanged a sloppy kiss with ex-wife Liza Minelli on their wedding day, is releasing a film that he hopes will set the record straight.
‘Michael Jackson: Life of an Icon’ tells the story of a complicated man who was obsessed with movies, music and junk food, says Gest. Featuring interviews with Smokey Robinson, Whitney Houston, and Michael’s siblings Tito and Rebbie Jackson, the film paints a picture of a star destroyed by accusations that he was a paedophile.
“If anything, I blame the legal prosecutors for Michael’s death,” revealed Gest. “He was accused twice of hurting children.
“In the first case against Jordy Chandler (in 1993) his lawyers paid off the family, even though Michael’s family and Michael himself didn’t want this to happen.
“In the second case (2005) Jackson was acquitted. But the fact he had been declared innocent didn’t even register with him. Part of him had died and that was when we really lost him. We lost this beautiful, funny, talented man.”
The film, which also features a full-length interview with Michael’s mother Katherine, traces the road MJ travelled from child superstar to drug addict. According to Gest’s film, Michael’s problem with drugs began when he suffered through an horrific accident during the filming of a Pepsi commercial in 1984.
“He was burnt through several layers of his scalp and needed the most intensive surgery,” recalls Gest.
“We have the footage shot from the back of the commercial, so you can see how extreme that accident was, and we show exactly what surgery had to be done.
“This was the point Michael began to take painkillers; that pain never went away. The surgery was incredibly painful and the recovery was painful; he couldn’t sleep without painkillers. In the documentary I show footage which shows how bad it was; so many people have no idea the damage it did to him.”
The paedophile investigations exacerbated his problems with drugs says Gest.
“Michael wasn’t a paedophile. I remember him calling me late one night during the first case and he was just shell-shocked. I never for one second ever believed that Michael had done anything wrong.
“A lot of his so-called friends melted away from him but myself and Macaulay Culkin were among the few who would regularly go on television to speak up for him. When they raided Neverland they found men’s magazines and there was no child porn anywhere in the house.
“He loved kids like a father but he was into women. He was 100 per cent straight. He just couldn’t trust most of the women he met – he was genuinely shy and he just put his career first, before women.
“He very definitely had sex. There was a Hollywood actress who absolutely jumped his bones and taught him a few things.”
Michael’s other obsession, says Gest, who was part of the Jackson inner circle before Michael was even a teenager, was Kentucky Fried Chicken. Gest’s anecdotes about Michael are adorned with barrels of the much-loved fastfood.
“I remember he’d sit in his car, take off the skin and say, ‘David, now I’ve made it organic. I can eat it.’ I’d laugh in his face and tell him it was still Colonel Sanders. That is the Michael I miss.”