How MJ got hooked on drugs -Geller, ex-bodyguard

Following Jackson’s death, allegations have emerged that the 50-year-old King of Pop had been consuming painkillers, sedatives and antidepressants.

Geller, ex-bodyguard tell of Jackson drug abuse

Two of Michael Jackson’s former confidantes, medium Uri Geller and ex-bodyguard Matt Fiddes, say they tried in vain to keep the pop superstar from abusing painkillers and other prescription drugs suspected of leading to his death, but others in the singer’s circle kept the supplies flowing.

"When Michael asked for something, he got it. This was the great tragedy," Geller said.

Geller, who said he suffered a terrible falling-out with Jackson several years ago over the issue, said he often had "to shout at Michael, to scream at Michael" as he sought to confiscate the singer’s stocks of medication during his travels in England.

"I tried to drum sense into his brain," Geller said. "I told him, ‘Michael you’re going to die, Michael you’re going to kill yourself.’ But he just stared at me. Many a time he was in his bed and I stood and shouted at him. He just stared at me."

Speaking at his home near London, Geller said he slept on floors or sofas in Jackson’s hotel suites in a bid to talk sense into his sometimes-incoherent friend.

"Most of the people around Michael could not say `No!’ to him. He desperately needed someone there all the time who could say `No!’ and mean it, who could warn him of the dangers ... and tell him the truth," Geller said. "The big problem was that many people wanted to help Michael, to save his life, but we could not be there all the time."

Geller said Jackson relied on medications to help him cope with relentless pressure and media criticism in his later years. "With his sanity buffeted and health wracked by global bullying nonstop, I think it’s actually incredible that Michael held up as well as he did," he said.

Fiddes, an English karate instructor who worked as a senior bodyguard during Jackson’s travels in Britain for a decade, said the pop idol abused prescription medications, not recreational drugs, and took so much that it could be difficult to wake him for engagements.

"I confiscated packages and Uri did too. I mean, Uri confiscated injection equipment from his room," Fiddes said in an interview broadcast Thursday by Sky News. "And Uri would scream at Michael, you know, intensely, to stop doing this. But we just were getting pushed out."

Fiddes recalled one occasion when Jackson planned to visit London Zoo to see the gorillas, chimpanzees and other primates — but was too spaced out to go anywhere.

The bodyguard said he and Geller "were both shaking him trying to wake him up. It was clear that he had taken something that morning and he was hard to wake. We were extremely concerned ... We couldn’t get him in a state that would portray him in a good light."

Fiddes said both he and Geller told others supplying medications to Jackson to stop, but when their efforts "got back to Michael, he would have a screaming fit that we were interfering with his private life. He was in denial."

However, Geller said he was convinced that "Michael did not want to die."

"Michael loved life," he said. "Michael loved his children. They were everything to him."

Several other Jackson confidantes have expressed concern since his death at the volume and mixture of medications he was taking. Self-help guru Deepak Chopra said he rejected Jackson’s 2005 appeals for painkillers and that their relationship suffered lasting damage because of it.

Geller said he was fearful that Jackson could not have completed his planned 50-concert run in London, which was due to start July 13. Stress over the imminent comeback, as well as drug misuse, combined to kill his friend, he said.

"Whatever the autopsy will come back with, part of what made Michael Jackson’s heart stop involved the stress and the anxiety that, ‘My God, in a few days I have to get on a plane and fly to England.’ But he could have done it," Geller said.

Reacting to the unending speculation and rumors that have surfaced in regard to Michael’s use and potential abuse of prescription medications, brother Jermaine Jackson in the first interview from the family says;

"For people to come forth and say things that they don’t have the facts to is very damaging to the family, to me, to us, because we don’t know."

And while he admitted he couldn’t say without a doubt that medication played no part in Michael’s death, he did say that seeing an overflow of prescriptions on his still-pending toxicology report would be a surprise.

"I would be hurt. Michael has always been a person who has been against anything like that," he said, before adding, "In this business, the pressures and things that you go through, you never know what one turns to."

Still, Jermaine has no doubt that the enormous amount of pressure Michael was put under in the last decade or so of his life took a toll on his health.

"Michael was always concerned about everybody. And to have that weight on your shoulders and to have that kind of pressure…I don’t know.

"The world didn’t appreciate him. The world loved him, but certain people, certain industries didn’t appreciate him.

"He became a victim of his own success. It was hard for him. The things that happened during his life and then the pressure, the pressure. He felt tremendous pressure. You work so hard to do good and it’s perceived a different way."

Addressing Michael’s 50-show London comeback and questions of whether the King of Pop was ever up to the challenge, Jermaine said his brother would have had no problem pulling it off.

"Fifty shows is a lot of shows, but I do believe and I know Michael’s very strong, mentally and physically. He’s a dancer, he never stopped dancing. He was strong, he was ready. I think it had a lot to do with the mental tear and just the stress."

Describing himself as Michael’s "backbone," an emotional and frequently tearful Jermaine paid tribute to his little brother, and revealed what his surprisingly preferred outcome to last week’s tragedy would have been.

"He went too soon, he went too soon," he said. "I don’t know how people are gonna take this, but I wish it was me.

"I’ve always felt that I was his backbone, someone to be there for him. I was there and he was sort of like Moses. The things he couldn’t say, I would say them. During the trials and during everything, I knew he was 1,000 percent innocent. I knew. We all knew.

"Michael is a gift from Allah. And he has taken him back."

As for how Jermaine discovered the tragic news in the first place, he said he received a call from a friend, but, disbelieving that anything could have happened to his brother, phoned his mother, Katherine, for clarification. It was then he found out Michael had been declared dead.

"To hear my mother say Michael’s dead…to feel and hear the tone in her voice to say her child is dead, is nothing that anyone can ever imagine," he said, adding that he rushed across town and could already see the helicopters circling over the hospital before his arrival.

After attempting to console his mother, Jermaine said a personal goodbye to his brother.

"I wanted to see Michael. I wanted to see my brother. Seeing him there lifeless and breathless was very emotional for me, but I held myself together because I know that he’s very much alive, his spirit is. That was just a shell.

"I kissed him on his forehead, I hugged him and touched him and I said, ‘Michael, I’ll never leave you.’ I felt really, really empty."

As for how his family is holding up, Jermaine said the devastation has taken a toll, but they’re doing their best to stay strong.

"It’s tough. My family is being strong. We’ve always been a family and we’re just holding together. But it’s tough. It’s very tough.

"We lost our brother, our hero. The world is mourning, we’re mourning, the fans are mourning. It’s unreal. It’s unbelievable."

As for Jackson’s three children, Prince Michael, Paris-Michael and the affectionately nicknamed Blanket, Jermaine said they’re "fine now" and called them "very special" kids.

He confirmed that the trio saw Michael’s body at the hospital at the suggestion of a therapist, a move Jermaine was initially opposed to.

"I know it’s tough, but I think it was the best thing to do. At first I was against it, but what do you say if you don’t show them?"

The children are currently spending time with their cousins, and Jermaine took time out to praise Michael’s decision, revealed in his recently filed will, to have their mother take over guardianship of the trio.

"I thought it was a great will, because the children are fine—my mother’s the right person to be there.

"She’s capable; she’s up to it, because she’s always with all the grandchildren all the time. She loves the laughter and the crying and all the excitement. She’ll have someone with her to make sure they’re doing the right things."

While a Neverland burial has already been discounted as a viable option, Jermaine says it’s still his top choice for his brother’s interment.

"This is his home. He created this, why wouldn’t he be here? I feel his presence, it’s like he’s on tour somewhere or he’s out somewhere and it would always feel like that and I love that. He built this place with love and you can see it and feel it.

"Look at this place…This is his creation."

Finally, when asked about the legacy his iconic brother would leave behind, Jermaine unsurprisingly opted not to wax on about Michael’s undisputed musical genius, but rather paid tribute to the less public side of the star.

"The legacy of Michael Jackson is Michael being a wonderful person, a wonderful father, a caring person, a humanitarian, a person who wanted good for everyone, a person who would give his last whatever just to make someone happy.

"What he’s done for the world, not just the financial, but the happiness of people…What kind of price can you put on that? How do you value that? The joy…to make someone happy, to make someone smile through your actions, through what you’re doing, there’s no price for that."