Jackson takes the stand.
Four years after his father Michael Jackson passed away from cardiac arrest, his now 16-year-old son Prince Jackson has spoken out about details of his father’s last days during court testimony.
The Jackson family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against AEG Live, the company responsible for promoting the pop singer’s “This Is It” tour. The family claims that the company paid for physician Dr. Conrad Murray to get Michael ready for tour. Murray was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for his role in Jackson’s death and was sentenced to four years in prison in 2011. The Jackson family alleges that at the insistence of AEG, Dr. Murray provided Michael with dangerous treatments and ignored signs that he was in poor health.
Prince Jackson’s emotional testimony came Wednesday and he discussed his life with his father as well as the intense pressure he was under preparing for the concert tour. According to Prince, his father would be emotional after phone conversations with AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips and would cry and say, “They’re going to kill me.”
Jackson’s son also said that he saw Phillips act aggressively with his father’s doctor before he died. “He was grabbing his elbow,” Prince said. “It looked aggressive to me. He was grabbing by the back of his elbow and they were really close and he was making hand motions.”
AEG’s defense claims that Prince is too young to understand what was really going on when his father died and cross-examined the teen for almost half an hour. While grilling Prince, the defense tried to discredit his knowledge of his father’s relationship with Phillips as well as the aggressive encounter between Phillips and Dr. Conrad. “I think as the testimony will show when he is called in our defense that’s not what happened,” Marvin Putnam, attorney for the defense, said. “He was a 12-year-old boy who has had to endure this great tragedy.”
During his testimony, Prince talked about how the death of his father has impacted both him and his sister Paris. “I can’t sleep at night,” Prince said. He said that his sister Paris “was probably hit the hardest because she was my dad’s princess.” After falling into a depression, Paris tried to commit suicide earlier in June.
Despite having to recall that tragic time in his life, Prince has nothing but good memories of his father. “My dad taught me everything was a learning experience,” Prince stated. The teen has a 3.68 GPA, is involved in athletics and is also a humanitarian, participating in a local children’s hospital program.
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