Interview With Jermaine Jackson
Aired October 1, 2011 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PIERS MORGAN, CNN HOST: Tonight, what really happened to Michael Jackson.
JERMAINE JACKSON, MICHAEL JACKSON'S BROTHER: This is a story about greed and power.
MORGAN: Jermaine Jackson, who he blamed for his brother's death.
Do you think there may be some kind of cover-up?
JACKSON: What do you think? I would think that as a family member, yes.
MORGAN: The emotional true story of Michael's life.
JACKSON: It's like they pushed and pushed and pushed this bird who was injured, his wings were injured, and they wanted him to push him off the cliff and expected him to fly and he fell.
MORGAN: And his death.
JACKSON: What were they concerned about? Their money, their jobs or my brother's health?
MORGAN: The real story behind all those scandals.
JACKSON: If you don't think it hurt him when people called him "whacko Jackson." When they called him crazy and this and that.
MORGAN: And the Jackson family behind closed doors.
JACKSON: The crap and the garbage that has been written about my family for so many years and all these other books that were unauthorized, and people saying things that didn't know us.
MORGAN: Jermaine Jackson, the primetime exclusive. This is PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT.
Jermaine, I want to start with the imminent trial of Conrad Murray, Dr. Conrad Murray. Obviously, hugely significant for you and your family and for the world to try and discover if through the process of this trial, we work out what really happened to your brother Michael.
As we approach the start of this trial, what are your feelings?
JACKSON: My feelings are, just as well as the family, the truth is going to come out. And it's something that we've been long awaited for. And it's up to the point now where it's been a lot of speculation and hearsay, but I think we're all going to -- it's not going to bring closure but it's just going to give us a clear understanding of what really happened.
I think it's important that the fans and the public and -- as well as ourselves need to know what really happened. What took place. But there's so many things that happened that we weren't aware of as a family because we were kept away.
MORGAN: Do you think that Conrad Murray was solely responsible for your brother's death?
JACKSON: My gut feeling is the fact that Conrad was present during his death, there's a lot of questions to be answered. And we don't know yet. Until the trial unfolds and we sort of get the facts. Whether they'll come to the facts or not.
By doing the book, I got a clear understanding of a lot of things that I didn't know from the past. And how all these things came about with Michael's life and who he interacted with during his business and all those things. Up to present day.
MORGAN: I mean it seems to come down to this. I would imagine Conrad Murray's defense is going to be that he was encouraged to prescribe this Propofol drug to Michael that night. The drug that is believed to have killed him.
I would imagine that on your side you will be arguing as a family, and I'm sure the prosecutors will, too, that this was all Conrad Murray's decision. It then comes down to addiction. Whether Michael was addicted, what he was addicted to, and whether the prescription of this drug was just a part of that addiction. What do you think of that?
JACKSON: Well, I think that, first of all, being a cardiologist and not an anesthesiologist, there's a big difference. Conrad Murray (INAUDIBLE) had no business giving my brother Propofol. I just learned about this drug by doing the book.
In terms of them trying to say my brother was an addict or addicted, Michael, we know my brother was on prescription drugs. Whether it was Demerol because of pains, excruciating pain, and also him wanting to have sleep.
MORGAN: I mean that's the powerful part of your book.
JACKSON: Yes.
MORGAN: Michael just had this chronic inability to sleep. I mean I knew, having worked in the media for years, that he had a difficulty with it. I had no idea how bad it was. I mean he would literally be unable to get any sleep at all. Like night after night.
JACKSON: Well, just coming off the stage and there's like 180,000 people out there and your adrenaline is going so high, and you're doing so much and it's hard to just put your head on the pillow and sleep because it just goes on and on, even after you're off the stage.
He always said that he didn't want to tour because he didn't want to have the problems of not sleeping and having to take Demerol and things like that, but he wasn't addicted to it, because his behavior wasn't to the point that he was an addict. He was looking for this, too, for sleep. And he trusted whoever administered these things to him. He trusted them.
MORGAN: I mean when people hear about drug addictions like with celebrities they tend to think, you know, cocaine or ecstasy or heroin, whatever it may be. Clearly, we're not in that kind of situation with Michael. These were not drugs to make him high or get any kind of high experience. The drugs he was taking were all for pain and all for sleep.
JACKSON: Exactly.
MORGAN: Could it have been, though, that by the end, after years of insomnia, that he had become, in a way, addicted to any type of drug that would get him the sleep he craved? Do you think that's possible?
JACKSON: I really don't know but I do know that it's a difference between Demerol and Propofol. And --
MORGAN: Tell me about Propofol, because you studied this for your book.
JACKSON: Yes.
MORGAN: And it's fascinating what you found out. It's a much stronger drug than people realize.
JACKSON: It a much stronger drug. It puts you out and it's basically used when people are under the knife and they want to not feel the pain. But the key to this is, when you're a proven anesthesiologist and you're in the proper settings, and the right medical field, you know how much to administer to the patient to keep him above the line, but not so above where he'll feel the pain. And keep them from going below the line.
MORGAN: Is Propofol considered by most physicians to be an anesthetic, rather than just a sleeping pill?
JACKSON: I really don't know. But I do know for Michael to get sleep he had to be knocked out. And this wasn't just this one night. This was administered in him on an ongoing basis, which was causing his body to deteriorate and him to act differently and have different symptoms in his behavior.
MORGAN: You as a family, you were probably the closest to Michael of all the family. But collectively, you must have all known that he had this ongoing chronic problem with sleep in particular. When did you see Conrad Murray that night in the hospital?
JACKSON: I saw Conrad when I first went to the hospital. And then when I came back from seeing Michael I went back to the room where my mother was. I was sitting on the other side of the table, like I'm here, the table is between us, my mother is here and you're Conrad.
We weren't this close, though. I didn't know who he was. But I said, something strange about this guy. He's acting strange. I had formed that opinion before I found out who he was.
MORGAN: And when you say strange do you mean --
JACKSON: His behavior.
MORGAN: -- suspicious? Did he look guilty?
JACKSON: His behavior, how he was acting.
MORGAN: Did he look concerned?
JACKSON: Everything. All of the above. And it was just something that just wasn't right. It just wasn't normal.
MORGAN: Did you talk to him?
JACKSON: No, no.
MORGAN: Did he say anything to any of the family?
JACKSON: He wanted to come in, I guess, and say his -- something to my mother and his condolences or something but I felt uneasy with him.
MORGAN: Did you know that he'd been with Michael that night?
JACKSON: I found out, yes, that he was with Michael. He was there. But, see, this is a strange case because this is treated as a homicide and the LAPD who did their investigation and then there's the whereabouts of who came in and out of the house. The tapes are erased. And so we really don't know. There's a lot of questions. That's --
MORGAN: Which tapes were erased?
JACKSON: The surveillance tapes were erased.
MORGAN: They're all gone?
JACKSON: Well, some of the tapes were erased to the whereabouts who would come in and out during the time, at the house.
MORGAN: Who do you think would erase it?
JACKSON: They were in the hands of the police department.
MORGAN: Do you think there may be some kind of cover-up?
JACKSON: What do you think? I would think as a family member, yes.
MORGAN: Coming up, Michael's last tour, why Jermaine says it was too much for him.
JACKSON: They were only concerned about the show. Moving the show forward.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MORGAN: If you watch "This Is It", which I've done several times, you cannot dispute the fact that he seems to be in pretty good physical shape. The rehearsals are going great, the show looks amazing, he looks excited. This is not a portrait of a guy who is on the verge of death.
So I, as a fan of his, was shocked when I watched it to try and work out how it came to his death. You as a family member, it must be 10 times as shocked. Because you resumed, you were talking to him most days. And how often did you talk to Michael?
JACKSON: We spoke to him not that much during rehearsal. But we last saw him May 14th.
MORGAN: Do you know how long he had been given Propofol?
JACKSON: When -- when "This Is It" there was a lot of footage that was taken out that no one saw and because that was the edit before the edit. And it's just -- so much went on. So much went on.
MORGAN: And is that footage damaging? I mean do you see a guy in a bit of a daze? A bit of a zombie? I mean what is the stuff we didn't see?
JACKSON: Well, things that we noticed. And this is why the defense is going to try to paint my brother out to be a drug addict and he was very dependent on drugs, and it's not true. Because how could someone be dependent on drugs since 2008, he was dancing four hours a day and he had a five-year plan of starting a new life. And --
MORGAN: Well, let me throw something to you about this. I know somebody who's a very famous TV star. Very famous. One of the biggest stars in the world. Who's a friend of mine. Who takes sleeping pills every night to sleep because he finds the adrenaline, there's just too much going on. Been doing it for years.
That is a form of addiction. You know I was on Ambien after breaking some ribs for three and a half weeks once. When I tried to stop, it was like having a form of cold turkey for two or three weeks. It was -- these are strong drugs.
Propofol is significantly stronger than anything that this friend of mine takes or that I was taking that time. So if Michael was getting this stuff over a regular period of time, he could still be performing perfectly well but, as you say, underneath it, the damage would be pretty intensive, I would say.
JACKSON: That's the question. Michael has always had an anesthesiologist around him when he was taking things.
MORGAN: Someone who knew --
JACKSON: Whether I knew or not. MORGAN: Someone who knew about the process --
JACKSON: Yes.
MORGAN: -- of knocking somebody out for the purposes of sleep?
JACKSON: And plus, he's lived all this time doing Demerol and sleeping pills and also, pain pills, but the symptoms from Propofol is like no one knew that he was -- the public didn't know he was complaining about his body. One side being an ice cube. Another side being very warm.
MORGAN: Do you know how long he'd been taking it? Is there any evidence that you've seen?
JACKSON: I really don't know, but --
MORGAN: What is the family's belief? What is the theory that you think about that?
JACKSON: Our belief is that we knew he was doing prescription drugs to sleep and pain. We didn't know about Propofol. I just found out about this drug which I can't even pronounce hardly. But the symptoms, the reason why I want to talk about the symptoms because if you look at the past tours, we never heard of these symptoms that Michael -- not knowing whether to go right or left when he comes on stage.
MORGAN: Who was he -- who was he telling about the symptoms? The family?
JACKSON: No -- no, these are people that were around him. Him not being able to lift himself out of, what, five-pound prop or something, and repeating himself. And him, losing just unbelievable weight. And these are signs of toxic in your body.
MORGAN: Are these signs from what you've been able to work out of Propofol abuse? In other words, long-term use of that specific drug? Are these side effects that you have identified?
JACKSON: These are symptoms of that because of the fact that it was administered in him outside of a hospital setting, the person wasn't adequate enough to do this, and the fact that the night that he died, he was -- he had just arranged a $15 million payment on a house. So that's saying that he had plans of going beyond "This Is It." He has --
MORGAN: Do you think -- Michael was a tough character when it came to business. He knew his own mind. He was the most fabulously successful entertainer of his generation, and you know, by common agreement, when it came to his business, his craft, he could be a tough demanding task master of people. And also quite obstinate.
Is it possible, do you think, to be fair-minded to Conrad Murray for a moment, to be dispassionate, take yourself out of the family position for a moment. Is it possible knowing Michael, that he could have just ordered and demanded that Conrad Murray give him this drug?
That Conrad Murray, as I believe he's going to claim, had tried to resist it but eventually succumbed to pressure. Is that possible?
JACKSON: Whether it's possible or not, being a doctor, you take an oath. To care for your patient, not to kill them. You take an oath to do things that are proper in the medical world. Not to administer something outside of a hospital setting that's not even your area. You're a cardiologist, not an anesthesiologist.
MORGAN: Even if Michael had been --
JACKSON: Even if Michael had --
(CROSSTALK)
MORGAN: He could just say no.
JACKSON: It was -- he trusted doctors. Dr. Murray should have said no, under no circumstances, no. But the fact that these symptoms went on around everybody there who weren't concerned about how he felt. They were only concerned about the show. Moving the show forward.
MORGAN: These are people working for AEG?
JACKSON: These are people working for AEG, working for him, working for the show.
MORGAN: I mean, there was always a bit of a circus around Michael in his life. How many of the people directly around him at the time that he died, do you think, are culpable for a form of responsibility for his death?
JACKSON: See, that's the question I have. That's a question we have as a family, because I've said in the book, why didn't somebody call me or Jackie or Tito or Marlon or his family, to say, come down here, your brother is not acting normal? Had we been called he'd be alive today because we would have taken him to the hospital.
MORGAN: Why do you think they didn't?
JACKSON: Because they wanted the show to go on. Because they knew -- it's the same thing of knowing that it wasn't his voice 100 percent on those songs that were released. It's all about -- see, this is a story about greed and power and money. And not looking at the person in Michael.
What I've tried to do in this book is to show my little brother, us growing up as the Jackson 5, kids with a dream. The human side of him. No matter how great the success had became, he still is from a family. We're humans and --
MORGAN: And you basically believe, I think as a family, reading the book, that the pressure from the people who were putting on this huge extravaganza, this amazing tour -- I had tickets to the first night in London. I was very excited about it. I saw him perform live a few times. The greatest live performer I've ever seen. There were people there who had nearly billions of dollars, I mean, certainly, tens, hundreds of millions of dollars at stake on this tour being successful. And all the commercials been afterwards. It's not in their interest to raise any alarm bells about his health, is it?
JACKSON: No, because the fact that, still, if you have tens of billions of dollars, you still want more but this was an event that was going to put money in everybody's pockets but at the same time, his health was ignored. They -- it's like they pushed and pushed this bird who was injured, his wings were injured, and they wanted him to push him off the cliff and expected him to fly and he fell. He fell.
MORGAN: When you saw Michael after he died in the hospital, how did he physically look to you? Obviously, he was dead but how did he look in terms of the Michael you knew? Was it the same kind of body that you would expect?
JACKSON: No. No. He had gone from 150 to 55 down to 136. He was frail. He was thin. I touched his face. His face was still soft. I kissed his forehead and then I pulled one of his eyelids back because I wanted to look in his eyes. And -- but I couldn't believe that what I saw wasn't my brother.
And for people who'd been around him all these years, to see that and not say something, it bothers me, it bothers us as a family. What were they concerned? What were they concerned about? Money, their jobs, or my brother's health?
MORGAN: Do you believe you're going to get answers from this trial? Or this simply just not going to be enough evidence?
JACKSON: To tell you the truth, Piers, it's -- the defense is going to try to paint my brother out to be even most horrible person and he wasn't. He was most concerned about the world and healing the world and children who are starving. And he just didn't sing about it. He did it. He showed the action.
That's not the behavior of a drug addict. That's not the behavior of a person who is irresponsible, who just want to be high all day. He was never was the type of person that took drugs for recreation who was just irresponsible or didn't care.
So my -- to answer your question, we're not going to get Michael back. If Conrad Murray goes to jail, whatever happens, I really don't know. We lost an incredible human being, a brother who -- my little brother, who just really, cared about the world. To answer your question -- we really don't know.
We really don't know. I've written this book to show the world and to show the fans that this is who we are as a family. It was a long process. And it opened my eyes to a lot of things that I didn't know. The crap and the garbage that has been written about my family for so many years and all these other books that were unauthorized and people saying things that didn't know us.
And then thinking, we're from a small house in Gary, Indiana, with humble beginnings. So we were privy to crooks and people who had hidden agendas.
MORGAN: Were any of the family attend the trial?
