I confronted Michael about his addiction, says Brother Tito Jackson

Celebrity, Music news

I confronted Michael about his addiction, says Brother Tito Jackson

1247664214tito Tito Jackson says he and his siblings conducted a military-style raid on Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch to confront his brother about his addiction to painkillers.

Tito was growing more alarmed by stories concerning Jackson’s escalating dependence on drugs. But Michael Jackson made sure his brother never saw him using the potentially deadly pills.

“I never saw him on drugs. Not once,” says Tito. “He deliberately did it away from us. He didn’t want his family to know anything about that part of him.

“He did almost everything in his power to make sure we didn’t know.”

But as the rumors persisted, Tito decided to act. He and his sisters Janet, Rebbie and La Toya, as well as brothers Jackie and Randy, embarked on a commando raid of Neverland.

“We bust right into the house and he was surprised to see us to say the least.

“We went into one of his private rooms and had a discussion with him. Some of us were crying.

“We kept asking him if it was true what we had heard that he was using drugs.

“He kept denying it. He said we were over-reacting. We also spoke to a doctor and he assured us it was not the situation. He said he was there to make sure Michael was healthy.”

But Tito had his doubts. He tried again and again to see Michael, but Jackson was impossible to reach in his seculded California ranch.

“In the first few intervention attempts his staff and security would not let us on the property.

“They would block the road into Neverland with other vehicles so we couldn’t drive in, all kinds of crazy things.

“I don’t know whose instructions those were but that’s what happened.

“I went up there twice trying to get through before we finally did.”

According to Tito, Jackson had become hooked on painkillers when he took them to ease the pain from the scalp burns he suffered when his hair was set alight by a firework while filming a Pepsi ad in 1984.

He said: “He had been taking pain medicine because of the burns to his scalp and evidently he got some type of addiction from it.

“I understood he had got help for that addiction and after that I was always told he was doing OK.

But his brother slipped further into an addiction that may have caused his death.

Unlike La Toya, Tito does not believe his brother was murdered for his money.

“I don’t know whether he was killed or not. But I would say that sometimes he had people around him that were not in his best interests.”

“Whether his death was an accident or whether it was deliberate, something has gone on and we need to get to the bottom of it.”