jermaine jackson on today s“She was crying, saying he was dead. And Matt, to hear my mother say, ‘Michael is dead,’ to feel and hear the tone in her voice to say her child is dead, is nothing that anyone can ever imagine.”
Katherine Jackson was already at the hospital when Jermaine arrived. “I tried to console her,” he told Lauer, “but I wanted to see Michael and I wanted to see my brother. To see him there lifeless and breathless was very emotional for me. But I held myself together because I knew he’s very much alive in his spirit, and that was just a shell. But I kissed him on his forehead, and I hugged him, and I touched him and I said, ‘Michael, I’ll never leave you. You’ll never leave me.’
“He went too soon,” the singer’s big brother added. “I wish that 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.”
The children’s viewingA therapist at the hospital advised that it would be best if Michael Jackson’s three children —Prince Michael, Paris and Prince Michael II, nicknamed Blanket — saw their father so they could understand that he really was gone and begin the grieving process.
“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?” Jermaine Jackson told Lauer.
Details of the autopsy report that have been published in the media agree that Jackson weighed a mere 112 pounds at his death. Partially digested pills were found in his stomach, and he had needle marks on his hips and shoulders.
But Jermaine Jackson insisted that his brother was in good physical shape as he prepared for a 50-show concert stand in London. There has been rampant speculation that the singer was in no condition to take on the rigors of the show.
“I do believe and I do know that Mike is very strong, not just mentally but physically. He’s a dancer, he never stopped dancing, he was already ready physically. He passed the physical, he was strong; he was ready.”
Lauer asked Jermaine what his reaction would be if reports of his brother’s drug use turned out to be true.how
