Drug-addled pop icon Michael Jackson would be alive today had his father not been blocked from seeing him in his final weeks, the family lawyer has claimed.

A terrified Joe Jackson confided that he feared his son was going to overdose a month before his shock death from drugs on June 25, 2009, but could not intervene.

The music family’s patriarch told the King of Pop’s friend and lawyer Brian Oxman of his deepest fears for his frail son.

Who was poised for a career comeback in London with his This Is It residency.

Today, on the 15th anniversary of the pop icon’s premature death, Brian reveals how Joe suspected his son was using medication and drugs.

Leaving him too unwell to perform his comeback gigs in the capital.

The Thriller star had been rehearsing for his long-awaited return to the stage at the O2 Arena when he was found unresponsive in his Los Angeles home on June 25, 2009. 

With less than three weeks to go before his first sell-out show, he died from cardiac arrest, caused by a propofol and benzodiazepine overdose. He was 50.

In the lead-up to the gigs, Jackson’s father and other family members were determined to have a “heart-to-heart” with Jacko over their fears. However, the singer kept anyone he suspected of trying to stage an intervention away from him during his last month alive in LA.

Brian, who has represented the interests of the Jackson family members since the 1980s, believes that “Joe would have been the only one to have got through to Michael and saved his life. I still believe that”.

However in an extraordinary confession, Jacko’s father admitted of his son dying so young: “This is the way the story had to end. It was almost as if it was written in the stars.”

Brian says: “He hated it. I hated it, but this is the legacy and what we have to live with.”

Joe, who had managed The Jackson 5 from a small-town Indiana tour act into the biggest boy band on the planet in the late 1960s, and his wife Katherine met MJ at the Beverly Hills Hotel in mid-May 2009.

At the meeting, Michael’s sons Prince, Paris, and Blanket were also present. The singer’s father expressed his worries, telling his son: “Michael, you’re in trouble.”

Brian reveals: “Joe left that meeting, and he called me afterwards and said, ‘Brian, he ain’t going to make it. They are killing him. I know what my son is like. He is screaming for help Brian… he’s going to die. I just know it. He’s not doing well, Brian. He’s going to die’.”

His fatherly suspicions were correct, as Michael had ordered his personal physician, Conrad Murray, to cure his insomnia problem with hospital anaesthesia and sedation pills.

”Vacant” Michael even lied to his beloved mum. Brian explains: “When she asked him about doctors, Michael said, ‘I have it under control’. She begged him, ‘You cannot do this. You need to go and get medical help’.”

Joe’s fears centred on Michael, who’d been in rehab clinics since the 1980s, self-medicating. The singer had battled addictions to heavy duty pain killers, anxiety meds and sedatives since burning his scalp during an ill-fated 1984 Pepsi commercial.

He stopped the 1993 Dangerous Tour for a rehab stint after getting hooked on Valium and Ativan, and authorities discovered a multitude of narcotics and benzodiazepines during the 2003 Neverland raid.

Joe, who died aged 89 in June 2018, feared his son was battling severe drug dependency again, self-medicating while “being pushed too hard” by concert bosses.

Executives at AEG had always denied they knew Murray was giving the star hospital-use-only anaesthesia IVs of propofol nightly along with benzodiazepines.

He was also getting jabs of narcotic analgesic demerol during regular visits to dermatologist Arnold Klein.

The family’s fears heightened when Michael didn’t attend rehearsals at the Staples Centre in LA, and staff spoke of him often slurring his speech or being unable to walk properly.

When they called his Holmby Hills mansion or reached out through aides, MJ refused to respond. He fobbed off efforts for a reunion by having aides say he was too busy or would get back to them on times and dates.

Brian says: “Michael knew he was in trouble. He was contractually committed to London and afraid because he had been advanced millions of dollars.”

Joe felt that Michael could not cope with the tour workload given his problems, but no one seemed to listen to him.

”No matter what his dad did, he could not get through all the layers of the craziness and the so-called protectors,” says Brian. “It was only Joe who knew how to protect his son, but yet he was excluded. He knew how to talk with Michael and negotiate for him to get better.”

Randy too loved his brother dearly and felt he could appeal to him. Brian says: “Had Michael allowed his family in, Joe would have saved him. Joe knew how to communicate with his son and deal with the business problems, too “He would’ve got Michael to do the shows when he was ready but wouldn’t have permitted this drug crap. He knew it had to be ‘No more Murray or Klein’.

Joe often turned up at Michael’s door, but was told by the guards that he wasn’t in or he had no permission to see him. The lawyer reveals the family considered an intervention at MJ’s Carolwood mansion.

However, guards blocked all guests on his orders, and they had failed with at least two previous interventions in the previous two years. Joe threatened to “drive his truck through the gates”, but the family feared police would step in given Randy had been threatened with legal action after trying to reach Michael in 2007.

Jacko had given several interviews claiming Joe beat him as a child. But Brian says: “We heard so much that Michael was afraid of his father – nonsense. Michael looked to his dad for protection and wisdom. At his 2005 molestation trial, Joe stood by his side every day. There was huge love between them.

“Michael told me, ‘My father used to make us rehearse and I never wanted to. He would take his belt off, and he would chase me’. When I asked if he ever hit him, Michael replied, ‘No. I was too fast for him’. When I said:, ‘Everybody thinks he beat the crap out of you’, he just changed the subject, saying, ‘Don’t use that word. That’s a nasty word’. Joe loved his son and was protective over him for years.”

Brian adds: “I get upset every single day thinking about Michael passing. He had so much more to offer the world. There really was no one like him, and the world has never seen a performer like him in ten lifetimes.”

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Source: USA Today