MTV Reports
In an interview Monday night on "Larry King Live," Joe Jackson, the father of Michael Jackson, refuted longstanding claims that he had abused his son, and said that he never made any mistakes raising him.
"[I] never, never have. ... I raised him just like you would raise your kids, you know?" Jackson told King. "But harm Michael, for what? I have no reason. That's my son. I loved him and I still love him."
In his now-infamous 2003 interview with journalist Martin Bashir, Michael Jackson claimed that, as a boy, he was routinely abused by his father, saying Joe would sit in a chair with a belt in his hand while he and his siblings rehearsed, and that "if you didn't do it the right way, he would tear you up, really get you."
During his interview with King, Joe Jackson called those claims "a bunch of bull S," and said that the media was just trying to perpetuate stereotypes with reports of his abuse.
"The media keep hollering about saying that I beat Michael. That's not true. You know what this beat started — beat started in the slavery days," Jackson said. "Where they used to beat the slaves and then they used to torture them. That's where this beating started. These slave masters, and that's where that come from. ... Now, Michael was never beaten by me. I've never beaten at all."
Jackson said that he was a good father who raised Michael — and the rest of his children — the right way.
"Michael was raised properly," he said. "He didn't run the streets like most of those other kids that was in his neighborhood."
Jackson also told King that he wasn't hurt to learn that his son had left him out of a will he had drafted in 2002, instead placing his assets in a family trust that benefits his mother, Katherine, his three children and various charities.
"That's the way he wanted it," Jackson said. "And it's not going to hurt me that I was left out of his will. But it happened."
Jackson claimed that the reason he was excluded from the will had nothing to do with childhood abuse, but rather, because he was shut out of his son's life during his final years.
"Larry, I'm going to cut through the chase on this. I could never get to him," Jackson said. "I tried all I could and I could never get to him because he — I was barred away from him by securities and all that type of thing. I could not get to him."
Jackson then reiterated his claim that foul play was involved in his son's death.
"If a doctor's there that couldn't bring you back — and this doctor, he ran away," Jackson said. "They had to look for him three days to find him. So what do you think there that's happened? To me, that's foul play."
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