Michael Jackson was family bank

28 December 2016

Michael Jackson's family used him as a "bank", his former personal doctor has claimed.

Michael Jackson

The late King of Pop reportedly had debts of between $400 and $500 million before he died in June 2009 and Dr. Conrad Murray - who was convicted of the involuntary manslaughter of the singer - claims his generosity to others and problems with his relatives.

He said: "In the end because of the pressures he was under, his life was basically wagered. He started with 40 million and he was 400 million in the red. At the time, concerts had rehearsed to a point that he was 400 million in debt, he was homeless. He was living like a nomad, going from hotel to hotel.

"He was saying to me, 'Conrad I'm getting tired', he didn't want to live like this anymore. When he came to the Beverly Hills house he was paying $100 million a month for the property alone.

"Interestingly though I would say Michael spends heavily, he was generous. He was also supporting a lot of other people. They did not save anything that they got.

"His family were also suing him repeatedly, internally

"He was a bank for the family and an ATM machine, think of the courage of that."

One of the ways Michael made money was through his purchase of The Beatles' back catalogue, along with the rest of ATVMusic in 1985 - but Conrad claims Sony Entertainment were determined to "destroy" the singer to reacquire the rights.

He added to BANG Showbiz: "Michael made a lot of good decisions. He bought The Beatles catalogue, he went into business with Sony.

"He also acquired a number of other catalogues as well of The Beatles and I would say they were very sound investments. But it would be enough to also carry you through, for the rest of your life. But the other problem, Sony wanted that catalogue back and Sony was about to do everything to destroy Michael in order for Michael to not be able to garner any kind of proceeds from that entity."

Earlier this year, Sony announced they were buying out the Michael Jackson estate's share of Sony/ATV Music publishing.