Marlon Brando never said Michael Jackson 'did any harm to kids', actor's son calls claims 'cheap publicity stunt'
Marlon Brando's son, Miko Brando, denied reports that his father voluntarily spoke with prosecutors about Michael Jackson in 1994, when the singer was being investigated on allegations of child molestation. The actor had allegedly shared details of a dinner conversation he had with Jackson that touched on the singer’s sexuality and his relationship with his father, in a sworn statement.
The claims were made in a report published by the Los Angeles Times, which got an exclusive preview of an episode of the podcast 'Telephone Stories: The Trials of Michael Jackson'.
However, Miko, who once worked as Jackson's driver, questioned the accuracy of the report published by the LA Times as well as the authenticity of the transcript acquired by the podcast.
“I was friends with Michael Jackson for over 27 years and my father adored him. I don’t appreciate my father’s words being twisted to imply that Michael hurt anyone,” he wrote in a letter to the LA Times that was seen by Page Six.
“This is just someone’s cheap publicity stunt to promote their paid podcast. My father would never have been friends with Michael if he thought he was capable of doing harm to kids, and he would never imply anything negative about Michael. Please correct your story.”
In the episode that is scheduled to air on Sunday, September 1, a transcript of Brando's sworn statement to the prosecutors—which was never made public as it was not included in Jackson's trial in 2005 when he was acquitted on all counts of child molestation charges—will be read out by Brandon Ogborn, one of the podcast's creator-producers.
The transcript in question was verified by Lauren Weis, one of the prosecutors who investigated the popstar back then.
Recalling his conversation with the King of Pop, Brando had said in his statement that Jackson did not act his age. The 'Thriller' singer, Brando said, acted "in a very peculiar way for a man who is as old as my oldest son, 35. And he didn’t want me to swear."
Brando also added that Jackson was not comfortable discussing his sexuality. "I had asked him if he was a virgin and he sort of laughed and giggled, and he called me Brando," the actor said. "He said, 'Oh, Brando'. I said, 'Well, what do you do for sex?' And he was acting fussy and embarrassed."
However, when 'The Godfather' actor mentioned Jackson's father, the singer was visibly perturbed. "He said he hated his father and started to cry. So I pulled back. I started to tiptoe. I realized that he was in trouble with his life because he was living in a never-never land... And he couldn't [swear], and for a 35-year-old man not to do that, being around people in show business, seemed very odd," the actor said.
Jackson admitted that he did not have any friend his own age and he did not like people in his age group, which led Brando to change his initial view that that singer might have been gay.
"With this mode of behavior that’s been going on, I think it’s pretty reasonable to conclude that he may have had something to do with kids," Brandon told the prosecutors. "My impression was that he didn’t want to answer because he was frightened to answer me."