Tito Jackson says concerned family members broke into Neverland Ranch to stage an intervention with Michael Jackson about his addiction to painkillers.
"We had to act," Tito tells Britain's Daily Mirror. "It was me, my sisters Janet, Rebbie and La Toya and my brothers, Jackie and Randy."
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The siblings "bust right into the house," Tito says. "He was surprised to see us, to say the least. "We went into one of his private rooms and had a discussion with him. Some of us were crying. We kept asking him if it was true what we had heard that he was using drugs," Tito continues. "He kept denying it. He said we were over-reacting. We also spoke to a doctor and he assured us it was not the situation. He said he was there to make sure Michael was healthy."
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(Five of Michael's doctors are under investigation for over-prescribing prescription narcotics. The coroners office served a subpoena yesterday to Arnold Klein — Michael's longtime dermatologist and the biological father to his two eldest kids, Prince, 12, and Paris, 11.) Tito said the family thought Michael was lying about not using drugs.
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"We talked about it again and again for hours but we just couldn’t get through to him," he says. "After that occasion, we tried many times but his team of people just shut us out, they would not let us close. They literally shut us out." Tito says the family twice attempted an intervene earlier as well, but security staff kept the the family away.
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"In the first few intervention attempts, his staff and security would not let us on the property. They would block the road into Neverland with other vehicles so we couldn’t drive in, all kinds of crazy things," says Tito, who admits he "never saw" Michael on drugs. "He deliberately did it away from us. He didn't want his family to know anything about that part of him," he says. Michael's body was reportedly found riddled with needle marks — indicating drug abuse — upon his June 25 death of cardiac arrest.
