On Wednesday, June 26 — four years and one day after Michael Jackson's sudden, shocking death — the late singer's eldest son, 16-year-old Prince, took the stand to testify in his family's wrongful death lawsuit against AEG Live. During his testimony, the teen recalled often seeing his father upset and in tears after conversations with AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips.
"He would get off the phone, [and] he would cry sometimes," Prince, who was 12 when Jackson passed away at age 50, told jurors in the Los Angeles courtroom, per Reuters. "He would say, 'They're gonna kill me. They're gonna kill me.'"
The teen added that his dad was unable to stand up for himself during these disagreements. "He was like my grandma," Prince explained. "He was too kind to fight anybody."
According to Reuters, Prince showed little emotion on the stand until he was asked to recall the day of Jackson's death. He testified that he and his siblings — sister Paris, 15, and Blanket, 11 — were at home in L.A. when they heard a scream from the second floor.
"I ran upstairs and I saw Dr. Conrad [Murray] doing CPR on my dad on the bed," he said. "My dad was hanging halfway off the bed, and his eyes were rolled back in his head. My sister was screaming the whole time, saying she wants her daddy. I was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, crying, waiting for the ambulance."
The teen went on to talk about the emotional toll that his father's death had taken on him and his brother and sister. "I have a hard time sleeping," he explained. "I became emotionally distant from a lot of people."
His sister Paris — who was recently hospitalized after an apparent suicide attempt — took it even worse. "I think out of all of our siblings, she was probably hit the hardest because she was my dad's princess," Prince testified. "It hurt a lot, and she definitely is dealing with it in her own way."
The lawsuit — in which Prince, Paris, and Blanket are all plaintiffs alongside their grandmother Katherine Jackson — alleges that AEG Live (the concert promoter for Michael's final This Is It tour) is liable in the singer's death because it hired and ultimately supervised Dr. Conrad Murray, the doctor who is now behind bars for involuntary manslaughter. Now in its ninth week, the trial is expected to last until August.
