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KNBC-TV LOS ANGELES - In a "Today" show exclusive, Michael Jackson's mother, Katherine, talked to MSNBC's Rita Cosby one week after her famous son's acquittal on all charges of child molestation.
Katherine Jackson is considered to be "the rock" of the Jackson family. With nine children, including Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop." The Jackson matriarch told Cosby that the seven days she waited for the jury to come back were nail-biters. The whole trial took everything out of her son, physically and mentally, Cosby reported. "One of the reasons why it devastated him," Mrs. Jackson said, "he would tell me, 'Mother, when they say 'call your next witness,' and I look around and I'm surprised. It's people that I've helped, and they're up there trying to make money off of me by lying. I don't understand how people can do that.'"
When asked if she felt Michael has shaken the allegations of child molestation once and for all, Mrs. Jackson said, "he'd been proven not to be a child molester, and they know he's not. But some people just believe what they believe and I can't stop that. But I wish they would stop and think about it. That he is not a child molester. He is not a pedophile. He doesn't give liquor to children. These kids were bad kids." Cosby asked Jackson, "If you could see the boy and the mother, what would you say to them?"
"I could not even answer that right now," Mrs. Jackson said. "It all depends on what mood I am in when I see them. I feel sorry for them, too. From what I hear about their past, I feel sorry for their future if they don't change their way." Some of the jurors said that they believed Michael Jackson may have molested someone else before, but they didn't believe the words of this family.
"I think there was one juror, I think they said juror No. 1 said that. I can't change his mind. He believed what he wants to believe," said Mrs. Jackson. Cosby said following Jackson's acquittal, Attorney Tom Sneddon was unapologetic and said he made no mistakes and would do it again.
"Maybe he didn't make what he calls 'no mistakes,' but he made a big mistake. My son is not a pedophile," Mrs. Jackson said. "Are you angry at the way some perceived he targeted your son," Cosby asked.
"My son is a better person than he is," said Mrs. Jackson. "What he did to my son, my son would never do to anyone else." "Another thing, too," Mrs. Jackson continued, "that ranch was not built to lure little children just to molest them, as the prosecutors tried to say. When he let people come out there and enjoy the ranch, everything is free. He has always been taught to give and to share." Michael Jackson's mother said Michael told her if he had to help people from now on, he would help them from a distance. "Do you think from here on out, he will say, 'OK, no kids, no boys in the bedroom because I don't want to be accused of something,'" Cosby asked. "I am sure he won't do that now. Twice he's been accused of doing something he hasn't done," Mrs. Jackson said.
When asked how the trial affected Michael Jackson's mother personally, she said, "I had anxiety sometimes, I prayed about all of that. He was my child and I loved him, and I was going to stick by him."
? 2005 MSNBC.com
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8302648/