MORE TO READ: "One Year Later: Our Complete Jackson Coverage"
Michael Jackson was murdered for his lucrative music catalog, says La Toya Jackson, but Islam could have saved him, says Jermaine Jackson.
One day before the first anniversary of their superstar sibling’s death, Michael’s eldest sister and brother put a music biz conspiracy and the prophet Muhammad front and center in their brother’s death and salvation.
"Michael was murdered for his catalog," La Toya told the U.K.’s GMTV Thursday. "That's the bottom line, he was murdered for his catalog. And they knew that and they knew Michael was worth so much more dead than alive. His children deserve the truth, I think his parents deserve the truth, his family and his fans."
In fact, Michael’s father, Joe, has threatened to sue concert promoter AEG, is battling with the executors of his son’s now flourishing estate and looks, as TheWrap reported, poised to slap Conrad Murray, Michael’s personal doctor now charged with manslaughter in the singer’s death, with a wrongful death suit.
This is not the first time La Toya, who has repeatedly shown up with mother Katherine, father Joe and other family members at hearings for Murray’s manslaughter trial, has made the claim that music and money were behind her brother’s death.
She actually started saying it within weeks of his June 25, 2009, death, blaming hangers-on, and she obviously hasn’t changed her tune.
At the time of his death, Jackson’s holdings included the song-rich Beatles and Sly Stone ATV catalog, as well as his own music.
Jermaine, speaking to the BBC for an interview to be broadcast in the U.K. on Friday, stayed away from what killed his brother, whose death was ruled a homicide by the L.A. county coroner. But the man who called himself his sibling’s “protector” was very clear about what he thought would have saved Michael.
“I felt that if Michael would have embraced Islam he would still be here today,” Jermaine told the BBC World Service. “When you are 100 percent clear in your mind as to who you are and what you are and why you are and everybody around you,” continued the elder Jackson brother, “then things change in a way that’s better for you. It’s just having that strength.”
“The love that they are giving my brother now he is dead,” Jermaine Jackson told the BBC, “is the love they should have shown him when he was alive.”
