US/Music

Michael Jackson's fans in mourning

Article published on the 2009-06-26 Latest update 2009-06-26 15:58 TU

Michael Jackson at a press conference in London in March, 2009.
(Photo: AFP)

The death of world-famous US 50-year-old popstar Michael Jackson has shocked his millions of fans and his close friends in the entertainment business. The man known as the "King of Pop" died on Thursday. Doctors say he suffered a heart attack. Jackson had been planning comeback concerts in London in July.

Madonna called Jackson "one of the greats" of modern music. "I can't stop crying over the sad news," she told celebrity website People.com. "I have always admired Michael Jackson. The world has lost one of the greats, but his music will live on forever."

Elizabeth Taylor, one of the singer's closest friends, was too stunned to comment. 

Quincy Jones who produced the "Thriller" album said, "to this day, that music is played in every corner of the world, and the reason is because he had it all -- talent, grace and professionalism."  The album released in 1982, was at the top of the charts for 37 weeks, although not consecutive. It's a music-business record that has yet to be beaten.

The star's first wife Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley, said: "I am so very sad and confused with every emotion possible. I am heartbroken for his children, who I know were everything to him, and for his family."

Fan clubs around the world from Paris to Beijing planned candlelit vigils for the superstar who had started out as a child-star with his brothers in the Jackson Five in the 1960s.

Among Jackson's achievements is his world-wide best selling album "Thriller".

In recent years, Jackson had retired from public view and performance after being accused of paedophilia. 

Indeed some prominent figures who expressed sadness about Jackson's passing, also commented about the less glowing aspects of his life.

France's culture minister Frederic Mitterrand said told Europe 1 radio that Jackson represented "this idea of a perpetual adolescence that one must try to preserve all one's life until the end. He did it but at such a price that he died from it."

Uri Geller, the psychic and friend of Jackson who has described him as an amazing man, said the stress of the 50 hugely-anticipated London shows starting next month caused Jackson's death. Geller, who lives in Britain, said Jackson was desperate to prove to the world that he was still a superstar despite child abuse allegations which had tainted his career.

Jackson's former producer and friend, Tarak Ben Ammar, denounced the pop icon's doctors, "It's clear that the criminals in this affair are the doctors who treated him throughout his career, who destroyed his face, who gave him medicine to ease his pain," he told French radio. "He ate badly, he didn't have a very healthy life, he couldn't do sport."