The former nanny of Michael Jackson's three children said she regularly had to pump his stomach to remove cocktails of painkillers, British newspapers reported on Sunday.
Grace Rwaramba, who was abruptly sacked by Jackson in December, also spoke of her fears for the future of the children following his death and has flown to Los Angeles from Europe hoping to be reunited with them.
The Jackson family are angry at the unanswered questions surrounding the star's final hours, amid reports that the singer's doctor Conrad Murray injected him with the painkiller Demerol shortly before his death.
Rwaramba, 42, said in comments reported by The Sunday Times that the star was addicted to narcotic painkillers.
"I had to pump his stomach many times. He always mixed so much of it.
"There was one period that it was so bad that I didn't let the children see him... He always ate too little and mixed too much."
She said she once appealed to Jackson's mother, Katherine, and sister, Janet, to intervene and persuade him to seek treatment for his addiction, but Michael turned on her and accused her of betrayal.
"He didn't want to listen; that was one of the times he let me go," she said.
Rwandan-born Rwaramba worked for Jackson for more than a decade, first as an office assistant before becoming nanny to his children, 12-year-old Michael Jr, known as Prince, Paris, 11, and Prince Michael II, seven, nicknamed Blanket.
She was finally dismissed in December last year, but claims she returned several times to see the children, making her most recent trip in April.
Tabloid newspaper News of the World - which is owned by the same company as The Sunday Times - said she had screamed with shock when she heard of the star's death, while she was at the Swiss home of TV interviewer Daphne Barak.
Rwaramba told Barak in an interview quoted by the tabloid that her first thought was for the children.
"I'm really distraught for them. Michael hadn't been eating and the kids have been so scared for him.
"Now the youngest has been saying, 'Why Daddy? God should have taken me not him.'
"I took these babies in my arms on the first day of each of their lives. They are my babies."
She claimed the children had an uneasy relationship with their father, recalling a recent incident when Blanket performed a mini-concert for her of his father's songs.
"I was laughing so hard. Prince and Paris were playing around," she said. "It was such a happy moment. Then suddenly Michael walked in and the kids just looked frightened. Michael was so angry."
The fate of Jackson's children is unclear with reports raising the possibility of a custody battle involving Debbie Rowe, the biological mother of his two eldest offspring.
AFP
