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From The Sunday Times
Nanny reveals tragic secret life of Jackson
Maurice Chittenden and John Harlow Los Angeles THE nanny who became “mother” to Michael Jackson’s three children has told how she regularly had to pump his stomach to remove dangerous cocktails of drugs.
Grace Rwaramba, 42, who flew from London to Los Angeles yesterday in the hope of being reunited with his children, has given a graphic account of the singer’s increasingly desperate final months.
She paints a grim picture of Jackson, sometimes penniless but deluded about his “riches”, leading a nomadic life, moving from country to country and hotel to hotel, before allegedly falling under the increasing influence of the Nation of Islam, the extremist sect.
Jackson is believed to have been taking up to eight different drugs a day, including three narcotic painkillers. Rwaramba, who is expected to be interviewed by detectives about whether she helped administer the drugs, said: “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.”
The nanny says she once called in the singer’s mother, Katherine, and sister, Janet, to attempt an “intervention”, trying to persuade the singer to come to terms with his addiction. Instead Jackson turned on her, accusing her of betraying him. “He didn’t want to listen; that was one of the times he let me go,” she said.
Rwaramba, who is from Rwanda, worked for Jackson for more than a decade, starting as an office assistant before becoming nanny to his children, Michael Jr, known as Prince, aged 12; Paris, 11; and Prince Michael II, 7, nicknamed Blanket to distinguish him from his brother.
She was dismissed for a final time last December but still went back to see the children. When she visited them in April she claims Jackson was so hard up she had to buy “happy birthday” balloons for Paris on her own credit card.
On a previous occasion he had sent her to Florence to buy antiques for $1m. “We didn’t even have a home to live in. So we had to put the antiques in storage,” she said.
Yesterday an official with the Los Angeles police revealed the singer had become “heavily addicted” to the powerful painkiller OxyContin and had received an injection of Demerol, another painkiller, an hour before his death. It is now almost certain the police will begin a full investigation into the singer’s death and that Rwaramba will be regarded as a witness. Coroners in the case said yesterday there was no suspicion of foul play but toxicology tests would take several weeks.
One theory is that Jackson was taking an increasing amount of drugs to combat the stress of his forthcoming 50 concerts at the O2 in London. The nanny said: “Fifty performances! I told him . . . what are you doing? He said ‘I signed only for 10’. He didn’t know what he was signing. He never did.”
Detectives have made contact with Dr Conrad Robert Murray, a cardiologist who was with Jackson at his rented mansion when he died, and have made clear they want to interview him. Police denied a report that they also want to talk to a second doctor.
Police will also want to know whether early CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) efforts to save the singer’s life were botched. On a tape of conversations between the Jackson home and the ambulance service, one of Jackson’s staff tells the dispatcher that Jackson is on the bed and that a “doctor is here”, meaning Murray.
Medical experts say it is usual for the patient to be on a hard surface because it is difficult to compress the chest on a soft surface. The operator told the caller to “get him on the floor”. A car towed by police from Jackson’s home is registered in the name of Murray’s sister in Texas.
Rwaramba claims the Nation of Islam, the sect that had become increasingly prominent in Jackson’s life, told him it cost $100,000 (£60,000) a month to rent the mansion, but she believes similar properties were on the market for no more than $25,000 a month.
The sect has supplied bodyguards to the singer and allegedly intimidated auction houses that were selling Jackson memorabilia.
“Michael had no idea about money,” Rwaramba said. “He got a proposal to make an appearance in Japan for $1m . . . By the time everyone took their share, he ended up with $200,000.” At one stage Jackson and his entourage flew economy class to Germany. One of the worst periods was after Jackson was acquitted following a five-month trial in 2005 on charges of sexually abusing a boy during sleepovers at his Neverland ranch.
Jackson, Rwaramba and the children went to Bahrain as guests of Sheikh Abdullah, a son of the king, who hoped to make a CD with the singer.
People there described yesterday how they sometimes saw Jackson walking through a mall, his frail body draped in a woman’s abaya, or robe, which covered part of the face. He drew a crowd since he did not walk like a woman.
When the singer and the sheikh fell out, Jackson and his family moved to Ireland to stay with friends of Rwaramba and then in a small house in New Jersey where Jackson slept in a downstairs room while she and the children shared a bedroom.
When Jackson did have money, he hid it in black rubbish sacks and under the carpets at the Los Angeles house. Rwaramba says Katherine Jackson rang her in London at 7am on Friday to ask where the money was, possibly to stop it being stolen.
Sources close to the Jacksons yesterday told the TMZ entertainment website, which broke the news of his death, that the children would stay with their grandmother and grandfather Joe at the family home in Encino, California.
They said: “We’re told the family is 100% behind this - feeling that Katherine and Joe Jackson are the only people who can help the children understand who their father was, help them grieve, and teach them to deal with life in the spotlight.”