THE doctor most famous for introducing Michael Jackson to the drug that would later kill him, has spoken out about the late star’s obsession with children and desperate cries for help.
Dr Neil Ratner became close to the King of Pop when he toured with Jackson as his private physician throughout the 90s.
But it wasn’t Jacko’s physical health that gave the anaesthesiologist cause for concern.
Ratner revealed the troubled star was plagued by childhood traumas which haunted his adult life.
He told The Sun: “Michael had this whole thing about not having had a childhood.
“He couldn’t let it go. It bothered him tremendously.
“Was he a manchild? Absolutely.”
Ratner describes the man he knew as both patient and friend as lonely, confiding in him during frequent late-night phone calls.
It was during these phone calls that a persistent theme emerged.
“He constantly talked about the innocence of childhood and how we lose it as we become adults.
Was he a manchild? Absolutely.”
Dr Neil Ratner
“He was stuck on that. It was a problem.
“He couldn’t get unstuck.
“I tried. Others tried.”
Ratner visited Jackson’s sprawling 3,000-acre Neverland ranch, says the purpose-built amusement park was a place where Michael didn’t have to grow up.
He said: “Michael was very connected to the Peter Pan fantasy.
“He felt he was Peter Pan. The boy who never grew up.
“That was where Neverland came from.
‘It was all part of the “I can’t grow up because I never had a childhood” thing’.
Ratner described trying to help the desperate popstar’s obsession, but to no avail.
“He just wouldn’t let go of the fact that that’s over. That part of your life happened, now be an adult.
“He just wouldn’t let go. He didn’t want to be an adult.”
The reason, Ratner believes, stems from Michael’s own troubled childhood – a topic which Jacko fleetingly mentioned.
Ratner explained: “Certainly his upbringing and the life he created for himself created psychological problems for him.
“He had a very strange childhood.”
He felt he was Peter Pan.”
Dr Neil Ratner
He recalled a story, saying Michael had confided in him: “When I was growing up, we used to practice in the basement of my house and I could see out the little windows in the basement of the kids playing outside.
“My father would never let me go and play outside because we always had to rehearse.”
As an adult, Ratner believes Michael desperately tried to recreate the childhood he never had.
He said: “That was probably the oddest part of Michael. His inability to grow up.
“His inability of wanting to be an adult. That was his hangup.
“He was obsessed with talking about how horrible it is as adults that we’re so closed that we can’t appreciate things, that we can’t see things for what they really are we do when we’re younger.”
Seeing Michael with children was his “greatest joy”, Ratner explained.
He added: “As much joy as it brought him it led to the biggest problems in his life as well.
“Did he like children more than adults? Probably.”
Troubled by the obsession, the on-tour medic said he intervened many times.
“I talked to him about it. I said ‘this is not good behaviour for a 50-year-old-man’.
Believe me, if I had seen or suspected … I don’t want to be around that. I don’t condone that. I don’t want to see kids abused.
I’m a doctor. It’s my duty to stop it and prevent it from happening.”
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