Michael Jackson says he is still in pain from being put in police handcuffs last month and tells CBS’s “60 Minutes” that authorities “manhandled” him.
The pop star said he suffered a dislocated shoulder from the way he was cuffed and handled during his arrest on child molestation charges.
“It’s hurting me very badly,” Jackson said in an interview broadcast Sunday. “I’m in pain all the time.”
Representatives of the Santa Barbara County sheriff’s department did not return a call seeking comment Sunday. District Attorney Thomas Sneddon has said Jackson was treated fairly while in custody.
Jackson denied the molestation charges against him in a partial transcript of the interview released Friday, and said he still believes it’s acceptable to have children sleep in his bed.
On Sunday, CBS released the full transcript of Jackson’s Christmas night interview with Ed Bradley.
Jackson, 45, is charged with seven counts of performing lewd or lascivious acts upon a child under 14 and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent. After surrendering to Santa Barbara, Calif., authorities Nov. 20, he was set free on $3 million bail.
“It seemed to me like he reindicted himself,” Bill Dickerman, an attorney who represented the family of the alleged victim and remains close to them, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” Monday after reviewing a transcript of Jackson’s interview.
“He said many things that were not in his favor,” Dickerman said. “His reference to being Jack the Ripper or a pedophile or not being Jack the Ripper or a pedophile I thought was very strange.”
During the televised interview, when Jackson was asked if he thought it was still OK to sleep with children given the charges against him, he answered: “Why not? If you’re going to be a pedophile, if you’re going to be Jack the Ripper, if you’re going to be a murderer, it’s not a good idea. That I am not.”
“Before I would hurt a child, I would slit my wrists,” Jackson said.
The pop star also said authorities sought to belittle him when he was taken into custody.
“They were supposed to go in, and just check fingerprints, and do the whole thing that they do when they take somebody in,” he said. “They manhandled me very roughly. My shoulder is dislocated, literally.”
The pain from being handcuffed behind his back “keeps me from sleeping at night,” he said.
Jackson said he was locked in a restroom for 45 minutes after he asked to use the facilities. He said the room was smelly because of feces thrown all over.
His bedroom at his Neverland ranch was left a “total wreck” by investigators acting on a search warrant, Jackson said, although he admitted he has yet to see it.
Bradley pressed Jackson, a father of three, on whether he would allow his own children to sleep in a bed with a 45-year-old man and if he understood the way this appeared to others.
“People think sex,” Jackson said. “They’re thinking sex. My mind doesn’t run that way. When I see children, I see the face of God. That’s why I love them so much.”
