Michael Jackson's mother quizzed by promoter's lawyer

Michael Jackson denied abusing drugs despite at least one family "intervention" before his 2009 death, his mother said as lawyers for promoters of his doomed last tour grilled her in court.
Eighty-three year-old Katherine Jackson also rebuffed a question yesterday about the amount of money she is seeking in damages from AEG Live, saying: "You can talk to my lawyers about that."
She recalled the only time she asked her son about widespread rumors that he was abusing drugs.
"Well I'm his mother and quite natually he denied because he wouldn't want me to think that .. .. He's not going to admit that," she said, adding that she knew he was taking prescription painkillers.

"I knew he was taking them. I didn't think he might have been abusing them," she added, recounting the exchange with her son at his Las Vegas home, some time after he returned from living abroad following his 2005 child molestation trial.
The Jackson family matriarch accuses AEG Live of pushing her son too hard as he rehearsed in Los Angeles for a series of "This is It" comeback concerts in London, and of negligently hiring doctor Conrad Murray to look after him.

Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2011 over Jackson's June 25, 2009 death from an overdose of the surgical anesthetic propofol, administered to help the 50-year-old singer with chronic insomnia.

Jackson's 16-year-old son Prince testified last month his exhausted father warned AEG Live was going to "kill" him as he rehearsed for the marathon concert tour.
Katherine Jackson wept in court on the first day of testimony Friday, which was cut short when she appeared confused, a short time after AEG Live's lawyer Marvin Putnam began quizzing her.
Yesterday, Putnam resumed his questioning. In tense exchanges, he asked her about the figure of $1.5-1.7 billion she was reportedly seeking in damages from the tour promoter.
"You can talk to my lawyers about that," she said icily.
He also quizzed her at length about a family "intervention" in 2002, when she and various children including Janet and Rebbie went to confront Jackson about his reported drug problems at his Neverland ranch.

But the confrontation came to nothing, she said, after the singer appeared upset when he realized why they were there. "We just saw that he was okay and he was upset, so we didn't talk about it," she said.