In one of his first interviews since being released from prison for the death of Michael Jackson, Conrad Murray spoke with London's Daily Mail and claimed that Jackson was a drug addict and that "Michael Jackson accidentally killed Michael Jackson," Murray said.
In a vividly detailed interview with the Mail, Murray, 60, who served as Jackson's personal physician, explains how the two became friends in Las Vegas.
"I had treated the father of one of his bodyguards. Michael’s children were sick, as was he, with a viral flu infection. I went to the house and gave Michael hydration with what we call a 'banana bag,' a bag of saline with added vitamins," Murray told the Mail.
"I placed the IV in his arm, and he said, 'You are very skillful at that.' I replied, 'That’s what I do.' "
The friendship grew, and with Jackson reeling from his second child abuse case in 2005, Murray claimed that the singer became very insulated.
"Michael lived like a recluse with his children. He was a prisoner of whatever home he was in," Murray said. "In the beginning we talked a lot about medicine. He was fascinated by human anomalies and congenital malformations. He was obsessed by the Elephant Man."
Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2009 and served two years of a four-year sentence. The coroner determined Jackson died of acute propofol intoxication; propofol is a powerful surgical anesthetic that Murray says he used to treat the singer's insomnia.
Murray swore that he would have never hurt Jackson or administered a lethal dose of medicine, as they two were unusually close friends.
"You want to know how close we were?" he asked the Mail reporter. "I held his penis every night to fit a catheter because he was incontinent at night."
He claimed that the singer was paranoid—so worried, in fact, that he wouldn't change his underwear because he was sure that the maids would steal his dirty laundry and sell them.
"He was in crisis at the end of his life, filled with panic and misery … By the end, Michael Jackson was a broken man," he told the Mail. "I tried to protect him but instead I was brought down with him."
Read more at the Daily Mail.