A television documentary in which Michael Jackson compared himself to Peter Pan and said he shared his bed with boys was a public relations disaster that damaged his image, a consultant hired by the pop star told jurors today.
The 2003 documentary on Jackson's eccentric lifestyle, coupled with the leak of embarrassing court documents from a child molestation case settled out of court 10 years before, threw the pop star's camp into crisis, said prosecution witness Ann Kite.
Ms Kite, a public relations consultant hired by by Jackson's advisers to counter negative publicity, believed the damage to his reputation from the leak of information about the molestation case was "beyond disaster."
It was the first time that jurors in Jackson's child molestation trial had heard any mention of the 1993 allegations against the 46-year-old self-styled "King of Pop," which his lawyers have fought to bar from the trial as evidence.
The television documentary, made by British journalist Martin Bashir, was "put together in a way to portray Mr. Jackson in a very negative light," Ms Kite said.
Asked to assess the damage to Jackson's public image from the documentary on a scale from one to 10, Kite called it "a 25," and said she was alarmed by segments showing Jackson climbing a tree, going on a lavish Las Vegas shopping spree and interacting with his accuser.