In the late 1980s, Michael Jackson was one of the most famous people on the planet, photographed everywhere he went.
One of the few people who could understand the pressure the platinum-selling star was under was Princess Diana. She had been catapulted into international fame almost overnight when she started dating the-then heir to the throne Prince Charles.
The pair formed a very close bond, Jackson’s former bodyguard Matt Fiddes told podcaster James English. He explained: “He used to talk about Diana a lot – he said that she was his ideal wife. They spent hours on the phone… she used to ring all the time and he used to ring her all the time.
“But Prince Charles, King Charles now, tried to put an end to it a lot.” Matt claims that the-then Prince of Wales blocked Prince Harry and Prince William’s plan to meet up with Jackson when he visited London in 2002.
Charles tried to 'put a stop' to Michael and DIana's close friendship, Matt claims (Getty Images)“Prince Harry and Prince William wanted to meet Michael,” Matt recalled. “Obviously they knew their mum was friends with Michael Jackson – she used to go to the Wembley concerts during the ‘Bad' era and so on.
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“We set it up, for Michael to meet them, but King Charles… we were told he had put a stop to it.”
The meeting was set to take place at the House of Lords. But the senior peer who had organised the meeting told Jackson’s entourage at the last minute that the Prince of Wales was concerned about the possible controversy over the young princess meeting the star.
Diana had hoped to take her boys to meet the pop megastar (UK Press via Getty Images)Matt explained: “We had a very official letter come through saying ‘Prince William and Prince Harry will not be meeting Michael Jackson’. That was hard, because we had to deliver the news to him and that's kind of why he came to London.”
Matt claimed Jackson had been promised an honorary knighthood by “certain people in the government, and near the Royal Family,” and had hoped that meeting the royals in the House of Lords might seal the deal.
The failed meeting came shortly before the release of Martin Bashir’s Living with Michael Jackson – a documentary that effectively destroyed the singer’s reputation and Matt maintains was “a stitch-up."
The Prince and Princess of Wales had very different attitudes when it came to showbusiness (Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images)But some people in royal circles were not put off by the claims made in the documentary. Prince Harry, in particular, remained a huge Jackson fan.
Matt explained: “I met him at Cheltenham racecourse. He said 'You’ve got to introduce me to Michael, I want to find out a bit more about my mum'.”
Sadly, both Jackson and Diana died before their time, with the singer succumbing to a overdose of pain-killing medication on June 25, 2009 – 15 years ago today.
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