Jacko goes on €5.5m spending spree

Eccentric pop star Michael Jackson is shown going on a €5.5m shopping spree in a documentary screened tonight.

Journalist Martin Bashir was granted “unprecedented and exclusive access” to the star for eight months to make the 90-minute show Living With Michael Jackson.

Bashir talks to the star in a series of interviews and goes behind the scenes with him at Jackson’s Neverland ranch in California, which has its own fairground and zoo.

The interviewer was with “wacko Jacko” in Berlin when he notoriously dangled his 11-month-old son Prince Michael II from a hotel balcony.

Bashir said: “Not one of his entourage was prepared to tell him it was ludicrous and dangerous.”

The profile, a Tonight Special broadcast on ITV1 at 9pm, shows Jackson spending 6 million (€5.5m) in Las Vegas on “everything from 10ft-tall glass urns to over-sized marble chess sets,” Bashir told The Sunday Times, adding: “He’s already got three of these.”

The interviewer added: “In many ways he is charming. In others he is a disturbing individual whose financial power enables him to do what he wants when he wants.”

Bashir’s previous high profile subjects have included Diana, Princess of Wales, Michael Barrymore and the Stephen Lawrence murder suspects.

Jackson has gone from being a well-loved superstar to a figure of fun to many, due to his bizarre appearance and behaviour.

His baby-dangling incident – which he later said he regretted – was roundly condemned.