JERMAINE CALLS MICHAEL ‘GIFT FROM ALLAH’
Jul 3rd, 2009 by Bilal Ali
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Jermaine Jackson said Thursday that he wishes he had died instead of Michael, and referred to his younger brother as “a gift from Allah” in an emotional interview with the “Today” show’s Matt Lauer at Neverland Ranch.     Â
      “He went too soon,” Jermaine said. “I don’t know how people are going to take this, but I wish it was me.”
       Describing how he was informed of his brother’s death, Jermaine said he heard the report from a friend and called his mother, Katherine to confirm. “She was crying, saying he was dead. And to hear my mother saying Michael is dead, to feel and hear the tone of her voice to say her child is dead … It’s nothing that anyone can ever imagine,” he said.
       Jermaine then rushed to the hospital and, after consoling his mother, went to his deceased brother’s side. “I wanted to see Michael, and I wanted to see my brother, and seeing him lifeless and breathless was very emotional for me,” he said.
       “I held myself together, because I know he is very much alive, his spirit is,” said Jermaine. “I kissed him on his forehead and I hugged him and I touched him and I said, ‘Michael, I’ll never leave you, you’ll never leave me.”
       Jermaine also said he would be “hurt” if toxicology reports showed his younger brother abused prescription drugs.     Â
      “In this business, the pressures and things that you go through, you never know what one turns to,” he said.     Â