MICHAEL JACKSON’S career lay in ruins last night after he admitted in a television documentary that he coaxed young boys into sleeping in his bed.

The star, who was accused of molesting a boy ten years ago, said that he recently encouraged a 12-year-old cancer sufferer to sleep in his bedroom. He also claimed to have slept in the same bed alongside several other young boys.

“It’s what the whole world should do,” he told the interviewer, Martin Bashir, when questioned about the incident during the Granada television programme, Living With Michael Jackson.

The 44-year-old singer and the boy insisted that no sexual contact took place during the sleepovers at Jackson’s Neverland ranch in California.

However, the revelations are likely to cause irreparable damage to a performer already tarnished by sexual scandal.

In 1993 Jackson was accused by the parents of 13-year-old Jordan Chandler of sexually molesting their son during sleepovers at his 3,000- acre ranch. The family dropped the case after reaching an £18.5 million financial settlement with Jackson. No charges were brought.

Jackson’s career has never recovered and the interview granted to Bashir, famed for his interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, was intended to begin the billionaire performer’s rehabilitation.

Jackson’s friend, Uri Geller, persuaded him to allow Bashir to become part of his entourage for eight months. But the resulting film, which has been bought by the US broadcaster ABC for £3.5 million, could lead to police action against the fallen star.

One executive described it as the “longest suicide note in history”.

Tom Sneddon, the District Attorney behind the Chandler investigation, is expected to look at the new allegations after the programme is screened in the US this Friday. A spokesman from his office said: “We will be watching the programme with interest.”

Last November Jackson provoked outrage when he dangled his baby son, Prince Michael II, over the balcony of a Berlin hotel and appeared briefly to lose control. As a result of that incident officials in Santa Barbara County are already considering the launch of a formal investigation into the father of three’s fitness to be a parent.

Bashir said he found living in Jackson’s world “disturbing” and expressed his concern for the wellbeing of his young children. “I had assumed that now he would be more cautious,” Bashir said. “But to my utter astonishment, I discovered that children were still sleeping over.”

Jackson defended his desire to sleep in close proximity with young boys, under persistent questioning from Bashir.

He described the practice as “very charming, very sweet” and recommended that Bashir sleep in the same bed as friends of his own children. He also claimed that children like to be touched and said he would kill himself if he could not be close to them.

Gavin, the 12-year-old boy at the centre of the fresh “sleepover” claims, said he met Jackson two years ago, after cancer was diagnosed. He began sleeping overnight at the 44-year-old singer’s Neverland ranch with his brother and sister.

On one occasion, the boy asked to sleep in Jackson’s bedroom: “I was like ‘Michael, you can sleep in the bed’, and he was like ‘no, no, you sleep on the bed’, and I was like ‘no, no, no, you sleep on the bed’ and then he said ‘look if you love me you’ll sleep in the bed’. I was like ‘Oh man’. So I finally slept on the bed. But it was fun that night.” Jackson said he slept on the floor and did not touch the boy. Jackson’s children, Prince Michael I, 6, and Paris, 4, are only allowed out in public wearing carnival masks to disguise their faces. In one of the most disturbing scenes in last night’s programme, a shaking Jackson bottle-fed Prince Michael II, who was covered from head-to-toe in a silk veil. The baby “enjoyed” being dangled over the Berlin hotel balcony, the singer claimed.

Jackson’s career is locked into a downward spiral. His last album sold only two million copies in the US, even though it took him six years to write and cost £16 million to make. His former business manager Myung Ho Lee has claimed that the singer was actually £125 million in debt as a result of his lavish spending.

He is being sued for failing to perform at concerts and has fallen out with his career-long record company Sony, accusing its chairman of racism.

Granada has made more than £3.5 million from international sales of the film, part of the Tonight With Trevor McDonald series, with screenings in Australia and New Zealand to follow this week. The company hopes to recoup a further £2 million from video and DVD sales, which may feature additional material cut from the film. Jackson was not paid to participate in the project, Granada said.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Times Christmas appeal: Letter from the Editor
• Conferences — what a waste of money
• Schools supremo learns a painful lesson