Miko Brando and Michael Jackson. Getty Images
“I was friends with Michael Jackson for over 27 years and my father adored him. I don’t appreciate my father’s words being twisted to imply that Michael hurt anyone,” he wrote in a letter to the LA Times that was seen by Page Six.
The newspaper this week revealed that Brandon Ogborn’s podcast — “Telephone Stories: The Trials of Michael Jackson” — claimed it unearthed a sworn statement by Brando to prosecutors when Jackson was under investigation in 1994.
In an episode streaming Sunday, Ogborn reads a transcript in which “The Godfather” legend detailed a conversation he once had with Jackson at the singer’s Neverland Ranch.
The Times reported that Ogborn verified its authenticity with Lauren Weis, who investigated Jackson as an LA prosecutor and is now a judge.
Ogborn spoke to the paper and described the document as “quite meandering, pretty loosey-goosey. [Brando] probably would be ‘canceled’ if he was around now.”
Ogborn claims Brando asked Jackson: “‘Well, who are your friends?’ He said, ‘I don’t know anybody my own age. I don’t like anybody my own age.’ I said, ‘Why not?’
“He said, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’ He was crying hard enough that . . . I tried to assuage him. I tried to help him all I could.”
And in an explosive conclusion, the Times reported that, “Brando told prosecutors he originally thought Jackson was gay but now believed it was ‘pretty reasonable to conclude that he may have had something to do with kids.’ ”
Miko, who once served as Jackson’s driver, shot back in his letter: “This is just someone’s cheap publicity stunt to promote their paid podcast. My father would never have been friends with Michael if he thought he was capable of doing harm to kids, and he would never imply anything negative about Michael. Please correct your story.”
Ogborn didn’t comment.
