The pop legend who once had cut a lean but muscular figure and obsessed about every detail of his performance was suddenly scarily gaunt, attending rehearsals in dance shoes with holes and telling people that God was speaking to him.
Michael Jackson's erratic behavior and rail-thin body so alarmed the associate producer of his sold-out comeback concerts in London that she was convinced he was dying and needed to be hospitalized immediately.
Alif Sankey testified Wednesday that she felt helpless during Jackson's last days, at times hoping the star could somehow summon the "magical" qualities that made him so special, yet felt certain he was slipping away.
One night, on her way home from rehearsal, she called the director of the "This Is It" tour.
"I said, 'He needs to be put in the hospital now,'" Sankey said she told Kenny Ortega on June 20, 2009. "I kept saying, 'Michael's dying, he's dying.' "
Five days later, Jackson died from a fatal dose of propofol, a powerful anesthetic typically given to patients undergoing surgery.
Jackson's mother and three children allege that concert promoter AEG was responsible for hiring and controlling Dr. Conrad Murray, who administered the drug and is now serving jail time for involuntary manslaughter.
AEG contends that it was Jackson who insisted on bringing Murray onboard for his comeback concerts at the O2 Arena and that the doctor's salary was just part of a multimillion-dollar advance to the singer.
But Sankey said an email she was copied on led her to believe that Murray was paid by AEG.
"We want to remind [Murray] it is AEG, not Michael Jackson who is paying his salary," Anschutz Entertainment Group executive Paul Gongaware wrote in an email to Ortega. "We want him to understand what is expected of him."
Sankey, the fifth witness in a trial expected to last deep into the summer, cried during her testimony, pausing as she recalled her final days with Jackson. A few Jackson fans watching a video feed in an overflow courtroom sniffled throughout the testimony.
The associate producer testified that Jackson failed to show up to rehearsals during the first week of June 2009 and that the show's choreographer told her the 50-year-old singer complained of soreness.
Ortega, along with two AEG executives, had planned a "tough love" meeting with Jackson at his Holmby Hills mansion on June 6, Sankey said. Although Sankey said it was exciting when the singer showed up later that day and performed "Billie Jean" and "Man in the Mirror," he was performing the routine at only half-speed.
She said that Jackson had told Ortega that God was speaking to him. Sankey said she and Ortega then had a tearful conversation about Jackson's physical and mental health.
"[Michael] didn't understand why God was speaking to him. We were both crying. We were crying because he seemed — he was not speaking normally to Kenny."
She later begged the director to do something.
"Please, please. I kept saying that. I asked him, 'Why is no one seeing what I'm seeing?' "
The associate producer also spoke about Jackson's relationship with his children.
"They loved him, they loved their daddy," she said, and mentioned sitting at a rehearsal with his daughter Paris, who kept a purse full of candy and small framed photos of her father.
Sankey first met Jackson when she danced in the video for his 1987 hit "Smooth Criminal," what she called the best job of her 30-year career.
"That was my first time as a dancer, as an artist, that I was completely inspired by his craft and inspired by his attention to every detail," she said. "It was magical to work with him, just absolutely magical and I dream still to this day that I will create on that level of magic that Michael created on. It was like living a dream."
When the Jacksons' attorney showed a clip from "Smooth Criminal," Jackson's mother, Katherine, appeared to dab tears from her eyes with a tissue.
Sankey continued a professional relationship with Jackson over the years and recalled that when she hugged him, his body felt solid, "like marble." Toward the end of the singer's life, Sankey noted he had little muscle mass and was extremely thin.
During the last month of Jackson's life, Sankey said Jackson appeared to be cold and dressed warmly, despite the hot stage lights.
She couldn't shake the feeling that the performer's situation was dire. "The light was gone," she said.
corina.knoll@latimes.com
jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com
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