Exclusive: La Toya Jackson Opens Up on Family's Grief, Future
La Toya tells Walters: Michael "was the closest thing to a god that I knew."
Sept. 10, 2009— -- In her first in-depth interview since the death of her brother Michael Jackson, La Toya Jackson opened up exclusively to Barbara Walters about the family's grief.
"I don't think we'll find a person as talented, a person who thought the way he thought. A person with the heart that Michael had," La Toya, 53, told Walters. "People aren't that way anymore. He was special. He wasn't God, but he was certainly God-like. He was the closest thing to a god that I knew."
La Toya, one of Michael's closest siblings, was one of the first one to appear at her brother's bedside the day he died. Since then, the solo artist and model signed her brother's death certificate, became the legal guardian of his body and with the entire Jackson family, planned the funeral and memorial service in Los Angeles.
Watch Barbara Walters's exclusive interview with La Toya on "20/20" Friday at 10 p.m. ET
Michael was laid to rest in a private ceremony last week, nearly two months after his death, at the iconic Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale, Calif. La Toya told Walters that her brother looked "absolutely fabulous."
"He was dressed in all white pearl beads going across, draped across. A beautiful big gold belt. Like ... Like a belt that you win being a boxer," she said. "Full makeup. ... His hair was done beautifully, his makeup was done beautifully."
According to La Toya, in addition to the stones Paris placed on his chest, the family put sunglasses, an iconic white glove and a few other items in the casket with him.
According to the autopsy, the late King of Pop died of a fatal combination of drugs, including the powerful anesthetic propofol. Dr. Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson's personal physician has admitted administering propofol, but has denied giving Michael anything that "should have killed him."
Murray told investigators that he had been trying to wean the singer off propofol by administering a series of other prescription sedatives. When asked by Walters if Murray murdered her brother, La Toya said, "Something went wrong. Something went wrong."
La Toya also addressed reports that Michael's oldest son, Prince, was summoned by Murray the night of his father's death to help resuscitate his father.
"He called Prince ... Prince ... watched him do this, Barbara. And you don't do that to a child. You don't do that to a child, especially when you knew prior to asking that child to come up, that Michael was no longer alive," she said.
La Toya stressed that she believes Michael was dead long before Murray even called for Prince -- but called the 13-year-old in, to "show that [he] had nothing to do with this."
