Michael Jackson is unfit to be around kids – and must be kept from sleeping with boys, top shrinks and child-welfare experts said after viewing a jolting TV special last night.
“Clearly, this is a man who’s suffering from a mental illness,” said Dr. Michael Nuccitelli, executive director of SLS Health, a psychiatric facility in upstate Brewster.
“You can see him float in and out of reality.”
Dr. Patricia Farrell, a Bergen County, N.J., psychologist, said, “I question his ability to be a father. This man makes up the world as he wants it.”
They spoke to The Post after ABC-TV aired scenes of Jacko showing off his heavily masked kids and confessing he still shares his bed with friends’ kids.
Interviewer Martin Bashir got permission to film Jacko and his family for eight months in what the pop star apparently thought would be a tribute that would help restart his sagging career.
But it apparently backfired – as millions of viewers watched in horrified fascination as Jacko’s weird day-to-day lifestyle was unveiled.
One image particularly shocked Farrell: Jacko bottle-feeding his baby, Prince Michael II, through a veil of thick gauze.
Jackson “is contributing to serious mental-health problems for these kids in the future,” Farrell said.
She was upset on hearing one of Jacko’s kids deny having a mother.
“Have you ever heard a kid say, ‘I didn’t have a mommy?'” she asked.
Jackson’s confession that he still invites youngsters for sleepovers, even after he was investigated on child sex-abuse charges 10 years ago, should be a red flag to investigators, the shrinks said.
“After this show, the authorities really have to act,” Farrell said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if charges were brought against him, as well as the parents who let their children stay over.”
Matrimonial lawyer Raoul Felder, who has handled many high profile child custody cases, said, “Jackson has made a very good case for the child-protection people to come in.”
Felder said Jacko’s practice of making his kids don masks is not only cruel – it could backfire.
“He says he’s worried about them getting kidnapped. Well, the effect is the opposite. He’s actually giving the kidnappers directions: Take the kid with the mask.”
Bashir said he felt uncomfortable during much of his time with Jacko.
“The problem is, he appears to exist in a world he has constructed himself,” the newsman said.
Jacko’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe, mother of his first two kids, rushed to her former hubby’s defense.