INCREDIBLE Hulk star Lou Ferrigno yesterday claimed that  Michael Jackson was killed by the weight of his massive debts.

The actor and bodybuilder had been training his pal Jacko for his gruelling 50-date London tour.

And he said the only reason the singer was going back on stage was to clear his $400million debts.

Ferrigno, 50, revealed: “He was under tremendous stress, so much I think it killed him. He was $400million in debt. In the past, he had backed out of doing live shows but this time he was under the gun. The debts put a huge strain on him.”

The pair first met through a mutual pal in 1995 and Ferrigno recalled: “Our friend had a bunch of guests over. Michael was there and I was introduced to him.

“The friend had a gym and I walked over to it and Michael kept staring at me. He was acting really shy. Eventually we got talking. Michael needed to get ready for his HIStory world tour, so I told him to train with me.

“He came to my house in Santa Monica and that’s how I became a close friend. He was great, a nice guy, really sweet. He was self-conscious about people staring at him, people touching him, wanting a piece of him.

“But he let his guard down when he was with me. There was no show.”

The pair met several times over the following years and in April Jackson asked Ferrigno to help him prepare for his London comeback concerts.

The actor would visit his rented Bel Air mansion three times a week to put Jacko through his paces.

“He had undergone a five-hour medical in February and had passed with flying colours, but he wanted to be fitter,” said Ferrigno.

“So I would go to his house with an inflatable exercise ball and 3lb dumbbells. He did not like the dumbbells. He said he didn’t want big shoulders and big muscles like me.

“I laughed and said, ‘Michael, there’s no way you will get big shoulders from 3lb dumbbells.’”

Stick-thin Jackson was unlikely to get them through his measly eating habits either.

Ferrigno said: “He ate only one meal a day, always in the evening. He’d wake up and not have anything for the whole day, and when he did eat it was always vegetarian.”

The singer also had a bizarre dress code for their sessions.

“He wore whatever he put on first thing,” said Ferrigno. “So if he put pyjamas on he would wear pyjamas for the rest of the day. But it was always with a suit jacket, that was the Michael Jackson signature.

“Sometimes when we worked out he would take his jacket off and he looked lean and motivated.”

Ferrigno said the 50-year-old’s fitness was improving all the time.

“I was with him until the end of May and he was fine,” he said. “There was no sign of drug use and his flexibility was improving. That was important as he was a little tight in certain areas. He hadn’t danced for so long.”

Jacko always liked to work out while listening to music –  The Beatles and the Mamas & the Papas were particular favourites – and Ferrigno revealed the legendary dancer even taught him the Moonwalk during breaks. “We talked, had conversations about life and different things,” he said. “There was no security, no bodyguards, nobody around. He didn’t want anyone around when he worked out. We took regular breaks and he would show me his dance moves. They were awesome.

“He was doing part of his routine. He was still in great shape dance-wise. He was still as good as 15 years ago.

“Michael taught me the Moonwalk. I’m sworn to secrecy though, I can’t give the secrets away.”

Despite his financial problems, Jacko seemed in good spirits, according to his friend.

“He was very happy,” said Ferrigno. “He used to be lonely when I first saw him but he was very happy because he had his children.

“I made him laugh a lot and he was a real prankster. He was always playing jokes on me.

“He used to call me and pretend he was someone called Omar. He would pretend to be my stalker.

“He would talk on the phone in a disguised voice, real deep, saying things like, ‘I know where you live’ or, ‘I know what you’re doing’.

“I said, ‘Michael, I think this is you’ but he kept denying it.

“One time he came to an action-hero convention I was doing and he was dressed as some kind of monster.

“He had a full monster-style face mask on and nobody knew it was Michael. He came up to the table and was making weird noises. I just figured it was some guy who was into Star Trek, but afterwards I found out it was Michael Jackson.

“He wanted to disguise himself so that he could walk around and not be recognised. He was a child that never grew up.”

Ferrigno, who shot to fame as the rage-filled Incredible Hulk, claimed that he and Jacko had similar, angry childhoods.

“We had similar fathers,” he said. “When we were growing up, we had a lot of pain and anger. He did not have a chance to make friends and became very self-conscious.

“He eventually overcame that. His escape was music, mine was to become a body-building champion.

“That’s why we were so good together, he got to be a kid again.

“That’s also why he created Neverland. It was not just for children to visit, he wanted his own Disneyland.

“He wanted to have fun, but wanted to do it away from the cameras.”

Ferrigno said he last saw Jackson three weeks before his death.

“I saw him at the end of May when I was doing some shows on the East Coast,” he said. “We were meant to get together a few more times before he went to England but then I heard on the news that he had passed on.

“I felt terrible, I was shocked. I thought it was a joke. It felt like a tremendous loss. It almost felt to me like 9/11. It shook the whole world, Michael Jackson just dropping dead.”

Ferrigno will be at the Staples Center in LA tomorrow when the world remembers Jackson. “The memorial is going to be huge,” he said. “Maybe bigger than Princess Di’s.”

Source Link – http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2009/07/05/michael-jackson-was-killed-by-the-stress-of-his-400m-debts-says-his-friend-lou-the-incredible-hulk-ferrigno-115875-21497414/