IT WAS the hardest thing he had to do: Telling three young children that their father was dead.

Michael Jackson's manager Frank DiLeo has opened up about the tragic moment when he had to break the news to Jackson's three children that their pop star father was not coming home.

At the UCLA Medical Centre where Jackson was being treated, Mr DiLeo said he was greeted by the sight of Jackson's three children - Prince Michael, 12, Paris, 11, and Prince Michael II, 7 - waiting anxiously in the corridor.

Mr DiLeo recounted telling them: 'I'm sorry children, your father has passed away.'

He recalled how a split second passed before Paris screamed: 'No, no, Daddy. No, no!'

He told the Daily Mail how the 'outpouring of emotion is something I shall live with for the rest of my life'.

'It was the single most painful moment of my life. I cannot tell you how difficult it was. Those children just fell to pieces. The emotions poured forth.'

'Whatever anyone thought of Michael, he was loved by those children, truly loved. They were - and are - in pieces.'

Mr DiLeo said family members were then allowed into a room where the body was to say goodbye.

One insider told the Daily Mail: 'He looked as if he was sleeping. Like he might sit up and start talking.'

Added Mr DiLeo: 'It was so sad, so, so sad. All I thought about was that I had to tell his kids their daddy was dead. And that's what I had to do. Agony.'

Eerie scene at hospital

Jackson's former lawyer also described the scene at the hospital during Jackson's final moments as being 'eerie'.

Mr Brian Oxman told The Sun: 'The fans were gathered there, there were thousands of them. They were playing Michael Jackson's music.

'To hear Beat It echo off the walls of the UCLA Medical Centre was just the most chilling, surreal experience of my life.'

Jackson's children have been under the care of his mother, Katherine, 79, in a house in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino.

She had accompanied them to the hospital to wait for news of their father.

Said Mr DiLeo: 'I think she feared the worst, but the children had no idea their whole world had ended.'

Mr DiLeo had managed Jackson at the peak of the pop star's fame - during the Thriller and Bad days.

But he later fell out of favour with Jackson over allegations that he had taken advantage of Jackson financially.

But Mr DiLeo defended himself: 'He was like a son to me. We had our fights but we were together at the end. We loved each other.'

He was now back in Jackson's camp as the man who was helping mastermind the singer's comeback tour.

Like many around Jackson, he has denied that the pop star was pushed into doing the tour.

Meanwhile, the biological mother of Jackson's two eldest children has said she will not fight for their custody.

But Ms Debbie Rowe has expressed her wish to be granted more access to the kids than she has had in recent years.

Jackson's family had threatened to fight her 'tooth and nail' if Ms Rowe resisted plans by his mother to look after the kids.

Sources close to Ms Rowe, 50, told UK's The Sunday Times that she does not plan to exercise her legal right to settle the children at her horse ranch in Palmdale, about 100km north of LA.

Earlier reports had quoted the family as claiming that the children had said they preferred to live with their grandmother.

A source told the Times: 'They were in a safe environment then, and they are in a safe environment now.'

But despite Mr DiLeo's account of the children's outpouring of grief, Jackson's former nanny says their relationship with their father was uneasy, cold and sterile

Ms Grace Rwaramba, who spent 12 years as a nanny to his kids, told News Of The World: 'I used to hug and laugh with them. But when Michael was around, they froze.'

She recounted how Prince Michael II, also known as Blanket, once staged a concert for her, singing one of Jackson's hits, Billie Jean.

'I was laughing so hard. Prince and Paris were playing around. It was such a happy moment.

'Then suddenly, Michael walked in and the kids just looked frightened. Michael was so angry.'

She said the kids were particularly terrified of having to wear the masks which Jackson made them don in public.

'They didn't like them. It wasn't my idea. I hated it as well. So whenever I had a chance, I misplaced the masks or 'forgot' to pack them.'

Ms Rwaramba also blames Jackson for not providing a proper education for the kids.

'They can't play with other children and don't have a teacher to help them learn about the world.'

This article was first published in The New Paper.

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