You'll never work in Neverland again ...

'Betrayed' Jackson turns on 'unfair' Bashir

Perhaps Michael Jackson believed his now creamy complexion and a liking for black eyeliner meant he would be treated as sympathetically as Diana, Princess of Wales, when he agreed to a television interview with Martin Bashir.

Certainly, Bashir seems to have played the Diana card in persuading the reclusive Jackson to grant him up-close-and-personal access over a period of eight months to film the documentary shown by ITV on Monday and screened in the United States last night.

Bashir is said to have told Jackson he "turned Diana's life around". But Jackson, who did not see the programme until Wednesday night, will not have such fond memories of his encounter with the man who has cornered the market in celebrity interviews.

Jackson now feels he has been the victim of a stitch-up. Accusing Bashir of "betrayal", he lodged complaints yesterday with the Broadcasting Standards Commission and the Independent Television Commission. But even as he did so, a Californian lawyer was calling for him to be investigated over potential child abuse.

Jackson lodged his complaints after consulting lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic. He also issued a statement through the London public relations consultancy Bell Yard Communications, accusing the programme of being "terrible and unfair". Significantly, Bell Yard specialises in crisis management and what is termed "litigation PR", which suggests that Jackson is also considering legal action against Bashir.

The statement described the programme as "salacious" and "a travesty of the truth"'. It went on: "I trusted Martin Bashir to come into my life and that of my family because I wanted the truth to be told. Martin Bashir persuaded me to trust him, that his would be an honest and fair portrayal of my life and told me he was 'the man that turned Diana's life around'. I am surprised that a professional journalist would compromise his integrity by deceiving me in this way.

"Today I feel more betrayed than perhaps ever before; that someone who got to know my children, my staff and me, whom I let into my heart and told the truth, could then sacrifice the trust I placed in him and produce this terrible and unfair programme. Everyone who knows me will know the truth, which is that my children come first in my life and that I would never harm any child."

The picture that emerged from the film only reinforced the belief of most that Jackson is, at the very least, a seriously daft human being and, at worst, a suspected child abuser. It was certainly never going to change his nickname from "Wacko" to "Pop's Prince of Hearts".

Jackson's refusal to admit to serial plastic surgery aside, perhaps the most damaging thing to emerge from the programme was the singer saying he had "slept in a bed with many children".

Although Jackson said he always slept on the floor when his 12-year-old friend Gavin, a cancer sufferer, spent the night at his Neverland Valley Ranch, he said that among children he has shared a bed with were the former child actor Macaulay Culkin, his brother Kieran and the Culkin boys' sisters. Jackson said the children decided whether to sleep in his bedroom and described how he gave them "hot milk and cookies''. He told Bashir: "It's very loving. What's wrong with sharing a love? It's very charming and very sweet. It's what the whole world should do."

In 1993, Jackson's reputation, already suffering from his predilection for plastic surgery and the perception that he appeared to have whitened his skin, was damaged by accusations that he molested a 13-year-old boy. He always denied the allegations and paid the boy's parents £18m to drop a civil case against him.

Children's charities in Brit-ain have reacted with horror to the disclosures in the film and a Californian lawyer, Gloria Alldred, yesterday wrote to child welfare services in Santa Barbara where Jackson lives, urging them to interview Gavin and any children who had been in Jackson's home or bedroom without their parents. In November, the California authorities refused to order an investigation after Jackson dangled his baby out of the fourth-floor window of a Berlin hotel to show him to screaming fans below.

Jackson's statement accused Bashir of breaking a promise to edit the film to omit his children – Prince Michael I, aged five, Paris, four, both of whom were born to his former nurse, Deborah Rowe, and the baby, called Prince Michael II or Blanket, who, the film revealed, came from a surrogate mother he had never met. Jackson says he keeps the children masked to protect their privacy and to prevent kidnapping.

Granada, the maker of the programme, strongly rejected the suggestion of an agreement, stressing that, out of self-imposed respect for Jackson's views, the children were never shown in a way that identified their faces.

One point in Jackson's statement will strike a chord with viewers and critics – the claim that the documentary was "designed to celebrate Martin Bashir''. Bashir was a relative unknown when he secured the now famous interview with Princess Diana in which she confessed to adultery and staked her claim to be the "Princess of Hearts". Since then, he appears to have cornered the market in the soft-focus but revealing interviews most of the rest of the media would kill for: Michael Barrymore, Louise Woodward and the Lawrence case suspects. Echoing the views of some British critics, the New York Times television previewer, Alessandra Stanley, spoke of Bashir's "callous self-interest masked as sympathy", accusing him of putting insufficient pressure on his subject.

Stanley suggested Jackson might, ultimately, have done himself more good than harm with the interview. There were certainly those prepared yesterday to testify to the essential goodness of the man.

Miss Rowe said: "It breaks my heart anyone could truly believe that Michael would do anything to harm or endanger our children: they are the most important thing in his life. There could be no other person that could be a better father."

Gaynor Morgan, 28, from Cheshire, daughter of the former Manchester United footballer Willie Morgan, said she had no fears in sending her 10-year-old son, Alex, to stay with the pop superstar. After watching the documentary, she was so impressed with Jackson that she was arranging – with the help of her friend, the singer Johnny Mathis – for her son to go to Neverland later this year. Mathis, she said, had vouched that Jackson was "a good, loving person".

There were signs last night that the old maxim of there being no such thing as bad publicity was true: HMV Records in London said sales of Jackson's Thriller album had shot up by 500 per cent compared with the previous week while his greatest hits package HIStory soared by 1,000 per cent.

The winners in the interview game ...

Martin Bashir/Diana, Princess of Wales, 17 November 1995

Eyes kohl-rimmed, head titling to one side, the Princess admits she had post-natal depression and bouts of bulimia and committed adultery with James Hewitt. Seen as the benchmark confessional interview, it made Bashir's name and was watched by 22 million. Key quote: "I'd like to be queen of people's hearts''.

Louis Theroux/The Hamiltons, 11 December 2001

Theroux perfected the style of gaining co-operation for a fly on the wall documentary by acting as friend and companion to the subject. Memorable for the Hamiltons being arrested on suspicion of sexual assault during the filming. No charges were brought. Key quote: Christine Hamilton: "We are 100 per cent normal – no deviations at all.''

Jon Snow/Monica Lewinsky, 4 March 1999

Snow is more used to interviewing frontline political figures than questioning young women who have been their lovers and failed to elicit anything particularly significant from their conversation, which cost Channel Four £400,000. Key quote: "I totally fell out of love with him."

... and the losers

Martin Bashir/Michael Barrymore, 30 October 2001

Barrymore's attempt at remorse and reversal of a downward career spiral after admitting he was gay and confessing to alcoholism and drug taking. He denies an orgy at his home on the night a man was found dead in his pool. Key quote: "This was somebody I never knew."

Jonathan Dimbleby/The Prince of Wales, 29 June 1994

Designed as the Prince's riposte to his wife's version of her lonely, bulimic existence in Andrew Morton's book, but it lacked penetrating questioning and was upstaged by Diana's appearance at a London social event. Key quote, when asked if he had remained faithful to his wife: "Yes, until it became irretrievably broken down.''

Louis Theroux/Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee, 20 February 2001

Theroux gets an answer to Mrs Merton's question to McGee: "What first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?" The answer was, who else would fund her ambition to become a ballet choreographer? Key quote: McGee's "You don't want to see my underwear, do you? My lacy undies.''