'All Night Long' superstar Lionel Richie has opened up about the late Michael Jackson in a new interview and revealed that he believes the hitmaker used his 'weirdness' to mask how troubled he really was. 

Speaking to Britain's Event magazine recently, the icon admitted that he often thought there was something 'seriously wrong' with the King of Pop and wanted to help him:

"Every time I saw him (I wanted to help). There was something seriously wrong with Michael. But you have to understand that this is Hollywood so you can't use the word 'weird'. In Des Moines, Illinois, you'd get locked up; in Hollywood it's just another day. So if you want to employ staff to look after your chimpanzee and your giraffes, then that's perfectly normal."

He added: "I last saw Michael about a week before he died. He was really thin, really not healthy, really not capable of making that tour. The heartbreaking irony of Michael Jackson is that we used to always say, 'We'll never get involved with drugs'. And he died of just that."

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