Martin bashir

It's terrible. How can we tell the world who the real Michael Jackson is?

We wanted to make sure that the film covered the main issues of his life. Musicianship, appearance.

The Thriller album is still the biggest album of all time. That is still returning huge royalty cheques.

I have an inate curiosity about people.

This was almost two hours of factual documentary. In our audience ratings, barely no one left the programme. The whole of his life is so fascinating and people kept watching for that reason.

It was not possible to broadcast any of that because of an agreement between Jackson and the family. Our legal advice was that we could not broadcast it.

It was a challenging experience. I'm looking forward to a break.

You say he's childish, but he's very professional about business transactions.

The first time I ask him, have you had your cheekbones raised, have you had your nose changed? He denied it all. I was asking him to compare his face with what it looked like years ago.

I don't think his life has been in any way disfigured by the film. The film did disclose some difficult facts.