La Toya Jackson Recalls The Day Michael Died

Ever since Michael Jackson’s death, it’s been brother Randy and sister La Toya who have taken the lead in keeping the family together.

In a new candid interview, La Toya relived with Access Hollywood’s Tony Potts the day she found out Michael had died.

“How much do you miss him?” Tony asked.

“Terribly. We lost, the entire world lost just an incredible person,” La Toya said. “You guys, you can’t even begin to imagine how incredible he was.”

Two-and-a-half months have done little to mend the emotional wounds within La Toya’s heart.

With her guard down and tears in her eyes, she took Tony back to the day that changed everything – June 25.

“Where were you on the day when you found out your brother was having trouble, at least initially? Did you get a phone call that he had already passed?” Tony asked.

“No, actually I was home and it’s very interesting, because I had just got done watching the news and there was the news on Farrah of course, and I said, ‘Oh my.’ I said, ‘I wonder who’s next?’” La Toya recounted. “Ten minutes later my father calls and says, ‘Michael’s sick, they’re rushing him to the hospital I need for you to get down there.’

“I kept calling my mother’s assistant that was working with her. I kept saying, ‘Is he OK?’ And he wouldn’t answer me and I heard my mother in the background,” La Toya continued. “She said, ‘Give me the phone.’ And she grabbed the phone and she screamed as loud as she could, ‘He’s dead!’

“And when she did that, I couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t drive, I got weak,” La Toya said. “I was asking people on the street to drive me to the hospital, I mean I was only five minutes away, but I got so weak, my knees got weak, I couldn’t believe it. It’s like my heart had stopped.”

Eventually driving herself, the terror on La Toya’s face was captured by the media already surrounding UCLA Medical Center. She was the first Jackson sibling to arrive.

“There was a nurse, and I said, ‘Is it true?’ And she said, ‘No it’s not true,’” La Toya revealed. “They escorted me to the room where mother and Michael’s kids were, and they were all in her lap, just screaming to the top of their lungs… Everything just changed, and I opened [the door] and I looked at mother and she [nodded] and I just burst out, I couldn’t control myself.”

Michael’s daughter, Paris, La Toya recounted, was extremely upset.

“Paris was saying he’s the best dad in the whole world and she just went on and on and on… and, ‘You can’t leave me this way. Please take me with you,’” La Toya said. “It was so sad… knowing that these little kids, they’ve lost the most precious thing in their life – their father – and he’s no longer there for them.”