Michael Jackson predicted coronavirus-like pandemic that’s why he wore facemask, says ex-bodyguard

Matt Fiddes, a former bodyguard of Michael Jackson, late ‘King of Pop’, says the singer always wore a facemask to public places because of his fears of a coronavirus-like pandemic.

While speaking with UK Sun, Fiddes claimed that the pop star, during one of his world tours, had realized that there was potential for a virus like COVID-19 to spread across the globe.

This, according to him, was what prompted Jackson to always wear a facemask despite the mockery that came with it.

“He knew that a natural disaster was always there. He was very aware and would always predict that we could be wiped out at any time. That a germ that could spread,” he said.

“So he would go through four countries in one day sometimes and he was on airplanes with people all the time.”

Fiddes, the Britain bodyguard who looked after the singer for a decade, said he’d jokingly ask Jackson not to wear the facemask but the singer would always get frustrated that “people didn’t take him seriously.”

“He would say, ‘Matt I can’t get ill, I can’t let my fans down. I’ve got concerts coming up. I’m on this earth for a reason. I mustn’t damage my voice,” he added.

“‘I’ve got to stay healthy, Matt. I don’t know who I’m going to encounter today, I don’t know what I might pass on’.”

On what Jackson would say about COVID-19 outbreak if he was alive, Fiddes said: “I know exactly what he would say to people now and that’s it. I told you so.

“Then he’d be moaning that no one is listening to him because when he used to say stuff like that people didn’t take him seriously, they used to call him ‘Wacko Jacko’ and all this stuff.

“But you don’t get to be the biggest superstar in the world and not be intelligent.

“That guy was super damn intelligent. But I knew him.”

Jackson is believed to have died of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication in 2009 at his Los Angeles home.

In 2019, the Los Angeles detectives, who probed his case, had claimed that the late singer’s death was more than a case drug overdose.

The COVID-19 has killed nearly 19,000 persons globally and infected more than 400,000 across over 170 countries.