A former fan who eventually became a friend of the Jackson family shares some secrets of the King of Pop and their dysfunctional family in an article in the New York Post. The article confirmed a lot of things that the public suspected about Michael Jackson, including his fondness for boys, and revealed a lot of dirty linen in the Jackson closet.

One of the most revealing detail was that Katherine, the matriarch, was aware of Michael's sexual preference, particularly young males, that she even wrote him letters, calling her youngest son a faggot. She was also aware of payoffs as high as $1 million made to parents of one of Michael's victims, wrote Stacy Brown who helped write some of the Jacksons' memoir and traveled with them on tours.

Calling them the strangest family in America, Brown recalled that when charges of Michael molesting boys came out in 1993, sister La Toya made public the payoffs, causing a rift between her and the rest of the family.

However, after several years, while Brown was with Jermaine Jackson at Hayvenhurst, Katherine informed Jermaine that the family lost the civil case filed by Katherine against AEG Live, the producer of Michael's planned 50 concerts in London, and creditors seized a storage locker full of Jackson's memorabilia.

Included in it were gold records, the letters in which Katherine called Michael a faggot and canceled check payments to the family of his molestation victims.

Despite the millions that Michael made, the rest of the family suffered from financial setbacks as the Jackson 5 had disbanded and only Michael as well as Janet had good careers.

But the two, who had the most financial resources, had cut off the family that in 2003, the other members of the Jackson family were surviving on meals from Baja Fresh, a fast food chain which was part of Janet's endorsement deal.

"It was Baja Fresh for breakfast, lunch and dinner ... For 2 ½ weeks it was ... Baja Fresh," Brown wrote, recalling the meals he had with Rebbie, the eldest Jackson child of Katherine and Joseph.

It was the same situation for Katherine that out of pity and for the same of his stomach, Brown offered to bring the matriarch to Trader's Joe to do purchase other food from the grocery, with a bill totaling $700 that Brown paid out of his pocket.

Brown, who met the Jacksons first in 1984 at their Victory Tour at the Giants Stadium when he was 16, eventually became a journalist and authored two books on the family: Rebbie Jackson: The First Jackson and Legacy: Surviving the Best and the Worse.

He also disclosed that the family went for secret therapy sessions after feeling the hurt caused by Michael's distancing himself from them. It was preceded by Michael's 30th anniversary celebration in 2002 in which he paid actor Marlon Brando $1 million to appear and his brother $1,100 each.

It was followed by Jackson cancelling a promised tour with the entire family, prompting Randy to suggest family therapy sessions which Janet paid. The weekly sessions were held in Malibu.

Among the dirty family secrets that came out in the therapy was Rebbie being a sexually abused child in the hand of her father, although the frequent target of complaint was Michael's distance from the family.

The therapist reply was, "Michael is not your family, in his mind Elizabeth Taylor is his mom, and you guys should move on," Brown quoted. He added that Katherine hated Taylor for "stealing her son" and would even delay meals whenever Elizabeth visited Neverland because she did not want to sit on the same chair where the actress sat.

The therapy sessions ended, but eventually no one felt better.

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