King of Pop sued for $7 million dollars by Arab prince

The son of an Arab monarch brought a suit against the King of Pop on Monday, alleging that Jackson accepted $7 million as an advance for an album and an autobiography that he never authored.

The claim that Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa’s legal team presented was their client paid for Jackson’s expenses as an advance on the book and a joint recording deal with the sheikh, who is an amateur songwriter. Jackson holds the position that the money was a gift.

A lawyer for Al Khalifa said the his client first spoke on the phone to Jackson, 50, while the singer was on trial in California after his 2003 arrest for child molestation. Attorney Bankim Thanki said that Al Khalifa wanted to help Jackson get his career back on track. Jackson’s finances dwindled after his arrest.

Al Khalifa’s first payment of $35,000, went to paying off the utility bills at Neverland Ranch, Jackson’s 2,500-acre ranch home and park in California, Thanki said. When Jackson was found innocent of the molestation charges in June 2005, Al Khalifa paid out $2.2 million in legal bills, according to the sheikh’s attorney.

According to lawyers, Jackson and the sheikh became close and at one time both were living in a palace in Abu Dhabi owned by Al Khalifa’s father, Bahrain’s king. The singer lived for nearly a year in Bahrain as a guest of the son, but the relationship went south when Jackson defaulted on a business deal the sheikh claims they had agreed upon.