Donald Trump reckons he knew Michael Jackson better than anybody

While he was still just a reality star and self-proclaimed "businessman", presumably between bankruptcies, he managed to forge a friendship with The Prince Of Pop: Michael Jackson. In the video above, he says he "knew Michael Jackson very well... I knew him better than probably almost anybody."

A bold claim.

But by all accounts this wasn't some bigly delusion that Trump conjured up, they were actually pals. Jackson even owned a home in Trump Tower that cost "$110,000 a month".

Mike Smallcombe, the author of Making Michael, a book about Jackson's career which features accounts from "managers, lawyers, music executives, producers, musicians, and engineers", sheds some light on the bizarre bond.

The pair met in the late '80s and then bonded further after Trump opened his gaudy Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, where Jackson was a special guest for the grand opening.

Over the years the pair grew closer, especially when Jackson relocated to NYC in the early '90s.

"He’d come into my apartment and we’d talk a lot about business," Trump says to Smallcombe. "He was actually a very, very smart businessman."

The pair dined together, and Trump even hosted Jackon and then-girlfriend Lisa Marie Presley at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Jackson mentions Trump in the lyrics of HIStory track "Money" (above), and spent considerable time with Trump's children.

"Michael would spend a lot of time with my kids," Trump said. "Michael would come, play with the kids. He just loved children. He was not a child molester and I am certain of that. He’d play with my son Eric and my son Donald and he’d just play with them forever."

Smallcombe also details how Trump paid tribute to Jackson.

"He was an amazing guy, but beyond all else, he was the greatest entertainer I've ever known," Trump tells Smallcombe. "He had magic. He was a genius. He was also a really good person, and when you got to know him, you realized how smart he was. He was brilliant. Now, Michael wasn't the same Michael for the last 10 years. He was not well. He had a lot of problems, a lot of difficulties... but he's not going to be remembered for the last 10 years; he's going to be remembered for the first 35 years. Michael in his prime - there's never been anybody like him."

Smallcombe adds a caveat to the tale of this Odd Couple: "It is important to remember that Jackson’s association and ‘friendship’ with Trump existed many years before the property tycoon turned to politics, and Jackson never had the opportunity to pass judgment on Trump’s professed beliefs and agendas."