MICHAEL Jackson has suffered a final indignity as the catalogue of his ailments were paraded before jurors in Los Angeles.
The court heard that it would take the star "hours" to urinate and that he was afflicted by toenail fungus so severe that his doctor feared his flesh was rotting away.
It was revealed that Jackson's body was riddled with injection scars at the time of his death and that he used
Benoquin, a cream that bleaches skin. Even his obsessive use of aftershave was detailed.
The disclosures were made in an interview that Conrad Murray, the doctor charged with causing Jackson's death, gave to police two days after the singer died on June 25, 2009. Dr Murray, who could be jailed for four years if convicted, has denied involuntary manslaughter.
"He don't drink or eat," the doctor told detectives.
Jackson was so thin on the day of his death that an
ambulance crew thought he was a hospice patient.
Dr Murray suspected that he suffered from phlebitis, a condition associated with the formation of blood clots, usually in the deep veins of the legs.
The prospect was raised that Jackson was a secret smoker. The discovery of two empty cigarette packets in his room by police led Dr Murray to mention more of the singer's strange behaviour - his use of "excessive cologne".
Detectives had questioned Dr Murray about
two bags of rotten cannabis leaves that had been found in a suitcase at Jackson's rented Beverly Hills mansion.
The material was so decomposed that they had initially suspected it was heroin. Several empty bottles of sedative and anti-anxiety pills were also found, some with the names "Omar Arnold" and "Paul Farance" - aliases the star used for medication.
Dr Murray told detectives that shortly before the singer's death
he had arranged for a chiropadist to carve several painful calluses from the star's feet.
He added: "[Jackson] explained to me that when he went to the bathroom,
it would take him hours to urinate."
He was prescribed Flomax, a drug that shrinks the prostate, to help to treat the condition.
Dr Murray told detectives that Jackson's three young children were told of their father's death.
"They cried and cried and cried, then his daughter uttered a lot of words of unhappiness . . . she didn't want to be an orphan," he said.
The singer had "loved" propofol, the powerful hospital anaesthetic that killed him, Dr Murray said. He admits giving Jackson a small dose of propofol, but said he was trying to wean the singer off the drug. Jackson gave himself a fatal overdose, Dr Murray's lawyers have claimed.
The trial continues.