The head of US concert promoter AEG Live, Randy Phillips, has revealed how he had to inform Michael Jackson’s children – Prince Michael, 12, Paris, 11, and seven-year-old Prince Michael II – that their father had passed away, when the singer died suddenly of cardiac arrest on Thursday 25 June.

In a new interview, Phillips – who’d signed the “Thriller” star to perform a 50 date residency at London’s Wembley arena in July – says that the Jackson children had followed their father’s ambulance to UCLA Medical Centre the afternoon he died, the promoter watching as medicos frantically tried to save the singer’s life.

“I’ll never forget this: there were all these people running around, frantically trying to revive him,” Phillips remembered. “[Jackson’s personal physician] Dr. Murray was in there, and he was completely a mess.”

As doctors’ resuscitation attempts failed, and Jackson’s own parents were still on route to the hospital, it was left to him to pass on the horrific news to the children. “A nurse came out and said, ‘Where is Mrs. Jackson?’ Michael’s parents weren’t there yet – they’d gotten lost,” Phillips said. They’d gone to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever lived through. I’ll never forget the look of fear in their faces.”

The rehearsal footage for Jackson’s final UK shows is now being released worldwide as a cinema documentary, titled This Is It.