Michael Jackson wrote to the Queen demanding a knighthood but she ignored him, his former bodyguard has claimed.
According to Matt Fiddes, who protected Jackson for the final 10 years of his life, says the pop star would often say: "I'm the biggest star in the world, why aren't I Sir Michael Jackson, what's going on?"
He also believed his friendship with Princess Diana would help him get the honour, but it didn't work.
Speaking in 2015, Mr Fiddes told the Daily Mail : "Michael was very ambitious, he never lost it. The one thing he didn’t have, that was very important to him, was recognition from the Queen.
"He was good friends with Diana and he couldn’t understand it. He would say “I’m the biggest star in the world, why aren’t I Sir Michael Jackson, what’s going on?"
"Steven Spielberg was made a Sir, so it’s obviously not just a British thing."
He says the pair wrote letters to the Queen asking her to consider him, and tried a number of other approaches to make it happen.
Mr Fiddes also claims Jackson even agreed to meet a senior politician who offered to help him get the knighthood he so desperately wanted.
He claims that after the meeting the politician acted more like a "starstruck fan" and "harassed" the star for months, begging to visit him at his Neverland Ranch in California.
In another interview in 2017, Fiddes said that his old boss had been in love with Princess Diana and wanted to marry her.
"Michael told me he loved her, and he was in love with her, and he wanted to marry her. He told me she was his ideal wife," he told the Daily Star .
"He felt she was the only person in the world who could understand his life in terms not being able to go anywhere, and the media stories that got out of hand.
"The intrusion into the private life, having no privacy whatsoever, the children being hounded. He felt an immediate bond with her as soon as they met.
"They were both very shy individuals and he loved her, he wanted to marry her truth be told."
