Michael Jackson knocked down by fans
The American superstar, jostled and pushed in the melee, was lucky to escape injury as mass hysteria gripped his die-hard admirers.
“It was just horrifying... he was knocked to the ground” said spoon-bending psychic Uri Geller who had invited Jackson on a fundraising charity trip to the southwest English city of Exeter.
“I honestly thought we wouldn’t make it and we would end up in hospital,” Geller told Reuters Television after battling to get aboard the “Jackson Express”.
“For a moment I thought he would faint. But then he suddenly looked at me and said ‘I love these people’ and I said ‘Are you okay?’ He said ‘I am okay’ and kept waving to his fans,” Geller added.
Geller, who is hoping to raise money for a children’s charity and his third division English soccer club Exeter, said he had never before experienced anything like the screaming mob.
“I have been around for 35 years. I have met Elvis Presley, Elton John, John Lennon, all the Beatles. I have never ever seen anything like that and I hope I never will see it again. Michael was crushed.”
Bedlam erupted as Jackson and his entourage arrived at London’s Paddington station to board the train to Exeter as a screaming mob of fans from all corners of the globe tried to get close to their idol.
Each excitably clutching a 100 pound ($147) “ticket to ride”, one hundred die-hard Jackson fans clambered aboard the train for “country away day” with the star.
The scene at the station was pure chaos, recalling Beatlemania back in the 1960s.—Reuters