Michael Jackson's eldest son Prince Michael Jackson has landed a job as a reporter for American showbiz news channel Entertainment Tonight. The 16-year-old's first assignment will be to interview some of the cast and crew from the upcoming film Oz the Great and Powerful, including director Sam Raimi and actors James Franco and Zach Braff. Clips of the interviews will be aired later this week.
"I've been raised around stuff like this so it was different being the interviewer instead of the one being interviewed," said Prince Michael.The budding reporter has received coaching sessions from Entertainment Tonight veteran Brooke Anderson. He told her, "I'm looking to become well-rounded as a producer, director, screenwriter and actor." When she commented that he seems much older and wiser than 16, Prince Michael replied, "That's what most of my people say. That was all thanks to my dad. He raised me right." The ambitious teen hopes director Peter Jackson will be his next interviewee. "I love his movies. Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and King Kong. I just love the way he shoots. "I used to study his movies with my dad, put the volume off and just watch it, just the shots to see how he put it together."
His new job will throw him into the spotlight that his late dad was so keen to protect his children from. Along with his two siblings, Paris, 14, and Blanket, 10, the trio had been kept out of the public view until Michael's memorial in 2009. Since then, Prince Michael has been seen on a handful of occasions, often representing his father. Just months after he passed away in February 2010, the then 12-year-old accepted a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement on his behalf. The following autumn, he signed replicas of his dad's Beat It and Thriller leather jackets for a special amazon.com sale.