He was a man I loved so dearly that when Hanna and I were married in 2001 (after 30 years of unbreakable togetherness, and two children) it was Michael we turned to for best man.

That day brought the tensions which were inevitable with Michael's haphazard, chaotic entourage.

He arrived several hours late, by which time my guests - including Nigel Mansell, Dave Stewart, David Blaine and Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues - had already polished off the wedding feast.

But it was that day, amid the excitement of our marriage vows, which gave me a glimpse of the real Michael Jackson, the man who adored his fans and drew all his strength from their affection.

Two ingenious young Germans broke into my home. We had posted security guards all round the perimeter of the grounds.

We were tolerating half a dozen paparazzi who were pointing lenses like cannon barrels over the privet hedge by the Thames, and there were a few girls perched in the riverbank trees too, with nothing to see but the marquee and a helicopter.

A steady stream of guests drove up to our gates and announced their names to the guards.

The Germans, a boy and a girl, were clever and brazen - they hung around to hear a couple announce themselves, walked away for 20 minutes, then came back and presented themselves under the same names.

Hanna's brother, Shipi, saw them walking down our long driveway: "Who's that?" he demanded nervously, but by then the Germans were inside, and we didn't want a scene.

Not in front of the paparazzi. Not on my wedding day. If these guys were willing to behave themselves ... and they were, but they pleaded to be allowed close enough to say hi to Michael when the ceremony had been concluded.

Michael did more than say hi. He beckoned them to him, embraced each of them gently, accepted their gifts graciously and posed for their cameras.

He told them he truly valued their friendship, thanked them for taking such risks to bring him presents and smiled a blessing upon each of them.

The great tragedy of his life is that Michael was not permitted to be the simple, humble man that at heart he always was.

Instead, he was driven to stardom at 10-years-old by an ambitious father, and dogged by controversy all his life.

I believe the media must take much of the blame for his slow destruction and eventual death: with his sanity buffeted and his health wracked by the global bullying, it is incredible to me that Michael stayed as normal as he was.

I was particularly angered by the way he was mocked and vilified for the colour of his skin. Whether it was the cosmetic bleaching or the rare disease vitiligo which altered his appearance, I have to condemn his critics as racist.

In the hours that followed his death - and I was up all night, talking to TV reporters all over the world - the controversy is ebbing away.

Michael's legend is being redefined, in a positive light. It is his music which shines.

We will remember Michael Jackson for his heart-lifting songs, for his breath-taking dance moves, for his achingly poignant lyrics, for his magnetic, mesmeric charisma.

We will remember how he could draw love from millions of fans and turn that into pure music energy. We will remember him as an icon, an idol and a unique phenomenon.

He existed in a world of cosmic celebrity. I remember the aftershow party at New York's Tavern on the Green in Central Park, following his 2001 concert.

Liza Minnelli gave me a long squeeze and a kiss that made me tingle for days. Marlon Brando looked awesome as he left the stage. He greeted me, but at the same time stared through my face, like some deity carved from a mountain with sightless, granite eyes.

Liz Taylor, though in a wheelchair, was still a great beauty. Her presence seemed supernatural too, but unlike Brando she was very approachable.

"You have to come down to my home again," she ordered, "and unbend all the cutlery from your last visit."

I spent much of the evening talking Hebrew with her bodyguards - all ex-Mossad.

One exceptional memory will never leave me. Michael had a magical imagination, filled with Hollywood images and children's dreams.

The immediate thing that struck me when I walked into his hotel suite at our first meeting was the immense poster of ET bicycling over a full moon.

Beside it stood an eight-foot cardboard cut-out of Anakin Skywalker, peeping from behind the robes of Darth Maul.

Michael adored the concept of space travel - even his trademark dance was called the Moonwalk. And when the prospect of a rocket voyage to the moon itself became a brief, tantalising reality, Michael was like a rich kid in a sweet shop - he wanted it all and he wanted it now.

I have an telephone answering message, recorded at about 3am, with Michael's whisper barely audible above the transatlantic crackle: "Uri Geller, this is Michael Jackson calling.

"Please, I wish, I pray that we do the moon trip. I want to be the first one to do it in the pop world.

"All these people are trying to do it, I want to be first! Please! I love you."

He truly believed it was possible, and part of his magic was the mesmeric, hypnotic force of his charisma, which made everyone else believe the impossible too.

He never did make that trip to the moon, but Michael and I discussed life after death on several occasions and I know he believed that our souls are indestructible. Our energy lives after us.

Somewhere in the beyond, Michael's star is burning with all his unquenchable brilliance.