Michael Jackson - Jackson Delighted At Record-Breaking Residency

The promoter of MICHAEL JACKSON's comeback tour has slammed reports the star threatened to cancel his entire run when he discovered he was to perform 50 gigs - insisting the King Of Pop was delighted to stage so many shows.

The singer announced in March (09) he would be performing 10 gigs at London's O2 Arena in July (09) and within days an extra 40 concerts were added due to phenomenal demand.

Reports earlier this week (beg29Jun09) claimed Jackson was angry when he found out he had to put on 50 shows - and threatened to completely pull the plug on his This Is It residency.

But the boss of the show's promoter AEG Live, Randy Phillips, has dismissed the claims - insisting the star was ecstatic his run of shows were set to be a record breaker.

He tells Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper, "We were always going to put on 10 shows first. Neither Michael nor I knew how the public were going to react. But the pre-sales went mad and I remember picking up the phone to his manager and saying whether we could add more London shows because the demand was so great.

“He got off the phone, asked Michael and called me back and said ‘yes’. Michael then called me and said, ‘Randy how long am I going to stay in London?’ And I said: ‘Long enough to qualify for a British passport.’

“And his biggest concern was not that he was doing 50 shows but that the Guinness Book of Records knew that he was going to break the all-time record.”