Janet Jackson is speaking out about her brother Michael's death, blaming Dr. Conrad Murray, whom she says should no longer be allowed to practice medicine.
"He was the one that was administering," she tells Robin Roberts in an ABC News special, In the Spotlight, airing Wednesday. "I think he is responsible."
Dr. Conrad Murray, who served as Michael's personal physician, remains at the center of a manslaughter investigation into the King of Pop's June 25 death. Jackson died at the age of 50 of lethal levels of propofol, court documents show. Murray has admitted to administering the anesthetic propofol, but has denied giving Michael anything that should have killed him. "Please don't worry," he tells supporters in a YouTube message this past August. "I will be fine. I have done all I could do. I told the truth"
In her ABC News interview, Janet, 43, says "it's been a tough year. You have your days where it's just really — it's hard to believe. And a day doesn't go by that I don't think about him."
She recalls to Roberts the day she was told her brother had suffered cardiac arrest.
"I was at my house in New York. You know, another day. Another morning. And I get a call … [my assistant] said, 'Your brother's been taken to the hospital. It's on CNN right now,'" she says. "I called everyone's. There's a line busy or — someone wasn't picking up. I spoke to mother. I spoke to [brother] Tito. I spoke to my nephew Austin. I spoke to my sister La Toya."
"I told them to call me when they got to the hospital," she goes on. "And I remember thinking nobody's calling me back, so I tried calling again, and that's how I found out that he was no longer … I couldn't believe it."
When she learned that he had passed, "it just didn't ring true to me. It felt like a dream."
Says Janet, "It's still so difficult for me to believe. It's, you know, you have to accept what is. But it's hard. You have to move on with your life. You have to accept what is and I understand that."
The last time she saw Michael was two days before her 43rd birthday this past May.
"We had a lot of fun, laughing. …I was being silly, acting silly," she says. "And he was sitting in front of me and just cracking up, laughing at me. I was being loud. And he thought it was so funny. I was just being stupid, acting silly."
She says his July memorial at the Staples Center in Los Angeles has helped her come to terms with her brother's death.
"My brother's favorite song is 'Smile.' And I thought Jermaine sang it beautifully, beautifully," she says. "And that's his favorite song as well. …There being some sort of a closure, I suppose, at that time…."
